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  Posted By:
  Ms.Martin at 04/15/2008 11:57:35 PM
  Comment:
  Glad to see someone finally write about it. Please be informed - the Republicans won't have to remind me about the Clinton race-baiting or the black surrogates who stood silent while it occurred. I don't think a lot of blacks will forget it.
  
  I won't ever forget this campaign and how defenseless I've felt as an African America -how tactics have taken me back to feelings of old while black folks with something to gain stood by with their self-respect on a shelf and said and did nothing while the Clinton campaign urged us to get in our places.
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  Posted By:
  choobop74 at 04/07/2008 12:14:50 AM
  Comment:
  hi
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  Posted By:
  choobop74 at 04/07/2008 12:14:20 AM
  Comment:
  Yall need to get your lips off of Obama's yellow ass and get a grip. Hillary AND Barak are a couple of politicians who will do or say anything to get elected. Tell me my brothers and sisters...what has Barak said that he's gonna specificially do for us, his base. I can tell what he told the Jews, the liberals, the Latinos ect. But, can one of y'all Obama supporter tell me what has he promised us....Please be specific!!! And no, change or a new kind of politics don't count.
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    Posted By:
    Ms.Martin at 04/16/2008 12:09:27 AM
    Comment:
    He has promised us the same things that he promised other Americans - control over our government, transparency in government, a better economy, jobs, equal justice, better educations for children, an end to the war in Iraq and a foreign policy that reedem our standing in the world community.
    
    What is it that you want specifically as a black person that he hasn't offered to everyone else? BTW, I'm black and I don't need anything special that the whole country couldn't benefit from.
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  Posted By:
  choobop74 at 04/07/2008 12:06:36 AM
  Comment:
  Y'all need to get your lips off of Obama's yellow ass and get real. Barak and Hillary aint nothing but a couple of politicians that will say and do anything to get elected. Clinton may be getting a pass...but so is Barak. In case y'all havent noticed he has pandered to every group, telling them in details what he would do for them. I challenge anybody to let me know what has he said he was gonna do for us. And please be specific...if you can.
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  Posted By:
  Elizabeth A at 04/03/2008 1:44:34 PM
  Comment:
  Perhaps, she gets a "pass" because she is dealing with something worse. A quirk she was unlucky enough to be born with....being born a w o m a n. Perhaps instead of pointing out all this alleged race baiting material, she should point out that as a woman she will "work for free" from October through December. Or, perhaps she can point out that Obama is busy (when he votes) voting against late term abortion. Because, of course, what a woman does with herself is a man's business. Or maybe she can point out that woman didn't earn the right to vote until 1920.
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  Posted By:
  bobbie01 at 04/02/2008 6:50:27 PM
  Comment:
  It's about time someone said it.
  
  A quote rom Andrew Young ' Bill Clinton is a Soul Brother' and in the same breathe 'Is obama blak enough'
  
  And I will not mention John Lewis
  
  I would'n follow some of these jokers around the corner...
  
