Obama is "Grown-Up Trayvon"?

[Formaldehyde]

Thanks to VRWCAgent for reminding me that I hadn't checked out TYT for a while...


Link to video.

Dinesh D’Souza calls Obama ‘grown-up Trayvon’

Conservative commentator and writer Dinesh D’Souza ignited a social media backlash Tuesday, when he referred to President Barack Obama as “Grown-Up Trayvon” on Twitter.

“I am thankful this week when I remember that America is big enough and great enough to survive Grown-Up Trayvon in the White House!” D’Souza tweeted.

D’Souza followed up 45 minutes later, writing, “Feigned outrage on the left over me calling Obama ‘grown up Trayvon’ except that Obama likened himself to Trayvon!”

D’Souza is no stranger to controversy. In 2010, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd took him to task for “playing into the bigotry of birthers and haters who paint Obama as ‘the other,’” and cited a problematic statement published in Forbes about Obama’s heritage.

A former King’s College president and longtime Obama critic, D’Souza spearheaded the 2012 documentary, “2016: Obama’s America,” which was highly critical of the president’s policies. Although the political documentary was a commercial success, critics called into question D’Souza’s motives, with some calling it an attempt at character assassination.

As the TYT talking head commented, "Well, there is no grown-up Trayvon".

Do you think this is an over-the-top comment for a former president of a college and member of the Reagan White House to make? If not, why do you think he later decided to delete both tweets?

 

[Crezth]

This is a staunch reminder that grown-up Trayvons simply lack the moral fiber to cheat on their wives.

 

[Borachio]

Is this incitement to assassination?

What's Christian-speak for fatwa?

 

[JollyRoger]

That D'Souza hasn't been detained or deported speaks volumes to the President's extreme tolerance.

 

[Goodfella]

They should identify which King's College he was president of given that there are like 20 of them and I don't know much about him. I certainly didn't think it was London, but I don't think I've ever heard of King's College New York.

 

[Borachio]

In August 2010, he was named president of the King's College, a Christian liberal arts college then housed in the Empire State Building in Manhattan.[2] The college relocated to a larger space in Fall 2012, next door to the New York Stock Exchange in lower Manhattan's financial district.[24] On October 18, 2012, after claims he had stayed in a hotel with a new girlfriend though not yet divorced from his wife became public, D’Souza resigned his post at The Kings College

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D'Souza

Also:

Dinesh has argued that the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal was a result of “the sexual immodesty of liberal America”. He further asserted that the conditions of prisoners at Abu Ghraib “are comparable to the accommodations in midlevel Middle Eastern hotels”.

Hahaha!

He's been taking lessons off Prince Philip, I'm sure.

 

[timtofly]

What's Christian-speak for fatwa?

judicial review?

 

[Borachio]

Is it?

 

[Darkflight]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D'Souza

Also:



Hahaha!

He's been taking lessons off Prince Philip, I'm sure.

Yeah, he sounds like a real charmer. At least Prince Philip is an awesome target to make fun of. This guy is just depressing in every way.

 

[householder]

They should identify which King's College he was president of given that there are like 20 of them and I don't know much about him. I certainly didn't think it was London, but I don't think I've ever heard of King's College New York.

Star Commentator Is Out as Christian College President After Scandal
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/n...-kings-college-president-in-scandal.html?_r=0

Statement of Faith
http://www.tkc.edu/abouttkc/pdf/Statement_of_Faith.pdf

That D'Souza hasn't been detained or deported speaks volumes to the President's extreme tolerance.

Or Obama's extreme ineptitude. He probably can't even figure out how to connect to the internet, so he can't find D'Souza to in order to make the guy "disappear." Or maybe Obama thinks turning off his computer does make D'Souza disappear.

 

[JollyRoger]

D'Souza was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) to Goan Catholic parents. He went to the Jesuit school St. Stanislaus High School in what was then Bombay. He graduated in 1976 and completed his 11th and 12th at Sydenham College, also in Bombay.

At the conclusion of a September, 2010, commentary article in Forbes about President Barack Obama titled "How Obama Thinks", D'Souza wrote: "...[O]ur President is trapped in his father's time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father's dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D'Souza

 

[Antilogic]

This thread about a philosophizer of Kenyan anticolonialism got zimmed in the OP. Is that a record?

 

[timtofly]

The record will be to see if the OT posts will be rational.

 

[Berzerker]

well thats unfair to Obama, unless he beat someone up when he was a teen

 

[Antilogic]

Does Obombya like Skittles?

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yes, this was a bizarre comment on D'Souza's part, but also very revealing.

In defending himself, he's not wrong. Just after the Zimmerman trial, Obama had identified himself with Martin. Nevertheless, even that defense is directly revealing of the racism in this tweet.

First, Obama's comment was a good while ago. What does it say that D'Souza held it in mind for this long? Second, D'Souza's inversion is very telling. Obama had said, "I too was once a black kid who had to navigate within a society marked by racism," but that is different from being the Grown-up version of Trayvon Martin. D'Souza has inverted Obama's comparison. Not "I was once like Trayvon Martin" but "Trayvon Martin grown up would be me." D'Souza's tweet is offensive not only because, as has been pointed out, it reminds us that Trayvon Martin never got the chance to be Grown-up Trayvon Martin," but also because of the criticism it lodges against Obama: that he's a grown up . . . what? What is the quality in Obama that D'Souza is criticizing by saying that Obama is a Grown-up version of Trayvon Martin? The quality that America needs to "survive"? The answer is: nothing specifiable. Let's say TM had been known to be mild-mannered, and BO is too dovish in foreign policy. Then BO could be criticized for being a grown up TM in respect to that character trait. But pretty much the only things TM is really known for is being black and being shot. So the only identifiable respect in which BO is a grown up TM is that he is black. The tweet amounts to saying ". . . strong enough to survive having a black president." (Good call by Borachio in noting D'Souza's thinly veiled wish that BO would resemble TM in the one other thing he's known for).

D'Souza took the tweets down because 1) he realized how outrageously insensitive they were to Trayvon Martin and 2) the outrage on the left was not feigned; rather, his racism here was too thinly veiled and he realized it. Mixing all of that with Thanksgiving was in also in monumentally bad taste.

Now to answer Forma's question. It doesn't deserve the descriptor "over the top." It's beyond the pale.

 

[Berzerker]

Not everyone's happy to see the Prez interject himself into the situation, and I think he did it before the trial - really not cool. Of course people will remember what he said, and why... But to his credit, the Feds aint trying to nail GZ in a hate crimes trial or whatever BS the Al Sharpton's of the country wanted.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Obama's remarks were made after Zimmerman was acquitted.

 

[sophie]

I'm not entirely sure what being a "Trayvon" of any age actually entails.

 

[Cutlass]

I'm not entirely sure what being a "Trayvon" of any age actually entails.

Being a Trayvon is being someone attacked for no reason other than being who they are and being someplace others don't think they belong.