Barack Obama: African Warlord

"The alternative explanation would, of course, be that Sailer's race hang-ups are leading him to see things that nobody else sees because they're not really there."

And those hang-ups are just so goddamn surreal.

It certainly is odd to read an unembarrassed racist in real time. Usually, you can only find them in historical writings. Most racists these days have a sense of public shame that Sailer lacks.

Ignoring whether such a grievance is justified, and understandably "nursed", if there's one black man in the world who isn't "nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity" against white people, it's Obama.

I worked with Barack at the Harvard Law Review and got to know him a little bit.

Anyone who thinks Barack hates white people or otherwise has bizarre or hateful racial obsessions lurking behind his "dapper" (actually, "charismatic" would be a better word) exterior, clearly has racial issues of their own or, more likely, a political agenda. You can see the slime machine's Al Gore-ification of Obama starting right here -- questions raised about his character, "troubling" incidents from his past, and on and on. George W. Bush used to make fun of convicts he put to death, but that didn't trouble anybody.

"Race hang-ups!?!" Does David Duke have "race hang-ups"? Those guys at VDare? They hate other races; hardly a hang-up.

The essence of Steve Sailor, of course, is to be a racist ass. What a pathetic joke the man is. It's just said that so many people give him and the other V-DARE racists a second's thought. It's sad that Sullivan doesn't see through it the way he would if this were about homosexuality.

Can the internet, like the real world, please stop taking Steve Sailer seriously? It's long overdue.

It's tough to believe that Sullivan would find it as stimulating if an author engaged in this kind of bigotry against gays. But before with the Bell Curve flap, and his appreciation of this kind of trash, And shows that he just doesn't get that his own sense of victimization should make him more aware of how he victimizes others. What a sorry, sorry man.

I highly recommend Dreams From My Father. It's a wonderful book, regardless of how you feel about Obama as a Presidential candidate.

Sailer's is what I'd call a redical interpretation of the text. Or, you know, complete bullshit. More than anything, Obama comes across as a man who spent a lot of time being introspective and working out issues of race on his own terms at a fairly young age. As a result of reading the book, I roll my eyes every time some new "expert" on race questions his racial identity. Barack Obama came to terms with those questions long ago. And wrote a damn fine book about it.

Obama *does* seem to be yet another example of a trend I find somewhat disturbing, namely that of racially mixed people who identify solely with their nonwhite ancestry. Examples are legion: Halle Berry, Jason Kidd, Bill Richardson, George P. Bush, Lenny Kravitz, Harry Belafonte, and many many others. It's almost as if the white ancestry is swept under the carpet and forgotten. Tiger Woods is an exception, but that may be attributable to the fact that he's multi- rather than bi-racial.

"Unless they can bribe their way into a prestigious office job, most of Obama’s male relatives work as little as possible, relying on their womenfolk for food and shelter."

Degenerate racism; astonishing, frightening, horrid.

Peter, you've got the causation the wrong way round. Mixed-race people are automatically classed as black by society. Or do you think that (say) Halle Berry would have been classed as "white" if she hadn't said anything about it?

Peter: That may be because our current culture only sees the non-white color of those people. When 80% of us are lily-white, even the bi-racial people are known more for standing out.

Sullivan's take is hardly surprising. He was the editor when the New Republic ran its symposium on the "Bell Curve." Years after the book's methodology and conclusions have been discredited, he still stands by the decision even though, with a few exceptions like Glenn Loury, few, if any, of the participants knew enough about the subject to offer a substantive critique.

For a gay man who is quick to decry discrimination and scream "Christianist," Sullivan is oddly comfortable, or at least sanguine, around folks like Mr. Sailer and John Derbyshire.

Stimulating. Well, yes. So is cayenne pepper in your jockstrap, but that doesn't make it a good thing.

Is this the same person who posts comments here under the nym "Steve Sailer"? I didn't put much store in those comments just based on their content, but if so I would think even less of them after reading this essay.

Cranky

Sailer:
Despite Obama’s relentless efforts to mold himself into an African-American, his overwhelmingly white upbringing is apparent in his coolly analytical depiction of his mother, a portrait that most black men would find disrespectful.

Because, you see, Steve Sailer understands "the black man."

Peter.

Why is that disturbing? I am Italian and I associate strongly with my heritage. Why do you have a problem when a person of color does the same?

Tell me Peter what is "white ancestry?" Is the fact that I associate with those dirty WOPS (my peeps) a failure to acknowledge my white ancestry?

And yes, your entire argument is a strawman. Prove to me that Obama identifies SOLELY with his "non-white" ancestry. Its bullshit.

If Al Smith is elected in '28, the Pope will pack his bags and move to Washington, D.C., to give orders to President Smith on how to run the country.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose....

Can the internet, like the real world, please stop taking Steve Sailer seriously? It's long overdue

The problem is that Sailer's a bit like Derb: you'd like to simply declare him odious, but the method of analysis by which he reaches his (often really weird) conclusions is much closer to ours than the Pantload or any number of other right wing opinion folks, who seem to use the "rub two snakes together" method of analysis. Sailer's deeply wrong about a lot of things, but I generally feel like (a) he could conceivably be convinced by some method I would understand, and (b) he has deep racial prejudices but no (or none I've seen) racial animus.

Whatever. I very much disagree with him about most things race related, but he doesn't hide his views, and those views don't seem to garner much support generally. He scares me a lot less than the Krauthammer, Brooks, the Pantload, and most of the other Cornerites.

Obama *does* seem to be yet another example of a trend I find somewhat disturbing, namely that of racially mixed people who identify solely with their nonwhite ancestry.

Everybody in the US identifies with white culture--it's pervasive. You'd have to be extraordinarily militant not to acknowledge that you take a lot from "white culture"; I think what might be confusing you is that normally we just say, "I'm an American," and leave it at that.

A racial group is a large extended family, writes Sailer.

And in every family, there's that creepy, distant cousin that no one really wants to claim as a family member. Which is probably what most people in Sailer's "large extended family" think of him.

I hate to be the contrarian here, but I actually enjoy Steve Sailor's contributions, although more often than not I disagree with him. Often times, as Matt is correct to point out he veers into the deeply distasteful. He does, however, offer interesting insights, and the distastefulness is not, to me, any more so than even the most vanilla Republican.

Anne,

I know this is dangerous territory, and Sailer is obviously a racist who bathes himself in the racist tropes of African imperialism. However, the sentence that you quote is a fairly accurate (though obviously generalized) take on family dynamics in LDCs. (I have no idea whether it has any relevance to Obama's relatives and don't know where, if anywhere, Sailer gets the idea that it does.) That dynamic is why any economic analysis that fails to problematize the family is assuming away a crucial variable, the touchstone of feminist development economics.

There are fairly standard examples of male heads-of-households making decisions that do not weigh the well-being of subordinate members, even when those subordinate members are actually the source of the family's income. Famously in rural Indian villages, men would choose the cooking fuel without taking air quality into account because it was the women who crouched over the stove and whose earning power was decimated by respiratory illness. (ie, they died)

Peter, you've got the causation the wrong way round. Mixed-race people are automatically classed as black by society. Or do you think that (say) Halle Berry would have been classed as "white" if she hadn't said anything about it?

Mixed-race people can identify as mixed if they so choose. Tiger Woods has done so. Most such people, however, and Halle Berry's a prime example, simply go along society's classification and consider themselves just black. Example: Halle Berry with her "African American" acceptance speech at the Oscars.

"he has deep racial prejudices but no (or none I've seen) racial animus."

Yeah, Sailer is a racist who doesn't hate black people, which is interesting. He is also willing to bring to the surface the duality in American racism toward blacks -- namely that they are inferior and superior at the same time. Actually, a lot of forms of racism have that double element to them.

