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Obama and Derrick Bell; Is this a big deal?
Topic Started: Mar 9 2012, 11:40 AM (1,201 Views)
duke09parent

I found some of your posts under the Breitbart thread and thought this topic deserved its own.

THIS is the big film scandal? What a yawn. It looks like Bell bear-hugged Obama, so I guess we're blaming Obama both for the introduction and for failing to stiff-arm the prof.


I didn't admire Bell. I had a dimmer view of his bullying tactics, using his celebrity to try to get his way on faculty appointments at Harvard, than I did of his "critical race theory" writings. Most of that I'm thoroughly unfamiliar with anyway. Wiki says this about CRT:

"Scholars like Derrick Bell applauded the focus of civil rights scholarship on race, but were deeply critical of civil rights scholars' commitment to colorblindness and their focus on intentional discrimination, rather than a broader focus on the conditions of racial inequality."

That's a yawner, too. Wrong in my view, but hardly rabble rousing.
In nosing around today about Bell I found an essay from a former student at HLS which said this:

"Nor was there anything radical about his views. Yes, he powerfully challenged the notion that all judges are neutral arbiters of objectively developed bodies of law, insisting instead that judges bring to bear on every case their backgrounds and life experiences. Yes, he was a tireless advocate for faculty diversity. But he wasn't advocating armed revolution, the overthrow of the United States government, or even the nullification of existing law. Then, as now, the concept that there should be representatives of diverse viewpoints based on differing life experiences is well worth fighting for."
(Here's the whole essay, but warning up front, the guy is a Bell admirer so Bell despisers should have their barf bags ready: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/03/who_is_derrick_bell.html )

I had my own experience with Bell when he was a visiting professor for a year or semester at my law school in the South (not Duke) sometime in '76 or '77. He was a "star", and being a tenured professor from Harvard of whatever color would have made him one. So I took his Constitutional Law lecture course. My recollection of it was as a completely conventional course in every way. My fellow students, most of whom were smarter and better students than I, and I were not very impressed with Bell’s abilities as a lecturer and teacher either. Many of us speculated on why he was spending so much time as a visiting professor away from Harvard. We wondered if he was shopping around for another university (ours was not the only one in those years), maybe one which would exalt him monetarily and otherwise more than Harvard did. Looking back now I can hardly blame the guy for being ambitious.

Since I found him boring, I skipped lectures and didn't work very hard in the course. I bombed the final, getting an equivalent of a D. I wrote to Bell, who by then had left campus, to ask him if he would look at my exam and let me know why I had done so badly. I told him I didn't think I had done well and I wasn't appealing the grade, I just wanted to get some feedback on what I had missed. He wrote back and gave me that feedback and not in a mean or arrogant way, which I thought was a decent thing to do. He was right, my exam response was dreadful.

So, Obama opponents are certainly within acceptable tactics to use this film and try to taint him by association with Bell or any other political undesirable, dead or living. But this seems like weak tea.
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duke09parent

For ease of reference here is the link to Hannity's show which includes the Obama/Bell clip. I copied this from Kerri P.'s post on the Brietbart thread.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1494661753001/exclusive-unedited-obama-race-video-unveiled
Exclusive: Unedited Obama race video unveiled
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Toast
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Ogletree's statement that (paraphrased) "We HID this in 2008, but now we don't care who has it" is more the point.

I understand campaigns not wanting certain items to be made public during a run for office. But it's supposed to be the job of the press to find those items. The campaign presents the candidate's image. The press is supposed to be our safety monitor and find out who the candidate really is. That's the Ideal.

Unfortunately, and this has been true for many many years - the press mostly goes along with the image. The press protected FDR, the press protected JFK.

Wait. The press did not protect Richard Nixon.

Is the difference only because of the political party affiliation?

Derrick Bell might not have been anything more than an opportunistic man trying to help other black lawyers and professors. But he might have been more than that, too. I'm still studying.

Based on comments I've read at a couple of other websites, there seems to be a "wiki war" going on with the edits on the Critical Race Theory page.

If Bell is not a problem, why does it matter?
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Payback
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Toast
Mar 9 2012, 12:49 PM
Ogletree's statement that (paraphrased) "We HID this in 2008, but now we don't care who has it" is more the point.