  A. Mayes
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  Posted By:
  Kim A at 04/02/2008 12:31:41 PM
  Comment:
  I to agree that the Clintons have ben getting by with a lot. But they are so slick. They use whatever tactics benefit them. I know that in the past the African American community supported them. But I don't believe the Clintons were ever genuine in their desire to help the AA community-or anyone else for that matter. Theirs is a quest for power. I am a behaviorist by profession and the victim of years of manipulation by headgamers like the Clintons.They use whatever manipulation benefits them. If words and charm don't work, they bump it up a notch to harder edge headgames. As their manipulations don't get them the desired results, they use harsher tactics. Just look at what they've done to Obama. In the criminal world predators use these strategies to get what they want from their victims. For people like the Clintons and their campaign staff, it's just politics. They do whatever they need to do to benefit their own need for power.It's rankism at it's ugliest. In that regard, it's not personal. They mainipulate everyone. Remember the little tearful sigh in New Hampshire. I've used that one on occasion. Yes, civil rights groups should be standing up and shouting at the top of their lungs. But every other demographic-and that's all we really are to the Clintons- should be up there with them. Barack Obama made the Clintons mad when he stepped out of his Hillary conceived box. Maybe she's mad that an African American dared to challenge her.Whatever she thought, she didn't take him seriously as a person. She clearly believed he had a certain "place" and he needed to be in it unless he was useful to her. Haven't they manipulated others to do just that? He stepped out and challenged her- and then he had the audacity to give her a run for her money. In the end, this individual who she saw as beneath her, brought out the truth about her real character by just being his true and authentic self. That's what rankists fear the most-that they will be outed and revealed to be all facade. So, everybody who's ever felt disenfranchised and boxed in by people like the Clintons-and theye are just symbols of many everday people doing just the same thing each and every day- stand up and speak up and confront these subtle bullies. We are all important. We all have a place in this world and we have a right to determine what that place is. And by the way, I don't know if this matters, but I am a white woman. This election is about people like me who have been deemed less important-it's about standing up and making ourselves matter.If it makes people like the Clintons uncomfortable then that's a blessing. We all deserve to be our best selves and the Clintons desreve that too. But they won't grow if we keep lettiing them stay in their comfort zone. In the end then, they get by with their behavior because good people let them. We can't change them. We can only change our response to them. But we all have to keep responding and that's what isn't happening.
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  Posted By:
  Cecil at 03/31/2008 4:31:02 PM
  Comment:
  Yes, I agree, Hillary has indeed been getting a lot of passes since the New Hampshire campaign.The Civil Rights movement need to speak out about her, and her husband's race baiting and disrespective remarks towards Obama.The Clintons are consistently and continuously destroying Obama's image and making it very difficult for him to defeat Mc Cain.The Civil Rights Movement need to realize that they don't owe the Clintons. It is the Clinton's who owe African Americans for their loyaly and support for some two decades. Bill Clinton could not have been President without the marginal AA's votes. Hillary could not have won the NY Senate race without heavy support from AA's. White Republicans hardly ever supported the Clintons neither do the majority of Latinos who vote Republican.The Civil Rights Movement need to intervene to protect the image of Obama from the Clinton's slime and gutter politics. Her half hearted apology is not enough and amounts to mere political opportunism. The Civil Rights Movement, as many Democratic Leaders have done,should call on her to withdraw(as she cannot win the nomination) and give Obama and the Party time to prepare for the battle with the Republicans.After all, wasn't Bill the first African American President ?(sic!). I suspect Hillary wants Mc Cain to win( by destroying Obama). Obviously the Republicans will continue to mess up the country,so that she will have an almost certain run in 2012.
  Cecil.
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  Posted By:
  Cecil at 03/31/2008 4:05:46 PM
  Comment:
  Yes, I agree, she is indeed getting many passeson race baiting and disrespectful racial remarks.Civil Rights leaders seem to think they owe the Clintons. But they should realise that in fact the Clintons owe the Civil Rights Movement.Bill could not have been President of Hillary a Senator with the devotion and loyalty of the black vote.White Republicans never supported them neither do the majority of Latinos who vote Republican.I am eagerly awaiting their intervention to call the Clintons into account and to speak up,on their injustice to AA's in this campaign against Obama and for their continuous damage to the chance of Obama to be elected President.Finally I think they also have the right(based on historical relatinship)to call on the Clintons to withdraw from the race.After all,Bill was the first " Black President" sic!
  Cecil.
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  Posted By:
  motherschild at 03/28/2008 1:37:39 PM
  Comment:
  Hillary Clinton is getting a pass from the media and civil rights activist. She has played the white woman victim long enough. Obama has endured comments made by Bill about his campaign being a "fairy tale." He has taken the high road. The Clinton's have a sense of entitlement to the black vote because black folks made them feel like they were saviors of the black race. They were the new masters in the white house. NAFTA has not helped the black community. Welfare reform has not helped the black community. The drug laws that were enacted under the Clinton administration have incarcerated more black male and females than any other group of people. Yes, the economy was better during the Clinton years, but who has paid the lions share since those years. Let us stop thinking that somehow she is more qualified because she slept in the white house for 8 years, and has held a senatorial seat that her experience far outweighs that of Obama. That is illogical thinking. She has no more experience than Obama; all that she possesses is a strong sense of "white privilege" and entitlement to an office that she is willing to destroy a black man to get there.
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  Posted By:
  Najwa N. Smith at 03/28/2008 1:08:51 PM
  Comment:
  As matter of fact, Geraldine Ferrarowas right on one point, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.??? She???s right- if he were a white man, he???d very likely have captured the nomination already.
  
  As for the country being ???caught up in the concept," right again. We are ???caught up.??? Why? If may have something to do with the fact that as Alice Walker notes in her endorsement, at http://www.theroot.com/id/45469, "If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning??? He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill. The change America must have if we are to convince the rest of the world that we care about people other than our (white) selves."
  