Another thing about Sailer is he is willing to be genuinely sociological in how he looks at the world -- he sees communities / tribes and not individuals as the major actors in the world. Which is actually good and important and leads him to some excellent insights missed by other commentators, but he often layers this stupid biological essentialism on top of that. And when dealing with a genuinely complex individual like Obama, means he reads him in a reductionist way.

For a really good and interesting take on Obama's two books, look at Andrew Ferguson's review in the Standard last month:

http://www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/237rhfjc.asp?pg=1

Short take: really thoughtful writer, a shame he became a political hack.

"Obama *does* seem to be yet another example of a trend I find somewhat disturbing, namely that of racially mixed people who identify solely with their nonwhite ancestry."

I bet Irish-German people identify more with their Irish ancestry than the German.

As to black vs. mixed, nobody gets pulled over for Driving While Mixed.

"really thoughtful writer, a shame he became a political hack."

And if there's anything the Standard knows, it's political hacks.

Sailer's already proved that he's genetically superior to Obama, so who are we to doubt him?

Note to Steve: just because everybody hates you it doesn't mean you're unfairly maligned. You're earning it.

"Mixed-race people can identify as mixed if they so choose."

I'm reminmded of the story of one of the Rothschilds and the hunchback. The very much assimilated Lord R. said "I used to be a Jew." The hunchback replied: "I used to be a hunchback."

Peter -
"Obama *does* seem to be yet another example of a trend I find somewhat disturbing, namely that of racially mixed people who identify solely with their nonwhite ancestry."

Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in Plessy v Ferguson, the 1896 case in which the Supreme Court upheld the doctrine of separate but equal, was 1/8 black, but by law was black. Now there's a "trend" with legs.

Is it possible, Pete, that you've got things a little backwards here, that maybe the people you list aren't seeking this identity but largely have it imposed upon them? I suspect it's even possible that this doesn't really bother you at all but that you had some spare straw lying around the house this morning.

Mixed-race people can identify as mixed if they so choose.

As far as that goes, single-race people can identify as mixed if they so choose, African-Americans can identify as white, Chinese as Jews, etc. I'm not sure why that's supposed to be good or bad, rather than indifferent and mildly weird, but there it is.

I first noticed Sailer's comments on this blog in the last couple weeks, and I have to say, the guy is interesting and knowledgeable. So, I'll second some of the commenters above on that score.

I haven't had time to read the 2nd half of his essay on Obama, but the excerpted passages sure do sound strange. Perhaps a person can take too much pride in their intellectual courage in the face of PC attitudes about race, to the point where they start losing it?

Rumor has it there was discord at the magazine over running this piece, even leading to resignations.

Mixed-race people can identify as mixed if they so choose.

As far as that goes, single-race people can identify as mixed if they so choose, African-Americans can identify as white, Chinese as Jews, etc. I'm not sure why that's supposed to be good or bad, rather than indifferent and mildly weird, but there it is.

Those examples may be correct, but they're hardly reasonable choices. What I do not understand is why people whose physical appearance makes it obvious that they are of mixed racial ancestry nonetheless identify solely as black. In so doing they ignore the obvious. Obama is actually not a good example, as his white ancestry is less apparent than with many mixed-race people. Halle Berry and Jason Kidd are much better examples, as one look makes it clear that both are mixed.

Okay, how many of people here have acutally read "Dreams From My Father?" I do not have the book with me, and I read it about 2-3 years ago, but I recall that Obama gave glowing praise to his mother (who is white), and both of his grandparents (on his mother's side, who are also white).

In so doing they ignore the obvious.

Inasmuch as--as you note--most mixed race people seem to identify according to the same rule, it seems much more likely that you're the one ignoring the obvious. If the vast majority of people are doing it, there's probably a pretty good reason for that. All of this is hardly a new occurrence. I seem to recall that the then Cassius Clay was black right up until he won the Olympic gold medal, at which point some in Louisville started noting that he had some white blood in him (I think it was a grandfather or great-grandfather). People like Kidd and Berry are, at best, conditionally white as determined by white people--they're white right up until they turn out to be too fucked up to be white. "Black" is the robust answer.

"Sailer's deeply wrong about a lot of things, but I generally feel like (a) he could conceivably be convinced by some method I would understand, and (b) he has deep racial prejudices but no (or none I've seen) racial animus."

"Yeah, Sailer is a racist who doesn't hate black people, which is interesting."

I once spent most of a morning reading Sailer's columns over at V-DARE. I would suggest these commenters do the same. I think Sailer hates black people as much as any human being alive. It's just that he is more analytical in his self-justification, and this can fool people if they read him in small doses.

MY writes:

"Sailer's explanation for his idiosyncratic reading of the book is that few have "grasped the book’s essence" because "so few of the many who have purchased it following his famous keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention appear to have read much of it." The alternative explanation would, of course, be that Sailer's race hang-ups are leading him to see things that nobody else sees because they're not really there."

That's one interpretation. Another is that 98%+ of American political writers are constrained by the self-censorship of political correctness, and aren't willing to tolerate the kind of personal attacks we've seen in this comment thread in order to speak their mind.

The psychology of those who run for president is fascinating, and usually disturbing in some way -- see Bill Clinton's poverty and desire to please and protect his abused mother, or George W. Bush's intellectual insecurity, alcoholism, and desire to outdo his father. No one would find those topics out of bounds, and everyone would find them important -- nice to know what makes the most powerful person in the world tick, isn't it?

But suddenly it's a mixed-race person, and such explorations are immediately out of bounds, even if most of Sailer's observations *come right from Obama's book*. If you've ever read a memoir of a mixed-race person, you know that racial identity is the core psychological issue of their existence, something they generally struggle with every day of their lives. Obama is no different than most other mixed-race people in this respect.

And Sailer deserves credit for talking about it. As usual with Sailer detractors, people on this thread are calling him racist, but nobody's calling him wrong. And everyone -- Yglesias, Sullivan, and many more to come -- who will triangulate off Sailer just to discuss him finds him interesting.

Levi wrote:

"I once spent most of a morning reading Sailer's columns over at V-DARE. I would suggest these commenters do the same. I think Sailer hates black people as much as any human being alive."

Levi, please cite a single Sailer paragraph from VDare or anywhere else that backs up your statement "...Sailer hates black people as much as any human being alive." There is nothing in Sailer's writings that will support this claim.

Nice commentary in the comments. I can't stand Saliers, and quite frankly it's because he says things that seem so absurd, yet I can't quite figure out how to respond. Like his never-ending discussion of IQ, race and achievement.

Marshall, I understand. There are however 48 countries and more than 700 million people in southern Africa. There are more than 70 language groups in Nigeria alone. The idea that stereotypes are enough to count for 700 million people from Mauritania to South Africa is wrong, the way this writer uses stereotypes and the reason is vehemently racist, shockingly and dreadfully so, beyond redemption.

"Unless they can bribe their way into a prestigious office job, most of Obama’s male relatives work as little as possible, relying on their womenfolk for food and shelter."

Constructing a more degenerate racist passage would be darn near impossible. Absolutely vicious, beyond redemption.

but nobody's calling him wrong

Actually, early on, several posters called him wrong. (As in the Al Smith reference.) After that, his wrongness just became accepted.

Look too the degenerate article only to understand what racism at its most vicious is.

The psychology of those who run for president is fascinating, and usually disturbing in some way

Jeebus. It's sad to think that you are really connecting "nice to know what makes the most powerful person in the world tick" to" Bill Clinton's poverty and desire to please and protect his abused mother, or George W. Bush's intellectual insecurity, alcoholism, and desire to outdo his father," as if the latter goes any distance toward answering questions about the former. You're not America's Worst Columnist, are you?

