Our president appeared at the same NAACP convention that honored Don King, and spoke some amazing words. "We just announced an initiative on Africa, on promoting economic development in Africa," he said to applause. "And there was a lot of excitement about it. We had a lot of Republican congressmen interested in it because they think we can make a lot of money there." (The president hastened to add that "I don't mean that in a bad way." Sure.)
But insulting Republicans wasn't the purpose of the anecdote. "Why," the president asked, "are we in a good position to do well" in Africa? His answer: "Because of you. Because of you." You, of course, meaning "black people." We recall that in 1992, Ross Perot became the focus of a two-day hysteria when he spoke before the NAACP convention and said: "It's gonna be a long, hot summer. I don't have to tell you who gets hurt first when this sort of thing happens, do I? You people do. Your people do."
Delegates to the NAACP fell all over themselves taking offense at Perot's words, but seemed to love the president's, even though the condescending tone and patronizing spirit were exactly the same. The president then went into a peroration on economic ties that leads one to wonder whether he has ever read the Declaration of Independence.
"Why are we in a good position to unite all of Latin America with us in a common economic group early in the next century? Because of the Hispanic Americans, all the Latinos. Why are we in a good position to avoid having Asia become a separate economic bloc and a destabilizing force in the world? In no small measure because of all the Asian Americans in this country. Why do we have some hope of being a major force for peace in the Middle East? Because of all the Jewish Americans here and the increasingly active and constructive Arab American community here."
Thus the president takes identity politics into an entirely new realm: Call it identity economics. Are we the only ones who find these remarks by the president truly and deeply creepy?