  I for one am proud to be so caught up and am headed to the polls here in Pennsylvania on April 22 to vote Obama.
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  Posted By:
  taylorlpage at 03/27/2008 3:53:46 PM
  Comment:
  The intensity of this democratic race has peeked, I feel the both campaigns, especially the media has contributed to this hyper-sensitivity on the issue of race. Going back to the SC primaries, former President Bill Clinton acknowledged that Sen. Obama is running a good campaign and mentioned that Jesse Jackson had won in 1984, 1988. I did not see anything wrong with what he said. Jesse Jackson himself, said he did not take offense to what former President Bill Clinton had said. A bigger issue was created out of nothing. I admire Sen. Obama ability to instill hope and seems to inspire a lot of people, but somewhere the media lost complete objectivity and for the most part the Sen. Obama has been getting a free pass until the Rev. Wright issue surfaced. On the contrary, with the help of the media the I believe the Obama campaign played their part in injected race in this political campaign. The fact is an African-Amercian man and a women are running for president, gender and race is an issue and should be a subject for dialogue. There seems to be such a double standard, here we have a former Congresswomen Ferraro, who made a comment regarding Sen. Obama candidacy stating if he wasn???t who he was he wouldn???t be in this position... Ferraro is immediately branded as a racist. Even though Sen. Obama has crossed into a variety of races I agree that if Sen. Obama were "white" he wouldn't of carried 90% of the African-American voters across the nation. So, does that make me racist? I feel Rev. Wright???s comments were in part radical, uncompromising and unforgiving theology. I do not agree with everything Rev. Wright says. However, supporters of Rev. Wright are quick to say we are taking his comments out context, I listen to more than 30 sec sound bites, and a lot of his comments are offensive and inappropriate, that???s to include the comments his made when referencing the Clintons. What do the Clintons do to him, to deserve to be put on blast like that? Martin Rawlin, CNN contributor was very quick to say that Rev. Wright comments weren???t racist, but Ferraro got slammed for stating her views on Sen. Obama. I do not see Sen. Clinton getting a free pass, I see a double-standard being injected in this democratic political campaign.
  
  
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  Posted By:
  mookie at 03/27/2008 2:22:00 PM
  Comment:
  Geraldine Ferraro is correct. Not politically correct, but correct nevertheless. Obama is an impressive guy but he is not ready to be president. He got this far due to the votes of people more interested in voting in our first Black president than looking closely at his credentials. Obama in '16!
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  Posted By:
  jd at 03/27/2008 12:01:55 PM
  Comment:
  What a fabulous article. Seriously. Thanks for putting it so plain and unapologetic. I'm also horrified at this pass, and how it opens the "double-standard" objection by the Republicans when they try the same tactics.
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  Posted By:
  michaelann at 03/27/2008 11:21:05 AM
  Comment:
  Just as Barak Obama cannot be responsible for what Reverend Wright says and believes, neither can Hillary Clinton be responsible for stupid, racist comments made by Geraldine Ferraro. Ferraro is no longer on Clinton's team now, which is as it should be. Political races, especially this race because there is a black man and a white woman running for President, are bound to have mud-slinging manifest itself as issues of race and/or gender, remarked by political surrogates, pundits, journalists, etc. One has to look at the candidates for themselves, who they are, and what they represent.
  
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  Posted By:
  Iconoclazm at 03/27/2008 12:08:45 AM
  Comment:
  Yes of course they are. The Carville/Wolfson strategy is to use you and get you to like it. To snow you so much that you don't even realize it. A week before the Texas and Ohio primaries, Carville and Wolfson started the attack on Black America and started the unwinding of unity between both Obama and Clinton supporters. Now there is hate and race which is just what the Clinton Klan wanted. Our Black "Leaders" have been used and duped and deserve everything coming to them. And not only politicians but the Magic Johnsons and other grinning fools that still support the Clintons.
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  Posted By:
  ABW at 03/26/2008 11:58:34 AM
  Comment:
  Of course, they're getting a pass. But what are we doing to make sure that the HNICs are no longer in charge. It's time for those Clinton-lackeys to be voted out of office. It makes me wonder what hold the Clintons have on the CBC. They've failed those they are supposed to represent, and I'm hoping to see incumbents like Rangel, Waters, Jackson and Tubbs voted out of office. Rangel has done nothing a chair of Ways and Means to help Harlem. And Julian Bond needs to step down from the leadership of the NAACP before he destroys what little credibility the organization has; if the NAACP wants to attract younger members and become more relevant, then it should support the kind of progressive political agenda that young black people are embracing and not the idle ramblings of a former crackhead.
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  Posted By:
  liberation01 at 03/26/2008 11:10:40 AM
  Comment:
  they're still on the plantation...trying not to offend Miss Anne.
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  Posted By:
  sugarfoot at 03/26/2008 2:45:54 AM
  Comment:
  We have failed to really listen to Barack Obama's Speech. The one he gave on race while in Philadelphia. There are more Whites that are rallying trying to shut down the media, FOX News and the likes. I trust that Black Organizations will do the same. Barack Obama has said he wants to run a clean Campaign.
  
