Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Right Wing Slanders and Lies About President Obama



On a daily basis, one can read the far right Trumpistas and President Spanky himself slandering President Obama and his legacy. The most recent is the lie that President Obama never spoke to African-American students and never encouraged them to be the best they can be.

Below is an excerpt from a speech he gave at Morehouse College, proving that the Trumpistas are lying propagandists who know nothing except how to spread fabrications to sully a good and decent man's reputation for political gain. However, the record is out there and the truth will always prevail.


But facts don't dissuade wingnuts from spreading lies and disinformation. Here's just one sorry example:


So sad that Obama never worked with minority kids, never warned them of what happens when you do drugs, when you don’t do well in school, when you create a whole new generation without fathers…………not once.



To set the record straight, here are the facts:





May 2013, President Obama addressed Morehouse College's graduating class, and said this: 

 "We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices. Growing up, I made a few myself. And I have to confess, sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. But one of the things you've learned over the last four years is that there's no longer any room for excuses. I understand that there's a common fraternity creed here at Morehouse: 

"Excuses are tools of the incompetent, used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness." 


We've got no time for excuses—not because the bitter legacies of slavery and segregation have vanished entirely; they haven't. Not because racism and discrimination no longer exist; that's still out there. It's just that in today's hyper-connected, hyper-competitive world, with a billion young people from China and India and Brazil entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything you haven't earned. And whatever hardships you may experience because of your race, they pale in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured—and overcame."




^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


The idea that a POTUS -- our first bi-racial POTUS -- should have "worked with minority kids" is ludicrous, since that is NOT the job of a sitting president.  Mr. Obama was the president of ALL Americans. On more than one occasion, he spoke to young Americans -- all Americans -- and encouraged them to be good, caring, productive citizens.

Here he speaks to British youth and American exchange students in London:

"Barack Obama has urged young people to reject pessimism and interact with those who have different beliefs if they want to make changes in the world. On the final day of his last visit to Britain as US president, Obama told 500 youth leaders at a town hall meeting in London: “I’m here to ask you to reject the notion there are forces we can’t control. As JFK said, our problems are manmade and can be solved by man.”  

'You’ve never had better tools to make a difference,' he told the A-level and UK-US exchange students at the Q&A session. 'Reject pessimism, cynicism and know that progress is possible. Progress is not inevitable, it requires struggle, discipline and faith.' ”


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The preposterous idea that Mr. Obama should have undertaken the task of "working with minority kids" goes right to the heart of white America's paternalistic idea of how the Black community should behave -- as though a bi-racial president somehow must take on the responsibility of correcting all problems in the African-American community because he himself is part African-American. 

Do those same concern trolls expect Trump to solve the opioid crisis by personally working with the white community that is the majority of opioid users? Of course not. They don't think that way with respect to problems with young white kids, or anyone in the white community.  

The Trumpista quoted above believes it is a bi-racial president's job to "work with minority kids." All minority kids? Or just African-American kids? The Trumpista doesn't explain. But that's expecting too much introspection from a someone who has been fed slogans and meaningless promises from the current disaster living in the White House.

For another example, here's Mrs. Obama talking to Bowie State graduating class in 2013:



"But today, more than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, more than 50 years after the end of "separate but equal," when it comes to getting an education, too many of our young people just can't be bothered. Today, instead of walking miles every day to school, they're sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV. Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they're fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper." 

[skip]

"If the school in your neighborhood isn't any good, don't just accept it. Get in there, fix it. Talk to the parents. Talk to the teachers. Get business and community leaders involved as well, because we all have a stake in building schools worthy of our children's promise. ... 

And as my husband has said often, please stand up and reject the slander that says a black child with a book is trying to act white. Reject that."


And here's Peniel E. Joseph, professor of history at the University of Texas, Austin, speaking about President Obama's presidency and impact on the African-American community:

"The Obamas will be missed by millions – but no one will miss them more than black Americans. 

Black America’s conception of ourselves was forever changed by Barack Obama’s presidency. For African Americans, the first family helped to unlock the transformational potential that always existed in democracy’s beating heart, but which too often excluded black Americans. 

Today, that is no longer the case. Barack and Michelle Obama changed how black folks thought of themselves and the wider nation they lived in. Obama’s attainment of the nation’s highest office illuminated the depth and breadth of black genius in American society, helping to inspire millions of young people to dream bigger dreams. 

