Obama Calls Grandmother ‘Typical White Person’ in Radio Interview
Barack Obama called his grandmother a “typical white person” in a radio interview on Thursday, raising eyebrows among some of his critics only days after he sought to bridge racial division in a major campaign speech.
Obama had pointed to his mother’s mother in his speech Tuesday as an example of someone who harbored fears of blacks based on racial prejudice. The Illinois senator revisited his relationship with his grandmother on Thursday in an interview on 610 WIP, Philadelphia Sports Radio.
He denied his grandmother held hatred toward blacks, but described her as a “typical white person.”
“The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity — she doesn’t,” he said. “But she is a typical white person who, you know, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know, there is a reaction. That has been bred into our experiences that don’t go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way.”
On Tuesday, Obama described his grandmother as a woman who was at times fearful of black men.
In the speech, he said: “I can no more disown [Wright] than I can disown my white grandmother, a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”
The remarks weren’t the only ones focusing on race and the campaign on Thursday.
Geraldine Ferraro complained that Obama had lumped her in with his controversial pastor, whom she called a “racist bigot.”
Obama mentioned the 1984 vice presidential candidate on Tuesday in his speech on race and his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whose heated, anti-U.S. sermons raised questions about the company Obama keeps.
“To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable,” Ferraro told the Los Angeles newspaper, The Daily Breeze, on Wednesday. “He gave a very good speech on race relations, but he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing hatred.”
Ferraro, who left Hillary Clinton’s campaign finance team after saying Obama wouldn’t be where he is if he were white, said she had “no clue” why Obama included her in his speech. She said Obama’s relationship with Wright raises questions about his judgment.
“What this man is doing is he is spewing that stuff out to young people, and to younger people than Obama, and putting it in their heads that it’s OK to say ‘God damn America’ and it’s OK to beat up on white people,” she said. “You don’t preach that from the pulpit.”
The Wright controversy lit up shortly after Ferraro left her post on the Clinton finance committee following her initial interview with The Daily Breeze on Obama’s success.
In his speech, Obama drew a comparison between the two individuals.
“We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias,” he said.
Speaking in Philadelphia, Obama then argued that the issue of race cannot be ignored and that to over-simplify and focus only on the negative aspects of the matter would distort reality.
Overall, Ferraro said Obama’s speech was “excellent,” aside from the part where her name was mentioned.
Click here to read the article in The Daily Breeze.
You can’t expect much more from a “typical black person”.
OBAMA represents American of tommorrow, I wish people stop taking this man statements so far out of context.
How can anyone say that Obama is NOT a racist himself? A typical white person? IF a white person would have said, “Oh, he’s a typical black person…” there would have been MAJOR issues. We have so many racists in this world… and it’s not ONLY the white people. In fact, I would venture that the majority of racism comes from minorities. I am so sick and tired of white people having to watch what they say, watch their backs, because ANYTHING can be taken completely out of context or whatever and RACIST is screamed and they can LOSE THEIR JOBS!!!! Its completely ignorant, a black or minority can say WHATEVER they want and people applaud them for their free speech. What ever happened to JUST being Americans? I didn’t know that we were white-Americans, African-American, Asian-Americans. We are AMERICANS. We might have different ethniticity, but we are allllllll Americans. Why are we dividing ourselves like this? How can you hate the greatest country in the world?
Back on Obama… how can we elect a President of the United States who is as racist as him. You can NOT tell me that you go to a church for 20 YEARS and not know what the pastor is saying. What about Michele Obama and her racist remarks? Has anyone read her thesis??? Obama continually calls for the removal of SMALL remarks, (which shouldn’t be made… but saying because he is a black guy… come on, that is stupid) but he says, oh he’s just a radical… and allows him to remain. This is ridiculous and anyone who would vote for Obama HAS to realize that they are voting for a racist. I thought we had been trying to leave race out of everything. Oh… his grandmother is just a typical white person… wheee, the furry that would have came forth if McCain would have said, oh he is just a typical black person.
Please encourage Geraldine Ferraro to keep speaking out. Her ideas are so illuminating and we learn more each time she speaks about how misinformed she is. As a liberal, I always viewed the 1984 presidential election as a disaster. Now that I know better the quality of Ms. Ferraro’s intellect, I realize what a shallow thinker she is. In its efforts to keep the racial potion simmering and to damage the Democrats, FOX News should offer her one of its patened “Fair and Balanced” platforms. She can take her place alongside the other twisted pundits - Hannity, O’Reilly, etc.
Rod
Grandma got run over by Obama…
Another really dumb comment from Obama … “typical white person” that appears to be the result of spending 20 years in that church under that radical preacher.
Seems the only way he appears great is when he is delivering a pre-written speech.
Heh, his entire career may be based on great speech-writers.
Lots and lots of soundbites for October…
I guess I’m just another typical white person not voting for Obama! I need a t shirt that says that I’m a typical white person maybe I’d make a million of it?
What a nut we have running for the Presidency, blasting his big mouth off every time on anything? Now he’s stirring in voters’ fears about Iraq, with gasoline prices …. tell them when he gets in they will pay dollar a day for gasoline?
Senator Obama, have you ever heard of OPEC? Seems to me you have not; I hear you shouting your big mouth off about the gasoline price.
Well son, lem’me tell you then. Them is kind of a Union, unnerstand? Big Fellows got together long before the War, very long ago, way back before you were born, and formed this Union of Oil Producing Export Countries, called OPEC. Them fellows determine the oil price, and they try their utter best to determine supply as well.
Son, if you want to pick that 3 am phone up and call them, you can check it out, see. And I suggest you ask them about the Iraq War at the same time. You may find out a whole darn lot of them want America to stay in there permanently to help them against Iraq, you see they don’t always get along with each other …. old Saddam was not on good terms with all of them, kind of not everyone’s friendly neighbor, see.
Then son, when you have done that tell us how you suggest we end this war. Way I heard you said all our soldiers gotta be back here by end March next year. Are you gonna pick up the 3 am phone to call General Petraeus and say: “Lookie here General, this Waw is ovuh, heah, get them soldiers home on the double, heah, THIS IS AN ORDER GENERAL?”
I could tell you a lot more about oil prices and supply/demand and oil profits/export earnings, all kind of things, but we leave that for another day. You need the time to prepare another stupid speech.
You are really, double really, nuts/wacky/big mouth/empty shell. My oh my, iffin you by chance get this nomination, them Reps and American Business will chew you up, son, and spit out the hollow bones.
Maybe I should close with a little more advice: them Voters you think are all sheep and you think them sheep will follow you blind. They won’t do that no longer, Son, soon’s they realize what a Liar you are, they will get rid of you. Poor Baby? Duh!
Your outlet is a disgrace to fairness and race relations. Hire some black newsmen for balance