From reader Dr. HH Basse
Posted on | May 2, 2009 | 4 Comments
I This is a very good read. Surprised to hear what she had to say, and how it was presented. Another Patriot, A MUST READ. HHB, PLEASE POST.
Anne Wortham is Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University and continuing Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. She is a member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association. She has been a John M. Olin Foundation Faculty Fellow, and honored as a Distinguished Alumni of the Year by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. In fall 1988 she was one of a select group of intellectuals who were featured in Bill Moyer’s television series, “A World of Ideas.” The transcript of her conversation with Moyers has been published in his book, A World of Ideas. Dr. Wortham is author of The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness which analyzes how race consciousness is transformed into political strategies and policy issues. She has published numerous articles on the implications of individual rights for civil rights policy, and is currently writing a book on theories of social and cultural marginality. Recently, she has published articles on the significance of multiculturalism and Afrocentricism in education, the politics of victimization and the social and political impact of political correctness. Shortly after an interview in 2004 she was awarded tenure.
This article by her is something else.
No He Can’t
by Anne Wortham
Fellow Americans,
I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival – all that I know about the history of the United States of America , all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the “change” that Obama asserts has come to America . Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared “progressive” whites who voted for him because he doesn’t look like them. I would have to wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration – political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University ‘s Kennedy School of Government.
I would have to believe that “fairness” is the equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to “go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice” is speaking in my interest. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the “bottom up,” and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.
Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting “Yes We Can!” Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead – and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.
So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over – and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a black person. So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America. Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to – Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine – what little there is left – for the chance to feel good.
There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.
Comments
4 Responses to “From reader Dr. HH Basse”
May 2nd, 2009 @ 4:33 am
Very good read indeed,and exactly what I would expect of most black Americans to say if you asked them.This racism thing is basically nothing but a tool some use to divide and conquer people for there own vested interest.The reason I say this is because I was lucky enough to have served on jury duty twice with a mixed jury .I found black Americans to be no different than any other citizen in
questioning their own judgments in discerning the facts of the case.
I frankly believe in people and there are serious,responsible ,caring
people,no matter their ethnic background.There is of course others
that have been poisoned by these purveyors of hate that have found a way to frankly make money from this outrage.
May 2nd, 2009 @ 8:38 am
This woman has the courage to be president!! I would vote for her. A friend call me racist because i didn’t like obama. I told him he’s white and black, he knows have i have many friends who are black. What happen to judging a man on the content of his character! Oh yeah martin luther king said this. I’m not a racist because i said the celtics stunk 3 years ago and now with a championship i’m not. Its based on talent!!! And obama has none! I would love doc rivers as president because he says what he means and does what he says! Obama is purposely trying to divide us completely as a nation, making chose sides. I’m standing on the Lords side.
May 2nd, 2009 @ 11:07 am
It is interesting that there is no Wikipedia entry for such an “accomplished” person.
May 3rd, 2009 @ 9:03 am
Yes…I too found Anne Worthams article several months ago and sent it to all clear thinking Americans I know…posted it on other blogs I visit. It is also important to encourage all Americans to enlighten themselves about the dangerous aspects of the Obama personality. He clearly and convincingly suffers from “pathological narcissistic disorder.” Study it, understand it and by all means share it with everyone you know…our lives and our country depend on it.