Just Saw B.Obama's Speech

[joejack]

Wees be all God's chittlins. And don't y'all foegit it, dang it! (Apologies to Uncle Remus.)

 

[naughty]

This and the many other threads that have popped up during this hotly contested political race have only confirmed my feelings about the state of race relations in this country. as long as selfishness, apathy and indifference hold sway I have little hope for any real and lasting change and progress towards people coming to any degree of parity.
Post ScriptI just read Senator Obama's speech about our "Imperfect Union" and for some reason I can not understand what all of the anger I see on this board is about. I think he fully addressed the frustrations and disappointments of ALL AMERICANS.We have to reach past our own personal inconveniences and realize that we all are dealing with problems much greater than any one group. But that does not negate the legitimacy of each group's concerns. We are in need of healing on a large scale and it isnt enough for each of us to fall back into our own personal comfort zone.

 

[Industrialsize]

Again, you're treating this as if the plight of the black people is somehow more serious and severe than with any other racial group on the planet.

I ask you these questions then:

Should we the diminish the pain of the struggle of the woman in a male-dominated world? Should we diminish the pain of poor white Americans who rebel and do bad things because they don't have a prayer to even be middle-class in a society where there are billionnaires? How do we deal with their anger? Do we just ignore it? Take a defensive stance against it? Is their anger not justified? If they do bad things on account of their anger for their lots in life, would their wrongdoings be justified like Reverend Wright's? Is black anger to be taken more seriously than those of other races?

You're being racist when you single blacks out as the most persecuted race in the US, ignoring the plights of people of other races. We aren't living in the past; we are living in 2008. Slave days and colored-room restaurants are history and have been for many, many years. That doesn't mean that racism against blacks is non-existant (we all know it is NOT), but times have changed too much since the Civil Rights Movement to see blacks as a "generally persecuted people" in the US.

Racism, for your information, exists in many forms, not just white-on-black. How about the blonde woman who isn't hired for a job because the hiring manager doesn't like blonde bitches? It might seem humorous, but it's not. Isn't that discrimination? Is the hiring manager in turn a racist? Is this scenario any different than someone who won't hire a black person? No.

Finally, how would you feel if Native Americans decided they want their land back and told all whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians to get the hell out of THEIR "stolen" country? How would you reply to them? Would you sympathize with them, or would you call them a bunch of illiterate Indians on reservations whose opinions don't matter in the real world. Remember that their anger is more than justified as their land was indeed taken by the white man.

Exactly, In Obama's speech he acknowledged and validated the concerns of ALL groups and even gave a short history of their origins. He has a firm understanding of the nature of "race" in this country and withoout that understanding, a leader will be able to do nothing.

 

[HazelGod]

Post ScriptI just read Senator Obama's speech about our "Imperfect Union" and for some reason I can not understand what all of the anger I see on this board is about. I think he fully addressed the frustrations and disappointments of ALL AMERICANS.We have to reach past our own personal inconveniences and realize that we all are dealing with problems much greater than any one group. But that does not negate the legitimacy of each group's concerns. We are in need of healing on a large scale and it isnt enough for each of us to fall back into our own personal comfort zone.

Thank heavens for you, Naughty...IMO, that message was just as plain as the nose on your face, but it seems to have escaped many folks entirely.

 

[naughty]

In our society the smallest drop of black blood makes you 100% black. On top of that, Obama looks black. He was most likely forced to live his life, not as a mulato, but as a totally black man. Meaning, he has no choice but to go to a black church. Society would destroy him if he went to a white church. Also, he would never have become a Senator or gotten this far in the polls. He would have been accused of running from his race or forsaking his heritage.

Darling,

What exactly is a totally black person? What makes first generation mulattos any different from the generations upon generations who have come before them who depending upon their sensibilities or physical features, were given just one choice in America? I do understand the anger and frustration that one might feel when regardless of the degree of one's ethnicity over another living in a society that arbitrarily chooses one's ethnic destiny . But I have had to ease many young family members into reconciling themselves to the fact that in America as one looks one is judged.
I greatly appreciate the fact that Senator Obama has not been genetically shackled to the legacy of slavery and the "audacity of hope" that it engenders in him. I also appreciate the fact that as an African American in America he can appreciate the emotional bondage that still holds many of the descendants of the legacy of slavery and segregation. I do hope that we can listen long enough to take the courageous steps it takes to hope that there can be a new day in America for all its citizens.

 

[naughty]

Thank heavens for you, Naughty...IMO, that message was just as plain as the nose on your face, but it seems to have escaped many folks entirely.

Not a problem, sweets. I hear you loud and clear.

