{"id":1410,"date":"2007-02-26T20:19:20","date_gmt":"2007-02-26T18:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/?p=1410"},"modified":"2007-02-26T20:19:28","modified_gmt":"2007-02-26T18:19:28","slug":"of-course-america-is-ready-for-a-black-president-are-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/26\/of-course-america-is-ready-for-a-black-president-are-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Of course America is ready for a black president. Are you?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the guise of a seer who has some sort of zeitgeist on the times, many cynics (mostly liberal ones<\/a>, often people of color<\/a>) keep posing the question, “Is America ready for a black President?<\/a>” (Or just answer “no”<\/a> when asked.)<\/p>\n

I’ll Answer that one: of course we are<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Look at the polls<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 And a lot of these people are answering no, even tho they<\/span> would<\/span> vote for a black candidate (they just think everyone else is beneath them, less evolved, wouldn’t do so). Yes, there are some who won’t vote for a black man as the Commander in Chief, and there are some who may vote for him (implicit “him”: Barack<\/a>) for no other reason. And these numbers may or may not cancel each other out (especially given that we need to consider who might be mobilized to vote in such an election).<\/p>\n

But I have bigger issue with the question itself, given what it might lead to in my own party (er, the party I’m currently registered for). Voting for “who we think can win” in the Democratic primaries led to the last boring candidate<\/a>. We need a leader<\/a>. Someone who had vision on Iraq from day 1<\/strong><\/a>, can bring people of faith back to the party they belong in<\/a>, wants us to end poverty and bring Universal Health<\/a> instead of just making the rich richer<\/a>. Do you really think that someone who would vote for Rudy<\/a> or McJohn<\/a> over Barack<\/a>, for issues of race (consciously or unconsciously), would vote for Hillary<\/a> or JohnE<\/a> instead<\/em>? That’s just silly.<\/p>\n

If we don’t get Obama<\/a> for president, it’s not cuz America is not ready, it’s because the Democrats aren’t – the primaries will decide, not the general election. I’m more and more impressed with this man every single day (that link on Iraq above<\/a>, his foresight – wow. And please also take a look at his announcement speech<\/a>…). Take him seriously – and do not discount him with a pretense of knowing superiority; you do yourself, and America, a disservice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the guise of a seer who has some sort of zeitgeist on the times, many cynics (mostly liberal ones, often people of color) keep posing the question, “Is America ready for a black President?” (Or just answer “no” when asked.) I’ll Answer that one: of course we are. Look at the polls.\u00c2\u00a0 And a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30,4,9,8,19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","category-news-and-politics","category-pop-culture","category-re-blog-tidbits","category-stimulus","category-uncategorical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-mK","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1683,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/14\/i-voted-early-john-kerry-for-obama-in-milwaukee\/","url_meta":{"origin":1410,"position":0},"title":"I voted early (John Kerry for Obama in Milwaukee)","author":"nathaniel","date":"14 October 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00c2\u00a0 After running some errands this morning, I remembered vaguely an email from the Obama compaign about voting early. I opened my laptop, and saw John Kerry was in town, promoting that very thing. I figured I had an hour before my next meeting, and so drove to downtown Milwaukee,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "me"","block_context":{"text":"me","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/me\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Kerry for Obama in Milwaukee","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/kerry.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/kerry.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/kerry.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":86,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/05\/17\/vote-against-the-us-in-the-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":1410,"position":1},"title":"vote against the US in the US","author":"nathaniel","date":"17 May 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Exciting (and scary) times for politics right now. Remember just a few days ago when I asked if anyone out there thought the whole world should get to vote for the US President? Thanks to Raina Kumra for posting this. Other political news: Think America is safer without Saddam? Think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":289,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/02\/03\/cool-people-i-found\/","url_meta":{"origin":1410,"position":2},"title":"cool people i found","author":"nathaniel","date":"03 February 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I think that today is \"really cool people I never met but have something in common with\" day - tho some of the people I am about to mention I have met, but I doubt they remember me. Of course, I'll stick to just mentioning a few people in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":269,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/02\/25\/nader-has-his-reasons\/","url_meta":{"origin":1410,"position":3},"title":"nader has his reasons","author":"nathaniel","date":"25 February 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I've recently been having a discussion about Nader's decision to run for president with a few friends at ITP. Unintentionally, this article made one of my points for me. It quoted John Kerry as saying that he intends to \"speak to all Americans. If people want to beat George Bush\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":62,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/04\/15\/bloody-rant\/","url_meta":{"origin":1410,"position":4},"title":"bloody rant","author":"nathaniel","date":"15 April 2003","format":false,"excerpt":" Like many Americans, I'd like the US to again start acting like a democracy, instead of propagating the idea of one as a justification for war. I love my country, which is why I hate seeing it go to the Bushes. What can we do? VOTE. I'm going to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":288,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/02\/04\/please-get-rid-of-him\/","url_meta":{"origin":1410,"position":5},"title":"please get rid of him","author":"nathaniel","date":"04 February 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Super Tuesday's results Analysts examine Tuesday's results - if Kerry has the minority vote, as the first analyst on this page says, then why are all of the analysts of color talking about Howard Dean? iVote and the primaries. OK, we know Dean is e-organized, so I don't know how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}