Harry’s Place

The first time I heard this expression, actually it’s really *House Nigger* btw, was against the immensely respected Ipswich Labour Councillor Albert Grant. Some yank black getting well out of order (he ended up admitting that round here we are not racist in the way he’d experienced in the US and I must say a substantial former black serviceman community lives here precisely for that reason).

http://www.ipswich.gov.uk/Council+Information/Councillors/Councillor+Albert+Grant+OBE+-+Whitehouse.htm

This bloke who I’d count a mate, is one of the best democratc socialists you’d ever meet. House negro- welcome!

Al-Zawahri says in an audio message, which appeared on militant Web sites Wednesday, that Obama is “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans” like Malcolm X. He calls Obama a “house negro.”

The audio plays over still pictures of al-Zawahri, Malcolm X praying, and Obama with Jewish leaders

Jewish leaders??!!! What no photo ops of Obama with Muslim & Arab leaders??? (Whoops, I remember his team had some hijab wearing women moved out of camera sight).

Are we seeing the emergence of Obama The Zionist?

What do you expect?

All this time I was thinking it meant the opposite of when you’re in a restaurant and you ask for a bottle of the house white.

Well, Harry’s Place Favoured Candidate For A Job He Is Not Remotely Qualified To Do (and mate of “London is full of black muggers” Taki) Boris Johnson’s Bullingdon club chum, Polish FM Radek Sikorski, as you might expect, does this sort of thing with more panache and style

Writing in his blog, Mr Czarnecki, an MEP, quoted the foreign minister as saying: “Have you heard that Obama may have a Polish connection? His grandfather ate a Polish missionary.”

Fantastic (if, erm, not entirely convincing) excuse, too

Mr Sikorski did not tell a racist joke,” said Piotr Paszkowski, the spokesman. “He was only giving an example of the unpalatable and racist ‘jokes’ that surround President Elect Obama.”

“Unpalatable,” Mr Paszkowski? Did I hear you correctly?

And I was sure that Al Qaeda were on the verge of becoming friends with the US.

Sue R - ‘What do you expect?’

I was scrolling down to the end to post exactly what you posted when I saw your post.

“Some yank black”

Careful. not a good turn of phrase. I’d be very offended by that if I were African-American.

“Ayman al-Zawahri said Mr Obama was not an “honourable black American”… Perhaps he will enlighten us with a list of approved honourable black Americans.

Theres nothing new in this.
The glorious resistance of martys in Iraq - Black soldiers are a particular target. ‘To have Negroes occupying us is a particular humiliation,’ Abu Mujahed said, echoing the profound racism prevalent in much of the Middle East. ‘Sometimes we aborted a mission because there were no Negroes.’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/12/usa.iraq

“He was only giving an example of the unpalatable”

That is probably so, not a anthropophagus my self but I can image especially Polish politicans being unpalatable and indigestible.

What did the pedophile prophet say about blacks :-
“Volume 1, Book 11, Number 664:Narrated Anas bin Malik:The Prophet said to Abu-Dhar, “Listen and obey (your chief) even if he is an Ethiopian with a head like a raisin.””

Off topic but interesting.

Just in case anyone thought the racism was accidental, the Associated Press reports,

Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term “abeed al-beit,” which literally translates as “house slaves.” But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as “house negroes.”

btw, al-Zawahri stayed some years in the 1990ies in Sudan; as far as I know, this hypocrite never protested against the ongoing practice of enslaving black people from Kordofan and Southern Sudan in that period

tim,

The implication would have been a slave anyway. There were those negroes, slaves, who were in the house, closest to the master and there were those negroes- slaves, who were in the field, away from the master.

It was never describig free blacks. Even when Malcolm X used it, he considered blacks under some pyschological slavery in their insistence on never breaking free from their masters but instead choosing to intergrate.

George Orwell,

A little crude but racist? Hardly. I would think it was a little egalitarian for its time.

According to Jihad watch :-
“Actually abeed means both “slave” and “black person,” so Al-Qaeda’s translation is just fine. Perhaps Adam Gadahn, if he is still alive, helped out al-Zawahri with the American idiomatic phrase.”

