You know, the worst part about this is that I’m betting that Nader – as often – doesn’t and didn’t even realize exactly how bad he sounds here. He probably just doesn’t get it – I just don’t think it sunk in. He was trying to speak frankly, trying to make a point, and in the end it just came out sounding really really moronic. The point itself? Yeah – still moronic, but at least I can tell there was a point behind there somewhere.

The reason I can tell? I’ve been told ever since my adolescence that I “talk white,” “act white,” am an “oreo,” and so on, mostly because I personally rejected hip-hop culture and a number of the stereotypical identiifcation elements that make Black Americans “look” like Black Americans. I’m young, but even since my youth America has come a long way in what it interprets as “black” and “white,” and while a number of White Americans still grapple with the notion, most young people of all stripes understand that, for example, an affinity for hip-hop doesn’t mean you’re “acting black” any more than a desire to do well in school makes you “act white.”

Mark my words. As long as there are Black Americans who seek to lead, seek to educate themselves, and seek to climb the social ladder and smash those walls of social injustice, there will be people who claim they’re doing it all to “be white.” I get it on a regular basis, personally – from the offhand comment that I’m the “least ‘black’ black guy” that everyone knows to the same “you’re very articulate” crap that Obama got at the beginning of the primary, it’s real, and I see it every day.

That being said, Nader’s quote:

“He wants to show that he is not a threatening … another politically threatening African-American politician. He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he’s coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it’s corporate or whether it’s simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up.”

Oh Nader, that’s unfortunate. So what are you really driving at? Are you saying that White people should be threatened by Obama? Or – and far more likely – you’re giving away your own misguided interpretation of race in politics? You find it difficult to resist his appeal, so you have to come up with a reason why Jesse Jackson scares the living daylights out of you but Barack Obama doesn’t?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

[ Today in Incongruity: Nader Accuses Obama of "Talking White" ]
Source: Alternet