Oh, racism is wrong as such and more horridly racist and wrong could not be. Truly degenerate.

People like Kidd and Berry are, at best, conditionally white as determined by white people--they're white right up until they turn out to be too fucked up to be white. "Black" is the robust answer.

Race is not an either/or deal. Kidd and Berry et al. do not - should not - have to be (conditionally) white or (robustly) black. They should identify as racially mixed and take pride in that fact. We've moved past the point where racial mixing was so shameful that its "products" had to disguise themselves.

Race is not an either/or deal. Kidd and Berry et al. do not - should not - have to be (conditionally) white or (robustly) black. They should identify as racially mixed and take pride in that fact. We've moved past the point where racial mixing was so shameful that its "products" had to disguise themselves.

________________

Who the fuck are you to say that somebody "SHOULD" identify one way or another? What an a$. Neither Obama or Haley Berry identify "SOLELY" with their black heritage, and your contention to the contrary is completely unsupported. Moreover, as has been stated repeatedly (and ignored by you), in America, people of mixed race that "look black" are treated accordingly. That treatment also impacts how one "identifies" themselves. Your attitude toward them is exhibit one.

Jason Voorhees writes:

"I can't stand Saliers, and quite frankly it's because he says things that seem so absurd, yet I can't quite figure out how to respond. Like his never-ending discussion of IQ, race and achievement."

Exactly. The two reasons people find Sailer so disturbing are: 1) he makes points on racial issues that are disturbing to us 2) these points are driven by data and rational observation, and are therefore usually true. Ergo, people who wish to argue with him are reduced to simple name-calling, like we've seen on this thread, or they pull out the "racism!" talisman, which they think makes all those inconvenient truths go away.

If Sailer wrote things that people found upsetting *and weren't true*, no one would pay attention to him. But Sailer writes things people find upsetting *but that are also true*. This is why he's linked so often to by Kevin Drum, John Derbyshire, Mickey Kaus, John Tierney, Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias, and increasing numbers of smart people. What the man says is generally true, and a certain kind of brain is drawn irresistibly to truth.

The most telling comment so far, besides the ten-cent accusations of racism, is X Trapnel's above, which reads in full:

"Can the internet, like the real world, please stop taking Steve Sailer seriously? It's long overdue."

No argumentation, just wishful thinking that reality conform to desire.

Neither Obama or Haley Berry identify "SOLELY" with their black heritage, and your contention to the contrary is completely unsupported. Moreover, as has been stated repeatedly (and ignored by you), in America, people of mixed race that "look black" are treated accordingly.

Halle Berry referred to herself as an "African-American actress" in her Oscar speech. That sure sounds like identifying solely with one's black heritage.

And since when do people like Berry and Jason Kidd "look black?" One look at either and it is absolutely obvious they are mixed. Obama, as I noted earlier, is a somewhat more questionable case.

Peter,

Why is it a "disturbing" phenomenon? I think you are making it more of a personal choice than it really is (as other comments have emphasized). Let's imagine a mixed kidd like Halle Berry who grows up in a white/affluent neighborhood where kids parrot black culture. Do you think those kids will respect her mixed heritage ? Probably not. Also, Kidd is a terrible example. yes he grew up in somewhat affluent. But he also played ball in Oakland city parks against people like Gary Payton. I don't think it's unreasonable that he identified more with his black than white side.

And ultimately, who are you to tell people they're wrong for identifying with a culture that have some genetic connection to? People migrate towards different things for a variety of reasons.

"Halle Berry referred to herself as an "African-American actress" in her Oscar speech. That sure sounds like identifying solely with one's black heritage."

And lots of people refer to themselves as "Irish-American" despite having only an Irish grandparent.

Your point?

and there's plenty of nonmixed people who are just as conflicted. you're like those asshole asian kids I grew up with made fun of asian kids who listened to punk for being too white and not true to their asian identity (defined as exclusively hanging out with other asians and parroting black culture).

either way, you're a douche.

"I bet Irish-German people identify more with their Irish ancestry than the German."

Irishness is a dominant gene.

Palooza writes:

"Who the fuck are you to say that somebody "SHOULD" identify one way or another? What an a$. Neither Obama or Haley Berry identify "SOLELY" with their black heritage, and your contention to the contrary is completely unsupported."

Maybe not "solely," but closer to 100% than 50-50. When Halle Berry won her Oscar, the biggest moment of her life with the entire world as an audience, which of her two races did she talk about?

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/halleberryoscarspeech.htm

When Obama wrote his autobiography, what side of his family did he discuss? Hint: look at the title.

Anne: "Look too the degenerate article only to understand what racism at its most vicious is."

Nah. Regrettably, you'd have to go quite a ways further down to start getting into the most-vicious range. See, e.g., two still-not-most-vicious but nonetheless quite-vicious examples (chosen partly to make that point, partly to respond to the anticipated "but this is racism at its most poisonously dangerous, taking on a socially-respected face" point, and partly to make a high proportion of the readership here squirm): http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Columns/LevyPeartdismal.html (check out that first illustration!) and http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/history_of_political_economy/v035/35.4leonard.pdf .

"When Halle Berry won her Oscar, the biggest moment of her life with the entire world as an audience, which of her two races did she talk about?"

What the hell is noteworthy about a white chick winning an Oscar?

And can you identify any *mixed* actresses who've won? Nope.

And can you identify any *mixed* actresses who've won [an Oscar]? Nope.

I can. Halle Berry.

I give credit to Steve Sailer for the role he's played in acknowledging things like the fact that Black people are generally faster & better athletes than White people and the silliness of pretending such disparities don't really exist, and I appreciate that when his sociological mindset mixed with some of his better writing, it occasionally provides for an interesting perspective of the world. I'm afraid that's where my admiration ends.

Sailer does raise an interesting issue: which of the candidates is the most psychologically healthy? Obama wins by a mile. He's by far the least narcissistic of the lot. He's by the far the most comfortable with who he is. His memoir proves that.

Compare him to GWB, a man who's a giant heap of insecurity. Every statement from him can be reduced to, "I'm the big man! Take me seriously! I'm in charge! I'll show you, Dad!" All that pettiness and defiance. What a colossal baby.

"I can. Halle Berry"

Yeah, so, basically Hollywood has historically seen mixed==black, and not drawn any fine distinctions.

Anti-racism is truly the religion of the left.

Right-wing Christians roll in church aisles and babble in tongues, believing that the world began a few thousand years ago while never having read any Darwin.

Left-wing anti-racists write things like anne does here:

"Oh, racism is wrong as such and more horridly racist and wrong could not be. Truly degenerate...Look too the degenerate article only to understand what racism at its most vicious is...Constructing a more degenerate racist passage would be darn near impossible. Absolutely vicious, beyond redemption...the way this writer uses stereotypes and the reason is vehemently racist, shockingly and dreadfully so, beyond redemption."

While others deal with the heretic thusly:

"either way, you're a douche."

"You're not America's Worst Columnist, are you?"

"It certainly is odd to read an unembarrassed racist in real time."

"And in every family, there's that creepy, distant cousin that no one really wants to claim as a family member. Which is probably what most people in Sailer's "large extended family" think of him."

"The essence of Steve Sailor, of course, is to be a racist ass. What a pathetic joke the man is."

And like the Christians who won't read Darwin, none of you here have read any Cavalli-Sforza, and have no idea how incorrect you are on racial issues, and how correct Sailer is.
But you're happy to roll in the church aisles and chant what you've been told to chant.

(as the crowd rushes off to wikipedia "Cavalli-Sforza". Two L's, remember, wikipedia is unforgiving of misspellings)

"Irishness is a dominant gene."