It is remarkable that this nobody (Zawahri), a simple criminal terrorist, is payed this marked attention almost as he is a statesman. He represents no one, maybe a leader of terrorists, produce nothing but some occasional criminal terror. Does it have any importance at all what this dimwit thinks of the democratically elected soon to be most powerful head of state in the world?

Guess that those polish szlachta nobles, who indulge in fancies they are of some very very special race - descendants of Sarmatians - and not being like other polish country bumpkins, have to bite their tongues if they shall continue to lick the American boot.

If nothing else the next 4-8 years will be a treat when all these racists’ dimwits have to suck up to and lick the boots of the black POTUS that are their superior with any human yardstick.

Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman, lend me your grey mare,
All along, down along, out along lee.
For I want to go to Washington Fair.
Wi’ Rahm Emanuel, Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden,
David Axelrod, Rob’ Gates. Peter Rouse,
Old Uncle Tom Obama and all.
Old Uncle Tom Obam and all.

(With apologies to Barack Obama for parodying what the Al Qaeda tape called him. Its not my sentiment)

http://www.spreyton.org.uk/tom_cobley.htm - the original

George Orwell 19 November 2008, 5:14 pm

According to Jihad watch :-
“Actually abeed means both “slave” and “black person,” so Al-Qaeda’s translation is just fine. Perhaps Adam Gadahn, if he is still alive, helped out al-Zawahri with the American idiomatic phrase.”

Yup, in Arabic the word for “black person” is interchangeable with slave.

The Eastern, Islamic trade in black African slaves was at least equal in numbers and brutality to the Atlantic Slave Trade, but very rarely gets written about.

…and before anyone (Benji??) starts on me - I have great respect for a lot of aspects of Arab and Islamic culture, I am not some orientalist nutcase, just pointing stuff out.

where to now for those anti racist/ we are all hizbollah now / islamist sympathisers on student campuses ?

Thousands of insults have been directed at the President-elect before, during and after the election. Many of these unsavoury comments have come from the mouths of citizens of the USA who should know better.
Fortunately Mr. Obama, an example to us all, chooses to ignore the comments of the barmy brigade.
My suggested antidote to all this predictable claptrappery of fools and knaves is - pour out one large cognac, perhaps a Hennessy Privilege, find an easy chair, relax, and listen to some classical music; perhaps Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.

go rimbuad,

The Arabic language is alot older than the trans Saharan slave trade. How long has slave and a black person been interchangeable in Arabic? Is this within a historical context or a literal translation? Arent there other words for a black person in Arabic?

jimbob,

Is it really racist to call Obama a house negro? Its a criticism of his politics not his race.

Black voter:

“Is it really racist to call Obama a house negro? Its a criticism of his politics not his race.”

Of course it’s racist. What policies should a black man follow to not be labeled a ‘House negro’? Should Obama be playing racial politics as the president of the US to satisfy a murderer’s definitions of what he deems approvable?

The use of Malcolm X is also twisted. Malcolm X’s conversion opened his eyes to the fact that Islam was essentially colour-blind. Yet Al-Zawarhi somehow feels that Obama should act and behave as ‘black man’.

Obama seems pretty empowered to me. He’s the progeny of both black and white and was lovingly raised by black and white.

Yet he is expected to live up to some vague stereotype? Come on.

“The Arabic language is alot older than the trans Saharan slave trade. How long has slave and a black person been interchangeable in Arabic? Is this within a historical context or a literal translation?”

The slave trade is much much older than we at first think. The ancient Egyptians were very reliant on their Nubian slaves. And in that part of the world, the trade never really went away. It persists today, with the inhabitants of the southern part of Sudan particularly vulnerable to capture and enslavement. Some Christian groups have tried to rescue the slaves by redeeming them with money raised by the churches in the west. It’s a dilemma though, because many people think the redeemers are helping to sustain the market for slaves.

It is a thorny problem in the islamic world, because the scripture dictates that no muslim law may forbid anything that was permitted in the Quran and Hadith. The prophet had a black slave as a manservant.

