Obama Speech Neglected to Address White Americans
Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 05:45PM Barack Obama gave his long awaited speech on race relations, religion and his controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright today. (Highlights below, full 37 minute speech will be uploaded if requested)
One thing that stood out immediately was the difference between his comment today that he had heard some of Wright’s comments verses his interviews on Friday in which he confessed he did not.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
OBAMA : I have to confess that those are not statements that I ever heard when I was sitting in the pews at this church. This is a church that I have been a member of for 20 years. This is a well-established, typical, historically African-American church in the South Side of Chicago, with a wonderful set of ministries.
And what I have been hearing and had been hearing in church was talk about Jesus and talk about faith and values and serving the poor…ANDERSON COOPER: I mean, you may not have been there, but have you — you must have heard that he had said these things.
OBAMA : You know, I confess that I did not hear about this until — until I started running for president.
Troubling. Unless Obama referred to hearing Wright make different comments and not those exact ones, or that he heard troubling comments by the pastor outside of the church, then Obama is clearly not telling the truth. In either case, his statements of Friday contradict those of today at least in spirit and at worst in word.
Obama’s speech was riddled with flaws, like weak excuses stereotyping black churches as “ full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear.” It insults the Christian who knows the difference between culture and morality, enthusiasm and cursing or taking God’s name in vain IN CHURCH and in front of children. Obama’s praise of Wright in spite of all this is officially old. In a disturbing twist, he also used his white grandmother in a way that hinted all white people are closet racists.
Aside from the plethora of issues than can be discussed as a result of the speech, Obama did lay out a map of the past, showing why black Americans may struggle with resentment. That is totally legitimate and we should be sensitive to this racial history. The question to the black community now is, “Do you want to move on?”
The problem with the race dialogue is the same problem with Obama’s speech today: it neglected to address white people. Aside recalling the sins of our fathers, whites weren’t part of the process and are reduced to on-lookers.
Are we serious about race relations? If we are, white people have to be prominent players equal to black Americans, who cannot monopolize the debate. Whites need to freely express frustrations with the vulgarity of rap music, the hypocrisy of why “nigger” is okay for blacks but “nappy headed-ho” for whites is an impeachable offense, or why either is justifiable in the first place under any circumstance.
We need to be brutally honest about feelings of blame shifting for the out of control out of wedlock birthrate and fatherless households in the black community as if it is the fault of whites. We deserve answers and proof to the accusations that white people caused AIDS to minimize the black population while white President Bush has given more AIDS relief to Africa than another other President in U.S. history.
Until white people are allowed to dialogue honestly with our black brothers and sisters and the taboos prohibiting such discussions are lifted, race relations will remain a dictatorship by liberals, both black and white. The ball is now in their court. Let’s see how sincere they about racial reconciliation.
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Reader Comments (36)
You know I think senator Obama had a chance to do something good here. There is a poisenous logic in this country that hates and loaths everything it stands for. Saying the US knew of Pearl Harbor before hand is based on paranoid hatred and has nothing to do with race. Now to be honest I know there are people found on the far right of the spectrum who belive the most nefarious things about our country. . The Senator could have addressed all of this hate speech and ridiculed it. People who think 9/11 was an inside job, the levees of New Orleans detonated, hiv a government creation,black helicopters in the 1990's etc... Obama could have used his position to excoriate and expell this lunacy. Instead a speech that addresses race, important, but not the ideological heart of what made the Pastors comments so dangerous. The Pastors rhetoric was that of civil war.
I think his speech was borderline brilliant. Its a shame that he sat under the vituperous preaching of Rev. Wright and not under a modern day hero like Dr. Tony Evans. Obama's talent is unquestionable; his theology is marred by liberal values and black anger. I predict that he will survive this situation and win his party's nomination.
Johnny, do you think race relations isn't up to the black community alone? It seems to me that if honest change is to happen both sides have to be able to voice their apprehensions and fearsl and opinions or it isn't a relationship, it's a dictatorship.