I understand campaigns not wanting certain items to be made public during a run for office. But it's supposed to be the job of the press to find those items. The campaign presents the candidate's image. The press is supposed to be our safety monitor and find out who the candidate really is. That's the Ideal.

Unfortunately, and this has been true for many many years - the press mostly goes along with the image. The press protected FDR, the press protected JFK.

Wait. The press did not protect Richard Nixon.

Is the difference only because of the political party affiliation?

Derrick Bell might not have been anything more than an opportunistic man trying to help other black lawyers and professors. But he might have been more than that, too. I'm still studying.

Based on comments I've read at a couple of other websites, there seems to be a "wiki war" going on with the edits on the Critical Race Theory page.

If Bell is not a problem, why does it matter?
Much Ado about Nothing? That guy was a charmer back then! That kind of self-possession is hard to come by.

Where is FOX's sense of humor? Ogletree is being very sweet and funny, it seems to me.

This is not a Jeremiah Wright moment. If I am smiling at the end, it's NOT a Jeremiah Wright moment!
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Baldo
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Of course it doesn't make a difference now, but in 2008 it could have. Obama got a major pass from the MSM, in fact, the warnings about going after Obama were clear.

It was just another piece of the puzzle that was kept from the voters. Let's see what the other video tapes show first before we pass complete judgement.

As for the reality of this election Obama has a record to run on. The deficit was at an old-time high in February, the Job's recession continues, our trade gap is widening, and gas is at quite high levels.

For me there are numerous areas to go after Obama. Perhaps the greatest is the amount of borrowed money(much of it "created" with Uncle Ben's decimal maker) he has spent with little results. By the time his first Administration is over we will be 5 Trillion more debt & Trillions more in unfunded future liabilities. Unfortunately the future is not bright. His judgement as President not only has been poor, he has set us back a long way. His adoption of Super Duper Keynesian Budgets on Steroids has been a failure. His Green Economy is falling apart. Little he has done has worked. One would have thought with Trillions spent we would have been roaring out of the recession two years ago.

That he was a hidden radical was clear to me in 2008 with his 20 years of sitting in a Marxist Afro-centric Church in Chicago. We would have been far better off with HRC, who at least would have enough common sense not to bury this country under a mountain of new debt.

Edited by Baldo, Mar 9 2012, 01:29 PM.
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LTC8K6
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
Did someone here say this tape would be a big deal?

On the other hand, if these tapes aren't a big deal, why couldn't we see them long ago? Hiding them implies that there's something on them that you think is damaging.

Personally, I think Obama's voters just get reinforcement from this stuff. They love it. They love where he's leading the country. They are only sorry he's not running full left yet.
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Joan Foster

I certainly had the impression..from Breitbart himself initially...that these tapes would be a "big deal." IMO what I've seen so far was profoundly disappointing. I am voting for ANYBODY vs. Obama...but I find this sort of thing counter-productive and frankly demoralizing. It makes us look silly.

Nothing wrong with getting the stuff out there...but ENOUGH with the dramatic prologues.
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genny6348
Genny6348
I'm still hoping for more. Breitbart's MO was to drip, drip, drip. Starting with a little teaser that was mostly 'much ado' and them moving on to the good stuff . . . giving the media, at each turn, time to engage in their inevitable dismissal, defense, and drama.
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Mason
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Respectfully, I say it's that double standard again.

If Sarah Palin had done the glowing intro for someone with similar race beliefs turned around - it would be curtains. The narrative would be she supported the Grand Dragon and all his teachings - and the average person would say, at a minimum, it shows poor judgment.

Take Louis Farrakhan - there are pictures with fawning crowds lining up from here to Wyoming to celebrate and fete him, but there's always a line of media-influenced people that say he is inconsequential and unimportant. He has mosques, a huge fortune and many people that worship him and have devoted their lives to him. He also has his own paper, which they are only allowed to disseminate to non-whites.

If Louis Farrakhan was white - there would be a huge movement to disable and disempower him - and every one of us would be chanting how dangerous he is. Since he's black, who says he's Dangerous now?

