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Is it a racist diss to constantly mispronounce Barack Obama's name?

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wndycty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 02:53 PM
Original message
Is it a racist diss to constantly mispronounce Barack Obama's name?
I'm listening to Illinois state senator Kirk Dillard, who claims to be a friend of Obama's on WLS-AM constantly mispronounce his name a Be-rack. Keyes does not take the time to pronounce it correctly either...it is really beginning to piss me off.
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w13rd0 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 02:54 PM
Response to Original message
1. What the hell is so difficult to pronounce?
Yeah, I'd consider it a diss. Or maybe I should say AeLan Kaeyees.
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noahmijo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 02:57 PM
Response to Original message
2. Racist..naw don't think so Insulting? yea probably
Edited on Tue Aug-10-04 02:59 PM by noahmijo
I don't think the name Barack would be limited to just African-Americans. Probably more likely but not exclusively. The guy's just being ignorant.

I mean when someone mis-pronounces "Rodriguez" more than once even after being corrected I don't consider them racist.
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wndycty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:00 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. I dunno. . .I feel it is racist. . .
. . .especially with that Chicago blue collar accent, do any of you's Chicagoans know what I am talking about?
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noahmijo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:04 PM
Response to Reply #5
10. I gotta agree with the person who says he's saying it like that
to sort of paint Obama as a foreigner.

Playing on the xenophobe card not the race one.
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SemperEadem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:19 PM
Response to Reply #10
14. Obama is not a foreigner
his father was nationalized and his mother is American. He's as American as any one of us born here.

I do believe it's racist marginalization to purposely mispronounce a name when you know the correct pronounciation of it but choose not to employ it. When you do it, you attempt to diminish the esteem of the person about whom you're speaking. There is no other excuse for purposely doing it.
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noahmijo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:47 PM
Response to Reply #14
17. I know he's not a foreigner but you see
Keyes is trying to paint him as a foreigner in a sly way to appease the xenophobe types.
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Hoping4Change Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 02:59 PM
Response to Original message
3. Well given that Keyes is black I doubt one could say its
racist, however it is I think a deliberate attempt to diss Obama and to imply he is foreign and not truly 100% American. Its playing to American xenophobia.
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madrchsod Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:01 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. keyes statement about pba
and obama`s vote sounds pretty dam racist to me...
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wndycty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:03 PM
Response to Reply #6
9. PBA?
Do tell.
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wndycty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:02 PM
Response to Reply #3
8. You ever heard of self-hate
Blacks can be very racist towards their own and this is not limited only to African Americans. There is a lot of self hate in this world.
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SemperEadem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:20 PM
Response to Reply #3
15. No, that's where you're wrong
just because both are black doesn't mean that Keyes isn't a racist against other blacks.
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madrchsod Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 02:59 PM
Response to Original message
4. well that is better than
the chicago news guy that called him osama..keyes is a joke and everyone knows it but he will appeal to the cracker crowd-he will be lucky to get 20% of the votes cast in the senate race
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NewJeffCT Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:01 PM
Response to Original message
7. If it is consistently pronounced the same way
I think you can make the excuse that they are just not correct, or were informed of the pronunciation wrong. Maybe Dillard is a friend and future Senator Obama is just too polite to correct him?

My wife's first & last name are almost never pronounced correctly, but she is just too polite to correct them, usually just telling them that "Joon" is fine for her name of "Jun" when it is really nowhere close.
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Sparkle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:05 PM
Response to Original message
11. Not racist. Just stupid.
And that's Alan Keyes for ya.
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theshadow Donating Member (618 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:13 PM
Response to Original message
12. Oh, isn't that cute. Kirk wants to be just like Poppy.
Reminds me of when George Sr. would deliberately mispronounce Saddam Hussein's name.
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swag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:14 PM
Response to Original message
13. It's an old high-handed technique
It's only for impotent shits, darling.

Only a reflection of the mispronouncer's shallowness and stupidity.
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Pathwalker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 03:25 PM
Response to Original message
16. It is a ploy the Repukes have used for YEARS.
Novak does it ALL the time, so does Falwell and Pat Buchanan. It is their way of saying: Your name sounds foreign, and since I hate all foreigners, I'm showing my disgust for you by purposely mis-pronouncing your name.
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wndycty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-10-04 06:58 PM
Response to Reply #16
18. Kick
:kick:
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