Also, while there is a market for "Kiss me I'm Irish" buttons, there is a much smaller market for "I'm German: Ve Haf Vays Of Making You Kiss Me" buttons.

Yeah, so, basically Hollywood has historically seen mixed==black, and not drawn any fine distinctions.

People like Halle Berry have the power to change that. She could have emphasized her mixed-race heritage during the Oscar speech. Or she could have left race out of the speech entirely, which in some respects would have been the most mature choice. Instead, she delivered the speech whose text is in a prior comment; there's nothing for me to add, as the thing basically speaks for itself. She voluntarily elected to perpetuate ridiculous old stereotypes.

I will point out that as America's racially mixed population continues to grow, this issue of racial identity is going to become increasingly significant.

Peter, I have no clue why you find this perceived trend "disturbing". Do you think mixed-race people are not the object of racism in the US? Do they thus not share the same experiences as many colored people? Don't many colored people have a "non-colored" ancestor somewhere in their heritage? Do they have to prove purity in their lineage to be able to identify themselves as colored?

In a country where everybody and their dog is infinitely proud of their Irish, Italian, Jewish or whatever great-great-uncle once removed, is it really disturbing for Obama and Berry to identify with something that is actually rooted in real-life experience?

Zagnut: thanks for giving me such credit! Let me elaborate a bit--but only a bit, because as I said, Sailer really isn't worth more of my or anyone's time.

Yes, Sailer can write effectively and has mastered the rhetoric of the Disinterested Scientist Speaking Truth to Power. That doesn't make him one, though. The basic problem is that Sailer's worldview comes down to a series of just-so stories in which racially linked, heritable characteristics determine everything. While some commenters have lauded his 'sociological perspective,' this for Sailer means never translates into examining the ways that multiple social and cultural institutions and practices and reinforce problematic outcomes, for the purposes of intervening and hopefully ameliorating these outcomes. Sailer's 'sociology' translates rather into blanket denunciations of (certain) cultures, explicitly or implicitly linking these cultures to genetic endowments. The reason no one should take him seriously is that he shows precisely no willingness to shoulder the burden of proof facing biological determinists in the face of all we know about the variability and mutability of culture. His writings are political acts, and it doesn't take much effort to realize what their aim is.

Peter might as well be demanding that Obama identify as a woman because, after all, half of his parentage is female, despite the fact that society identifies him as male due to him being physically, obviously, male.

oh, and Sailer is a racist, the type of pseudo-scientific garbage he spouts is actually very typical of racists who really mean it, the Nazis when to great length to prove this and that about "other races"

X Trapnel wrote:

"The reason no one should take him seriously is that he shows precisely no willingness to shoulder the burden of proof facing *biological determinists* in the face of all we know about the variability and mutability of culture." (emphasis Zagnut's)

Wrong, Sailer counts both nature *and* nurture as being important in determining who we are and what we do, in roughly 50-50 proportions if I had to quantify his worldview (naturally it varies from issue to issue and person to person).

But that 50% nature is a lot, and Sailer writes about it, which the holy rollers here can't accept. And why you incorrectly label him a "biological determinist," implying he is 100% nature, which nobody is. Again, to attack Sailer successfully, his arguments must be misrepresented. But being 100% nurture is totally cool, right?

Looking for common ground, X: would you agree that who we are and what we do are grounded in nature at least part of the time, say even 25%? If so, that's worth discussing, isn't it?

Levi, please cite a single Sailer paragraph from VDare or anywhere else that backs up your statement "...Sailer hates black people as much as any human being alive." There is nothing in Sailer's writings that will support this claim.

Seeing a kind of sublimated hate (or maybe disgust or maybe fear) in the relentless promulgation of stereotypes, however much that promulgation conforms to the protocols of scholarly thought, seems as reasonable to me, actually more reasonable, than any of the claims made by SS about the psychology of presidential ambition and/or blackness:

"Kenyan trip symbolizes the inner duality beneath his dapper exterior. He possesses one of the finest minds of any politician, but his personal passions routinely war against his acknowledging unwelcome truths, even to himself."

You could take a hundred psychologists give them five years and 5 million dollars to hang around Obama 24-7, study his history, and monitor his brain waives and you'd come up with a variety of theories as to his "desires" and "passions" and "dualities" and none of them would be more convincing than any of the others. Yet SS reads one book and decides HE knows what's going on in Obama's head. HE understands the mechanisms of human motivation and ambition such that he can cast them through the lens of black or mixed or african experience and arrive at an understanding of Barack Obama that, oh, what a surprise, fits the most rudimentary racial stereotypes like a glove.

I mean, I hate this kind of psychological interpretion wherever I see it. However much evidence it uses to draw its conclusions its tropes are built on assumptions about human nature that are unproven and unstable. It's a forgivable pattern, of course. We all do it. And to the extent that we do, it is PERFECTLY REASONABLE to assume that, given the object of his attention, there might be something going on in SS's mind besides a desire to make the most parsimonious possible representation of the data which he receives from the objective universe with, of course, buddha-like openness.

Timothy writes:

"Yet [Steve Sailer] reads one book and decides HE knows what's going on in Obama's head."

Well, it was his autobiography. Reading hundreds of pages of a person writing about his own life in his own words is not a bad way to get inside someone's head.

Who knows if Sailer's pop-psychology interpretations of Obama's motivations are correct? But the man wants to be president, so they're worth discussing.

Do you have any problem with journalists discussing George W. Bush's psychology, the one that sent us to a stupid war in Iraq? I don't. I think it's important.

And if people engage in "stereotypes" (=things that are true about a large enough # of members of a group to be clustered as a characteristic, even if they don't apply to *every* member of that group) about how West Texans or hicks or rednecks think, is that wrong? No, and it can go a long way to explaining our current president's decisions and patterns of thought.

But when it's a black guy, the rolling in the aisles begins, along with the chants about racism.

And Timothy, still waiting on a citation from Levi or anyone else to back up his claim that:

"...Sailer hates black people as much as any human being alive." Your pop-psychology of Sailer (hypocritical, since you deny Sailer the right to get inside Obama's head) that he possesses "sublimated hate" against black people won't cut it, I want a quotation. Sailer has written millions of words, and this is what you quote, in full, to back up Levi's claim that "Sailer hates black people as much as any human being alive":

"Kenyan trip symbolizes the inner duality beneath his dapper exterior. He possesses one of the finest minds of any politician, but his personal passions routinely war against his acknowledging unwelcome truths, even to himself."

That's the best you can do? From millions of words.

Levi, cite a source or retract your smear against Sailer.

Realish wrote:

"Rumor has it there was discord at the magazine over running this piece, even leading to resignations."

Rumors you made up just now? Citation, please: name one person who resigned at The American Conservative due to this piece.

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT BARACK OBAMA?

WHY ARE EUROPEANS CALLING HIM "BARACK CRACKHEAD OBAMA"?

http://howardwasright.com/index.php/site/more/570/

LEARN THE TRUTH.

The best quote on Sailer is from Evan Macelvary -- "Sailer can be really interesting when he isn't throwing rocks at the darkies".

It not his only drawback -- there's a reasons Sailer is a failed pundit -- financially insecure and eaking out a living at an age when most men would be in the prime of their careers. He just isn't that good. Sometimes he's fascinating, but other times (like the long post on how his forehead sweats when he thinks really hard, and how that relates to intelligence differences between races) he's trivial, inane or peurile. He's found a good niche talking about issues too offensive or controversial for mainsteam pundits becase if he competed directly against mainstream pundits, he'd be an even bigger failure.

I'd also hold off on claims that Sailer has no racial animus. Read his post on how Malcolm Gladwell grew his hair to look tough and get chicks -- an ugly undertone, very racial.