.
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foxglove

genny6348
Mar 9 2012, 05:50 PM
I'm still hoping for more. Breitbart's MO was to drip, drip, drip. Starting with a little teaser that was mostly 'much ado' and them moving on to the good stuff . . . giving the media, at each turn, time to engage in their inevitable dismissal, defense, and drama.
Breitbart said at CPAC videos-- plural. He also mentioned silver pony tails. Apparently, if his words are to be taken literally there are some videos of radicals with silver pony tails.
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kbp

The point of this, besides the tapes having been hidden, is the mind set Barry admits he follows.

Who would have wanted Derrick Bell;s mind running our country ..or one who admits Bell is his mentor?

JMOO
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wingedwheel
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Mason
Mar 9 2012, 06:23 PM
.
Respectfully, I say it's that double standard again.

If Sarah Palin had done the glowing intro for someone with similar race beliefs turned around - it would be curtains. The narrative would be she supported the Grand Dragon and all his teachings - and the average person would say, at a minimum, it shows poor judgment.

Take Louis Farrakhan - there are pictures with fawning crowds lining up from here to Wyoming to celebrate and fete him, but there's always a line of media-influenced people that say he is inconsequential and unimportant. He has mosques, a huge fortune and many people that worship him and have devoted their lives to him. He also has his own paper, which they are only allowed to disseminate to non-whites.

If Louis Farrakhan was white - there would be a huge movement to disable and disempower him - and every one of us would be chanting how dangerous he is. Since he's black, who says he's Dangerous now?

.
Speaking of Farrakhan.....

Bell: Farrakhan 'Great Hero For The People'
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Mason
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wingedwheel
Mar 9 2012, 08:59 PM
Mason
Mar 9 2012, 06:23 PM
.
Respectfully, I say it's that double standard again.

If Sarah Palin had done the glowing intro for someone with similar race beliefs turned around - it would be curtains. The narrative would be she supported the Grand Dragon and all his teachings - and the average person would say, at a minimum, it shows poor judgment.

Take Louis Farrakhan - there are pictures with fawning crowds lining up from here to Wyoming to celebrate and fete him, but there's always a line of media-influenced people that say he is inconsequential and unimportant. He has mosques, a huge fortune and many people that worship him and have devoted their lives to him. He also has his own paper, which they are only allowed to disseminate to non-whites.

If Louis Farrakhan was white - there would be a huge movement to disable and disempower him - and every one of us would be chanting how dangerous he is. Since he's black, who says he's Dangerous now?

.
Speaking of Farrakhan.....

Bell: Farrakhan 'Great Hero For The People'
.
Imagine if the KKK was more than 29 losers from some God-forsaken corner of a remote county.

Farrakhan has an empire - and he's built it by painting those White, blue-eyed Devils as hiding behind every bush and good sized rock.


.
Edited by Mason, Mar 9 2012, 10:19 PM.
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mike in houston
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From KC Johnson's

The Troubling Video of Obama at Harvard Law

http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2012/03/the_troubling_video_of_obama_at_harvard_law.html#more

Quote:
 
And what exactly was the scholarship that earned Obama's gushing praise? Bell was a pioneer of critical race theory, the idea that the American legal system is so embedded with racism that a neutral application of the law is impossible. Here's how Judge Richard Posner described the concept: "What is most arresting about critical race theory is that . . . it turns its back on the Western tradition of rational inquiry, forswearing analysis for narrative. Rather than marshal logical arguments and empirical data, critical race theorists tell stories--fictional, science-fictional, quasi-fictional, autobiographical, anecdotal--designed to expose the pervasive and debilitating racism of America today. By repudiating reasoned argumentation, the storytellers reinforce stereotypes about the intellectual capacities of nonwhites."

Bell's having advanced that line of argument--which has gained almost no support in the federal judiciary--is what Obama compared to the work of Rosa Parks in advancing civil rights.
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Mason
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This is important, Bell said his Goal in life was to harass white people.

Now, what would you think of someone that's stated goal in life was to Harass Black people? Or Harass Gay People?

None of us would have anything to do with anyone like that - but Barack cozied on up to him and Jeremiah Wright, and Ayers, and Michelle Obama.

There was a black guest on Hannity and he said what you see is the creep of acceptable black racism.


.
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