  Fox News sent one of their reporters to purchase some of Rev. Wright's tapes from their church. He bragged about it on Fox News. They got posted of YouTube and have been used as a lynching since then. The sad part about it is Dox News used sound bites to infer that Rev. Wright was a racist and used inflamatory remarks about the US and White people which was not true. They are still spreading this propaganda and nothing is being done by Black Organizations. What Rev Wright said on the tapes was not racist but is exactly what is still going on today in this Country.
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  Posted By:
  Bellini at 03/26/2008 12:08:42 AM
  Comment:
  I agree--she has been just awful. Either her or her husband have continued to try and make this a race issue. But if the Black voters get too upset about it and it becomes very apparent that they have distanced themself totally from her, then Barack becomes the Black cnadidate and White voters will distance themselves from him.
  
  No use settling this before Obama gets the nomination. I think the less said now about race, the better. Too much baiting and reacting going on. What would happen if she were ignored? Plan and wait til after the Convention is over with. No use hurting Obama's chances.
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  Posted By:
  littlestate at 03/25/2008 9:34:04 PM
  Comment:
  Clinton not only gets a pass on race, she gets a pass on the issues. By " throwing the kitchen sink" at Obama and detracting Americans from the true issues at hand she is running a true slash and burn/win at all costs campaign. The problem, voters and women like me, who supported her, read her books, and believed in her spoken message are finding her words do not match up with her actions. Today's example her "mis-speaking" about the Bosnia situation. If only my mother and father reminded me as a child that I had misspoken instead of punishing me for lying. Besides, what race of people have suffered the most since Mr. Clinton left office? African Americans, if his changes and policies were so solid and built to support the economic success of all Americans, why did it take the most analytically challenged president ever, less than one term to roll back those policies?
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  Posted By:
  reinadelaz at 03/25/2008 6:45:36 PM
  Comment:
  While Ferraro's comment was clearly a pander to the redneck vote, nobody has pointed out that she is absolutely correct. If Senator Obama were a white man he wouldn't bewhere he is today, he would have sewn up the nomination months ago !!
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  Posted By:
  2cworth at 03/25/2008 11:50:44 AM
  Comment:
  I'm still trying to figure out the insult in Bill saying that "I wish we had two patiotic people running...." Also the red phone ad, Hillary isn't supposed to say that she's the most qualified person? Are the Clinton's allowed to say anything? This is a battle for the job of so-called most powerful person in the world. The bickering is probably hurting democrat chances but it's preparation for what's to come. When the general election starts and if Obama is the nominee, the fireworks will begin. Republicans don't even like their candidate but they'll pull out all the willie horton, swift boat,etc tactics. All of America is going to become intimately familiar with Rev. Wright if he has more inflammatory sermons that are taped. White America may desert Obama at nearly the rate that Black America deserted the Clintons.
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  Posted By:
  Ms.Martin at 03/25/2008 8:15:03 AM
  Comment:
  Hand-delivered by the CBC and every political figure trying to get a spot.
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  Posted By:
  firewire at 03/25/2008 1:12:59 AM
  Comment:
  Yes yes yes. Thank you for articulating the burning truth we been feeling inside.
  