@Monty,

Is it really a thorny issue? How did Saudi Arabia manage it? And you didnt answer any of my questions.

Is there anti black racism inherent in the Arabic language? If so, it would be the case for all Arabic speakers regardless of religion or politics.

I think the word slave translates into black people or black persons for both Arabs and Westerners because it reflects our history of the enslavement of black peoples more or less exclusively.

“You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America,” he said.

I think all the people on this site whose sentiments mirrored this one before the election should be ashamed of themselves. LOL.

“…..pray the prayer of the Jews”

Hilarious. Anyone can come to the wall and privately (I must add) pray in whatever language or liturgy they wish.

Gentiles have prayed and pilgrimed at the Temple site since biblical times. The Romans offered sacrifices to the Hebrew Godhead through the priesthood.

I think the word slave translates into black people or black persons for both Arabs and Westerners because it reflects our history of the enslavement of black peoples more or less exclusively.

Eh??

Slave
Origin: 1250–1300; ME sclave < ML sclāvus (masc.), sclāva (fem.) slave, special use of Sclāvus Slav, so called because Slavs were commonly enslaved in the early Middle Ages; see Slav

So did you think any of those slavic slaves happen to be Polish?

Polish missionary. There was a time, say thirty years or so ago before John Paul II’s Papacy, when that might have been the begining of a Polish joke!

BV:
“Is it really a thorny issue? How did Saudi Arabia manage it? And you didnt answer any of my questions.

Is there anti black racism inherent in the Arabic language? If so, it would be the case for all Arabic speakers regardless of religion or politics.

I think the word slave translates into black people or black persons for both Arabs and Westerners because it reflects our history of the enslavement of black peoples more or less exclusively.”

————
I will try to answer your questions in turn, to the best of my knowledge.

KSA outlawed slavery, under protest, sometime in the 1960s. On paper at least. It is doubtful if this was ever enforced. In a society as closed as KSA, it is not easy get a picture of what actually goes on now, but the KSA government can’t afford to tangle with the wahhabis to enforce an unislamic civil law. That’s thorny.

As for your second question, I do not think it is reasonable to infer that racism is inherent in the language per se. If, in ancient times, the only black people the arab tribesmen ever saw were already enslaved, there would have been no reason to develop a new syntax for a free black person. Also, bear in mind that not all their slaves were black. Many were the women and girls of vanquished arabian tribes. War was commonplace, as were the spoils. I don’t know if they had a specific term for this class of slave. But languages develop as a result of facts on the ground.

And I would not dispute, in your final paragraph, the historical suffering of black Africans, just as I would not dispute the systematic and overwhelming genocide against the Jews during the Holocaust. It is devastating in magnitude, and impact. But not exclusive. There is hardly any ethnic or regional group who were not enslaved at some time in history. But then that’s history, we can’t change it. The slavery that goes on today, is another matter entirely.
We can, and should, be changing that.

Maybe you should be asking me whether modern arabic includes seperate terms for slave, and black man?

I don’t know. Ask a modern arab what the term is to describe a distinguished black man in a position of authority and influence over his arabian staff in Riyyad.

Monty,

“but the KSA government can’t afford to tangle with the wahhabis to enforce an unislamic civil law. That’s thorny.”

I believe the KSA is an absolute monarch. He happens to be a theocrat but he isnt apart of the ulema. The next time Saudi Arabia is threatened, perhaps from Iran, the Americans, much to the chagrin of the Wahhabis, will be right there ready, not so willing, and able.

Monty,

“I don’t know. Ask a modern arab what the term is to describe a distinguished black man in a position of authority and influence over his arabian staff in Riyyad.”

Well the Americans atleast have President, as their term. According to this:

“Volume 1, Book 11, Number 664:Narrated Anas bin Malik:The Prophet said to Abu-Dhar, “Listen and obey (your chief) even if he is an Ethiopian with a head like a raisin.””

It would be emir, wouldnt it?