The reality is, white people today, who knew nothing of slavery and little of Jim Crow, profit from a society that made them 'more equal' than blacks. This rightly angers blacks, and white indignation at what seems to be black separatism fuels the chasm between the sides.
Obama in his own unique human experience bridges that divide. He is caught between empathy for black suffering and opportunity for national leadership. While I condemn many of his policies, I see in him a politician who has the talent to transcend the divide and win a consensus.
White America is still largely in denial about black suffering, and although things are getting better in many ways, a Jeremiah Wright could not prosper in a society that fully countenanced the deep wounds of black suffering in America.
The answer lies in policies and programs where black challenges are acknowleded but not exacerbated by white liberal do-goodism (read: Great Society programs that created the cycle of dependency and out of wedlock births condemned 40 years ago by democrat Daniel P. Moynihan).
In the 1970s, blacks were promised under the “Great Society” that they would get educational training, and they did, but the white established workforce would not hire them – unwritten and tactic complicity. They have plenty to be frustrated over and too react.
Fox ' Cable' News was the ones that made the tape compellation of Rev. Wright’s rhetoric ( c. march 2008). Fox News is the one that promoted the controversial issue (O'Reilly Factor). It was not NBC, CNN, ABC, or CBS or AP. In history, Republicans will be viewed as racists – because this appears as a hit-job – not the Democratic Party.
What people do not know is that black politicians have little choice to rise in politics except through prominent black Churches in Chicago’s south-side (where Obama is from and the Trinity church). It would be highly doubtful that Obama’s rise to power would have come through a white dominated church in Chicago. There is no context understood on Fox.
Everything Rev. Wright says is commonplace in our school systems -- white teachers, white school systems and white professors all say the same things he does -- and no-one peeps about it at Fox cable news. People, if they are going to discuss racism in the US need to ask why this is such a contradiction in society? Why do white professors get passes on not black reverends? Anti-Americanism is commonplace in the US fabric and schools. Singleing out a single person is “guilt by association.” Was Obama supposed to hide under a rock? At Harvard where he went to school, the anti-US rhetoric taught there far outweighs anything ever said by Rev. Wright. Did Fox attack Harvard and associate it with Obama’s character. No! So what are they trying to accomplish?
Johnny,
my family are immigrants who came sfter slavery abolished, they fought as hard as anyone to carve out the american dream. Spare me how I have been empowered so I need to look past a worldview based on racism and hatred, and ignorance.
Callpatriot,
you do raise a serious question, why do certain elites recieve adulation and financial reward for the same level of hate mongering? I do think you miss one of the points of this whole issue though. The Pastor has played a key role in the life and worldview of Senator Obama, that is scary.
Amy,
There are none so blind as those who WILL NOT see. Did you miss, or just conveniently overlook, this part of Obama's speech:
"Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation."
And how about:
"But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny."
You can tell the intelligent people from the intellectually dishonest people in this country by evaluating responses to this speech. Those who are less intelligent or unintelligent, to the point of intellectually dishonest - intellectually confused at best - have reviewed the speech unfavorably. Those are intelligent to highly intelligent - even if partisan - recognize this speech for its brilliance, a quality so rare in the rhetoric of American politicians.
To reintroduce race, perhaps you fail to recognize that his speech did address white folks - intelligent and honest white folks.
I'm white and I feel the Senator's remarks addressed me. I feel he would be my President much more than the current administration.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 03/19/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
q50,
Please read my first post, where is the intelectual dishonesty?
Obama missed the mark with this speech.
It was delivered with great eloquence and candor, but he neglected to address the very point that was motivating it: the divide between conservatives and liberals. It was the perfect opportunity to speak to the conservative black leaders such as Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas and Michael Steel who have been called 'uncle toms' by the black democrats, and to address the great divide within the black community. Instead, it was nothing more that elegant damage control.
He presented an emotional argument with nothing substantial, which is exactly what his campaign has been. Emotions without substance. Most adults will agree, when one bases ones decisions on feelings rather than logic, the outcome is almost always disastrous, yet that is exactly what Barack Obama is asking us to do; choose him based on how we 'feel'. Sorry, I need a little more than a warm and fuzzy to vote for the next leader of my Country.
