"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final fatal role of the young would be black man," Obama wrote. Mostly he smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, Obama wrote, but occasionally he would snort cocaine when he could afford it.
Drugs, Obama wrote, were a way he "could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory."
Wow. First, when there were allegations that President Bush used coke, everyone went nuts, here...not so much...because he's a liberal. Again, I will give Obama alot of credit on the honesty factor here. However, giving this talk in front of high school students isn't going to show them that "if you use drugs, things will be bad", it's more of "if you use drugs now, things will turn out A-Ok for you in the future," which is what his story pretty much has a plot.Additionally, Mr. Obama, Being a junkie or pothead is not the "final, fatal role of the young would-be-black man is." That is the furthest from the truth. Not all black men use drugs, and not all white people do. Nor is it OK to suggest that because you were black that you were more susceptible to drug use, that is what we call....racist. Additionally, saying you would have used more coke if you had more money is just sad. Buy hey, if you were at one point an addict and you overcame that, I give you alot of credit on that, that truly is great that you overcame that ginormous obstacle. However, once again, I would like to remind you that color should not be important in this debate. I am not of mixed race, though I have alot of friends who are, and I can't say I know any who drank or did anything else because of it. In fact, none of my friends who are of different ethnic backgrounds ever used that as an excuse for anything, and basically, snickered at the people who sympathized with them who thought that it was an excuse. It was a joke to them, and one that I understood. If someone would forgive you for being an average youth of any persuasion, susceptible to everything any youth of any race would be subject too, why not let someone think more highly of you for no reason other than your race, or your perceived social status. There has never been a difference between blacks, whites, hispanics, or asians, other than ones that people have carefully created in their minds. I was a lower middle class white kid whose best friends were lower middle class blacks in my most formative years. The only arguments we ever had between us was who was going to sit in the middle back seat when we all went out. Money was never an issue between any of us, who ever was short of money when we went to Taco Bell got covered by the rest of us. That's why race isn't an issue to me, never has been, never will be. Barack Obama gets great respect for addressing his issues, but my criticism for doing it how he did. I just wish the white media could express the same thing. Hey, we all make mistakes, but this was a bad mistake for him to make at a time when he was starting to surge past Hillary. But then again, if this was his way of subverting Hillary's "dirt," again, I'll respect that. My issue with him has never been his honesty, as it has been with Hillary, but rather, my direct and polar opposite of political opinions, as he at least makes a statement consistent with what he believes even, no matter how wrong I think it is.
-Caomhin
