I like this post because it fits right into the smoke and mirrors many folks try to use to camouflage their racial bias of America's 42nd President.
You say America was ready for its first Black president, and state firmly (above) that a Black man could win the presidency on merit. Yet, when you denounce his "merits" (i.e., his community activism, his state and Federal Senatorial credentials) as if they mean far less than having "executive experience" from a govenorship and then add on other such denouncements as "he won because he was likable" or "people bought into his rhetoric" as the sole reasons why he was elected (TWICE), you effectively nullify your claim that merit matters. I bring you back to your previous post:
And yet there are clear indications to illustrate that he has succeeded. Maybe not to the degree that some would like, but there have been successes all the same. It's sad that some people just don't care to take notice.
I'm not picking on you per sa. I'm merely using your above posts to illustrate how wrong so many of you are about "Black Presidential readiness" and leadership/qualification standards because if executive experience is the pathway to the presidency for a Black man in this country then we may never see another Black man in the WH for decades to come. Why? Because there have only been
5 Black governors in the history of this country and only 3 were ever elected to office. Moreover, throughout American history since the Civil War era, there have only been
EIGHT African-Americans to every run for the presidency or even win presidential nomination for their party (mostly on the Democrat ticket):
- Frederick Douglas
- George Edwin Taylor
- Shirley Chisholm
- Jesse Jackson
- Al Sharpton
- Alan Keyes
- Hermin Cain
- Carol Moseley-Braun
That's it! So, for African-Americans when we see someone who's not as dubious or duplicitous as Jesse or Sharpton and instead find someone who lived a "grass-roots lifestyle" similar to many of us, someone who grew up poor, can related not only to the problems many African-Americans have experienced but is very relate-able to people of all races and shows that he has a plan that if enacted could help resolve many of the nation's problems, YES!, absolutely such an individual gets my vote. And for the record, I never voted for Jesse, Sharpton, Keyes nor Cain - the only Black presidential candidates available to me during my lifetime to date. But Obama...damned right I voted for him - TWICE! Because he was Black AND qualified and he had a plan to move this country forward that IMO was better than the rest. Not perfect, just better.