It is the divinity and psychopathology of White supremacy which results in the death of both Pakistanis and African American teenagers. It is therefore telling that sections of the white left neglect this politics of race, choosing to label an individual (in this case, significantly and African American individual), as a psychopath with a God complex.

The effects of neglecting the politics of race in this instance serves the interests of white supremacy in two ways. First, it deflects from the ideological roots of the deaths of both Trayvon and Tariq (and many others like them). Secondly, it deflects attention from the system of white supremacy and privilege which gives many writers on the white left the platform to espouse their views in the first place.

Calling Obama a psychopath with a God-complex may appear radical and bold on the surface, but upon reading this assertion within its socio-politcal context, it is little more than white denial dressed up in a crude headline that wouldn’t look out of place on Fox News.

I first believed the argument stated Obama is the world’s most dangerouse man because he is the world’s most powerful man – a line that would be difficult for anyone to dispute. However what is written suggests his danger or threat is not from his office and the institutions that underpin and reproduce its behaviour but instead from his pathology – which through the articles unclear references to his race seems to be implicit. I’m sorry but Ms. Ridley are you a racist? A thought for Ceasefire’s editorial.

I absolutely agree with the previous commentors – this article is extremely problematic.

As stated above referring to Obama as an ‘out of control psycopath’ is a racially insesitive and crude statement at best. You have written an article that lazily relies on charged and thwart white supremacist language and as such, you have undermined the validity of your position.

@NativeSon, I really couldn’t have said it ay better.

two things:

1. zimmerman is innocent until proven guilty. he has been charged. we don’t know the facts about trayvon martin.

2. edmund burke never said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” this is such a common error that even wikipedia corrects it!

No, I am not a racist – I’m in a mixed race marriage with a mixed race daughter from a previous marriage.
Edmund Burke said many variations on a single theme which is why there are several differing quotes attributed to him – if I did my research based purely on one source like Wikipedia I’d never have qualified as a journalist … a job which I trained four years for in the 70’s.
I state quite clearly that Zimmerman’s guilt or innocence will be decided in a court of law which is as it should be. I would question anyone who puts themselves above the law regardless of their culture, skin colour, religion or background.
Forget Obama’s skin colour and focus on what he is doing and how he is doing it with regard to these murderous zone strikes.

Yvonne,

Being in a mixed marriage doesn’t prohibit you from taking part in racist actions – white supremacy is in fact a system such as capitalism or patriarchy for instance.

I am quite troubled that you have failed to see how the language you employed is infact racially insensitive and I am equally troubled that your defense is based on your own personal life choices.

Also, the idea that we can or should ‘forget Obama’s colour’ is ludicrous – and I would argue an extension of your own privilege. For non white people, colour is not something that can just be ‘forgotten.’ As you can see from the above comments, no one has defended Obama’s drone attacks; what has been objected is your offensive language and framing of Obama as mad.

In the same light that you urge us to recognise your arguement, I think it only right that you take ownership of your comments, which happen to be offensive.

Referring to a black man as as an ‘out of control psychopath’ in the racialised context we currently live in is not acceptable by any measure. I urge to research the long and damaging relationship b/w black people and the development of psychiatry, and bear it in mind next time you think it appropriate to write such an aritcle.

@RFS – perhaps it is you who are racist – the majority of people who’ve read this article do not come to your conclusion. You must ask yourself why. if I think someone is out of control I will say so regardless of their skin colour, ethnicity, culture, class or background. I don’t discriminate but sadly you do. And you can drop the white supremacy line – I’m a working class miner’s daughter from the north east of England so don’t even try and put that one on me, pal.

Yvonne, I have not accused you of being racist; I do not know you and thus I do not know whether you are racist or not. Again, what I have said that the language you used in the above article is racially insensitive and crude.

Whether the majority of people came to my conclusion is not my concern – the minstream position on the Obama administration’s foreign policy isn’t objection, does that make it any less troubling?

I would very much like for you to quote my ‘discrimination’ from anything I have said above.

I would also like to say that your class does not absolve you of your racial privilege. We know that working white men can execute patriarchal behaviour for instance, and I maintain that your article and following comments show that you are acting within your privilege.

