Racism, Grandmothers, Protection and Obama

I have waited a couple of weeks to see if anyone would actually take up for white grandmothers after Barack Obama's speech about race in which he used his own grandmother as an example of "racism." After admitting that his white grandmother was "a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world" he held her up for public condemnation by stating that she "once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

Barack Obama wants to be president of the United States of America and Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed forces that are there to protect the country, yet publicly admits to being made to "cringe" rather than trying to protect his grandmother who expressed fear of a man who was harassing her.

Obama claimed she expressed "fear of black men who passed her on the street." We haven't heard from the grandmother directly on this statement, but actually, according to Obama's own book, that is not what she said.

The incident in which his white grandmother expressed fear did not merely involve fearing black men who passed her on the street. It involved a black man, who was apparently under the influence of drugs or alcohol, harassing her as she waited for a bus in Chicago on her way to work. And, it was his grandmother's job that mainly supported Barack Obama.

Obama, who was in his mid-teens at the time, described how he woke up to an argument between his grandmother and grandfather. His grandmother, Madelyn Dunham wanted her husband, Stanley, to drive her to her job, rather than having to take a bus because she had been harassed by a man at the bus stop.

Obama wrote that his grandmother said to him with "her lips pursed with irritation. "He (the man at the bus stop) was very aggressive, Barry. Very aggressive. I gave him a dollar and he kept asking. If the bus hadn't come, I think he might have hit me over the head."

At that point Obama's grandfather "turned around and I saw that he was shaking. 'It is a big deal. It's a big deal to me. She's been bothered by men before. You know why she's so scared this time? I'll tell you why. Before you came in, she told me the fella was black.' He whispered the word. 'That's the real reason why she's bothered. And I just don't think that right.' "The words were like a fist in my stomach, and I wobbled to regain my composure."

Note that it wasn't the grandmother who said she was upset because the man who was harassing her was black. It was the grandfather who said that. Furthermore, it was apparently no big deal to Barack's grandfather, or to Barack, that their wife and grandmother had been harassed. It was a "big deal" that she wanted a ride to her work so she could avoid the harassment.

According to Barack, this so upset him that he talked it over with his grandfather's friend, who has been identified as the communist black poet and journalist Frank Marshall Davis who told him: "What I'm trying to tell you is, your grandma's right to be scared. She's at least as right as Stanley is. She understands that black people have a reason to hate. That's just how it is. For your sake, I wish it were otherwise. But it's not. So you might as well get used to it."

Now, if I understand this correctly, Frank advised the young Barack that it is normal and OK for black people to hate white people, but it is racism for white people to be at all concerned about perhaps being attacked by black people who hate them. It also appears that Obama believes that white voters have no need to be concerned about this situation.

However, let's look at the crime statistics of the USA. This is being presented as racism against a minority - in this case blacks. Yet, homicide statistics compiled by the U.S. Justice department indicate that a citizen of the USA is 100 times more apt to be murdered by a black male than by a white female and that most of the murder victims of blacks are other blacks.

As for minority crime, an American is about 3000 times more apt to be murdered by a black man than by an Asian female. Statistically, 73.9% or 221.3 million of the US population is white, only 12.2% or 37.1 million Americans are black. Yet more than half the murders committed in the USA are committed by the 12.2% black population.

Was Madelyn Dunham being racist or wise to be concerned about an "aggressive" black male who would not leave her alone? Why is the fault not the behavior of the man who was harassing his grandmother? Where was the male protective reaction in this situation? While most of the murder victims of black murderers are other black people, white people are often their victims too.

The issue here is Barack Obama's effort not only to blame white people for his racism but, more specifically, to blame his white grandmother who apparently was the one stable influence in his life, for his own racism. And, in order to do that, he not only appears to be lying about the incident, but holding his white grandmother up for public criticism for having the good sense to try to avoid a situation where she felt she could be at the mercy of a drugged or intoxicated male, of whatever color, who she thought was about ready to hit her over the head!

As a grandmother of 25, if any of my grandsons ever did to me what Barack Obama has done to his white grandmother, they very definitely would hear publicly from me about their lying and cowardly behavior. His grandmother, in the situation, was asking her husband for a tiny bit of male protection from a possibly dangerous man who was harassing her as she waited for a bus.

Apparently, none of the males involved, Barack, his grandfather or his grandfather's friend Frank were man enough to offer Madelyn Dunham any protection by taking her to work or escorting her to the bus. And, we are going to elect this man to be commander-in-chief of the world's greatest military force who did not even have the guts to protect his own grandmother? Good grief!