In the time he has been president has Obama helped or hurt race relations.

Captain America said:

One would think, no? One would also think that the thinking people would recognize and understand the divide and conquer strategy and loudly rebuke it. But, instead, it is welcomed with open arms. Each night. In living rooms across America. Divisive broadcasting is alive and well. And the people fall for it. Perhaps it is what the people want. To be divided and conquered.

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perhaps. But I think it is more of having their team win at any cost. The problem with that along with all the negative attack ads that hardens people minds is that once elected one must govern. One must be able to reach across to your former opponents for help in governing. Making you former opponents enemy number one means you must go it alone and with your side only. When situations arise when you need to show a united front for whatever reason, that front is not there. You do not have the support you need and perhaps this nation needs.

"obama" himself has cleared helped race relations and brought NORMAL people together

now having said that

having a half black man as president has brought out the loony tunes, nutcases, fear and bigots (in all races) in full force . . . .

unfortunate they get focused on BUT they are the minority and not your avg/normal person.

Sabanist said:

Generally speaking black people are very racist, not just prejudiced. Laugh all you like, its spot on. Look around you. Just because they suck at actually gaining real power and influence doesnt mean they cant be racist

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I'm so glad that this is not a member of my party. Nothing can take that away from me, to know that I have nothing to do with these kinds of ideas.

Navy Pride said:

Your thoughts please.

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Helped. You can't discount the weight history will place on the fact that he was the first African American president.

50 years from now, whatever you could say Barack Obama has done to harm race relations will have been forgotten as a minor footnote in history. His being the first black president will be forever etched in stone. Kind of like how everyone remembers George Washington for being the first president, but noone outside the most bookish of historians recalls the minutia of his time in office.

History remembers big events. The biggest event of the Obama presidency is the fact that he's the first black president. That's what he'll be remembered for.

You also can't discount the profound impact this has on our culture. Today, black parents can truly tell their children that they can grow up to be anything they want to be.... there is no glass ceiling as a black man has reached the very highest office attainable in the United States. This wasn't the case even 25 years ago. The election of Barack Obama didn't cause this cultural shift.... but it will be remembered as the hallmark moment by which this cultural shift became evident to the world.

There's no "neither" option.

Cardinal said:

So what if two white house representatives were at the funeral? How did Obama harm race relations with that?

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:shrug: as I stated. He is lending the credibility of his office to the agitators.

cpwill said:

:shrug: as I stated. He is lending the credibility of his office to the agitators.

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Then his agitators are clearly so paranoid that if Obama had stayed home and played Final Fantasy XII for the next two months they would have accused him of stirring racial tensions.

IMHO, he has hurt race relations in America. So many have before and many will do so long into the future. And honestly, the man is just that, a man. He's not a saint performing miracles. I find it hard to fault him -- all things considered -- when he takes jabs at whites. Again, he's not a saint but a person, a father and a man who has grown up and become President of the United States, the first man of his color to ever do so, and then he got reelected to another term as POTUS. That's an impressive accolade. But I think that Chris Rock -- annoying voice and all -- got it right when he said that America got Shaq when we needed Michael. Even His Airness himself has opined on racism in the United States that he has personally experienced, including his own. Just as any human being or domesticated animal will develop a deep resentment and hatred for something if it hurts and abuses them once too many times, like a schoolyard sociopath who's carrying a pocket knife in the 3rd f'n grade. And the reason he keeps cutting you and making you bleed and cry in front of everyone else is because you're a different skin color than he is.

The inclusion of more-and-more incidents and personal stories like that, from any side, is overall detrimental to the on-going demographic and population shifts that are entirely against white people. Whites are going to be a minority soon enough. The scales are swinging away from a super white majority to whites being second or third in the depth chart. The transition could be so much better, but the odds of us avoiding fighting in one hell of a Race War are stacked against us. There are too many crosscurrent societal trends now to reset things back to, "Hello, my name is _____. -- "Nice to meet you _____, my name is _____." Perhaps it was just the unavoidable byproduct of blowback -- the sins of the father shall affect the son. Too much collective history of conflict and hate. The question as of this moment is whether the whites will be treated more mercifully by those they had abused when the whites become the minority. My heart-of-hearts says no.

