60 Minutes' racist interview with Barak Obama
@beautifulceiling (1300)
United States
February 11, 2007 7:23pm CST
I watched 60 Minutes tonight and they had a spot on Barak Obama and they were talking about his childhood and I was stunned that in the 21st century I heard them talk about him being a "black child in a white family." What?? Is a family with black people and white people considered a white family with black people in it? Um, that is racist. It blows my mind that we still have shows like 60 minutes saying something so ethnocentric. He was just as much a white child in a black family. White is not the default. It is one of many races.
3 responses
@pinkeagle (202)
• United States
12 Feb 07
60 minutes is not the only one with the strange response to Barak Obama. How about Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson? Have either of these 2 endorsed Barak Obama?
Truly, Barak Obama is an unique candidate in the history of American presidential politics. There undoubtly will be more interesting things to come.
1 person likes this
@beautifulceiling (1300)
• United States
12 Feb 07
To tell you the truth, I hadn't heard of either of them saying anything about him. Have they?
@urbangirl (1456)
• Australia
12 Feb 07
It just goes to show how narrow-minded these people are (even if supposedly they have "credentials" as journalists). I don't really have much respect for the US Sixty Minutes Crew - I've seen how they interview "overseas" guests displaying their ignorance and arrogance.
1 person likes this
@beautifulceiling (1300)
• United States
12 Feb 07
I agree about the ignorance and arrogance.
And the whole interview was that way too. Obama had to actually explain that not every black person in America will blindly vote for him, because black people actually look at the issues just like white people do and don't just automatically vote for any black candidate that happens to run. It just went on and on.
@fuzzEbluebathrobe (378)
• United States
12 Feb 07
It is how Obama sees himself; that is the point 60 Minutes is making. If he thought of himself as biracial everyone else would too.
Sometime acceptance of the fact that you are biracial puts you at odds with the african american community. People who are biracial assume others will see them as black no matter what and that is how they respond to the world around them.
@beautifulceiling (1300)
• United States
12 Feb 07
I didn't get that at all. They weren't even interviewing him at the time. It was their own interpretation of his childhood. Besides, they continued with racist assumptions throughout the interview and he kept having to correct them.
@beautifulceiling (1300)
• United States
12 Feb 07
I'm not really as concerned about whether Obama can handle it or not as I am with the fact that 60 Minutes is perpetuating stereotypes, making racist assumptions and otherwise living in the dark ages.
I do acknowledge that some people will vote purely on religion or race or whatever, but that's true of all races. There are people who don't educate themselves and just go for the symbolic representation of what they stand for. What really bothered me was the implication that it's only black people, and all black people who do that.
@fuzzEbluebathrobe (378)
• United States
12 Feb 07
I wish they had drawn a comparison between catholics supporting JFK just for being catholic and blacks blindly supporting Obama. I can't begin to tell you how rediculously some of my realtives jumped on the bandwagon for Kennedy and still worship him.. and don't get me started on Irish Americans.
I think it is fair to throw the supposition out there and see how well Obama responds to it. I think 60 minutes was provacative but not racist. Obama will face alot worse during a campaign. Obama also has played to the crowd at an african american church saying just the opposite of what he said tonight about America voting for him. He needs to explain himself.
