The Caucasian Card

It is all as you say Anna with the exception of the line you left out. Obama's line 'they are going to come after me with...' 'They are going to tell you..' That's what you left out and that's where Obama crossed the line and played the race card. He used the 'they' in a worse way yet. He incited and insinuated what was his not to insinuate .

Mike

Good write-up. I am amazed that a white person could write this. Anna, It takes courage to to write this kind of article, and you have it in abundance!
I am a white person too, and I totally agree with you!!

I guess we are to assume that if you have the skills for a job that your skin color does not count in America? I mean we don't need Affirmative Action. Do we? No, if I attended the best school in America and excelled above all of my peers, I should have no problem at all getting the same job as my white counterparts.

Does anyone remember when Newsweek actually employed journalists? This reads like whiny editorial in a leftist college newspaper. Just to make things clear clear, when a candidate for President of the United States says, "There gonna try and scare you,... and they'll say, 'Did I mention he's black?'" That is injecting race in the worst way. He is basically saying, "well, they haven't said anything racist yet, but there thinking it, because they're Republican, you know, racists." It is just pathetic. Especially from someone who has achieved his lightening fast poitical rise due largely to his race. If Obama truly wants to show that he is a "change" from the typical politician, he should lay off of the race-baiting.

This is the most rediculous article. To say that affimitive action and the " good old boys club" are the same is catigorically false. Here is the diiference. Affirmitive Action applies to all African Americans and other minorities. The good old boys club only applies to select members of the caucasian race. Not all whites belong to this elite level or have the connections to be able see any benefit from these institutions. However, if you are a minority you simply get the benefit based on the color of your skin. There sould be no quotas based on race or ethnicity. the best person for the job should be able to be hired. PERIOD. We are all Americans, we are all free to make our own choices, we are all able to suceed and we are all able to fail. There are hundreds of thousands to millions of Low Income - working class whites that have no access the the good old boy system you mention in the article. So, if a caucasian and a minority that come from similar economic background and hold similar qualification for the job applied, the minority has a distict advantage because of the color of their skin through affirmative action. This is simply race based hiring and it is wrong. As for Barack Obama and John McCain and the Job of President of the United States. John McCains credentials for beeing elected Predident far outweigh those of Barack Obama. The number of years is public life on a national level are no where close for Obama. His abiltiy to be an independant thinker is questionable. He has voted party line over 95% of the time and has never lead any bipartisan propsition into law. So who is really practicing race based job selection. The white voters who are split 50/50 between Obama and McCain or the 95+% of African Americans voting for Obama based on the color of his skin even though his experience and qualification for the job is in question? My take on the matter is just like in the real world, where the minority has the advantage based on the color of their skin through affirmative action. Barack Obama has the advantage based on the color of his skin in conjuction with the african American's obvious incination to vote skin color. I know there will be a few comments on how I am a racist and nothing could be farther from the truth. Racism, both ways is for people who feel thay cannot compete any other way. I am a competitor, I will compete for a job I want and I have no plroblem loosing that job to a person of any race as long as they have truely out performed me. However, to be more highly qualified and lose out becasue an employer is forced to meet a quota is blantantly a racist policy.

Isnt it funny how we need Affirmative Action because people can't join the rest of America in the work force or earn grades in highschool required for grants and gov. aide. However, when they become successful they do not want Affirmative action to be looked at as how they got to where they are? Well, last time I checked, if you say you need it to succeed, then wouldn' it be the reason you succeeded? The hypocrisy is at an all time high around the US these days. Whats next? Obama didn't pull 94% of the black vote against a CLINTON democrat because he's black? LMAO

"The man" DID say, out on the campaign trail, that John McCain will try to make you afraid of me because I don't look like other presidents....that's what Barack said and now it's somehow McCain's fault? The LAST thing Obama should be doing is making sly, little references to his "otherness" yet he and his supporters have been doing that since last year. Sorry, Anna but your guy, a slick pol from the south side of Chicago is injecting race (along with his wife, his "spiritual mentor" and other black racists....that insane screed of Bob Herbert's last week was downright wacky....) more than any one else in this campaign. Once again you and your ilk are building a narrative that is in direct opposition to how the majority (please feel free to read "white") feels. You are not going to guilt the electorate into voting for an unprepared and increasingly, undesrving candidate by writing this kind of inane trash. You should be out reporting on John Edwards and who paid off his mistress, not keeping the "race-guilt" argument going. It will backfire. Also, did you see the polls that say 55% of Americans think media bias is a bigger problem in holding fair elections than big campaign donations? Why not write a "peice" on that sad fact.?

