"While I think it would be good based on my personal life experience to have the first woman president," Clinton said in this town that shares his name, "I also understand why a lot of African-American voters think it would be symbolically powerful and important to elect a brilliant, articulate, compelling vision embodied in Sen. Obama as the first African-American president." (Emphasis added.) The article went on to report:
“In Spartanburg earlier Friday, Clinton decried racial divisions in politics and said that Americans are ‘literally aching to live in a post-racial future.’”
(Whoops. How’d that crap get in there? Sorry it won’t happen again.)
Those of us who are attuned to, and care about the impact and implications of words will see that there is a world of difference between calling Obama “articulate” (i.e. remarkably sharp for a black person) and calling his vision brilliant, compelling and articulate. A seemingly minor difference but in fact and effect, worlds apart.
Obama’s vision is not black or white but colorless and odorless. To construe an articulate vision as something remotely bad, let alone racist is patently absurd.
Naturally, this has been as widely misquoted on the internet as it was on Russert’s show.
Example: Bill Clinton: Obama is “articulate” CNN.com Bill Clinton Obama is articulate
While we’re at it, anyone else call Obama “articulate”?
2) From Salon
...at a Clinton town meeting at Columbia College, [Bob] Johnson came across as an accident waiting to happen. He started off referring to Barack Obama as "a young, articulate black man" before explaining, "As a black person, I can call him articulate."
Anyone who accuses a black man of using an anti-black slur should, in my opinion be banned to the sidelines of credible, political commentary for at least one year – perhaps with time off for repentant behavior and a little roadside cleanup duty.
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