 

[B_cigarbabe]

So I watched the speech by Obama in it's entirety now. Sorry, Barack, it doesn't wash. Good to see you throw your grandmother under the bus and condemn her honest calm thoughts, yet dismiss the raving looning thought of your pastor as 'part of the culture' and/or 'the crazy uncle, who is a good person despite'.

Your elderly white grandmother being afraid of black men who pass her on the street is not the moral equivalent of your pastor saying that black people should pray that God will damn America. Your claim that you winced when your white grandmother bought into racial stereotypes does not excuse you for spending your entire adult life in the pews of a man who claims that white people in the United States government invented AIDS to genocide black people.

Your attempt to make it personally 1:1 was offensive, at best.

And the fact that your genealogy is racially diverse doesn't change the fact that since you got out of college you have chosen to worship at a church which preaches black nationalism. Your family history is racially diverse, but your life choices are not.

You were in the congregation, Barack, and that wasn't an accident. It wasn't a few sporadic insane rants, it was a fundamental philosophy. I've seen your church's website, I've heard your pastor preach.

And we've heard how the congregation reacted.

Because while you now when it is politically essential to do so disavow your closest spiritual advisor, it is clear from the videotape of him at the pulpit that the rest of the congregation heartily agreed with his most outlandish statements. His worst rantings were not greeted by embarrassed silence, they were met by rousing cheers.

How likely is it, Senator Obama, that you would have freely spent 20 years of your life in a church whose pastor and congregation were in fundamental disagreement with you?

It is not likely at all. The crazy uncle argument doesn't fly.

Your claim that you didn't hear your pastor's views on the United States is not credible. While you were a member of his church a church you selected after a search of several there were 20 Fourth of Julys, 20 Flag Days, 20 Memorial Days and 20 Veterans Days. It is inconceivable that your pastor's open contempt for the United States was not discernible to you on any of those 80 days of American patriotism.

If John McCain had been in the congregation, he would have walked up and punched the man. If Hillary Clinton had been in the congregation, she would have walked out. Barack Obama was in the congregation and he stayed for 20 years.

To claim that this man is a part of your family, but that you weren't aware of his most passionate political and racial views, is not believable. Seriously, is it your claim, Barack, that this man your intimate friend and close spiritual advisor never mentioned his political views to you as you became first an Illinois senator and then a United States senator?

He advised his congregants to write and call their representatives, but he didn't ever talk politics with the politician in his congregation?

How is that believable?

And how is it that a white politician is damned for a single visit to Jerry Falwell or Bob Jones but you are to go unquestioned for some 1,000 visits to a church whose leaders' racial views are far more strident?

And do you really expect anybody to believe that this black racial anger that you speak of is a phenomenon of just the older generation? Is it really your assertion, Barack, that that anger or, to be more accurate, racism is found only in African-Americans the age of your pastor? Do you think that's
a credible claim?

And do you think that these barbershop and dinner-table conversations you say blacks have, the ones in which they express racial anger against whites, do you really think they are morally excusable or justified? Don't you think instead of explaining and condoning such attitudes that you should challenge and condemn them?

If racism among whites is worthy of condemnation, why isn't it among blacks?

And if your grandmother's supposed racial stereotypes made you wince, what do these barbershop and dinner-table racial stereotypes make you do? If racism is damaging to the people who have it in their hearts, why don't you save the folks having these barbershop conversations from the moral damage of their own prejudice and bigotry?

Why didn't you challenge the attitudes of the people you go to church with? For 20 years you were up to your eyeteeth in black separatism and black anger, and instead of challenging those attitudes, you either silently assented to them or went along with them. With that background, how do you honestly think you could be entrusted to bridge America's racial
divide?

With all respect, senator, it seems like you've spent your adult life as a partisan on one side of the racial divide. Why should anybody on the other side, or anybody who doesn't share your view that racial division is our most pressing national concern, think you could be fair or objective?

Because it's clear you don't understand how white people feel or act.

In your remarks yesterday, just before you tried to unite whites and blacks in your Marxist hatred of corporations and rich people, you claimed that white people, when they get together, express racial anger against black people.

You got that wrong.

Not to be rude, but white people mostly don't give a damn. White people mostly don't see the great divide your pastor has based his ministry on. White people, when they are at the barbershop or dining-room table, usually talk about their families or sports or what they saw on TV or what their plans are for the weekend. While black people might be bubbling over with racial anger at white people, white people usually have something more interesting to talk about. We're so guilt ridden over racism, that MOST whites over-compensate and turn out to be the most non-racist of any race here in the US. That is an unknown fact.

Sorry.