But if you would like further clarification of what white supremacy actually is pick up some Audre Laude or bell hooks both of whom will let you know what.

I will end by saying this: you do not know Obama personally, your objections should be against his administration, which along with every other US administration has a sustained history of aggressive foreign policy. If your position were based on this, as opossed to refering to a black man as an ‘out of control psychopath’, I don’t think anyone would object.

I think whiteness affords people the luxury of “colour blindness” (in not taking Obama’s ethnicity into account when attacking his personal ego and psychological stae of mind.

Using a marriage to a non-white person as proof of not furthering white supremacy is quite frankly insulting. Lots of white male “ex-pats” marry African/Asian women and are still deeply racist. Lots of men marry women and are still deeply sexist.

These two assertion display not only your ignorance of race politics, but also a manifestation of white denial which is common in the European-led liberal NGO sector

First, the fact that this author thought that because Obama is not white America would become “nicer” is incredibly racist against white people. Second, what is it with this non-white thing, there are black and white Americans who died on 9/11 and have been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq together, despite differences in the past blacks and whites in America are united as Americans internationally to combat Islamic extremism. Thirdly, this Yvonne woman is British, she is not a US citizen, she doesn’t vote or pay taxes, her opinion does not matter at all. If we vote Obama out it will be because of the economy, but whomever replaces him will continue to use drones to kill those who wish us harm.

Also, I think RSF is an idiot. There is absolutely nothing wrong with calling a non-white person a psychopath. You actually sound like those racist liberals that see everything in a race based way. You’re even more ridiculous than the author.

the only people who can claim that obama has a case of a god complex and is subsequently a psychopath are people that believed that one single man because of his race would provide and act as saviour for 500 years of history and politics. no president has the capacity to single handedly challenge an entire system based on the exploitation and murder of millions and millions of people globally – including within america. obama is propped up by an administration, by lobbyists, by his enemies as well as his allies, by an economic base that profits and sustains the US from war. he is not and never was an infallible man – and whilst he has to be held accountable for his actions, reducing him to a pathological argument actually undermines the work that is being done within the US by many to do just that. he is, however, no different to his predecessors and in the case of pakistan – drone attacks are not new. whilst they are continued from the previous administration, the use is symptomatic of decades long of nasty geopolitics that has led to pakistan and afghanistan’s difficult, turbulent, unstable and devastating present. obama is, after all, the american (and not the world’s) president – he has like those that will come after him will continue to hold up a heinous foreign policy as they have always done at the expense of human life. obama after all is part of a white supremacist capitalist imperial patriarchal system that because of him being black does not exempt him from actually suporting or sustaining this system.

secondly, i’m actually confused. you say you will call folks out irrespective of race but you make mention of his race. furthermore i’m actually not sure about the comparison here between zimmerman and trayvon martin? what other comments have pointed out is your own white privilege that cannot be disputed. race IS definitive of our positions, of our life experiences – just as class, gender, sexuality, ablity (as in able-bodied people), geo-political location etc are. anyone entirely dedicated to undoing any system of domination must be willing to assess and understand how our positions within these frames help us to sustain or dismantle them. questioning and reaaaaally looking at ourselves can help us to break them. your assumed inability to not be implicated in racial privilege that can be normatively racist based on the fact that you are married to a non-white man and have a mixed child is symptomatic of this privilege. a privilege that can be as simple as negating the historical use of particular types of language. in addition to audre lorde, bell hooks, i’d recommend you take a look at this simple post. a how-to guide by a brilliant and radical white feminist who has written on the topic of white privilege:

http://persephonemagazine.com/2011/02/it-gets-racial-sometimes-a-gals-guide-to-breaking-down-your-privilege/

i hope that it somehow helps you to further engage with your identity and your position to further the work you’d like to.

What makes me really sad in all of this is not one of you feels able to condemn Obama and/or his Administration for the indiscriminate, extra-judicial killing of innocents in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The real subject has either being deliberately ignored or sidelined while you try and score points about who is and isn’t guilty of an ‘ist’.That, in itself, speaks volumes about those of you who are so hellbent on being politically correct your trampling over the bodies of the dead to push forward your points of view. Shame on you all – regardless of your faith, sex, colour, ethnicity etc. Innocent people are being murdered by Obama’s decisions – wake up.
And I might not live in America but I still pay taxes to the IRS – an insignificant detail for the benefit of Bryan Reed.

