Asserts the English professor and liberal: "If you ask a 50-something black person about [John] Sununu’s comments [charging that Colin Powell is endorsing President Obama's re-election bid due to race], the
person will rail about racism on the right and the litany of racialized
commentary coming from the right over the course of the
presidential-primary process. If you ask a 75-plus African-American [in Mr. Powell's age cohort]
about Sununu’s assertion that General Powell endorsed Obama because
Obama is black, their response would be something more akin to 'So
what?' or 'And what if he did?' For many older black folk — and by older, I
mean those old enough to have had firsthand experience with the
vestiges of Jim Crow segregation — President Obama’s symbolic capital
occasionally trumps the political issues we spend so much time debating
these days."
James Braxton Peterson: "Colin Powell May Support President Obama Because He's Black. So What?"
