"Elizabeth Warren says Obama doesn't understand 'lived experience of most Americans.'"

[WellDarn]

84. The reasons Warren gives for making this statement

ignores the stark contrast between Obama in 2008 (who ran on ideals) and Obama in 2012 -- well, actually post-2010 (who just played the game) AND is IMHO, pretty much BS. If Obama's lack of "sharing the lived experiences of a majority of Americans" was an obstacle to caring about, and working for, them, we would have never seen the Obama of 2008.

HOWEVER, her statement (standing alone and stripped of the BS) is 100% correct. Obama has not shared the lived experiences of most Americans. He has not shared the lived experiences of most Americans for the same reason that I HAVE NOT SHARED the lived experiences of most American.

I do not want to shock anyone, but Barack Obama is a black man and "most Americans" are white, or, at very least, not black. I haven't the foggiest idea what it means to be in a position of privilege and still get held back. I can't conceive what it means to have every cultural advantage and to still be unable to get ahead. I actually have to listen to working class white folks talk and then use human empathy to understand their pain because my pain is completely different.

By the same token, white politicians DO NOT SHARE MY LIVED EXPERIENCES, or the experience of any other person of color. None of the three frontrunners in our 2016 primary have any idea what it means to be a black person in America. I no more expect Senator Sanders, or Secretary Clinton, or Governor O'Malley to know what I've experienced than I would for me to know what they've experienced. But, when I say "I am Michael Brown" or "Our death rows are filled with the same strange fruit as the lynching trees" I expect them to listen.

The fact of the matter is that Obama listened as he was going through HIS "lived experiences" and he came out in 2008 and talked to all of us . . . black, white, worker, immigrant, oppressed (and not) and with the power we gave back to him in return for those two years, he saved this country from financial ruin AND at the same time spoke the hard truth that we are not all the same.

To criticize Obama for what he didn't accomplish after 2010 revealed that the white suburbs neither listen nor empathize with anyone that isn't like themselves and are not going to reciprocate is both naïve and unfair.