I do not think the author of this piece was racist to call Obama a psychopath. However she perhaps did not pay enough attention to the race politics of the killing campaign itself and of the wars of the US in general. It is very apparent that the life of a brown-skinned person is worth less than that of a white person. Obama’s role in this is not to be an individual monster, but to be head of a killing machine permeated by racism. The fact that Obama himself is not white is simply one of those strange ironies, and a reminder that individuals cannot change the nature of a system.

I detected no racism from this article. I think the readers may need to appreciate what is being said rather than what they think is being said.

Murder is murder.

Obama quoted the Quran where it tells us that killing one person is like killing the whole of mankind.

I pray that God Almighty forgives him and all of us for the sins committed – Ameen and Amen.

Peace

Drone attacks are truly awful but I would still rather have Obama as US President instead of Mitt Romney seeing as the the Republicans are pretty much the only people who say Obama is too soft on terror. I dread to think what would happen if he enters the White House. I’m probably too naive but I also can’t help thinking Obama has been forced into this position by his political opponents and the all powerful US Military.

Ted Bundy was a psychopath. As was Adolph Hitler, Jeffrey Dalmer, Charles Manson and Richard Speck. Idi Amin, The Green River Killer, The Boston Strangler, Richard Ramirez (The Nightstalker), and on and on.

A psychopath is a psychopath regardless of their race, religion, or any other irrelevant factor. With that said, the author’s point is so ridiculously obvious. Obama is out of control in a way that is destroying human lives each and every day in a multitude of ways. Arbitrary drone strikes where innocents are viewed as collateral damage is deplorable. If Bush were doing this there would be protest marches in every major city throughout the U.S.

Common folks. Sooner or later you just have to get off this race thing with Obama and see things as they are. The guy is an arrogant, holyier-than-though narcissist who is hell bent on doing whatever he wants without the approval of Congress or the American people. That’s not leadership, folks. That’s a mortal man playing God.

Yvonne – I haven’t read through all of these comments, but from what I’ve seen you’re taking a lot of criticism which is really uninformed. I’m not so sure most people really understand the definition of psychopath. And while that may be an erroneous assumption, I’m going to define it anyway. Most people think of Ted Bundy or Jack the Ripper when they think of a psychopath. But not all psychopaths are violent. A psychopath is merely a person with a very limited range of emotions, which are shallow and short-lived. They don’t regard other people as other people, rather as tools for their benefit. They have no conscience and no remorse or regret, and are incapable of compassion or empathy. But that doesn’t make them violent. Around 1% of the general population of the US and UK are estimated to be psychopaths, and while that may seem low, it means you probably know one or two. I can think of a few I’ve known. And they blend in with ordinary people. They are mostly concentrated in prisons and in positions of power – corporate boardrooms and political office. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that Barack Obama was a psychopath because he fits the general mold – superficial charm and affect, arrogance, and narcissism.

What bothers me about people who cry foul when you call Obama a psychopath is that many of these same people would have said or perhaps did say the same thing about George W Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove. And they were/would have been right. Psychopaths are manipulative and the ones who are intelligent often wind up in top positions. So it stands to reason that many leaders around the world are psychopaths. But here in America, politics has become a team sport. We scream and holler about atrocities committed by members of the opposite team (party), but turn a blind eye to those committed by members of our own team, sometimes even defend them. If George W Bush had done what Obama has done (the NDAA, the Individual Mandate, drone strikes, out of control deficit spending), American liberals would have been outraged. In fact, much of what Obama has done has either been very closely related to what Bush did, been a continuation of Bush’s policies, and in many cases been much worse. The NDAA is a horrible extension of the Patriot Act, he has continued and expanded the warrantless wiretapping policies, the drone strikes are cold-blooded acts of war much like those committed by Bush, he has used gay marriage as a political tool, pushed his will on the people without regard to the rights of the minority, sidestepped the Constitution, and has taken deficit spending to levels that would make even Bush blush. But he talks a good game and SAYS all of the things that liberals love to hear. And he just seems like such a good guy. So American liberals have been taken in by his charm (which is exactly what happens when one encounters a charismatic psychopath). Americans need to realize that many of their politicians are psychopaths (Mitt Romney is definitely a psychopath), so maybe there can be some real change.

