The president and the first lady added their voices this week to
the raging conversation on race following the protests that
erupted in the wake of grand juries not indicting police
officers who killed two unarmed black men � Michael Brown and
Eric Garner.

In an interview with People magazine, Mrs. Obama recalled a trip
to Target during which �the only person who came up to me in the
store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a
shelf. Because she didn�t see me as the first lady, she saw me
as someone who could help her. Those kinds of things happen in
life. So it isn�t anything new.�

Could the Target shopper who asked Mrs. Obama for help simply
not have recognized her and needed, presumably, a taller
person�s assistance? Sure, in theory. Or could the encounter
have been disdainful and presumptuous, a manifestation of some
inherent bias? Sure, that too could have been the case.

Could there have been some combination of those forces at play?
Also possible.

The truth is, we don�t know. The lady asking for help might not
even know. We are not always aware of our biases, let alone are
we always able to articulate them. And people can sometimes be
hypersensitive to bias when they are submerged in it.

All we know is that Mrs. Obama questions the encounter and has
misgivings about it. For her, it�s a feeling. Others might hear
this story and feel that Mrs. Obama possibly overreacted or
misconstrued the meaning of the request.

But that is, in part, what racial discussions come down to:
feelings. These feelings are, of course, informed by facts,
experiences, conditioning and culture, but the feelings are what
linger, questions of motive and malice hanging in the air like
the stench of rotting meat, knotting the stomach and chilling
the skin.

As Maya Angelou once put it: �I�ve learned that people will
forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but
people will never forget how you made them feel.�

There are facts, to be sure, reams and reams of social science
that confirm the persistence of racial bias in all areas of
society. The cover of the January/February 2015 issue of Mother
Jones magazine stamps in white letters on a black cover: �Are
You Racist? Science has the Answer.� Barely visible, printed in
large glossy black letters on the matte black paper is an
enormous, all-caps �YES.�

The cover story includes data from the Race Implicit Association
Test on the Project Implicit Demonstration website. (Project
Implicit was founded by scientists at the University of
Washington, Harvard University and the University of Virginia.)
The data showed that whites and East Asians had the strongest
pro-white/anti-black biases. These biases were also strongest
among those 65 and older, although those 18 to 24 ranked second
among the age groups (this strand of bias among college aged
people deserves its own study). And politically, these biases
were greatest among the moderately conservative and weakest
among the strongly liberal. But we can talk about data on white-
black bias until we are blue in the face. At some point, it
simply comes down to what people believe, and yes, how they feel.

It is into this morass of feeling that we must step when
discussing race. That is why interpersonal race discussions can
feel so strange, messy and uncomfortable � we must confront the
amorphousness and the mythologies. We must value the questions
even when we cannot answer them. We must allow ourselves to
empathize with other people�s feelings.

And we have to allow people � including the First Couple � to
talk about their experiences, and then try to put those
experiences into a broader context.

Mrs. Obama also said her husband �had his share of troubles
catching cabs� when living in Chicago, and the president, for
his part, said: �There�s no black male my age, who�s a
professional, who hasn�t come out of a restaurant and is waiting
for their car and somebody didn�t hand them their car keys.� He
indicated this had happened to him.

Mrs. Obama added another incident: �He was wearing a tuxedo at a
black-tie dinner, and somebody asked him to get coffee.�

But the president wisely differentiated these slights of
privilege � these upper crust indignities that might sound
foreign and frivolous to people who don�t regularly dine at
restaurants with valet service or attend black-tie dinners �
from slights that are more common and consequential:

�It�s one thing for me to be mistaken for a waiter at a gala.
It�s another thing for my son to be mistaken for a robber and to
be handcuffed, or worse, if he happens to be walking down the
street and is dressed the way teenagers dress.�

This gets at another subtlety of race discussions: graduations
of severity. There is a difference between the rarefied racial
slight and the raw racial assault, but the idea, the
intellectual, rational and moral deficits from which they
spring, are the same. And the feeling is the same, whether you
are donning a black tie or a black hoodie.

And now that we are having these conversations, some people are
getting worried. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released
this week found that �just 40 percent of Americans believe race
relations in the U.S. are good � the lowest share registered by
the poll since 1995.�

Some might see that as depressing, but I look at it
optimistically. I see the result of vociferous truth-telling and
justice-calling, in the face of which fairy tale obliviousness
is reduced to ashes. We are being confronted and afflicted by
the realities that though racial progress has been made on many
measures, that progress isn�t permanent or perfect. Race remains
a frame for inequality in this country.

And we can no longer dismiss racial discussions as victimhood
affinity. Decrying systemic victimization is not synonymous with
embracing the identity of the eternally victimized. On the
contrary, identifying, condemning and relentlessly fighting
oppression is part of the path to liberation.

How does all this make you feel? A little uncomfortable? Good!
�

Sorry, Obama himself mostly ruined the "race card",
and Winnie just torched the rest of it and spit the
ashes in their faces.

It you want racism - talk to Omar, AOC, the horrible
anti-semites, and those who claim 'blacks' are so
inferior that they need super-special privs and
need to run-down all other 'races'.

