Are black people that much of a mystery?

Does anyone with access to the mainstream media know any actual black people? I mean really, has Ralph Nader ever really had an actual conversation with a black person? And I mean a black person in real life, not one from a sociology textbook. How inane and clueless is this?

Asked if he thinks Obama is trying to "talk white," Nader said, "of course….The number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated by the law," Nader said. "Haven't heard a thing."

Nader is running against Obama for president and perhaps the nature of political campaigns means you speak in hyperbole. Who knows? But this "talking white" nonsense and the implication that the concerns of any given black person can be boiled down to the plight of the poor is insulting because it means that even for a "progressive" like Nader, I'm not individual. I'm merely a ghetto statistic, or, even worse, a deluded black person talking white. It's exactly this kind of cluelessness, which abounds in the mainstream media, which explains how the pundits have been caught so off-guard by Obama's popularity among black people.