“I believe the KSA is an absolute monarch. He happens to be a theocrat but he isnt apart of the ulema. The next time Saudi Arabia is threatened, perhaps from Iran, the Americans, much to the chagrin of the Wahhabis, will be right there ready, not so willing, and able.”

Like they came through for the Shah of Iran?

The King is only an absolute monarch so far as the religious hierarchy allow him to be. Saudi Arabia has not “managed” anything in terms of human rights or social or economic progress. KSA is a facade propped up by rather a lot of money. Why would the US care who is in charge over there, so long as they keep needing to sell their oil on to the world market? And they will because they have nothing else to sell. It’s that or starve. Getting the Americans to shed their blood in defence of the Saudis. Hmmm. Good Luck with that…

“It would be emir, wouldnt it?”. Good luck with that too. If you are going over there to try it for yourself, get a duplicate passport so you can do a runner.

Black Voter
19 November 2008, 8:16 pm

Black Voter -

You quote AQ saying:

“You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America,” he said.

And the comment:

I think all the people on this site whose sentiments mirrored this one before the election should be ashamed of themselves. LOL.

MY RESPONSE:

This is unfair I think. Obama was born to a Muslim father. That makes him a Muslim according to Islamic law. He attended school as a Muslim in Indonesia (as attested by his school mates).

The racist Church he attended for so many years, seemed to have friendly relations with Nation of Islam, the sect originally patronised by Malcolm X.

It was the fact that Obama failed to deal with these directly that was of concern.

Whether one wants a Muslim to lead the greatest democracy on earth, is another matter. I would certainly want to know what sort of Muslim.
Any Muslim demonstrating great attachment to his religion is, I am afraid, bound to raise concerns about his political views: does he despise Jews? want to see the destruction of Israel in common with many Muslims? does he want to see Shariah law introduced? does he believe men are superior to women? does he think Jews and Christians should be treated as second class citizens etc etc. If one’s enquiries lead one to the conclusion that this person is a secularised, “cultural” Muslim then it need not be an issue.

Monty:”Getting the Americans to shed their blood in defence of the Saudis. Hmmm. Good luck with that…”

Monty, Americans did shed their blood to defend Saudi Arabia from Saddam in the first Iraq-US War back in 1991.

This is unfair I think. Obama was born to a Muslim father. That makes him a Muslim according to Islamic law. He attended school as a Muslim in Indonesia
…
Whether one wants a Muslim to lead the greatest democracy on earth, is another matter. I would certainly want to know what sort of Muslim.

What I learned is that Obama was raised by his American mother a Christian agnostic and by his American grandparents that was Baptists and Methodists. Cant see that 3 years from 7-10 in an Indonesian primary school makes him a muslim, don’t know about the school he attended but just because it have an label as a muslim school don’t make it an “Pakistan” madras Taliban institution. Probably just as catholic schools that is basically as any other primary school where the kids learn to read, write and basic maths.

And since when did Islamic law been something that rule Americans?

Thank you, lasse, for a commonsense rebuttal to yet another Obama is really a Muslim arguement.

field,

Apparently you dont mind seeing Islamic law introduced since you are judging Obama by it. You cant run for President I’m afraid.

@Monty,

Do you know anything about the creation of Saudi Arabia? Whatever your argument is this isnt the case of the tail wagging the dog. The religious establishment is appointed by the King. He butters their bread.

lasse, he took Muslim religious instruction and was registered as a Muslim. I fully accept that in later years, he left Islam and became a Christian, but why could he have been honest about it? If he had been honest about it, it would have nipped all the “He is a Muslim” rumours in the bud. In fact, they started because he and his supporters (including YOU) was/were expressly dishonest about it.

“A sort of half-caste Princess Diana” – Rod Liddle in this week’s Spectator.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3023381/part_3/i-loved-oliver-stones-bush-film-and-i-know-why-the-critics-hated-it.thtml

Good grief!

At the very outside Obama is an apostate from Islam (although this occurred when he was a minor). He is not a muslim now because he is a practicing (and by the looks of it sincere, if liberal) Christian and has been for most of his childhood and all his adult life.
Why is this so hard for some people? Why do some people think that he is a muslim when he obviously isn’t?