And as a side note, I am sick to death of hearing the terms ‘African-American’ and Hispanic-American’. It is time for all to recognize the fact that if one resides in the United States, and is a Citizen of the United States, they should be Americans first. Then if they choose to acknowledge their heritage, they can hyphenate American-African and American-Hispanic. If not, go back to the Country in which their allegiance lies.
I didn’t serve the United States of Mexico or the United States of Africa; I served the United States of America.
The events over the past couple of weeks showed the persistent corrosive effects of racism in our country. And, like the southern white churches that preached that slavery was a “blessing” to an inferior race, that tone persists today. And thus, the divide that Amy Proctor chronicles, and nowhere in her post a lending hand to quiet the chatter down.
And thus the Central issues facing our country are obscured, the increasing income divide, the Iraq war, the health care crisis, issues surrounding education, the usury rates of credit card debt, and more deserve no discussion. Selective, out of context quotations by Revered Wright are Amy’s fare.
"I think his speech was borderline brilliant."
Bravo Johnny. You got one right.
Anyone who listens to his entire speech, not just snippets, who isn't impressed with the humanity and goodness of this man's vision just doesn't want to hear it.
Obama is genuine. Rise above the "gotcha" small minded politics that have this country headed down a bad road. Listen to this man.
He didn't speak to white America???
Go to around 20:00 in the speech and listen if you need something specific, but the entire speech is speaking to the entire country. Just as a real leader should.
Which part? The whole thing! You say, he failed to address a legitimate role for white people to participate in discussions about race. But that is clearly denied by an honest reading of the speech. What you mean is that, Obama didn't say the particular things that you want to say about race - rap is bad, why there are double standards on that word, etc. Okay, so he did not point out those things. But your argument is essentially that because he did not articulate every possible thing he could say, that he has allowed for the articulation of nothing. Another dishonest component of your argument, as I see it, is that you assert that you have some views on race that you would like to be part of the discussion, but because he did not mention them, he has left no role for white people at all. Logically, that would mean that Obama has left no room for me as a white dude but that is nonsense, he very clearly articulated many of my thoughts on race, which then makes me look on your argument as absurd. Look, I'm sorry I said you are stupid, but I am just finding your argument not only to be analytically incoherent, but specifically an analytically incoherent response to an extremely candid, reasoned and logical sound speech by Obama. One last thing - given what Wright said, do you really think it would be out of place for you to say your thoughts? Obama is essentially saying, yes there is a fault line and it shakes, so trying to be dishonest about, self-censoring, pretending its not there, is counterproductive. Obama is saying, yes, be honest about that which you perceive as taboo. From a psychological perspective, it seems you are more concerned with reiterating the taboo that must not be broken than actually breaking it and saying what you think, criticizing Obama's invitation to have this discussion in the open rather than shy away from it.
Every time I start to evaluate the merits of Obama's speeches, I have to remind myself that these speeches are only meant to help one person- Obama. I also have to remind myself that Obama is prone to lies and duplicities. Obama is just a political opportunist who is willing to demean his family in order to boost his ratings.
q50,
I am not sure of you read my post, but my point was that there is a poisen that can be found on the right, the left, among all skin colors. The hatred of the USA that drove McVeigh, or hatred of people who cheer an assasination attempt on Dick Cheney. During the 1990's many on the right spoke of Black helicopers and government conspiracies, its the same level of hate speech that says 9/11 was an inside job or that pearl harbor was allowed to happen. That paranoid lunacy is the enemy of all of us, you, me , amy p, grumpy ol flatulance, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher, all of us. I wish the senator had stood against that lunacy. Obama is smart enough, and prestigous enough and charismatic enough to have delivered a death blow to such things. Its the lunacy that crosses all boundries that I despise in Pastor Wright, and its that hatred I wished Obama had fully addressed. What upsets me is I know he could have really knocked that hatred out of the ball park and done this entire nation a great service.
Maybe this is another reason why Obama was unwilling to reject Wright.
