Obama The Oreo

Commentary by Lightning Rod - RIP 2/6/2013
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Lightning Rod
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Obama The Oreo

Post by Lightning Rod » June 10th, 2008, 1:54 pm

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Obama The Oreo
for release 06-10-08
Dallas, Texas
by Lightning Rod

Oreos are smart cookies. They are black on the outside and white on the inside. And they dunk well.

Obama was born of a black African father and a white American mother. His upbringing was primarily in white society. He's the classic Oreo. Black on the outside, white on the inside.

I'm not talking from a racial point of view, I'm speaking from a cultural point of view. Barack Obama was not raised in the typical American black-slave mentality. His black ancestors weren't slaves. He didn't grow up with the legacy of slavery lurking somewhere in an ancestral closet.

When I went to prison, the first thing I did was to make friends with the biggest blackest guy I could find. His name was Roddy and he weighed about 230 pounds. He was a walking version of nighttime. He was serving 73 years for 73 armed robberies. We became cell mates.

Everybody thought I was his white punk and that was fine with me. Nobody messed with me. He never touched me. He was my friend. He had spent his entire adult life in the institution and he knew the ropes. He helped me through the first six months that I was there. He was also a solid Oreo. His family was middle class. He was raised in mostly white suburban culture.

One of the things that I learned in prison was that the black culture has a tragic flaw. This flaw consists of an attitude that I call the 'massa, please' attitude. Even in prison there was no solidarity among the black population because they would steal from each other, snitch on each other and had a fragmented sense of community. They were still working for the massa.

"Some of my best friends are black." This is probably the most gratuitous statement of all famous gratuitous statements. It contains an inner insult. It says, "even though they are black, I am so broad-minded that I can call them friends." It's insulting and condescending. But I'm going to say it anyway. Some of my best friends are black. Also many of my heroes are black. Sometimes I wish I was black. Sometimes maybe I am.

There is much to celebrate about what the African pigment has added to our culture in music and art and dance and oratory and athletics and moral direction. But there is a stain on the black culture as well. This stain is the continuing slave mentality that causes black people to see themselves as inferior or servile.

This is why we need more Oreos like Barack Obama. It's not about race, it's about culture. Hopefully the advances that we have made in American culture in the past 40 years will establish a new generation of black culture as well, and we can lose the slave mentality.

The Poet's Eye is glad to see a proud black man running for president. And I'm glad he's an Oreo.

The first time that I tried it
Got a big sugar buzz
Nothing gets me high as that sandwhich cookie does
But I love the filling most
I rub it on my roast
Mix it in with my coffee and spread it on my toast

I love the white stuff, baby
In the middle of an oreo
I love the white stuff, baby
Take some with me everywhere I go
---Weird Al Yankovic
"These words don't make me a poet, these Eyes make me a poet."

The Poet's Eye

mtmynd
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Post by mtmynd » June 10th, 2008, 3:36 pm

yu sho hit dat one right mistah lightnin'. i likes dem words. i do.

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Doreen Peri
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Post by Doreen Peri » June 10th, 2008, 4:03 pm

He's not an "oreo." That's bullshit.

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Post by Lightning Rod » June 10th, 2008, 5:23 pm

doreen peri wrote:He's not an "oreo." That's bullshit.
doreen, I explained why I thought Obama was an Oreo. Now, you explain why you think that the statement was bullshit. Are we calling names here?

I love Oreos.
"These words don't make me a poet, these Eyes make me a poet."

The Poet's Eye

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Post by gypsyjoker » June 10th, 2008, 5:28 pm

One of the things that I learned in prison was that the black culture has a tragic flaw.

What else did you learn in prison Clay?

Speaking of explaining.

Could you explain why whites have a better culture in prison?

Or do you mean white culture in general is superior to black culture?

I look forward to your explanation.
Last edited by gypsyjoker on June 10th, 2008, 5:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Lightning Rod » June 10th, 2008, 5:41 pm

Jack,

I didn't say that whites have a better culture in prison. They are miserable losers too. All the successful criminals are at large.

I have been trying to answer the question of why the black culture is harmful to blacks for years. I can't do it. My best guess is that generations of oppression have built in a mentality that is subservient. It's not racial or genetic, it's cultural.

One day we will isolate the Culture Gene.
"These words don't make me a poet, these Eyes make me a poet."

The Poet's Eye

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Post by gypsyjoker » June 10th, 2008, 5:42 pm

NO clay
that is a slick answer but it is bullshit
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Post by Doreen Peri » June 10th, 2008, 5:42 pm

OK. I'll explain.