One other comment. We're supposed to believe that the so-called President Obama is "post-racial" yet he wants to reserve the right to play the race card when his polling dips. But doesn't the left realize that column like Quindlen's here, packed with lies and insults to common sense people, serve to only inflame racial considerations. If I was an Obama adviser, I'd tell shills like Quindlen to take another tack. Obama will lose if the public as a whole sees him as the "black" guy who will scream "Racism!" if he is criticized or if he encounters the kind of problems that normal politicians confront--like losing.

Race works both ways. Granted for the most part (except for affirmative action) it has been a big old negative for all black people. And that like life is not fair but that is the way it is. It's one thing to try and make things fairer for black people but not at the expense of white or Asian people.

In this election cycle race is actually working to the benefit of Obama as Geraldine Ferraro aptly pointed out. Obama talks a good game, I'll grant him that much but his political philosophy stinks on ice. He has been rated the most liberal member of the Senate and for good reason. He had exactly two years of experience in the US Senate before he declared for President. Would a white person with his political philosophy and experience have been able to get the nomination? The answer is no; just ask Hillary!

Obama is nothing but a completely self centered opportunist. The only thing he believes in is himself. He is the quintessential affirmative action candidate. Affirmative action may be running out of steam in America but it has been resuscitated in this Presidential campaign! Then you have the liberal mainstream media as his cheering squad and off he goes in the media doctored polls. The problem is that his lead in the polls shrinks to nothing when not just registered but likely voters are queried.

Go, McCain go!

Actually NoQuarter and Larry Johnson have been proved wrong. Which goes back to either an attempt by conservative leaning people to hate or to destroy anyone that does not think like them... or it's because a black man has accomplished something that quite frankly most blacks do not think is possible. HI confirmed that the documented birth of Obama is real. Done deal, no need to argue about it. You will believe what you want, but I have seen both sides of the story and I'm going, "This is some silly stuff."

Why can't you just say that his policy is bad. Why can't you just go down the line and pick it a part and say it's bad for the country. I can accept that. I have problems with his policy on several issues. No let's find out if his birth is a lie. Let's see what we can find out about him that has nothing to do with being president.

Bush was a bad drinker, party animal, and dogded the war of his prime. But he is what's good for the country? Please. And that very RACIST use of a name is really sad. Very sad. And you wonder why so many people hate republicans. It's not policy that is hated, it's the true elitist way they treat people who don't look like them or think like them.

And this is coming from a conservative politically minded guy, who pastors a church having gone to a conservative seminary. I'm so conservative that conservatives have remarked on it. And I AM BLACK. But all I see out of conservatives is hate that looks a lot like racism.... so so so so so sad.

Funny that one highly enlightening article could produce so much hateful rhetoric. All you pessimists, remember that every single human emotion is based on love or fear. Look into a mirror, and ask yourself, "Am I going to spend my future living in my past?" Don't worry, your inner-human will eventually understand what this means if you presently cannot. Obama is the best choice for our country.

This writer has worked for the New York Times too long to realize that a huge proportion of the public would disagree with almost every single thing she wrote. I guess we're supposed to believe that it is impossible for blacks to play the race card. Lady, that's going to be a hard sell! People know that you're just a liberal shill for President Obama. Normal people who have seen the race card played countless times in their lives know it when they see it. That is the reason for the so called "Bradley Effect." White people don't want to lost their jobs just because they think Obama is unqualified. No one wants the race card played against them! Indeed, if one were a little cynical, one could easily guess that this whole piece was written by Quidlen to "prove" that she is not a racist. Sad!

As a right-of-center Independent voter, and paradoxically a support of Affirmative Action, I am somewhat disturbed by Ms.Quindlan???s purposeful attempt to convey the idea that Obama did not gain admission to Harvard Law School through an Affirmative Action program. Obama was admitted to both Columbia and Harvard, through Affirmative action programs, and Michelle Obama was admitted to Princeton and Harvard through Affirmative Action as well. Both Mr. and Mrs. Obama???s tuitions in Columbia, Princeton, and Harvard were paid in full by a combination of government and institutional grants, and not by the Obama???s. The college loans they refer to often were for expenses, and not for tuition. These facts, which Ms Quindlan, is certainly aware of, would certainly prove that Affirmative Action can and does produce remarkable results as it did with respect to the Obama???s. But clearly Ms Quindlan has determined that celebrating this achievement may somehow slow down the advancement of her ultimate political agenda which is the election of Obama to the White House