 For black America, the euphoria of election day in 2008 did not elicit post-racial fantasies articulated by the mainstream press. Instead, the presence of the Obamas on the world stage confirmed deep-seated truths about black excellence, love and humanity that we’ve always taken for granted despite white denial of these very truths. Barack and Michelle Obama, along with their intelligent and energetic daughters, Sasha and Malia, set a new standard for American society, normalizing the once unthinkable prospect of having a black president and first family in the White House. 

Together, they broke powerful barriers installed by the nation’s brutal history of slavery, Jim Crow and institutional racism."



I'm sick of the daily efforts on the right and by the  Liar-in-Chief to diminish and obliterate President Obama's legacy. It won't work, of course, because they are a dishonest minority, and their lies and slanders will not prevail. 

To their every lie and slander, we will counter with the truth.

9 comments:

Craig said...

Here's another one. Prepared remarks of President Barack Obama's Back-to-School speech to be delivered on Tuesday, September 8, 2009.

Excerpts: And that's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself...And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it...But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home – that's no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying.
He did exactly what the very pious Ms. Z said he didn't do and how did the Cons react?

Many conservatives enraged over Obama school speech.
"As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology," Greer said.
"The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans ... is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power." Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a possible contender for the GOP's 2012 presidential nomination, said Friday the classroom is no place to show a video address from Obama


What's sad is, you could show all these examples to Ms. Z and her proudly ignorant followers and they will still believe what they believe.

Shaw Kenawe said...


Craig,

They are willfully ignorant people (as your examples prove) who thrive on their hatred for Barack Obama, a man who is a thousand times a better human being than the cowardly con man they support. It is their tragedy, not ours, that they support and admire a man of no character or human decency.

They are to be pitied.

Nokka Lushin said...


Those wingnuts wouldn't know truth if it sat on their faces.

Dave Miller said...

Shaw... so that’s how your traveling these days... the SS Mothership...

Showing every night in the Kellyanne Ballroom... a wild and wooly revue titled “Alternative Facts... they may be false, but they’re ours!”

Shaw Kenawe said...

Dave, From time to time, I check in on those far right blogs to read what the gobshites are saying, and they don't disappoint with their uninformed "alternative facts." All one had to do is Google to see if what the Mother Ship claimed about Mr. Obama was true. It wasn't, and none of the passengers on the Ship of Fools took the time to do the research. My post shows that President Obama most certainly encouraged young people to be the best they could be and not to fall back on excuses for not doing so.

The Mother Ship's premise that the POTUS should have worked with minority kids is laughable and hypocritially naive. Can you imagine their reactions had Mr. Obama actually spent great swaths of time doing so? They'd have flipped their tiny little lids had he spent any time doing so, and they would have called him on being racist because he was helping only one-half of his bi-racial constituency. -- the black one.

I'll check in again in a week or so to see what b.s. they're spreading around to their readers. LOL!

Nokka Lushin Very funny.



Ducky's here said...

Interesting that the Queen Bee mentioned drug use so soon after Lord Dampnut claimed great progress agains opioid addiction.

He claimed fantastic progress with overdoses way down. That's a barefaced lie.
He claimed it is due to increased appropriations but there was no increase in this year's budget. Another lie.

He stopped short of actually blaming Obama which is refreshing.

Kevin Robbins said...

Shaw, thanks for all those examples. It's so tiring facing people that have no respect for truth.

Dave Miller said...

Kevin and Duck... truth? What's that? Today we're being treated to a screed from a dead man. Now at least the man credited with the story actually did exist, but of course, the story is from a Tea Partier over a year ago.

Now, we could point that out, but why bother? Most of us have done that in the past, pointing out numerous lies, falsehoods and other inconsistencies that are easily verifiable with The Google, but the answer is always the same...

"It doesn't matter! What is said is still true.

With logic like that, how can you even have a conversation? It's Alice in Wonderlandesque.

skudrunner said...

You can deny all you want but it was democrats that created jim crowe. Obama the great did shepherd a very high black unemployment rate, made it very difficult for small businesses to get a loan, gave millions to a sworn enemy as ransom and excused an AG for supplying guns that were used to kill a border guard.On the positive side he did foster great opportunities for minority youth. They could choose welfare as a career choice and many did take his advise.