Navy Pride said:

Your thoughts please.

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It's generally accepted things have gotten worse.

The Great Uniter... another load of BS... Really, how can you be mentored by Wright, sit neck deep in his house of puke for 20-years and come out of that vomit "a uniter"? Not something the Gruberites ever cared to ask. Ever.

For the Gruber Faktion, this hasn't hit home yet.

The latest example (after his "stupid cop comment and Trayvon could be my son BS), is the release of the Grand Jury decision regarding the shot thief in Ferguson has been acted upon in a model of honesty, and acting honorably on this honesty.

Obama blew a prime opportunity to bring calm. His kind don't really want it.

For the Pravda USSA and the Gruberites, it's another Joe-the-Plumber moment... with the addition of a little ultra violence thrown in. Ignore the truth and attack the innocent.

zimmer said:

It's generally accepted things have gotten worse.

The Great Uniter... another load of BS... Really, how can you be mentored by Wright, sit neck deep in his house of puke for 20-years and come out of that vomit "a uniter"? Not something the Gruberites ever cared to ask. Ever.

For the Gruber Faktion, this hasn't hit home yet.

The latest example (after his "stupid cop comment and Trayvon could be my son BS), is the release of the Grand Jury decision regarding the shot thief in Ferguson has been acted upon in a model of honesty, and acting honorably on this honesty.

Obama blew a prime opportunity to bring calm. His kind don't really want it.

For the Pravda USSA and the Gruberites, it's another Joe-the-Plumber moment... with the addition of a little ultra violence thrown in. Ignore the truth and attack the innocent.

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While I don't disagree with you, it is also try that he seems to of learned, or at least changed, from previous incidents of the his like. I mean, he is supporting the Grand Jury decision, which has obviously upset many black people.

Like a Hollywood film franchise, race in the United States — especially police violence against blacks — is haunted by sequels: The locations may change, the actors are different, but the story remains the same.

Hamster Buddha said:

While I don't disagree with you, it is also try that he seems to of learned, or at least changed, from previous incidents of the his like. I mean, he is supporting the Grand Jury decision, which has obviously upset many black people.

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He and Holder in the aftermath showed little such "learning", quite the contrary, and it goes back to the poison they had injected into them by the likes of Wright.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the reaction of President Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, to the grand jury verdict in Ferguson is their non-support for the difficult work of the grand jury. That and their support for the mistaken proposition that the administration of justice is unfair, biased, and prejudiced towards “communities of color” undermine our criminal justice system.

On November 25, Obama said that the “grand jury made a decision yesterday that upset a lot of people.” He had no words of praise for members of the grand jury, both black and white, for engaging in their civic duty in the face of mob violence, threats, and media scapegoating — a media that was pushing an incorrect story about what happened without reviewing the extensive evidence in the case.

As Quin Hillyer has pointed out, the president also should have told the American people that “this jury’s exhaustive weighing of the evidence was admirable.” ...

But the president did none of that. Instead, he added more fuel to the fire of the false claim that racial bias was at the root of what happened, ...

What Obama and Holder Should Have Said About Ferguson Grand Jury Verdict

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zimmer said:

He and Holder in the aftermath showed little such "learning", quite the contrary, and it goes back to the poison they had injected into them by the likes of Wright.

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All I'm saying, it could of been worse. I listened to the response, and the biggest thing he said there, was what he didn't say. And that he was talking with Holder about pursing Federal Charges, or to disagree with the GJ decision.

twixie1 said:

Like a Hollywood film franchise, race in the United States — especially police violence against blacks — is haunted by sequels: The locations may change, the actors are different, but the story remains the same.

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Then you simply don't know what race in the United States is. This isn't Montgomery, with cops sending dogs out or hosing people down with water hoses because they want to vote. In Ferguson, this is about a kid who stole from a convenience store and then assaulted a cop before, tragically, being shot to death as he charged officer Wilson. With Garner you have a clearer example of police brutality yet, but again, this wasn't someone who wouldn't give up his seat on a bus, but someone selling cigarettes illegally and wouldn't cooperate with police.

If I was you, I'd ask for a refund on your ticket because the movie you watched was wrong.

