Obama advance: 'Get me more white people'

The Politico: April 08, 2008
Obama advance: 'Get me more white people'
Ben Smith

From the account in Carnegie Mellon's paper, the Tartan, of a Michelle Obama event in Pittsburgh:

"While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama.

The Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, 'Get me more white people, we need more white people.' To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, 'We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.'

'I didn’t know they would say, "We need a white person here," ' said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. 'I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn’t know it would be so outright.'"

I'm not sure there's any real reason for outrage here; every campaign, at least implicitly, includes race in the staging of events like this -- even a campaign whose supporters chant "race doesn't matter." But they don't usually get caught doing it this explicitly. And (if you didn't pick it up from the bowling) it does give you a sense of the community Obama's trying to reach in Pennsylvania: whitefolks.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Obama_advance_Get_me_more_white_people.html

If you notice, a lot of Republican events how African-Americans in prominent seats although there are not many African-Americans in the audience. It's normal.

just about...

proves it to me....

says it all...

shows the true obama...

what?...no, i never have supported obama...

this just about does it, proves it to me...

...that you have all of the ellipses, and there aren't any left over for
anyone else on DU?

:eyes:

...but this event coordinator was a nimrod for screaming, "Get me more white people!" like that.

Geez, this campaign has gone on for too long. People are tired and sleepwalking through life.

wow...if somebody handpicked black folk..it would be cryin' foul...all the way..but this...no..."everybody does it"...crappy

If you are getting bumped. Look this is a typical occurance, usually not so poorly effected.