A Snapshot into Obama's Reality

Reblog from Meme, Myself, & I
http://essdogg.tumblr.com

essdogg:
Before He Was President, Mistaken for a Waiter: a 2003 Obama Meeting
I had a man over today installing our new cable line. When he finally got everything working and turned on the TV, it was on a news channel and the Cambridge PD press conference was on. The cable guy, who was black, said "You know, they need to leave that man alone. Look at the facts. Yeah, maybe he overreacted and there was some profiling there, but he's a cop, he gets a call, it's dark, it's a rich neighborhood, he's got to check it out. What's he gonna do, ignore it? Leave the man alone and let 'em take care of it in private."
I don't care to comment on whether I expected that reply because I'll sound stupid no matter what I say. But from what little I've read about the case and the officer and Gates, my cable guy was probably right. Overreactions all around. But why doesn't anyone talk about whoever it was that called the police? Because the upper-class isn't racist, right?
Anyway, it made me think of this article, which I read after Obama was elected.
Standing by myself I noticed, on the periphery of the party, a man looking as awkward and out-of-place as I felt. I approached him and introduced myself. He was an Illinois state senator who was running for the U.S. Senate. He was African American, one of a few black people in attendance.
We spoke at length about his campaign. He was charismatic in a quiet, solemn way. I told him I wanted to pitch a profile of him to a national magazine. (The magazine later rejected my proposal.)...
...But what I will always remember is as I was leaving that party in 2003, I was approached by another guest, an established author. He asked about the man I had been talking to. Sheepishly he told me he didn’t know that Obama was a guest at the party, and had asked him to fetch him a drink. In less than six years, Obama has gone from being mistaken for a waiter among the New York media elite, to the president-elect.
What a country.
Yes, what a country where even the white literary elite can be racist shitheads. Maybe Obama didn't "calibrate" his words properly. But let there be no question that he has experienced more casual racism in his life than we'll probably ever know. So maybe he deserves a pass.