Hamster Buddha said:

If I was you, I'd ask for a refund on your ticket because the movie you watched was wrong.

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Get your 3D glasses on..I think you must have missed something..

twixie1 said:

Get your 3D glasses on..I think you must have missed something..

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There's nothing I said that was factually incorrect. Perhaps your eyes simply need to be re-examined, or perhaps there is some dust in your eyes. The Race Problem is nothing but an economic issue that has been exacerbated by an awful drug law that has unfortunately affected those least fortunate the most.

Hamster Buddha said:

There's nothing I said that was factually incorrect. Perhaps your eyes simply need to be re-examined, or perhaps there is some dust in your eyes. The Race Problem is nothing but an economic issue that has been exacerbated by an awful drug law that has unfortunately affected those least fortunate the most.

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Why do you put ''race and drugs'' in the same sentence?

twixie1 said:

Why do you put ''race and drugs'' in the same sentence?

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It's not what you think. I'm not saying that all the problems with blacks is that their high on drugs. I'm talking about two things primarilly, the first is how the drug laws have lead to so many blacks filling up the judicial system as well as in prison, destroying both theirs lives and the families as well. The second is how violent a lot of these inner cities are due to gangs fighting over drug turf.

Hamster Buddha said:

There's nothing I said that was factually incorrect. Perhaps your eyes simply need to be re-examined, or perhaps there is some dust in your eyes. The Race Problem is nothing but an economic issue that has been exacerbated by an awful drug law that has unfortunately affected those least fortunate the most.

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Nope, it's not just an economic issue. It's a systemic issue. Many people think blacks are lazy, incapable of performing at a rate equal to whites, and are more susceptible to drug use. People with black sounding names are less likely to receive call backs for job interviews. A story just came out where white cops in Ohio were texting things like "I hate niggers" to both white and black police officers.

Amadeus said:

Nope, it's not just an economic issue. It's a systemic issue. Many people think blacks are lazy, incapable of performing at a rate equal to whites, and are more susceptible to drug use. People with black sounding names are less likely to receive call backs for job interviews. A story just came out where white cops in Ohio were texting things like "I hate niggers" to both white and black police officers.

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", I heard a story about this one cop with a text message! That must mean there's a systemic race issue with all police!" Nobody thinks blacks are lazy, well, I'm sure some old timers do but for the most part, we've lived around blacks our whole lives. You guys have to understand that was different between pre-desegregation and now was that whites and blacks never met. So your white folks could make up all sorts of **** about black and you wouldn't know if it were true or not. Same with old World War 2 propaganda. Everyone believing the posters thought the Japanese were a bunch of buck teeth, glasses wearing midgets. The difference today, and has been for going 30 years or more, is that black people aren't the boogey men, their our classmates, friends, people we know and have been to their houses. The drug use thing though may have some warrant, as we all know how prevalent drug crime is with African Americans. It's probably a side-effect from that I suspect.

I guarantee though; remove the drug crime aspect and black communities become a lot safer overnight. And in a short period of time, does does the perception of black criminality with it. The larger damage to black society, and really it's the blacks that we have to focus on, will take much longer to repair. I mean, how many thousands of families have been broken apart due to the draconian drug laws in this country? It's sad, but unless we act to make sure they have an opportunity at a future, we'll probably be doomed to another generation of this sort of situation.

Hamster Buddha said:

", I heard a story about this one cop with a text message! That must mean there's a systemic race issue with all police!"

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It was actually five cops in one department. And for every rat you see, there are a dozen you don't. Food for thought.

Navy Pride said:

Your thoughts please.

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I very much doubt he has affected it much one way or another

He's been a lightnng-rod for all the undercurrents of racism that hadn't really gone away, despite the legislation and the optimism, but merely simmered out of sight until his election.

Manc Skipper said:

He's been a lightnng-rod for all the undercurrents of racism that hadn't really gone away, despite the legislation and the optimism, but merely simmered out of sight until his election.

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This. It's pretty much like using a radar to detect speeders, and blaming the radar for the speeding vehicles that can now be detected.

Cardinal said:

Looking at the poll options it was always pretty much guaranteed that the only votes were going to go to "hurt."

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Why do you say that? I would think every Liberal like you and Obama lover would say he has not.