Obama's an 'African' Stuck in the '70s

 Debate Shows Obama's an 'African' Stuck in the '70s

October 18, 2012

ByThe Drive-By Pundit

Tuesday evening's presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney gave everyone across the political spectrum a reason to believe that his (or her) guy won.

If you're conservative, you think Romney clearly won.

If you're liberal, you think (in the charming little rudimentary way liberals have of thinking) Obama won.

If you're undecided, only God knows who you feel clearly won.

If pressed, I guess I have to give Obama a slight edge. The town-hall setting and slanted questions were tailor-made for him. Obama is unmatched when he's free to regurgitate snippets from his many boring, threadbare speeches that four years ago millions of Americans mistook for profundity and eloquence. The bar was pretty low for him. All he had to do was limit his "ums" and "ahs" and string a few coherent sentences together, and he was bound to do better than the first debate. Mission accomplished.

Romney delivered another solid performance, especially when he detailed Obama's many broken promises and dismal economic record of the last four years.

As for the moderator, Candy Crowley, I knew coming in she had no intentions of doing Romney any favors and would trip him up every chance she got. She telegraphed as much days earlier, when she said she didn't plan to serve as a "fly on the wall" during the debate. She didn't disappoint.

Out of all the dishonest statements, evasions, and disquieting responses from Obama, though, one particularly stood out. It was his response to an audience member who asked: "What has your administration done or plans to do to limit the availability of assault weapons?"

After mumbling some unconvincing boilerplate about how much he deeply "believes in the Second Amendment," Obama said: "Frankly, in my hometown of Chicago, there's an awful lot of violence, and they're not using AK 47s. They're using cheap handguns."

I was astonished. Not just me, but my son and his fiancée, who is fresh out of the 'hood. As if rehearsed, we all simultaneously leaped from our seats, hooting in total derision, loudly wondering what "hometown" he was talking about -- Nairobi?

Get this: the first "black" president of the United States, the man who worked as a South Side community organizer in Chicago, really believes that "folks" in the ghetto are still running around in afros, dashikis, and platform shoes, ducking behind Buick Electra 225s while taking potshots at each other with zip guns and .22s, once commonly referred to as "Saturday Night Specials." Seriously?

Obama couldn't be more mistaken if he added that black gangbangers also schedule nightly rumbles with straight razors and switchblades after the malt shop closes.

No self-respecting gangbanger would be caught dead with a "cheap handgun." These are people who think nothing of plunking down $500-plus for the latest pair of Air Jordans. Do you think they're going to skimp on firepower? The brothas and sistas of the hood are strapped with some serious, expensive heat, like Rugers, Glocks, and Berettas. In some cases their handguns are blinged out with gold or silver plating, mother of pearl grips, and precious gems.

Every black person in the nation knows that gangbangers largely stopped carrying "cheap handguns" way back in the 1970s. Even my 76-year-old mother knows, saying: "What's he talking about?" when I played the quote back for her on video.

So why doesn't Obama know?

To answer that requires that I share a tense conversation I had the night Obama was elected president. My buddy said that although McCain didn't win, wasn't I at least thrilled that America had elected its first "black" president?

I said: "I'll let you know when it happens."

She hung up.

Haven't heard from her since.

Obama is not the first "black" man elected president, no matter how many people think so. I'm "black," and I can tell you: "black" in this context is more than the color of my skin. It's a shared experience, a purely American experience -- if you will -- which stretches back to when the first Africans were brought in shackles to our shores in the mid-1600s.

Nothing in Obama's background speaks of the American experience. It's not difficult to understand why. Obama is the son of a white woman with jungle fever and a commie Kenyan. He was raised in circumstances that almost all Americans -- let alone blacks -- would find foreign.

Obama is best described as an "African in America." (And no, I'm not a birther, despite the earlier "Nairobi" joke.) The difference between Obama's actual identity and an actual "black" person's is no small distinction. It explains how he could hold such an outdated view of the violence plaguing black communities across the nation. It explains why you never see him campaigning in black communities or dropping by for photo ops. (Well, that and because he knows that 95 percent of "those people" are going to vote for him anyway.)

It's also explains why Obama's first instincts are always to blame America first and profusely apologize for past American actions.

No matter who others think won the second debate, I'm still forecasting a big Romney win on November 6.