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  Posted By:
  rikyrah at 03/25/2008 1:12:49 AM
  Comment:
  This is a great column and I couldn't agree more. Their SILENCE will make them forever SUSPECT to me. Period.
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  Posted By:
  NYPam at 03/25/2008 12:38:27 AM
  Comment:
  Amen. All of these "leaders" should be held accountable. Their silence is deafening.
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  Posted By:
  bradentonfla at 03/24/2008 9:09:00 PM
  Comment:
  Both Former President Bill Clinton, and Senator Hillary Clinton are getting a pass on race-baiting. if this were a Republican, we would all be up in arms about it. When we growing hearing our parents telling us to look to both sides of the street before crossing the road. In political context, we are going to have to look at both Democrats and Republicans from here on out. Racism can not be seen as just a GOP problem.
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  Posted By:
  bradentonfla at 03/24/2008 9:02:53 PM
  Comment:
  Yes, she is getting a pass. If this was a Republican, we would be outraged! "But because it is the Clinton, its Ok".
  
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  Posted By:
  beat.tk at 03/24/2008 8:50:22 PM
  Comment:
  Completely agree with this article, and appreciate JKM's comment.
  My sense has been that civil rights leaders think there will be a better time and place to raise their voices.
  But when, exactly?
  NOW is when people are listening.
  and waiting.
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  Posted By:
  beat.tk at 03/24/2008 8:47:09 PM
  Comment:
  Agreed--my feeling has been that maybe civil rights leaders think there will be a better time and place to raise their voices.
  But when and where, exactly?
  NOW is when people are listening.
  and waiting.
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  Posted By:
  Independent Brother at 03/24/2008 6:24:48 PM
  Comment:
  Call 'em out!
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  Posted By:
  JKM at 03/24/2008 5:29:01 PM
  Comment:
  Well said! No wonder, Harriet Tubman said, ???I could have freed so many more if they only realized they were slaves!??? African Americans and other looked in amazement as John Lewis (D-GA), primetime T.V., stated that it was more difficult for him to change his delegate support to Barack Obama then his participation in the historic March on Washington. Disheartening, however, I credit him for following the courage of his convection (Atlanta voters). Unfortunately, the same can???t be said for other civil rights luminaries, we owe a debt of gratitude.
  
  Perplexing, civil rights activist that stood up to dogs, fire hoses, firebombs and lynching are silent at this juncture. Reverend Wright didn???t invent racism, ???***,??? Jim Crow or the two America???s we live in. He only responded to it. Dr. Bobo, can this be explained from a sociological perspective? The current presidential race isn???t about Rev. Wright???s inopportune or inappropriate choice of words. It???s about a new America and correcting the historical and proliferating existence of racism and inequality. Will mainstream prophesize the rhetoric of Pat Roberson, Dr. James Dobson or Rev. John Hagee? Yes, President Clinton was a friend of Rev. Wright and welcomed him to the White House. In light of their co-presidency, is their denouncement forthcoming?
  Although it???s preferred that we keep it a secret, for once, a mainstream Presidential candidate has given serious dialogue and credibility to why black men, people of color are angry. Thank you. Like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Fredrick Douglas, black anger has been channeled into making a better America. If America lived up to its Constitution, Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. DuBois, Jessie Jackson and Colon Powell, in current times, would have been president. What audacity, Geraldine Ferraro. ???Obama wouldn???t be where he is if he wasn???t black,??? further credence to black anger and the relentless marginalization, undervaluing of Afro Americans, particularly Afro American men, their intellect and contributions to America.
  
  Yes, we are a loyal people. We recognize and appreciate the Clinton legacy. Yet, this does not entitle Hillary Clinton to the White house. Great presidency, however, of significance, Clinton inherited the White House after eight-years of Ronald Regan and four-years of George Bush, Sr. Any democrat would have been a step in the right direction. So why polarize the Democratic Party with race batting for self-gratification, apparent to Washington outsiders and insiders. Gore 2000 was the worthy cause, not this.
  If nothing else, be forthright and denounce such tactics. We denounced Chief Justice Thomas, so why not the Clintons.
  
  If nothing else were reminded, civil rights leaders on the fence, ???the hottest place in hell is reserved for those who take a position of neutrality (Martin Luther King, Jr.).??? Be forthright, speak out against race bating tactics and then support
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  Posted By:
  mace at 03/24/2008 1:41:31 PM
  Comment:
  Grow up ! We have enough to complain about without inventing imaginary insults !
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  Posted By:
  iyamchazz@yahoo.com at 03/24/2008 9:13:35 AM
  Comment:
  The Clintons are indeed getting a free pass by civil rights leaders. What fear do they have of the Clintons which makes their silence deafening? These so-called leaders should take a page out of Bill Richardson's book. An historic loyalty to someone, should not cloud ones senses from making the right call, and the right call is telling the Clinton camp to shut it.