The NAACP and some other flacks have been circulating the meme that John McCain has 'zero' relations with blacks in Arizona. Of course what that should be decrypted to mean is that John McCain has made no effort to court the special interests that claim to speak for 'blacks'.
It's a thin and silly argument, which is just another variety of the same kind of rhetorical nonsense we've seen before. "If Barack Obama doesn't show up at Tavis Smiley's State of Black America, he doesn't really care about black people. If Fred Thompson doesn't show up at the Morgan State debates, then he must be anti-black. Black people should boycott Fox News." Blah blah whine whine.
I just recently watched a 20 minute presentation of McCain's to Texas A&M from April 3, 2006, and I found it to be a very good introduction to the kind of person I think he is. I appreciate that he's a meticulous kind of speaker. The presentation can be gotten from iTunes U, but I haven't found it anywhere else which is unfortunate. I think it's the kind of example he sets. As well, his latest advert strikes just the right tone. McCain's campaign in general has been quite admirable over the past few months.
But I'm just about sick and tired of the presumed ability of anyone to pretend that they represent black America politically, and the NAACP is particularly galling in that regard considering its bizarre logic since the retirement of the one bright hope they had under the leadership of Bruce Gordon. Nobody represents black America. There is no fixed black America, it's always moving and nobody can draw a bead on it. Not me, not you and especially not the black businessmen of Arizona who nobody has even heard of or cared for before they were used in this complaint.
The black businessmen of Arizona are fine. If they voted for McCain as their senator, why should they complain. If they didn't, how can they stand to be living in Arizona - the land of their ancestors...
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