The term "oreo" is derisive and insulting. It is a term that suggests that a black person sucks up and kisses the asses of white people. It IS a racial term whether you say you are using it that way or not. It is an insult.

Barack Obama is no more an "oreo" than I am.

My father comes from a Greek/Lebanese heritage. His skin was as dark as Barack Obama's in the summer. In the winter, it was still dark, though not quite as dark as in the summer, but dark enough that my mother had people in the little white bigoted world trying to talk her out of marrying "outside her race."

My mother is a blonde blue-eyed WASP (white anglo-saxon protestant). I was born with olive colored skin which freckles with the sun. I'm a mutt.

Like so many others in America, we are products of mixed cultures and mixed races. My father's race was listed as caucasion on his drivers license but some of the neighbors didn't think he was the same race as my mother.

So what? Big deal.

And big deal that Obama has mixed heritage.

This does not make him an "oreo."

No matter how you frame it or how you describe it or why you decided to do so, what you are using is a racial slur.

And it's bullshit.

He is not black on the outside and white on the inside, which is where the term came from, derogatorily suggesting that he is not truly a black man.

The truth is this.. he is a MAN... no matter what color is parents or grandparents were. No matter what races he has mixed in him. It doesn't matter. He's a MAN.

Just like I'm a woman.

You can't frame a racial slur to mean anything other than what it means.

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Post by Lightning Rod » June 10th, 2008, 5:48 pm

this is about culture, not race
"These words don't make me a poet, these Eyes make me a poet."

The Poet's Eye

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Doreen Peri
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Post by Doreen Peri » June 10th, 2008, 5:56 pm

It's a racial slur.

AND it's a cultural slur.

That's why it's bullshit.

:)

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Post by jimboloco » June 13th, 2008, 1:23 pm

we be white on th outsidean black on th in
vanilla cookies with chocolate filling
they call us vanilla oreos
yass yass yasss

sometimes ya got to cut some slack fer slurrin

i absolutely agree that the african-americanization of america is what's happinin, mon, documented in th literature, cornell west, w e b dubois, robert pirsig

sistah,
believe youme, when th mulatto o man takes his black wife and daughters into th white house,
it will be a day of celebration for all anglo-lebanese americans,
amen


gypperjoker,
got yer pokerface on?

he's got th gypsyjoker pokerface cultural gene
some strain come down from th hills of western arkansas
[color=darkcyan]i'm on a survival mission
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]

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Post by gypsyjoker » June 14th, 2008, 12:48 am

ten four jimbo
I don't know know nothing about black liberation theology, I am not much interested in any color theology or process theology.

I read Franz Fanon so long ago I feel like George W Bush trying to remember whether he did cocaine or not. Have you read any of Dubois? Me very little, but it made sense. I don't it is helpful to think about having "white core values" instead of n*gger values. Sometimes I think Clay is still a good old boy from Texas.
But we cool, like I said ain't know skin off my nose.
Some of my dearest friends are good old boys.


Everything on time on schedule, it don't make much difference if Obama is elected or not, one of these milenia there will be peace in the valley, seems like things would be sooner better if he did win. I have not felt like this about an election since, since a long time, since 1960 I guess. And Johnny I hardly knew him, JFK. Racism is cultural CLay. I missed the point of your column.

Oreo?
I don't think so

I am always a little leary when white people start telling black people what they need. How many black people you know with a slave master mentality?



I will re read this poets eye to see what conclusions I have jumped to.
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'Blessed is he who was not born, Or he, who having been born, has died. But as for us who live, woe unto us, Because we see the afflictions of Zion, And what has befallen Jerusalem." Pseudepigrapha

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what me worry?
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Post by what me worry? » June 29th, 2008, 11:12 am

It's a shame L Rod is wasting his golden eggs on us.
Some of his best friends are wasted.
Mercy!
[color=brown]I'm not a complete idiot! :roll: There's more than one way not to skin a cat :)[/color]

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stilltrucking
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Post by stilltrucking » August 10th, 2008, 8:27 am

ten Mr A. E. Newman


I am still waiting for Clay to do a post about John McCain

seems like Obama gets all his ink.

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constantine
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Post by constantine » August 10th, 2008, 11:54 am

400 years of subordination can fuck with any culture's head. i know, i'm greek. what doesn't kill us makes us stronger - eventually. ask any israeli.

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