(Of course, Sailer's obsession with Gladwell could just be professional jealousy. Or some sort of personal thing, given that Sailer has his own identity issues as an adopted child.)

Bottom line: Sailer can be an interesting guy. But he's not a good guy, or even a very smart guy.

If Sailer wrote things that people found upsetting *and weren't true*, no one would pay attention to him. But Sailer writes things people find upsetting *but that are also true*. This is why he's linked so often to by Kevin Drum, John Derbyshire, Mickey Kaus, John Tierney, Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias, and increasing numbers of smart people. What the man says is generally true, and a certain kind of brain is drawn irresistibly to truth.

This is nuts.

Now, you may be tempted to call that yet more content-free bashing of someone bravely speaking truth to power in this anti-racism church or whatever, so fine, let's actually look at what Sailer is saying. Here's one choice paragraph:

(1)After graduation, he moved to Chicago in 1983, finally finding a home where at least some whites reciprocated his antagonism. (2)He worked as an ethnic activist, helping the impoverished black community wring more money and services from the government. (3)That government money was wrecking the morals of the housing-project residents seems obvious from his book, but Obama never comes out and says it. (4)Numerous white moderates assume that a man of Obama’s superlative intelligence must be kidding when he espouses his cast-iron liberalism on race-related policies, but they don’t understand the emotional imperative of racial loyalty to him.

(1) Obama hates white people, so he was relieved to move to Chicago, where they hated him right back.
(2) Blacks are lazy and love living on welfare.
(3) Obama suffers from low intelligence not to realize how government money is bad for people.
(4) Well, he just seems to be dumb. More likely, he knows it but pretends otherwise to pull one over on all the guilt-ridden white liberals.

There may, I concede, be something to Sailer's pontifications about the conflicted psyche of a mixed-race person in modern America. That is, it's no more frivolous than a lot of what's written about A-list politicians. But the remaining 80 percent of the editorial oozes condescension, props up negative racial stereotypes with apocryphal anecdotes, and features no evidence of racial animosity stronger than Obama being rebellious as a teenager. Now that's some hard-hitting research. Sure, Sailer doesn't come right out and say my simplified versions of statements (1)-(4) — he relies on the passive-aggressive "just raising the question" dodge to insinuate them and more. Wow, big difference.

I post this not to reach you, because if you actually read Sailer's editorial and haven't noticed this part of what he said yet, or if you agree with it, you're probably unreachable. I post this on the off-chance that someone might take you seriously.

Howard,

Obama admitting using cocaine in his book. Bush 43 probably used cocaine, too, and at a later stage in life than Obama. So why aren't you loudly proclaiming here that "BUSH IS A CRACKHEAD!!"?

You have some good points in your piece you link to, but you come off looking like a tool by labeling Obama a "crackhead" and using ALL CAPS.

Zagnut: my point is not to deny the importance of nature. Obviously, if we had the genes of zebras, many policy implications would follow. My point is that: 1, it is *very difficult* to successfully untangle genetic v. social factors; 2, overestimating genetic factors has clear political implications that have historically been quite tempting to dominant groups; 3, Sailer's work displays a pronounced tendency to give in to these temptations. He is simply not the person to go to for learning about these things, though there are such people out there.

I think there's hugely important work to be done in figuring out, e.g., how we evolved to be the social and cultural creatures we are. But we are far, far away from the sort of detailed knowledge of the 'hardware-software interface' that would be needed to establish the kind of "African genes determine african-american family structure" arguments Sailer wants to run with. I would like to think that everyone would ignore me if, for example, I made the obviously fallacious claim that the persistence of polygamy among some LDS-breakaway sects around Utah, more than a hundred years after the official denouncement of the practice, demonstrates the genetic basis of family structures. And yet a lot of the heritability-of-culture arguments are made at exactly that level.

Anon,

How is Sailer a "failed" pundit? He doesn't earn a lot of money, but that's because he didn't become a journalist until later in life, something like age 38 or 40. But his ideas and blog are *very* widely read, often sub rosa, among the D.C. intelligentsia -- especially, interestingly, among the *young* D.C. intelligentsia, left, right, and (especially)libertarian.

He's definitely a little bitter that people like Malcolm Gladwell outearn him, but Sailer's view is that people like Gladwell go around writing things that aren't true but that people want to hear and are paid well for it, while he himself writes things that are true that people don't want to hear -- and that doesn't pay very well.

I think a little bitterness is understandable there, though Sailer does leaven this with a little humor (he labels his fundraising drives "panhandling").

Guys I have to work now (sadly! I would much prefer to debate here this afternoon, seriously), but real quick:

X Trapnel --

"Sailer's work displays a pronounced tendency to give in to these temptations. He is simply not the person to go to for learning about these things, though there are such people out there."

OK then, who?

Cyrus --

"There may, I concede, be something to Sailer's pontifications about the conflicted psyche of a mixed-race person in modern America. That is, it's no more frivolous than a lot of what's written about A-list politicians. But the remaining 80 percent of the editorial oozes condescension, props up negative racial stereotypes with apocryphal anecdotes, and features no evidence of racial animosity stronger than Obama being rebellious as a teenager. Now that's some hard-hitting research. Sure, Sailer doesn't come right out and say my simplified versions of statements (1)-(4) — he relies on the passive-aggressive "just raising the question" dodge to insinuate them and more. Wow, big difference."

If you're still around after 5 pm or so, I'd like to take a better pass at your post. Briefly, I agree with you that the piece is often condescending and that Sailer doesn't like Obama much. Sailer used to live in Chicago, and saw a lot of politicians make compromises in that city's corrupt pol machine, this may the source of some of the animus. But more later, thanks for your discussion time, got to work now :(

As a full blooded Irishman married to a German, well half German, our kids are definitely Irish. We're into the one drop rule. Especially around March 17th, though in NY bars on March 17th the no drop rule seems to apply.

One mixed race guy no one ever seems to bring up is Derek Jeter, though he never seems to bring it up, so no one ever actually notices he is mixed race.

i keep waiting for sailer to show up in this thread, like he does so often here and elsewhere, with his generic (cut and pasted often) comment that always ends with: "For more on X, see" with a link to his own site.

too bad. it seems zagnut is here in his place

Man, the quality of John Rawls's thinking sure has declined since he died.

My point is not that Obama's motivations can't be discussed. It's that Sailer's can be discussed as well. What you object to is people jumping to the conclusion that Sailer is motivated by racism without proving/arguing/making reference to evidence that his racist conclusions are motivated by hate.

I'm saying that if you evaluate Sailer's psychology by the same means that he evaluate's Obama's, ie making representations about motivation that have their basis in narrative-style thinking, you can't be reasonably faulted for concluding the dude is a racist.

With respect to W., as I said in my original post, I find this sort of armchair psychologizing forgivable. I'm certainly guilty of it. Of course I think most of the stuff people say about Bush wanting to go to Iraq to "outdo" his father is bullshit and certainly it's unverifiable and a waste of time.

Given the degree to which the media mediates the personality of a given politician, and the degree to which said politicians understand the constraints the media places on their expression of their personalities, it's extremely difficult to know a presidential candidate to the degree you'd need to in order to make a call on how they'd behave in office. (This why I find complaint's about a given candidate's lack of authenticity so tiresom. It may not be correct, but it's perfectly reasonable to assume that keeping messaging clean and simple and a little vague is the most effective way to position yourself to effect meaningful political progress. I don't have a good sense of how she would govern, but Hilary Clinton is doing a good job of this. John McCain is doing a bad job of it. The fact that Barack Obama wrote a pretty candid book expressing much more about himself than is available about most politicians has proven a source of fodder for the right to spin him is an indication that the Hillary approach has some efficacy.)