PS – please stop playing the race card, everyone. It is really getting old. It’s insulting to those of us who do not support Obama’s socialist/fascist (no, that is not a contradiction in terms as many of you will think. Just think of what the word “Nazi” stood for) agenda, and it makes you look like a fool. It’s not always about race. Sometimes it’s just about principles. If Obama were white, I’d be saying all the same things about him, just like I did when Bush was in power.

congratulations fuck puppets who suck obamas homophobic dick, you all fail… you are all closet racists who promote ‘white guilt’ over individual responsibility, support cover ups only in the case of non caucasians. you are butt hurt that somebody sees you for what you’ve been hiding, which is a racist and hypocrite because you are too selfish to care that not everybody supports your racist views. you support an obvious misogynist, latent gay, conservative. obvious is obvious, and that it reflects on you.

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Im a man of color and God doesn’t judge based on color. As Jesus said “you’ll know a tree ny its fruit wether it be good or evil” A man who mandates death without evidence and due process, a man who mandates people of conscious to bribe women with birth control. Is a man whose fruits are evil. People calling you racist are absurd. How Satan knows how to hide and push aside being exposed by his followers labeling objection as racism.

Obama is only a person in a POSITION OF POWER…the man himself is not powerful. Let’s be clear on that. Once his term is over, his position returns to one of commoner once again.

This article is nearly a decade old and let me tell you how time has vindicated this. The drone leaks from whistle blower mr. Hale who now sits in prison for revealing that 95 percent of drone strike casualties are innocent men, women (pregnant), children, and infants. Then to top it off when they bombed Syria and lied saying they killed 5 people who were terrorists. That was revealed in the middle of 2021. The truth? An American F-15E attack jet streaked across the drone’s high-definition field of vision and dropped a 500-pound bomb on the crowd, swallowing it in a shuddering blast. As the smoke cleared, a few people stumbled away in search of cover. Then a jet tracking them dropped one 2,000-pound bomb, then another, killing most of the survivors. The scene? Literally mangled bits of unrecognizable body parts and guts and organs of 50 dead women, children And amputated survivors. Literally heads of infants splattered against rubbles with no body near them. Imagine the details of the horrible psychopathic nature of our death cult we have as a government. Bill, Bush, Obama, Hillary, Trump, and Biden should all be sitting in prison for war crimes. Not including the major players who help to continue these acts of brutality, which would be MIL IND COM corporate CEO’s, the banking elites, the legislators in the halls of congress, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We have a secret government that continuously lies and gaslights the public killing countless of innocent civilians which radicalizes the local population and leaves them vulnerable to be recruited by terrorist groups, which means our gov actions are actually a national security threat in and of itself. Their main agenda is up profit from death and raping the world of its resources, to purchase our elected leaders and cognitively capture our journalists to espouse their gas lighting rhetoric to maintain the corrupt system for corrupt power. Most of our nations around the world are being headed by psychopaths who lack any amount of meaningful empathy and certainly zero amount of accountability, yet we continue to give credibility to all these presidents and politicians if they happen to represent the political party we identify with. 56 percent of America adults literacy rate is under the 6th grade level. It is no surprise that this level of literacy means over half this country is to incompetent to even comprehend what they are reading. How can they be a well informed citizen and vote what is in our best interest if they don’t even know what is the threat to our well being? Nothing has left me feeling like I don’t have security of a decent future with what has been revealed the last 20 years. What good can come from an oligarch of corrupt psychopaths who are carving out the direction of our destiny as a nation when they kill more innocent people than any other terrorist group. When they make people who reveal the truth of their corruption and crimes as the enemy of the state and throw them under the jail? It’s absolute insanity to look around at the level of denialism and cognitive dissonance the average person has in regards to all of this.