Obama Event Coordinator: Get Me More White People

The Carnegie Mellon University student newspaper The Tartan reports on preparations for a Michelle Obama appearance at the school:

While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama's event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan's correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, "Get me more white people, we need more white people." To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, "We're moving you, sorry. It's going to look so pretty, though."

"I didn't know they would say, 'We need a white person here,' " said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. "I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn't know it would be so outright."

Ben Smith of The Politico observes:

I'm not sure there's any real reason for outrage here; every campaign, at least implicitly, includes race in the staging of events like this -- even a campaign whose supporters chant "race doesn't matter." But they don't usually get caught doing it this explicitly.

And (if you didn't pick it up from the bowling) it does give you a sense of the community Obama's trying to reach in Pennsylvania: whitefolks.

Comments

[ButterflyWeed]

This headline is racially inflammatory. It was NOT Michelle or Barack standing there making this demand. HuffPo's editor here has chosen to allow publication of hearsay, attaching it to Michelle's name. This is pretty low and unprofessional.

[StephenS]

What part of "Obama Event Coordinator" did you not understand?

[ButterflyWeed]

I understood it clearly. When one is shown a photo of Michelle (flanked by AAs) with a headline of "Get me more white people," HuffPo is creating the same image-making that they've touted as *news* when an Obama event coordinator did it.

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

It doesn't matter what the headline ACTUALLY says. It says Obama and includes something disparaging in it. That's all that matters. Anthing that is in anyway negative about Obama is automatically untrue, unfair, inaccurate or racist and must immediately be attacked as such. That's just the way it works.

If Obama said it, he was either misquoted, misinterpreted or misunderstood.

If Obama said it, and it wasn't true, it still isn't a lie because only Clinton lies. In fact everything she says is a lie. She is incapable of telling the truth.

If anything Clinton says can be verified as true, then she either paid someone off to verify it for her or she just said it to pander to someone.

If an Obama campaign member said it, he or she wasn't an important member of the campaign or Obama didn't know they were going to say it. Or, it wasn't supposed to become public. But, Clinton somehow got the story planted in the press.

If an Obama supporter said it, it doesn't count because Obama didn't say it.

The last rule is that none of these exceptions apply to Clinton.

What kind of a cult do you think we are running here anyway?

[dogstar7]

Sorry to disappoint all you Freepers: This is no "outrage".
The quote "Give me more white people" is humorous and ironic, nothing more.

Lurkers looking for another non-scandal to try and derail this juggernaut with will have to look elsewhere.

You really don't know how comical your attempts at "Pin the tail on the Donkey" are becoming. It's actually more entertaining to watch flummoxed ditto-heads spinning into butter over Obama than to watch the pitiful horse race itself.

[gwhizz]

How long before Obamabots blame Clinton for this one?

[Trollstakeyourmeds]

I'm sure they already are.

[FastMovingCloud]

Have you taken your meds?

[Charmed]

OMG, you mean to tell me they wanted a diverse group on the stage...wh­at has the world come to. I am completely outraged at this blantant attempt to make things even.....I will never support someone is into this diversity thing.....

[PhDiva]

White politicians have been doing this with Blacks and Latinos for years. Obama does it, and it's racism? This is not a story.

[DGregory]

i guess im the only one who doesnt understand the problem...­..

Campaign coordinators who wanted to showcase the events diversity with the people who came....

yea, this is such a national crime.

This is such a non-issue its sickening. I mean really, is this the best someone can come up with.

Not Barack, Not Michelle, Not any of their advisor's, but there "campaign coordinators", "say" something which all campaigns do implicitly and its getting this much traction?

The real problem is if a campaign of hope/change "didnt" have the ability to mix the crowd and get a diverse pic

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

are you kidding me? The event coordinator was trying to mix the people shown on stage so that it would appear that the event had MORE diversity of attendance than it actually did. They weren't trying to show an accurate reflection ofthe event's attendance at all.

[Skool80]

Really? How do you know that? The three Obama rallys I have been to have been pretty evenly split black and white, if not more white.

Don't assume, we all know what happens when you assume.

[flyguy14222]

Non-Story? Right. Rezko, NAFTA/Canada, "Rev" Wright, "Rev" Meeks, race baiting, sleeping w/ the nuclear industry..­..on and on. All non story's. You Obamaheads really are sheep.

[SLone08]

When you can put together a coherent, logical post, then we'll talk. Until then, have fun sitting at the kids table... : )

[gwhizz]

It's a "non story" because the Obama campaign did it. They're above reproach, remember?

[dutchess2]

Let me tell you what is wrong with these silly claims and why only certain types lurk around message boards and post them:

A few weeks ago, Barack Obama showed up at a joint meeting among Chicago newspapers, a room full of 30 reporters , promising to answer every question they had...and he did. He had documents,
he explaind the sequence of events, they asked every question they had, and that was the end of that... a non-story they were content to let die.