Also, I'd just like to say that I live in San Francisco and I find the casual denigration of people who come from red states as hicks and morons pretty saddening. I mean, if Texas is 60% red and 40% blue, that's a whole bunch of "right thinking democrats" you're inaccurately tarring as West Texas hick/moron/right winger.

I mean, I feel human affinity with people regardless of their politics, so reducing someone who's been raised in a conservative/racist environment and adopted conservative/racist tropes because they haven't got out, or someone who has fallen into a derided category for ANY NUMBER OF REASONS, to the status of irredeemable monster is counterproductive.

Obviously, there are monsters out there--the radio coordinator in Borat, for instance--but assuming that everyone who's from Texas and votes republican is just such a monster is foolish and wrong. It may be a harmless heuristic for my coworkers and I when we're having a beer after work and complaining about the moral crimes George W. Bush has committed against the political traditions of the United States or the Iraqi people, but if those "West Texan Hicks" were a minority population in this country and the "San Francisco Liberals" were in power and designing policies that affected the lives of those hicks, the liberals should damn well start thinking of those hicks as real people with real needs and a real right to fair treatment. Without applying a serious anti-stereotypical rigor to their thinking about such populations, they couldn't fail to be influenced by the subtle preconception floating out in the back of their minds that the thought crimes committed by those red staters made them less than true citizens.

Sailer is actually brilliant. For example, his articles on racial tendencies in voting patterns are brilliant; the GOP lost the last election not because of the Mexican vote, but because of the white vote; etc. He is also right on the negative effects of diversity, and how political correctness is destroying the GOP.

But he certainly is no Sam Francis, who was probably the greatest writer on racial matters of the last 100 years. Sam Francis was a genius - plain and simple.

Thanks for the link (http://howardwasright.com/index.php/site/more/570/). This is probably one of the best articles I've read on Crackhead Obama.

OK, I propose a game. Which commenter in this thread is actually Steve Sailer masquerading as someone else?

"The basic problem is that Sailer's worldview comes down to a series of just-so stories in which racially linked, heritable characteristics determine everything. While some commenters have lauded his 'sociological perspective,' this for Sailer means never translates into examining the ways that multiple social and cultural institutions and practices and reinforce problematic outcomes, for the purposes of intervening and hopefully ameliorating these outcomes."

It's true that the closer Sailer gets to areas where he is racist and a biological determinist -- most notably, American blacks -- the more knee-jerk and the less interesting his hypothesizing tends to get. But in areas where there is a little more distance, for example in his writings on the Afghanistan war and the relationship between cousin marriage and social structure in the middle east, he can have genuinely interesting insights.

His conceptualizing of race as extended family is also quite useful, and just as amenable to sociological thinking as biological.

Matt writes:

"Now, I'll concede that I haven't read Dreams from My Father ..."

That's obvious!

Please, everybody, READ THE BOOK.

As it's subtitle say, it's "A Story of Race and Inheritance." That's not metaphorical.

Andrew,

You're talking about me. How about we bet my $10,000 against your $1,000 that I'm not Steve Sailer, and then we'll do a similar side bet that I've never met Steve Sailer?

Andrew? Andrew? Are you there?

I haven't read all these comments, so apologies if I'm repeating anything, but: Dude. WTF.

Basically Steve has been reduced to posting annoymously to shout down criticism, employing his patented "quantity over quality" strategy of posting so much inane drivel on a comment thread that people stop reading the comments and therefore stop talking about how much of a racist he is.

It, unfortunately, nearly always works.

"Please, everybody, READ THE BOOK.

As it's subtitle say, it's "A Story of Race and Inheritance." That's not metaphorical."

I heartily second this recommendation by Steve Salier--because actually reading DREAMS FROM MY FATHER is the best possible refutation of Salier's terrible interpretation of the book.

What amuses me most about his review is the completely unsubstantiated assertion that "so few of the many who have purchased [the book]... appear to have read much of it." Yglesias has a good takedown here. Salier plainly thinks that his anamolous interpretation is somehow obvious or mainstream, and so the fact that basically no other person who has read the book agrees with him must mean the book hasn't been widely read or commented on! This is piss-poor reasoning, even for Salier.

Senator Obama and I, unlike 98% of the punditariat, are on very much the same wavelength about the overlooked importantance of "race and inheritance," to quote the subtitle of his first book.

He devoted a 442 page book to race and inheritance for intensely felt personal reasons. I write about it all the time for market niche reasons -- I noted many years ago that the quality of public discourse on these interrelated subjects was much poorer than on any other topic of comparable importance, so it was possible for me to develop a competitive advantage in quality over other journalists in this area.

Beware Obama's Black Essence!

Yes his head is good... but what about his heart?

"Barack, it is your destiny!" So says Darth Free-loading Black Male Relative.

Essentialist thinking, people. If you are honest with yourself you'll realize that nothing is closer to the truth.

Steve, could you be more of an idiot and a mean creep at that?

I think Zzz is Barack Obama.

If you're still around after 5 pm or so, I'd like to take a better pass at your post. Briefly, I agree with you that the piece is often condescending and that Sailer doesn't like Obama much. Sailer used to live in Chicago, and saw a lot of politicians make compromises in that city's corrupt pol machine, this may the source of some of the animus. But more later, thanks for your discussion time, got to work now :(

Awww, shucks. You give me a brief but civil response, even though I was so confrontational. And unfortunately, I probably won't be around a computer much after 5 p.m. today, not until Sunday evening. Sorry.

But you asked for evidence that Sailer was racist, more than just the invective you've seen so far in this thread. My quoted paragraph seems to address that pretty well. It's not out of context. I don't think I was unfair in my summary of it. (If you do, speak up please.) It's not like the sentiments in it are unorthodox or so novel that we'd be remiss not to give them careful thought; if anything. He's not just talking about Obama, a politician with whom he has a history; he's talking about a race in general. If this article accurately represents Sailer's views on race, he's firmly in Limbaugh's crowd.

All his complaints about Obama could just as easily be aimed at any black more liberal than Alan Keyes. I don't care if Sailer came by his views after living in a city with a corrupt political machine, after too many summers spent in the company of a grandparent "from a different era," or because Obama's goons beat him up after writing an unfriendly story. Sailer believes that Blacks are lazy and love living on welfare, are inherently more tribalistic than everyone else, and are especially corrupted by government money, which political leaders like Obama deliberately enable for personal gain. How else are we supposed to interpret that?

Matt, it's simply not true "nobody else seems to have reached the same conclusion as Sailer." Here is from Newsweek.com:

By Andrew Romano
Newsweek
Updated: 9:39 a.m. PT Feb 12, 2007

"Feb. 9, 2007 - For all the hype, Barack Obama remains something of a mystery. To the chattering classes, the junior senator from Illinois is an empty vessel—or, as he himself has put it, “a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” ...

"But it’s also a matter of, well, laziness—on our part. Obama has written two top-notch (and relatively revealing) books. Plenty of people are buying them. His 1995 memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” written long before his first run for office, currently ranks 72nd on Amazon.com, while last year’s “The Audacity of Hope,” a far more political (and politic) volume, is 14th. It’s just that far fewer might be reading them. A shame, really, because there’s a lot of Obama in those 832 pages, including dope, booze, guns, Malcolm X and an ape named Tata. In Lincoln’s era, voters relied on slow newspaper reports to make a candidate’s acquaintance. Today, publishers pay pols millions for sanitized, sedative prose. All of which means that (the comparatively candid) Obama is, in fact, a pretty knowable quantity as far as presidential contenders go. He could be our first memoirist in chief. ...

