Former Godfather's Pizza Chairman and current Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain apparently has a title the rest of us didn't know about: CEO of Who Gets to Be Black, Inc.
Check out these excerpts from an interview Cain did with Andrew Goldman published in the New York Times June 30 titled, Ballad of the Long Shot:
Before you announced your campaign, you said that the liberal establishment is scared that “a real black man might run against Barack Obama.” Are you suggesting Obama isn’t really black?
A real black man is not timid about making the right decisions, that’s what I meant. Look, I’m not getting into this whole thing about President Obama. It is documented that his mother was white and his father was from Africa. If he wants to call himself black, fine. If he wants to call himself African-American, fine. I’m not going down this color road.
Before you announced your campaign, you said that the liberal establishment is scared that “a real black man might run against Barack Obama.” Are you suggesting Obama isn’t really black?
A real black man is not timid about making the right decisions, that’s what I meant. Look, I’m not getting into this whole thing about President Obama. It is documented that his mother was white and his father was from Africa. If he wants to call himself black, fine. If he wants to call himself African-American, fine. I’m not going down this color road.
Those are pretty strong and ignorant statements for someone who doesn't want to go down the so-called "color road." And, I'm wondering if Cain realizes that a lot of Republican strategy for beating President Obama rests on scaring white voters by reminding them the President is black. I bet the pepperoni on my next pizza that Karl Rove will call to tell Cain to walk back his hateful comments about Obama's blackness or lack thereof.
I don't know much about Cain, but from what I've seen he's a self-righteous character who doesn't think much before he speaks -- especially when it comes to spewing nasty things about President Obama. Cain appears to be following the Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann model of if you want to go from anonymity to instant popularity in the Republican Party just say crazy, personally insulting things about President Obama. It worked for them. We'll see if it works for Cain.
Here's a message for Cain: Stop the personal attacks and tell us why we should vote for you. In most cases, and certainly with the likes of Cain, Palin and Bachmann, those without definition define themselves by what they say about others.
And oh yeah, since it's so important to you, tell us why you're such a great black man -- as if anybody other than Louis Farrakhan or Malik Zulu Shabazz would care.
In the meantime, I'm thinking Cain had to be much better at making pizzas than he is at making political statements. Hopefully, it won't be long before I can walk into a pizza place and have Cain ask me, "Would you like anchovies on that?"
Then again, real black men don't bake pizzas or eat anchovies. Do we?