Yesterday on one of the lists I participate on, I got the full transcript of Obama's comments about people being bitter on holding on to their guns and religion. On the major news outlets all week all I've heard is that Obama's elitist.
Once I read the transcript below, I realized how race and politics as usual in the form of political soundbytes that distort the truth are at work. See for yourself and let me know what you think of his actual context and conversation.
In Chapter 11, Kottak emphasizes "multiculturalism" as one of the strategies humans have used to combat the assimilationist tendencies of the past where ethnic minorities had to give up their ethnic affiliation to fit into the American melting pot. (I am started to really appreciate the term "ethnic minorities" differently reading this this time around--it means there are ethnic majorities). Here is the synopsis from the chapter followed by Obama's actual words in a larger context. Goes to show CONTEXT IS DECISIVE.
In my opinion, speaking as both citizen and teacher, Obama is expanding multiculturalism to truly include the majority and minority along racial, class, socioeconomic, and gender lines in a platform for America (A More Perfect Union) that whether he wins or loses will alter the landscape of our nation and transform the old adage that W.E.B. Dubois once wrote,
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line” (1903).Multiculturalism and Ethnic Identity
- Multiculturalism is the view of cultural diversity in a country as something good and desirable.
- This view is opposed to assimilationism, which expects minorities to abandon their cultural traditions and values, replacing them with those of the majority population.
- Basic aspects of multiculturalism at the government level are the official espousal of some degree of cultural relativism along with the promotion of distinct ethnic practices. (be sure to look up this key anthropological term again in Kottak and memorize it!!)
- A number of factors have led the United States to move away from the assimilationist model and toward multiculturalism.
- Large-scale migration—driven by globalization as well as population growth and lack of economic opportunity in "less developed" countries—is introducing unparalleled ethnic variety to host nations, particularly the "developed" countries of North America and Europe.
- Ethnic identities are used increasingly to form self-help organizations focused on enhancing groups' economic and political competitiveness and combating discrimination.
FROM TOP OF GOOGLE SEARCH: "Obama and bitter"
IN HIS OWN WORDS: Here's a transcript as well as a link to the audio to the APril 6 speech at a fundraiser
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/obama-no-surprise-that-ha_b_96188.html> OBAMA: So, it depends on where you are, but I think it's fair to say
> that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the
> places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are
> mis-appre...I think they're misunderstanding why the demographics in
> our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody
> just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work -- don't
> wanna vote for the black guy.' That's...there were intimations of that
> in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies
> that it's sort of a race thing.
>
> Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial
> states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so
> long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a
> pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a
> part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's
> true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack
> Obama (laughter), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).
>
> But -- so the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well,
> what is this guy going to do for me? What's the concrete thing?' What
> they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what
> we're proposing -- close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax
> cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to
> middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every
> American. So we'll go down a series of talking points.
>
> But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded
> that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their
> daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania,
> and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone
> now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through
> the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each
> successive administration has said that somehow these communities are
> gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that
> they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people
> who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade
> sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
>
> Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you'll
> find is, is that people of every background -- there are gonna be a
> mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know
> working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts. And you
> can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will
> just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're
> doing what you're doing.
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