"According to pundits, whites have warmed to Obama—and not all blacks have—because, as the son of an African immigrant who can "act white,” he is a “good black” (a schema cited by Peter Beinart in The New Republic), or not “actually black” at all (as argued by Debra J. Dickerson in Salon). If only someone had told Obama himself—who makes it very clear in his books (especially in “Dreams”) that while he may not “sound or look too black,” as Beinart suggests, he’s hardly the cheery post-racial candidate many believe him to be. Joe Biden be damned.

"In fact, Obama spent much of his life angry and confused about race. When a seventh-grade classmate called him a “coon,” young Barack bloodied his nose in return. Years later, a high-school basketball coach explained that “there are black people, and there are n——-s.” Obama answered with scorn—“There are white folks and then there are ignorant motherf—-ers like you”—before storming off the court. Since then, he writes, he has endured the “usual … petty slights”: “security guards tailing me as I shop in department stores, white couples who toss me their keys as I stand outside a restaurant waiting for the valet, police cars pulling me over for no apparent reason.”

"As a young man, Obama embraced being black. During college, he disdained other “half-breeds” who gravitated toward whites, dismissing one black student in “argyle sweaters and pressed jeans” as an “Uncle Tom.” He chose his friends carefully. “When it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he writes. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses.” To avoid being mistaken for a “sellout,” he befriended “the more politically active black students,” read Malcolm X and attended a Stokely Carmichael rally. He often felt “edgy and defensive” among “white people—some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.”

"Since then, Obama’s suspicions have softened. “I have witnessed a profound shift in race relations in my lifetime,” he writes in “Audacity.” “I insist that things have gotten better.” Accordingly, his racial politics are hardly radical. He wants to enforce nondiscrimination laws, strengthen affirmative action and fight for better schools, better jobs and better health care. But Obama’s books make it clear that, despite his mixed ancestry, he has lived his life as a black American, and, as a result, is more invested in issues of race than people like Beinart and Dickerson may realize."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17071772/site/newsweek/

Argh. Note to self: proofread.

"It's not like the sentiments in it are unorthodox or so novel that we'd be remiss not to give them careful thought; if anything, just the opposite."

Here's an article by another journalist who has actually read Obama's "Dreams from My Father."

‘Trapped between two worlds’

Bill Sammon, The Examiner
Jan 30, 2007 3:00 AM (45 days ago)

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama, the only major black candidate in the 2008 presidential race, has spent much of his life anguishing over his mixed-race heritage and self-described “racial obsessions.”

Descended from a white American mother and black Kenyan father, the Illinois Democrat once wrote: “He was black as pitch, my mother white as milk.”

In his first memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” Obama observed that when people discover his mixed-race heritage, they make assumptions about “the mixed blood, the divided soul, the ghostly image of the tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds.”

Indeed, Obama acknowledges feeling tormented for much of his life by “the constant, crippling fear that I didn't belong somehow, that unless I dodged and hid and pretended to be something I wasn't, I would forever remain an outsider, with the rest of the world, black and white, always standing in judgment.” ...

Although Obama was raised by his mother, he identified more closely with the race of his father, who left the family when Obama was 2.

“I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites,” he wrote.

Yet, even through high school, he continued to vacillate between the twin strands of his racial identity.

“I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds,” he wrote in “Dreams.” “One of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved — such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time.”

Although Obama spent various portions of his youth living with his white maternal grandfather and Indonesian stepfather, he vowed that he would “never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.” ...

During college, Obama disapproved of what he called other “half-breeds” who gravitated toward whites instead of blacks. And yet after college, he once fell in love with a white woman, only to push her away when he concluded he would have to assimilate into her world, not the other way around. He later married a black woman.

Such candid racial revelations abound in “Dreams,” which was first published in 1995, when Obama was 34 and not yet in politics. By the time he ran for his Senate seat in 2004, he observed of that first memoir: “Certain passages have proven to be inconvenient politically.”

Thus, in his second memoir, “The Audacity of Hope,” which was published last year, Obama adopted a more conciliatory, even upbeat tone when discussing race. Noting his multiracial family, he wrote in the new book: “I’ve never had the option of restricting my loyalties on the basis of race, or measuring my worth on the basis of tribe.”

This appears to contradict certain passages in his first memoir, including a description of black student life at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

“There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.”

He added: “To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.”

Obama said he and other blacks were careful not to second-guess their own racial identity in front of whites.

“To admit our doubt and confusion to whites, to open up our psyches to general examination by those who had caused so much of the damage in the first place, seemed ludicrous, itself an expression of self-hatred,” he wrote.

After his sophomore year, Obama transferred to Columbia University. Later, looking back on his years in New York City, he recalled: “I had grown accustomed, everywhere, to suspicions between the races.”

His pessimism about race relations seemed to pervade his worldview.

“The emotion between the races could never be pure,” he laments in “Dreams.” “Even love was tarnished by the desire to find in the other some element that was missing in ourselves. Whether we sought out our demons or salvation, the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.”

After graduating from college, Obama eventually went to Chicago to interview for a job as a community organizer. His racial attitudes came into play as he sized up the man who would become his boss.

“There was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

http://www.examiner.com/printa-536474~%E2%80%98Trapped_between_two_worlds%E2%80%99.html

As Matt wrote, "The alternative explanation would, of course, be that Sailer's race hang-ups are leading him to see things that nobody else sees because they're not really there." So I am not at all suprised that Sullivan will find the rantings of Sailer's "stimulating." Sullivan in his entire public punditry career is someone who seem to exhibit a certain crypto racist tendencise that makes him very comfortable with these kinds of argument and, while he will never come out and advocate them himself, is perfecetly willing to cite approviingly those who traffic in that realm.

I would also recommend Ben Wallace-Well's illuminating article on Sen. Obama in Rolling Stone, and article I refer to several times in my essay:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13390609/campaign_08_the_radical_roots_of_barack_obama

It does amaze me, the level of content-free vituperation one sees in lieu of argument whenever the left confronts Sailer. I honestly think some of y'all had better just not read anything he writes, because you're in danger of either blacking out or throwing up.

"Obama’s Identity Crisis" is not Sailer's best writing. Interesting in some ways, but unfocused; it's more a chance for Steve to interrogate some of his usual suspects. I don't feel like having read it I know much more about Obama than I did before.

If you want to read Sailer at his finest, check out the two piece thing he just did for Taki on "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid". He's got it linked at his site.

OK, the Steve Sailer study group will meet Fridays 5.30 in room 204. To qualify for a credit participants are expected to exhibit a thorough knowledge of his oeuvre and should expect an unannounced pop quiz ever so often. I am also delighted to announce that the author himself has agreed to pop in occasionally to rectify any misconceptions regarding his writings.

if i were you, i'd read Obama's book for myself and understand the context of his words.

the problem with mr. sailer and ultimately for all of those who haven't read the book is that he is like the scientist who uses 100 data points to prove an experiment whose range lies beyond teh 100 data points.

he makes sense to you because he confounds you with so much evidence. If you don't know the theory behind the science the data seem convincing, until you learn that the data required lies beyond the 100 data points.

Obama's book is so rich in PARTICULAR(Andrew Ferguson praises his sensitivity and insistence on the particular) that anyone could weave a narrative to suit their agenda.

So Mr. Sailer, I'm not confused like those who haven't read the book. The book is the real science; yours? At best propaganda, at worst delusion.

Novakant,

it's in room *304* and you know it, jackwipe. I'm so sick of the lies of the left.

Room 204 is "Feminist Theory and Male Breast Size: Correlations and Contradictions."

Sailer writes: "Matt, it's simply not true "nobody else seems to have reached the same conclusion as Sailer.""

Um, did anyone else go unhinged talking about Obama as if he's going to revert to some tribal state ?