Morgoth- he was honest about it. He wrote that he attended these madrassas in his youth. I attended a CoE school in my youth. I never “left” Anglicanism because I never took it seriously in the first place. Maybe he didn’t either? Maybe he attended these schools because he was a kid and kids do what their parents tell them to do? He was “registered” as a muslim in Indonesia because, in Indonesia, you *have* to register in a particular religion and his stepfather was registered as a muslim.

Incidentally, any comment on a black person that makes a comparison between them and a black slave stereotype is racist in my view.

Tzimisces, by all accounts he was a proactive Theist. attending a Madrassa. It is the basic dishonesty of even admitting this that is the problem.

I take most of the references to the Arabic for slave/black not to be accusing speakers of inherent racism (glass-houses, pot-kettle for Europeans, I think), but simply a response to the meme that all levels of European culture/history is racist in ways non-Europeans aren’t. Heck, in the case of Sudan, the Janjaweed are just about as ‘black’ as the Darfuris. Nor are ‘black Africans’ a homogeneous group, and if we delve into the history of trans-Atlantic trade we find rivalries between kingdoms and population groups there.

Of course, when someone starts going on about a paedophile Mo’, we can assume there is some form of anti-Muslim bigotry.

Well, Harry’s Place Favoured Candidate For A Job He Is Not Remotely Qualified To Do (and mate of “London is full of black muggers” Taki) Boris Johnson’s [...]

VENICHKA

You stop going on about this (which I was not pleased about either), and we stop going on about the spectacular error of judgement in picking Palin. Deal?

Beat it, Morgoth. Liberty if it means anything at all doesn’t cover it.

I’m getting tired of posting this.

Not that Gene’s re-post applies to me but as an anti-Obama person during the election I never once tried to imply that Obama was a secret Muslim or that he had a radical Islamic upbringing.

Its fact that he was born to a Muslim father and attended a school under the religious label of Muslim. After all, what else would his father register him as. He learnt the Koran and states in his book he was ribbed over his pronunciation.

What Obama did and was as a schoolboy doesn’t determine what he is now and I think people should drop the smears.

Obam will be President and I will judge him on his future (and match it with his past where relevant).

While conspiracy theories tend to be for the nuts I do subscribe to one idea I have always held about the USA and its presidency. That is that it rarely matters who is President because they all seem to end up doing similar things. I remember Reagan was supposed to be the pre-cursor to a nuclear winter and yet he turned out to be one of the great Presidents. And that leads me to the punchline. We should trust Obama - and verify. Anyway, we don’t have an alternative so might as well get on with it!

I’m getting tired of posting this.

Gene should read Obama’s books more closely. He himself admits in “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope” that he attended an Islamic School (as well as a Christian school).

Is Gene calling Obama a liar?

Morgoth and Al Zawahiri agree on something anyway.He’s betrayed his Muslim roots.
Ha Ha.

OK it was a muslim school not a madrassa. Mea Culpa

He himself admits in “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope”

Who on earth would be stupid enough to buy books with such insipid titles as “The Audacity of Hope”?

Besides Gene and Tim, I mean.

It sounds like one of those silly self-help books that lonely, single, overweight women buy.

And what kind of swollen ego writes autobiographies when they’re barely 40?

Jeez, I wrote mine when I was all of 17.

While sitting on a mountain-top contemplating creation!

To have Negroes occupying us is a particular humiliation,’ Abu Mujahed said, echoing the profound racism prevalent in much of the Middle East. ‘Sometimes we aborted a mission because there were no Negroes.’

Whilst I’m emphatically not drawing parallels here, did the French authorities in the occupied Rhineland of the 1920s not pointedly deploy West African soldiers to unsettle the local population? Many did not, of course, play game, as what were later termed the Rhineland Bastards show.

I also recall one of the better known photo montages of 1970s Norn Ireland which showed a black squaddie against a cityscape. Anyone know more? Was it a piece which took greater offence to him than a white soldier?

Whoops! Internet commenting is fun.

we stop going on about the spectacular error of judgement in picking Palin. Deal?

