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Email letter (slightly edited for clarity and [added text]) to a highly respected friend of mine, Green party official, and a Nader political associate:


WHEN ONE CAN SHOCK EVEN *FOX* NEWS WITH AN INAPPROPRIATE RACIAL INSULT…!!

RALPH NADER 'CALLS' OBAMA AN UNCLE TOM!!


From: Joseph Anderson <[deleted for privacy]>
To: [deleted for privacy]
Subject: Nader: "or [whether Obama is going to be] Uncle Tom for the giant corporations" ...?
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 22:15:18 -0800


Hi [deleted for privacy],


Nader: "or [whether Obama is going to be] Uncle Tom for the giant corporations" ...?

Ralph Nader calls Obama a Uncle Tom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GirBGXVklzY&NR=1

(From *all* the different YouTube videos of this, there have literally been 100's of 1,000's of views.)


This interview of Nader on Fox News is a perfect example of what happens when an ARROGANT 'white' guy can't admit when he's *wrong* -- even when repeatedly given the chance (as twice before with me [an African American], related to something else very important). So, I'm not at all surprised. It finally caught up with him -- big time.

[(Previously emailed:) Apparently, as in my particular case, when Nader thinks you're a nobody (even from the left) who's a nobody that nobody publicly &/or professionally important (even *very* important on the left) knows and cares a lot about, that's exactly how he treats you. This so, even if you're from the left and originally once supported him. But, that's often so true with a lot of those even progressive icons, unless you're constantly worshipping them. Or, as Michael Eric Dyson wrote, about many liberal/progressive icons, on p.54, par.2, of his book _Debating Race_: "...[T]hey go, 'Oh, hell, who is *he*? I'm not going to get the glory anymore because now *that* person is there.' Insecure, incapable of accepting intelligent, articulate (ordinary) people who just want to help."]

Nader's whole sentence (racially insulting Obama) didn't even make any real sense at that! -- especially to most Black people: "...whether he's (Obama's) going to be Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom". What does even, "...whether he's going to be Uncle Sam", mean? -- since neither figures, for most racial minorities, have a great reputation.

Obviously, Nader must not have any authentic Black personal friends (if any Black personal friends at all) to advise/tell him that this kind of language from him is completely unacceptable. But, if he even had any Black friends, he's probably so *arrogant* [in this case, a female friend of mine calls it having PMS, Progressive Male Syndrome] and "white" ["white", to me, is more of an (historical) *attitude*, rather than simply a color] that he wouldn't even consult or listen to them either -- or even *ever* feel that he even needs to do so. Hell, what do we Black people know?

Even *IF* the sentiment were politically right, his presumptuous wording was *grossly insensitive* to the national Black community -- and grossly *wrong* to say it that way -- at least not unless or until Obama might *clearly* demonstrate that. Rev. Wright didn't even call Obama an "Uncle Tom". Wright said that, "Obama was just being a politician." And the reasons Nader itemizes for his epithet aren't even logically or politically sufficient reasons for saying such a thing (unlike those one could give for someone directly like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, or Ward Connerly, or John McWhorter, or even, effectively, Condoleeza Rice).

Obama has arguably come questionably close. [Like, refusing to go to Memphis to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's death, when Hillary and even McCain did, but Obama went to commemorate Israel's 60th anniversary of its colonization and take-over of historic Palestine. Obama saying "we must respect the judge's verdict" completely exonerating the pigs (who were allowed to opt out of a jury trial) who legally murdered Sean Bell in yet another hail-of-bullets lynching of a Black man by rogue cops. Obama being a *"Black"* (although I don't know what he calls himself) man from *Illinois* who supports the death penalty, in a state that once had to *release* more men, almost all Black, from death row than were *on* death row during the time (even, consequently, the white Republican governer opposed the death penalty). Obama alluding to -- but refusing -- to even say Martin Luther King by name in Obama's nomination acceptance speech, a man Obama would have also had to condemn, if both were alive today, for King calling the U.S. "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today", let alone condemn conscious Black athletes like Mohammad Ali, or John Carlos and Tommie Smith, back in the day. Obama's speeches about "Black male (ir)responsibilities", Obama's 'Bill Clinton', "Sister Souljah moment". (Like you don't hear, on television talk / court / other shows every day, about plenty of white guys, from rich to poor, not taking care of their kids, when not busy murdering their entire family.) Obama wouldn't even put on a welcome lei, given to him in Hawai'i upon a campaign visit there, for fear he would look 'too native Hawaiian'! But, these aren't even the kind of arguements that Nader used.]

But, Obama hasn't yet, directly or effectively, *singled-out* and especially *targeted* Black people for adverse political or economic policies, which is what it would take for the "Uncle Tom" racial insult to be justified. *I* wouldn't even say what Nader said and I've been sociopolitically quite opposed to either Obama and McCain as would-be, imperialist, 'white-supremacist', economic neoliberalist, military-industrial complex, pro-corporate, pro-Zionist presidents, promoted from political parties that represent just that.

This is a demonstration that Nader is emotionally losing it. While there are some very young and fit 70-something year-olds (especially in California), perhaps he's personally getting too old to stand up to the stresses of constant round-the-country barnstorming for either his book or his erstwhile running for president (that can take a toll on someone of any age), and the constant personal-political attacks even from other white so-called "progressive/leftist" icons. Apparently, not even his political or personal (if he's got any left with good judgement) friends can help him anymore.

*That's* how Nader wants to go out? Now he's *finished* in the national Black community. And, before that, he would have been finished in the San Francisco Bay Area with Black people, as far as my efforts would have been concerned. All that talk of his, before in his book lectures, about his emulating his father's supposed great judgement, ethics and principles...; my brilliant lefty attorney housemate summed it all up in her usual succinct way when I told her what happened to me from Nader: "Goes to show it's all just rhetoric." But, to borrow from and paraphrase Ice Cube, let a ffoolll be a ffoolll!

[But, check this out: since this email, another Green party official privately emailed me and called Nader's remark, "an insensitive, but clearly calculated outburst"!]

Peace,

Joseph

[Berkeley, CA]