Still more recently Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Joe Scarborough, Rush Limbaugh, Krauthammer, Fox News, MSNBC's Chris Mathews, CNN's Lou Dobbs, ganged up on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

They used deliberately edited snippets of his 30 year career, and played them over and over and over to attract the most racist among us who would not question their motives or what they might have left out. In so doing, they misrepresented the Rev. Wright, his church and tried their best to take Obama down with him.

It was the most recent lynching of a black man in America.

Sean Hannity knows his audience, because here we are, weeks later, and we STILL got people
doing their dirty work.

[POINT84]

Why is this news? Thats standard procedure in politics

[Argoth]

Non-Story.­...

[Jasel]

lol. Welcome to America. Where race doesn't matter (except when it does).

[Skool80]

I'm confused. Who ever said race doesn't matter?

[Duffs]

You mean like how the Hillary campaign tries to seed the background audience with men?

[ConnieB]

And black women. There's usually at least one--and only one--black woman.

[Trollstakeyourmeds]

Pardon me, but I have a lot of women friends who happen to be black. All but one of them are supporting Senator Clinton. So speak for yourself.

[robXdion]

Evidence of what people REALLY think?

I think it is pretty telling THIS blog is growing by leaps and bounds because it may deemed offensive to whites....­......MEAN­WHILE, a blog just 2 articles down from this talks about how a Dept. of Homeland Security official has a party with demeaning costumes depicting blacks and destroys photographic evidence. THAT blog went up 1st and only has 6 COMMENTS.

It seems whites are only interested in a conversation on race when they can play the role of victim.

[mhoiles]

>>It seems whites are only interested in a conversation on race when they can play the role of victim.

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

That story is from last halloween. It was reported last halloween. The people involved with it were forced to apologize last halloween. But, at the time it wasn't good enough for Obama. He called for their resignations. I've used this before as an example of Obama's inconsistency when it comes to bigotry. Obama also called for Don Imus to be fired from his job after he apologized. Another administration official got into trouble a few months back making racially insensitive statements about social security. that man apologized. But, Obama called for his resignation as well.

So for Obama all acts of racial bigotry deserve calls for resignation. But when Obama hired the anti-gay bigot Donnie McClurkin to appear on his gospel tour and people objected Obama didn't consider anti-gay bigotry to be as offensive as racial bigotry. In that instance Obama felt it was enough to just state he didn't agree with McClurkin. But, he didn't ask for McClurkin to resign from the gospel tour. Instead he said we needed to be able to talk about our differences with anti-gay bigots.

So, why don't we need to talk about our differences with racial bigots?

[robXdion]

Maybe you ought to learn more about Donnie McClurkin before you buy into what you've heard. You probably never heard of McClurkin before this. Obama has removed blacks from his campaign that have been offensive. What more do you want?

Watch this: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=1dUp16hFzY8&feature=related

The problem seems you think all bigotry is equal and it is NOT. If a black person calls you an offensive name, beyond hurt feelings, how does that impact your life? Whites that make the same comments are in positions of POWER and can effect public perception and treatment of black people by virtue of being the majority and being in positions to create and enforce policy. That's the difference and that is why in all the examples you provided they were whites in position to create and enforce policy or effect public opinion. Learn the true dynamics of what you speak.

[WaynesWhirled]

Don't worry as soon as the Penn. election is over Obama will remember that he believes all typical White people are racist, and any white person will constantly be reminded of that fact. Like his delegate yesterday that told some kids playing in a tree to stop playing like monkeys. So of course she had to step down as a delegate, because of her racist divisive language. But James T. Meeks, an Obama delegate who is an African American, uses racist language so divisive that it would make a sailor blush, plus he is a virulent and hateful homophobic bigot. But Obama doesn't have a problem with his language or hateful bigotry. I guess if you are African American you are allowed to be as big of a loud mouth bigot as you want to be in the Obama campaign. But White people should know Obama doesn't like it when they act the same way.

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

For Obama only racial bigits have to resign. Homophobic bigots we have to try to understand and talk out our differences with because their bigotry comes from their religion and you know we can't offend religious people, they VOTE and there are a lot of them.

[OhMyGoodness]

I don't have a problem with politician­s.... any politician staging their events to show a diverse group of supporters. I would have a problem if they grabbed some white folk off the street who had no intentions on attending the rally or whatever it was. They chose people from those that had shown up to give the public a representation of is supporters. Right now he needs the white vote so I think it's a good idea. However, they should have said what they needed to say out of the ear shot of others.

[GiggidyGeshmoygen]

ISN'T THIS WHAT OBAMA HAS BEEN SAYING FOR 9 MONTHS NOW?

HE KNOWS, YOU KNOW, I KNOW AND EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT BARACK HAS TO DEVOTE CAREFUL ATTENTION TO THE "WHITE PEOPLE" VOTING BLOCK

IN THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE IT SOUNDS MORE LIKE AN UNFORTUNATE CASE OF A COUPLE OF DUMB DEBBIES, CLEARLY IN OVER THEIR HEADS, TRYING TO ORGANISE A PHOTO OP

(sorry about the caps - too lazy to retype it)

[Researchguy66]

"dumb Debbies"?

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

Now Obama supporters are biased against women named Debbie.