From Trinity United Christian Church web site, a page on The Black Value System: http://www.tucc.org/black_value_system.html
"11. Pledge Allegiance to All Black Leadership Who Espouse and Embrace the Black Value System."
Obama perhaps did not want to breach his pledge?
Friday, February 18, 2000
(02-18) 04:00 PDT Greenville, S.C. — Editor’s Note: This article was published on Feb. 18, 2000. In January 2008, at least two national web sites posted links to it. As a result, it appeared in the list of SFGate’s Most Read articles.
——————————————————————————–
Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to apologize yesterday for his use of a racial slur to condemn the North Vietnamese prison guards who tortured and held him captive during the war.
“I hate the gooks,” McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. “I will hate them as long as I live.”
Jim,
you know McCain went back to Vietnam as a tourist?
Jim is a couch potato with no benchmark to base his opinions. He hasn't a clue about what any of our POWs suffered and endured.
In my opinion, McCain gets a bye on his comments. Nobody has a right to judge him because nobody experienced the atrocities he did.
I might not agree with some of his policies, but I will not turn my back on a fellow vet, and certainly not one who took what he took for the freedoms I now enjoy.
Even a racist lying POS like McCain? You're more of a scum than Obama, Gawfer.And Wright is also a vet, so why are you turning your back on him? Because he's black?
Jim,
I don't agree with every thing posted on this blog, but you remind me why I vote Republican.
Maybe this is another reason why Obama was unwilling to reject Wright.
From Trinity United Christian Church web site, a page on The Black Value System: http://www.tucc.org/black_value_system.html
"11. Pledge Allegiance to All Black Leadership Who Espouse and Embrace the Black Value System."
Obama perhaps did not want to breach his pledge?
How is McCain a racist? Because he's white? I guess that's why Obama used his white grandmother as a case in point to perpetuate that stereotype. That oughtta help race relations!
McCain is a decorated war veteran whose service outshines Wrights. How do we know this? Wright is distancing himself as far as he can from his honorable service by slandering his country.
The only reason Wright's race matters at all in this discussion is because he uses it as an weapon to advance his agenda. He's a race pimp. Although the question wasn't directed at me, this is why as a military wife would turn my back on Wright.
you know, i really don't care what happened yesterday, last week, last year, or the last decade or of any time past. none of it can be changed. and the sooner people realize this the better off they'll be. i worry about today and tomorrow. and the sooner we stop talking of the yesterdays the sooner we begin to think of the todays and tomorrows. we can never make the yesterdays better but the tomorrows we can. and don't tell i know nothing about the yesterdays, i lived in it. i experienced it. we have enough problems to deal with today without trying to solve the problems of yesteryears.
as a great man once said, "leave my people alone, you caused enough mischief already" the opposite is true also. if you don't want me to cause any more mischief don't try to make me feel guilty so as to feel i have to.
"11. Pledge Allegiance to All Black Leadership Who Espouse and Embrace the Black Value System."
Obama perhaps did not want to breach his pledge?
BO might as well make this pledge, 'cause he don't pledge allegiance to the flag, sing the nat'l anthem, put his hand over his heart, etc etc.
why are you turning your back on him? Because he's black?
NO, HE's A FRIGGIN MORON!!!!!!
