Photo from Rocky Mountain News
This is the kind of thing I feared when I criticized Matt Gonzalez for joining Ralph Nader’s latest run for president. I cringed when listening to Nader tell the Rocky Mountain News that Obama “talks white” and doesn’t express enough concern for life in “the ghettos,” using anachronistic and extremely paternalistic language to essentially hector Obama for not being black enough.
Progressives have a hard enough time convincing communities of color that we’re on their side without arrogant old white guys talking down to them and the nation’s first black presidential candidate. Nader says he sees no difference between Obama and the other Democrats he’s challenged and says Obama’s campaign is an appeal to “white guilt.”
The best part of the interview is when Nader levels this criticism at Obama: “He censors himself.” Guess what, Ralph? In civil society, we all censor ourselves from time to time, something that is particularly important for a presidential candidate. It’s advice this campaign would do well to adopt before Nader’s antiquated, quasi-racist rhetoric takes that desperate campaign down even further into infamy.