1p166 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:5aadnZXElf-ekBv8nZ2dnUU7-
f3NnZ2d@earthlink.com:

> Sorry, Obama himself mostly ruined the "race card",
> and Winnie just torched the rest of it and spit the
> ashes in their faces.
>
> It you want racism - talk to Omar, AOC, the horrible
> anti-semites, and those who claim 'blacks' are so
> inferior that they need super-special privs and
> need to run-down all other 'races'.
>
>

"My party is full of racists, and the real reason
a considerable portion of my party wants President
Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with
the content of his character, nothing to do with his
competence as commander-in-chief and president, and
everything to do with the color of his skin, and
that's despicable."

Colin Powell, Republican, Oct 27, 2012

On 11/6/21 1:18 AM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
> 1p166 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:5aadnZXElf-ekBv8nZ2dnUU7-
> f3NnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>
>> Sorry, Obama himself mostly ruined the "race card",
>> and Winnie just torched the rest of it and spit the
>> ashes in their faces.
>>
>> It you want racism - talk to Omar, AOC, the horrible
>> anti-semites, and those who claim 'blacks' are so
>> inferior that they need super-special privs and
>> need to run-down all other 'races'.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
> "My party is full of racists, and the real reason
> a considerable portion of my party wants President
> Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with
> the content of his character, nothing to do with his
> competence as commander-in-chief and president, and
> everything to do with the color of his skin, and
> that's despicable."
>
> Colin Powell, Republican, Oct 27, 2012

He forgot to check the OTHER party for "racists" ...

And very few Republicans were interested in Obama's
"race" - but his crap POLITICS and POLITICS instead.
Those continued right up until the end, with those
giant bales of CASH being unloaded in IRAN.

166p1 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:-fmdnRhgJYs6Oxv8nZ2dnUU7-
XHNnZ2d@earthlink.com:

> On 11/6/21 1:18 AM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
>> 1p166 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:5aadnZXElf-ekBv8nZ2dnUU7-
>> f3NnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>>
>>> Sorry, Obama himself mostly ruined the "race card",
>>> and Winnie just torched the rest of it and spit the
>>> ashes in their faces.
>>>
>>> It you want racism - talk to Omar, AOC, the horrible
>>> anti-semites, and those who claim 'blacks' are so
>>> inferior that they need super-special privs and
>>> need to run-down all other 'races'.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> "My party is full of racists, and the real reason
>> a considerable portion of my party wants President
>> Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with
>> the content of his character, nothing to do with his
>> competence as commander-in-chief and president, and
>> everything to do with the color of his skin, and
>> that's despicable."
>>
>> Colin Powell, Republican, Oct 27, 2012
>
>
> He forgot to check the OTHER party for "racists" ...
>
> And very few Republicans were interested in Obama's
> "race" - but his crap POLITICS and POLITICS instead.
> Those continued right up until the end, with those
> giant bales of CASH being unloaded in IRAN.

WTF are you talking about?

On 11/6/21 2:12 PM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
> 166p1 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:-fmdnRhgJYs6Oxv8nZ2dnUU7-
> XHNnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>
>> On 11/6/21 1:18 AM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
>>> 1p166 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:5aadnZXElf-ekBv8nZ2dnUU7-
>>> f3NnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>>>
>>>> Sorry, Obama himself mostly ruined the "race card",
>>>> and Winnie just torched the rest of it and spit the
>>>> ashes in their faces.
>>>>
>>>> It you want racism - talk to Omar, AOC, the horrible
>>>> anti-semites, and those who claim 'blacks' are so
>>>> inferior that they need super-special privs and
>>>> need to run-down all other 'races'.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "My party is full of racists, and the real reason
>>> a considerable portion of my party wants President
>>> Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with
>>> the content of his character, nothing to do with his
>>> competence as commander-in-chief and president, and
>>> everything to do with the color of his skin, and
>>> that's despicable."
>>>
>>> Colin Powell, Republican, Oct 27, 2012
>>
>>
>> He forgot to check the OTHER party for "racists" ...
>>
>> And very few Republicans were interested in Obama's
>> "race" - but his crap POLITICS and POLITICS instead.
>> Those continued right up until the end, with those
>> giant bales of CASH being unloaded in IRAN.
>
>
> WTF are you talking about?

What, MSNBC didn't show any pictures of those
big PALLETS full of CASH being sent to Iran ???