Whoooa!

What a load!

Palin’s ‘Africa’ remark was an utter fabrication, and the $150,000 in duds not something she ever asked for.

And I’m sorry, Alec, but Venichka is quite correct. Obama’s ‘non-record’ of political achievements is there for all to see.

He is unfit for the job.

Palin’s ‘Africa’ remark was an utter fabrication, and the $150,000 in duds not something she ever asked for.

Huh? Where did I mention that?

Obama’s ‘non-record’ of political achievements is there for all to see.

This is a question about the nomination process which can proffer anyone with his background. That said, where is Palin’s record? No, please don’t say one election aback state politics mired in graft and scandal which the electorate wanted any way out of.

Morgoth and Al Zawahiri agree on something anyway.He’s betrayed his Muslim roots.

How could a child have roots? There is no such thing as a “Muslim Child” or a “Christian Child”, just a Child. period. As I repeated up thread, if Obama had said “I went to a Muslim school. I’m now a Christian. So what?” then there would have been no problem.

Apart from the general fact that he’s a Theist anyway, but that’s a given in this discussion.

The “Muslim” school Obama attended in Indonesia included students of many different religions (and, I suppose, of no religion at all). Boys and girls attended classes together. It was not a madrassa.

Huh? Where did I mention that?

No you didn’t mention it, but the media sure as hell did, and they did so without even fact-checking.

Obama spent the campaign wrapped in cellophane and sitting high on a pedestal, whereas Palin was bitch-slapped on a daily basis and dragged through the mud at every opportunity by a skewed, slanted and complacent media.

And I also accuse many white supporters of Obama of soft-racism, in that they applied lower standards to Obama’s platform AND his political record in an eager effort to get a visible minority candidate elected.

He breezed in on melanin, and little else.

Everyone knows it, but few will admit it.

On a certain level the events of Nov 4th represent a betrayal of democracy.

John P:

Well, his race and his party. The R’s are in such foul odour that ANY presentable Dem would have had a big advantage. Think a young Republican of any race, with Obie’s record, would have had the slightest chance? And that part of it is very standard democratic tradition. The party that doesn’t deliver peace and prosperity always gets thrown out.

Given that instead of Peace and Prosperity, the Republicans have given us War and Recession, it is a wonder that Obama’s margin was not larger. Believe if he had been white, it would have been.

Given that instead of Peace and Prosperity, the Republicans have given us War and Recession,

Puh-lease!

The current war was triggered by 911, and 911 occured because of the lax national security of the Clinton era.

And the mechanisms that ultimately led to the current economic crisis were all put in place by ‘Bubba’ Clinton.

The Republicans are not blameless, of course, but the dems were instrumental in setting in motion the series of events that have brought us to where we now are.

Believe if he had been white, it would have been.

Nonsense. Had Obama been white his score would’ve been lower because he wouldn’t have enjoyed the benefit of a massive turnout of black voters.

You imply that those whites who eschewed Obama did so for racist reasons, but the real racism was found among blacks, more than 95% of whom voted for Obama.

One has to expect massive suppport for Obama among american Blacks, of course, but more than 95%?

That electoral mathematics again:

Black people vote for a black candidate because they are racist
White people vote for a black candidate because they are racist
White people vote for a white candidate because he’s just spiffy

Palin’s ‘Africa’ remark was an utter fabrication: As far as I am aware that issue is still moot, but is really not the main issue with Palin and never was.

Funny; that A-Z didn’t accuse Obama of being an apostate and therefore subject to being put to death, but maybe that’s to come from A-Q’s official English language PR guy.

John P: We invaded Iraq because of 9/11? Well in a way, supposed we did since 9/11 did give Cheney/Bush a needed rationale to invade Iraq that they otherwise probably would not have been able to come up with otherwise.

Mention this before and I will say it again for John P & Co.
After the way the Bush Administration bungled Katrina and left the predominately black sections of New Orleans to be flooded out, the Democrats could have nominated anybody, regardless of color, this side of David Duke, who’s a Republican, and have gotten 95% of the black vote.