An Open Letter to the Democratic Party
By Lt. Colonel Frances Rice,U.S. Army Retired: Contributor to the LHI
""We, African American citizens of the United States, declare and assert:
Whereas in the early 1600's 20 African men and women were landed in Virginia from a Dutch ship as slaves and from that tiny seed grew the poisoned fruit of plantation slavery which shaped the course of American development,
Whereas reconciliation and healing always begin with an apology and an effort to repay those who have been wronged,
Whereas the Democratic Party has never apologized for their horrific atrocities and racist practices committed against African Americans during the past two hundred years, nor for the residual impact that those atrocities and practices and current soft bigotry of low expectations are having on us today,
Whereas the Democratic Party fought to expand slavery and, after the Civil War, established Jim Crow Laws, Black Codes and other repressive legislation that were designed to disenfranchise African Americans,
Whereas the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, and their primary goal was to intimidate and terrorize African American voters, Republicans who moved South to protect African Americans and any other whites who supported them,
Whereas, according to leading historians (both black and white), the horrific atrocities committed against African Americans during slavery and Reconstruction were financed, sponsored, and promoted by the Democratic Party and their Ku Klux Klan supporters,
Whereas from 1870 to 1930, in an effort to deny African Americans their civil rights and to keep African Americans from voting Republican, thousands of African Americans were shot, beaten, lynched, mutilated, and burned to death by Ku Klux Klan terrorists from the Democratic Party,
Read the rest at: http://www.lincolnheritage.org/About_Us/Resources/Weekly_Magazine/New_Articles/An_Open_Letter_to_the_Democrat/an_open_letter_to_the_democrat.html
woops- link was too long I guess- sorry for that- not sure how to post the link shorter.
Thanks for the call out couch potato.
I find it interesting that a man who grew up in a fairly affluent neighborhood with well educated parents, enjoying the fruits of their labor, attending a nice High School like Jeremiah Wright, one who criticizes this country for the history of slavery that once existed but is now a blemish in the rearview mirror, would swear his allegiance to Africa where slavery is still present and thriving.
I further find it interesting that Barack Obama, the man who would no more disown Jeremiah Wright than his own 'white' grandmother, would also play on the past injustice of slavery yet call on his African heritage as reason for his electability.
These folks are absolutely playing the race card by making this a talking point, screaming of the injustices done to the 'po black folk' all the while claiming pride in their African lineage, and raising their fists in the symbol of Black Power we came to recognize in the '60s.
http://billyoblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/obama-uniter.html
Anyone who now supports Obama for president is either a hypocrite or a weak minded sheep being lead to the slaughter.
I typically don't use Wiki as a source, but in this short amount of time, it provided me with many sub sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_modern_Africa
Slavery in Africa continues today. Slavery existed in Africa before the arrival of Europeans - as did a slave trade that exported millions of sub-Saharan Africans to North Africa, the Middle East, and the Persian Gulf. However, slavery and bondage are still African realities. Hundreds of thousands of Africans still suffer in silence in slave-like situations of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation from which they cannot free themselves. Modern-day enslavers also exploit lack of political will at the highest levels of some African governments to effectively tackle trafficking and its root causes. Weak interagency co-ordination and low funding levels for ministries tasked with prosecuting traffickers, preventing trafficking and protecting victims also enable traffickers to continue their operations. The transnational criminal nature of trafficking also overwhelms many countries’ law enforcement agencies, which are not equipped to fight organised criminal gangs that operate across national boundaries with impunity.
Gawfer, glad you took the first line of a wikipedia article to form your opinion. That shows that you are NOT A "COUCH POTATO". Comical and delluded @ at best. The slavery that existed in Africa before the europeans arrived wasn't nearly as destructive to the Sub-Saharan Africa as that which existed after the jolly Europeans arrived. This type of Feudal slavery was certainly not the cause of Africa's exploited existence today. That doesn't substantiate the moral righteousness of the former, but it certainly does indicate intellectual dishonesty and the general"couch potatoeness" of your apparent "knowledge" or lack their of.
Obama's pastor thinks the US government invented the AIDS virus to committ genocide against blacks? That's conspiratorial on the level of bizarre that makes kidnappings-by-aliens seem plausible. What is in the public record is this: Obama supports the organization formed by Margaret Sanger to employ eugenics as a means to limit colored births;
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/17/274143.aspx
The thought of this man appointing judges to the high court based on "empathy" is frightening. The LAST thing a Supreme Court judge should be is a squishy emotional waffler. The Law is the Law is the Law.
I do not care who is black,white,or alien. yes i watched the x files. be real,which he tries too hard. i do not believe him at all! my vote will always be for whom i know,and not necessairly trust. in the end we need more conviction,then "hi can i help you sir"? its not my decision. there is one basic thing i know,out of all 3 candidates....i'm moving to canada anyway! MORE RESPECT!