May I also suggest that, as well as reading Obama's book, you read _my_ article on Obama before denouncing it? If Obama's book is too long for you, then please read the three articles I linked to above.

May I also suggest that, as well as reading Obama's book, you read _my_ article on Obama before denouncing it? If Obama's book is too long for you, then please read the three articles I linked to above.

I did all three. Your reading of the book is, essentially, that Barack Obama hates white people (or "racial antagonism" if you prefer). This interpretation is not supported by the three articles you linked to nor is it supported by the book itself, which contains a quite detailed and nuanced discussion of this very specific issue.

There's also a lot of latent racism in your article, which isn't hateful so much as bizzare (i.e. "In his head, Obama surely knows that his becoming the world’s biggest man would be bad for the work ethic of Kenyans.") These things along with your reputation explains the universally adverse reaction by commentators here, except for your usual one or two lackeys of course.

What an evil rotter.

"In his head, Obama surely knows that his becoming the world’s biggest man would be bad for the work ethic of Kenyans."

Not latent racism, but crazed disgusting evil racism. What a wretched racist.

The bottom line is, whatever Obama represents, the fact that he's an articulate (ie, white-sounding) black man makes him much more politically significant than otherwise. Whites are projecting onto to him, and the fact that he embraced the one-half of his gene pool that least invested in him after insemination is illuminating about his character, and also the nation's. If you can choose to be called white or black, most people choose "black", because you are then dangerous/victim/cool/authentic. The parts Sailer describes about disapproving of his white grandparents being afraid of black panhandlers is poignant.

In all, hooray for Sailer, because regular journalists don't have the guts to write this kind of political incorrectness. It's not racist (he says Obama got his intelligence from his African dad).

It's quite disingenuous to criticize an Obama post for bring race into the discussion. If he were white, would anyone care about this guy?

X Trapnel:

"My point is that: 1, it is *very difficult* to successfully untangle genetic v. social factors; 2, overestimating genetic factors has clear political implications that have historically been quite tempting to dominant group..."

This isn't quite true. Regarding your first point, there have been studies comparing identical twins raised separately that clearly show a hefty genetic component in certain outcomes. Regarding your second point, objective, scientific study of genetic and other human differences has often been ignored by dominant groups. For example, the Nazis banned IQ tests when they saw Jews outperformed non-Jewish Germans; similarly, I doubt Malaysians, for example, are terribly interested in objectively comparing themselves to their ethnic Chinese minority.

One point Sailer made in an essay was that historically, it is often the higher-achieving minority that is the target of discrimination.

["Unless they can bribe their way into a prestigious office job, most of Obama’s male relatives work as little as possible, relying on their womenfolk for food and shelter."

Degenerate racism; astonishing, frightening, horrid.]

Yes, Miss Manners, how dare he suggest that Kenya displays unusual levels of corruption and social dysfunction?!?!?! I, for one, am absolutely sickened at such a thought.

Everyone knows that Africa is paradise, and that Western societies would be well advised to structure themselves after the African example. Yea, the African is like a god; no wonder the continent is doing so well!

One mixed race guy no one ever seems to bring up is Derek Jeter, though he never seems to bring it up, so no one ever actually notices he is mixed race.

Excellent point. Jeter does not make a big deal of his mixed ancestry, and therefore neither does anyone else. He stands in total contrast to Halle Berry.
Jeter's sport might help. Baseball is full of Latin American players who are all over the color spectrum. Jeter's of course not Latin, but he may benefit from the matter-of-fact treatment that we give to mixed-race Latins.

I do wonder how much sinister intent we can really read into Obama's calling Kenyans his "brothers and sisters." If Giuliani went to Italy or Richardson to Mexico and Nicaragua, wouldn't they say warm and affectionate things about their ancestral homelands? Maybe not "my brothers and sisters," which is a little over the top, but they would talk about their pride in their heritages. JFK's trip to Ireland in 1963 was a memorable event.

This thread really should have been called something like "Steve Sailer, Southern Californian Road Warrior" or something like that. Only a fraction of the posts have been about Barack Obama.

One thing that Obama's mixed ancestry is highlighting is just how strange the American racial classification system is, because of the Southern segreationists one drop laws, and the decision of the US Census Bureau to remove the mixed race category in the 1920s. In every other country of the world, with the stranger exception of New Zealand, people's racial ancestry either doesn't matter that much, and/ or there is a large mixed race/ mulatto/ meszito category. When confronted with someone who looks Black, and who has an African-American wife, but has white ancestors and no slave ancestors, Americans' heads explode.

Of course this just illustrates how much race is really a social construct. I think Sailer has problems thinking of the subject this way, but then so do most Americans, including most liberals.

One thing that Obama's mixed ancestry is highlighting is just how strange the American racial classification system is, because of the Southern segreationists one drop laws, and the decision of the US Census Bureau to remove the mixed race category in the 1920s. In every other country of the world, with the stranger exception of New Zealand, people's racial ancestry either doesn't matter that much, and/ or there is a large mixed race/ mulatto/ meszito category.

White segregationist were the one-drop rule's original proponents. They viewed it as a means of preserving racial purity, or something to that effect. In recent decades, however, most of the support for the rule comes from blacks. When the Census Bureau proposed reinstating the mixed racial category for the 2000 Census, there was tremendous opposition from blacks and little if any from whites.

IINM, the one-drop rule in New Zealand is not quite the same; having a trace of Maori ancestry entitles one to vote for certain electoral lists but otherwise confers few benefits.

The one exception to the one-drop-of-blood rule in America is Hawaii, where Obama was a prep. Like Obama, many Hawaiian residents are the products of mixed marriages: in 1956-57, interracial marriage rates ranged from 22.0 percent for professionals to 43.5 percent for farm workers. There’s not much of a one-drop-of-blood rule for defining racial membership in Hawaii that mandated that Obama call himself black and only black.

"Of course this just illustrates how much race is really a social construct."

No it's not, it's biological reality. Click below, scroll down, look at the graphic on the right labeled "An autosomal DNA plot of genetic distances derived from 120 allele frequencies in Cavalli-Sforza's The History and Geography of Human Genes," notice what those clusters circled in yellow correspond with suspicious precision to, and you'll never again be muddled with the lie that "race is a social construct with no basis in biology."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalli-Sforza

"One thing that Obama's mixed ancestry is highlighting is just how strange the American racial classification system is, because of the Southern segreationists one drop laws, and the decision of the US Census Bureau to remove the mixed race category in the 1920s."

The one drop rule is kept alive by black organizations who want to make their ethnic groups as large as possible. As soon as it became politically advantageous for black groups, the odiousness of the one drop rule disappeared overnight. morality is flexible, eh?

"In every other country of the world, with the stranger exception of New Zealand, people's racial ancestry either doesn't matter that much, and/ or there is a large mixed race/ mulatto/ meszito category."

Right, in Norway, Japan, Finland, Poland, Iceland, Austria, South Korea, Taiwan, and Denmark your race doesn't matter very much and there is a large mixed-race category. You're joking.

"In all, hooray for Sailer, because regular journalists don't have the guts to write this kind of political incorrectness."

I can't believe that someone on the thread accused Steven Sailer of sock-puppeting.

This wasn't written by Sailer. It was clearly written by Lee Siegel.

I find the fact that someone is writing an entry ripping Sailer's take on the book without having read the book hilarious.

Also as far as Kenyan men not working if they don't have to. Watch the Discovery channel. There are a lot of cultures where the women do the majority of the work, and men are by culture what we would consider to be deadbeats.

OK, I propose a game. Which commenter in this thread is actually Steve Sailer masquerading as someone else?

Sailer wouldn't bother with a sock-puppet. It's not as if the guy has a lot of shame