166p1 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:dv-dnRTQu86bphr8nZ2dnUU7-
a2dnZ2d@earthlink.com:

> On 11/6/21 2:12 PM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
>> 166p1 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:-fmdnRhgJYs6Oxv8nZ2dnUU7-
>> XHNnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>>
>>> On 11/6/21 1:18 AM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
>>>> 1p166 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:5aadnZXElf-ekBv8nZ2dnUU7-
>>>> f3NnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>>>>
>>>>> Sorry, Obama himself mostly ruined the "race card",
>>>>> and Winnie just torched the rest of it and spit the
>>>>> ashes in their faces.
>>>>>
>>>>> It you want racism - talk to Omar, AOC, the horrible
>>>>> anti-semites, and those who claim 'blacks' are so
>>>>> inferior that they need super-special privs and
>>>>> need to run-down all other 'races'.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "My party is full of racists, and the real reason
>>>> a considerable portion of my party wants President
>>>> Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with
>>>> the content of his character, nothing to do with his
>>>> competence as commander-in-chief and president, and
>>>> everything to do with the color of his skin, and
>>>> that's despicable."
>>>>
>>>> Colin Powell, Republican, Oct 27, 2012
>>>
>>>
>>> He forgot to check the OTHER party for "racists" ...
>>>
>>> And very few Republicans were interested in Obama's
>>> "race" - but his crap POLITICS and POLITICS instead.
>>> Those continued right up until the end, with those
>>> giant bales of CASH being unloaded in IRAN.
>>
>>
>> WTF are you talking about?
>
>
> What, MSNBC didn't show any pictures of those
> big PALLETS full of CASH being sent to Iran ???
>
>

What pallets? And why didn't
Fox News show these pictures?

On 11/6/21 10:38 PM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
> 166p1 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:dv-dnRTQu86bphr8nZ2dnUU7-
> a2dnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>
>> On 11/6/21 2:12 PM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
>>> 166p1 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:-fmdnRhgJYs6Oxv8nZ2dnUU7-
>>> XHNnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>>>
>>>> On 11/6/21 1:18 AM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
>>>>> 1p166 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:5aadnZXElf-ekBv8nZ2dnUU7-
>>>>> f3NnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Sorry, Obama himself mostly ruined the "race card",
>>>>>> and Winnie just torched the rest of it and spit the
>>>>>> ashes in their faces.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It you want racism - talk to Omar, AOC, the horrible
>>>>>> anti-semites, and those who claim 'blacks' are so
>>>>>> inferior that they need super-special privs and
>>>>>> need to run-down all other 'races'.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "My party is full of racists, and the real reason
>>>>> a considerable portion of my party wants President
>>>>> Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with
>>>>> the content of his character, nothing to do with his
>>>>> competence as commander-in-chief and president, and
>>>>> everything to do with the color of his skin, and
>>>>> that's despicable."
>>>>>
>>>>> Colin Powell, Republican, Oct 27, 2012
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> He forgot to check the OTHER party for "racists" ...
>>>>
>>>> And very few Republicans were interested in Obama's
>>>> "race" - but his crap POLITICS and POLITICS instead.
>>>> Those continued right up until the end, with those
>>>> giant bales of CASH being unloaded in IRAN.
>>>
>>>
>>> WTF are you talking about?
>>
>>
>> What, MSNBC didn't show any pictures of those
>> big PALLETS full of CASH being sent to Iran ???
>>
>>
>
> What pallets? And why didn't
> Fox News show these pictures?

Um ... DID .........

Are you in total denial mode now ?

Nevermind ....

166p1 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:JZCdnX5j7fhyyBr8nZ2dnUU7-
eGdnZ2d@earthlink.com:

> On 11/6/21 10:38 PM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
>> 166p1 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:dv-dnRTQu86bphr8nZ2dnUU7-
>> a2dnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>>
>>> On 11/6/21 2:12 PM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
>>>> 166p1 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:-fmdnRhgJYs6Oxv8nZ2dnUU7-
>>>> XHNnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>>>>
>>>>> On 11/6/21 1:18 AM, Mitchell Holman wrote:
>>>>>> 1p166 <z24ba6.net> wrote in news:5aadnZXElf-ekBv8nZ2dnUU7-
>>>>>> f3NnZ2d@earthlink.com:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Sorry, Obama himself mostly ruined the "race card",
>>>>>>> and Winnie just torched the rest of it and spit the
>>>>>>> ashes in their faces.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It you want racism - talk to Omar, AOC, the horrible
>>>>>>> anti-semites, and those who claim 'blacks' are so
>>>>>>> inferior that they need super-special privs and
>>>>>>> need to run-down all other 'races'.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "My party is full of racists, and the real reason
>>>>>> a considerable portion of my party wants President
>>>>>> Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with
>>>>>> the content of his character, nothing to do with his
>>>>>> competence as commander-in-chief and president, and
>>>>>> everything to do with the color of his skin, and
>>>>>> that's despicable."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Colin Powell, Republican, Oct 27, 2012
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> He forgot to check the OTHER party for "racists" ...
>>>>>
>>>>> And very few Republicans were interested in Obama's
>>>>> "race" - but his crap POLITICS and POLITICS instead.
>>>>> Those continued right up until the end, with those
>>>>> giant bales of CASH being unloaded in IRAN.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> WTF are you talking about?
>>>
>>>
>>> What, MSNBC didn't show any pictures of those
>>> big PALLETS full of CASH being sent to Iran ???
>>>
>>>
>>
>> What pallets? And why didn't
>> Fox News show these pictures?
>
>
> Um ... DID .........
>
> Are you in total denial mode now ?

Just show us the pictures you
are talking about.