Blago is … “blacker than Barack Obama?”
Posted Monday January 11, 2010 at 1:52am in Oddball, President Obama
Yes, you read that title correctly. Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois who was put out of a job after scandal hit his office, believes he is more black than President Obama himself. I have always found the character that is Blagojevich is to be quite amusing, despite his criminal activity.The statement that Blago made was quite insensitive. I generally say that the world is too politically correct and too quick to become offended, but I believe people have a legitimate gripe over his statement. Deanna Bellandi of the Associated Press released a short article about the comments Blagojevich made in an interview with Esquire Magazine. Bellandi writes:
“‘I’m blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived,’ Blagojevich said. ‘I saw it all growing up.’”
I, as a white male, find this incredibly disturbing and racist towards the black community for multiple reasons. First, and foremost, Blagojevich is portraying blacks in a generalist fashion by saying that they all live in rather poor conditions. An individual who makes their living by shining shoes is one who would probably not make a decent living. The very same evidence goes to the apartment portion of the statement as well. A five room apartment is not a very luxurious place to reside in. Who is Blagojevich to insinuate that all blacks are poor? There are many successful black people all around the world. There are many individuals who make a lot of money that this statement would easily offend. Blagojevich’s comments can easily be rightfully labeled as racist.
Furthermore, one who is under the restrictions that poverty provides is probably also not well educated. Once again, of course, Blagojevich is wrong. Just to drop a few names as examples (although no examples are really needed) – Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael Steele, and Oprah are just a few who defy the racism expressed by Blagojevich both in their financial earnings and education. At first I could not fathom how Blagojevich could come to such a conclusion, or even why he would release it to the public. Its political public suicide, right? Not exactly.
Someone once said that there is no such thing as bad press. Blagojevich, who according to Bellandi, is going to appear on the next season of Celebrity Apprentice in March is testing the statement. Blagojevich is trying to get the public riled up, and those who have forgotten Blago to remember him. It is my opinion, that the result that Blagojevich is going for is higher ratings for the popular Trump program. Helping Trump is not the former Governor’s concern however, as it may be a move to try to come off as the nice guy on the show. If he can get enough viewers, be portrayed as a nice fellow that is also hardworking, it may be aid Blagojevich in persuading a jury for his acquittal. Its just a thought that crossed my mind, and it certainly does not make it correct.
This morning, I woke up. It was like any other Saturday morning. I got the best night of sleep for the entire week. There was little on my mind as I had gone to bed the night before. The weekend was to be filled with academical adventures in history. As I woke up, I went about my Saturday morning as every other. I got up, used the restroom, and went to the kitchen. My mind had not began function at its proper level yet. I was looking in the refrigerator for something good for breakfast. While I was still groggy, I reached for a pepper because they are good. My mind did not quite realize what it was commanding my body to do. A pepper is hardly a pre-breakfast snack. The pepper is not the variety that are not fairly hot. I was expecting to bite into the pepper and taste the satisfying juices of the pepper while I continued my search for something more fitting as a meal. This pepper, however, was not your normal run of the mill pepper. I bit into the pepper, and it sure woke me up! It was extraordinarily hot! My mouth was on fire for ten minutes. Within the first five seconds, I was immediately alert and ready to go for the day. I didn’t even need a meal for me to be on my way. All I had to do was put out the inferno that had become my tongue. Hell, I was even in a good mood when faced with a day of study and work for a change. I was able to conquer all my lessons and essays that I had planned for completion. It was all thanks to one rather absurd pepper. Lesson of the story: eat more hot peppers, if you need to wake up!
When I was young, I really liked conspiracy theories. I found them fascinating because of their sense of intrigue of finding the undeniable truth which was contrary to what was officially accepted. As I got older, and more mature, I found the same theories to be just that. They were just theories that had less evidence that one often comes to believe. Most of the evidence is either a bunch of lies that are made to look good by putting the traces of evidence in documents which most can not obtain, or they take the real evidence out of context. Now, at the age of 23, I have found that a lot of the people who truly believe in things such as “Loose Change,” the New World Order and George W. Bush, the New World Order and Barack Obama, FDR and Pearl Harbor, or even the belief that reptiles have taken the shape of human leaders, and are controlling the world, are what I like to call “the people of the interwebs.” Now I am not saying that being on the internet is bad. I personally love the internet and can not go a day without it. I am not saying that the people who visit forums, like many “interweb people do,” are bad either, it can be a great place to gain information. However, there is a small amount of these people who pretty much believe anything and everything they hear or see on the internet and believe it without questioning anything. An example of this can be seen with the “Loose Change” video. There was another video created that debunks most, if not all, the claims of “Loose Change” but when it comes to the counter video, people just say “but it isn’t true.”