And I'm sorry that there is such a clear double standard in American society and politics. Racism among blacks is fine and racism among whites is condemned. No amount of racism among whites is tolerable and any amount of racism among blacks seems just fine. Called on it, the ridiculous argument is made that blacks cannot be racist because they don't control the institutions of power, or some such nonsense. That is simply preposterous.

While Barack Obama calls for bridging the racial divide, his own campaign benefits by it, and the double standard that underpins it.

Barack Obama is, for example, the black candidate-- if you are black. But if you are white, and you say that he is the black candidate,you are a racist. Just ask Geraldine Ferraro. Black supporters clearly and constantly support him on the basis of race, but if anyone who's not black points that out, they're a racist.

How does that make any sense?

The great challenge, moreover HYPOCRISY for Barack Obama had was to keep the support of those who agree with his pastor while trying to get the support of those who don't.

The simple fact is that the views of his pastor have a significant following among American blacks. The pastor didn't build a national following among blacks by preaching about the Sermon on the Mount. What the pastor says resonates with a great many black people.

And those black people have been Barack Obama's margin of victory time and time again. When you're drawing 90 to 95 percent of the black vote in a Democratic primary, you know who you owe your success to.

Barack Obama's career and political success are based on a black-centered approach to life. That is his right. But to now claim some race-straddling position, bridging the gap between whites and blacks as a neutral mediator, is just not believable.

And neither does it reflect the fact that though blacks are America's longest-standing minority community, they are not its largest. There are blacks and whites and Latinos and Asians in this country, and Indians and Middle Easterners and Pacific Islanders.

And somebody worthy of being president would hold them all to the same standard and extend to them all the same respect and support.

And he would call them all the same thing.

Americans.

The problems with race in this country come from people forgetting that they are first and foremost Americans, with a bond of citizenship and brotherhood to all other Americans.

A president should teach that this is the greatest country on Earth and that its citizens are created equal and that this nation is indivisible. Much less the lack of lapel, hand on heart, and his raving wife on hating America for the most part.

And so should that president's pastor.

Almost a nice try at being rational faceking.
This is just another rant from you on your "Bush good" "Democrat bad"
themed white guy republican bullshit.
Give it a break for God's {who is a woman!} sake!
Goddess bless and heal your errant views.
Ha!
cigarbabe:saevil:

 

[JustAsking]

This and the many other threads that have popped up during this hotly contested political race have only confirmed my feelings about the state of race relations in this country. as long as selfishness, apathy and indifference hold sway I have little hope for any real and lasting change and progress towards people coming to any degree of parity.
Post ScriptI just read Senator Obama's speech about our "Imperfect Union" and for some reason I can not understand what all of the anger I see on this board is about. I think he fully addressed the frustrations and disappointments of ALL AMERICANS.We have to reach past our own personal inconveniences and realize that we all are dealing with problems much greater than any one group. But that does not negate the legitimacy of each group's concerns. We are in need of healing on a large scale and it isnt enough for each of us to fall back into our own personal comfort zone.

What she said!

 

[B_phe1249]

Im so over Obama Im looking back at him. He and his crazy ass preacher need to learn racism went out years ago.

 

[naughty]

Im so over Obama Im looking back at him. He and his crazy ass preacher need to learn racism went out years ago.

Oh did it now? You can't prove it by the number of threads in this section that are proving that to the contrary.
Oh by the way, tell that to Ms. Ferraro.

 

[MovingForward]

The full story behind Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s 9/11 sermon
Posted: 10:09 AM ET
Editor’s note: CNN Contributor Roland Martin has listened to several of the sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Portions of the sermons have been excerpted in recent stories.
As this whole sordid episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has played out over the last week, I wanted to understand what he ACTUALLY said in this speech. I’ve been saying all week on CNN that context is important, and I just wanted to know what the heck is going on.
I have now actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, “The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall.” It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001.

One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned “chickens coming home to roost.” He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation.
He was quoting Peck as saying that America’s foreign policy has put the nation in peril:

“I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday did anybody else see or hear him? He was on FOX News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the FOX News commentators to no end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost.”​

“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.​

“We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.​

“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.​

“We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.​

“We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.​

“We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.​

“We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.​

“Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.​

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.​

“Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.”​

He went on to describe seeing the photos of the aftermath of 9/11 because he was in Newark, N.J., when the planes struck. After turning on the TV and seeing the second plane slam into one of the twin towers, he spoke passionately about what if you never got a chance to say hello to your family again.
“What is the state of your family?” he asked.
And then he told his congregation that he loved them and asked the church to tell each other they loved themselves.
His sermon thesis:
1. This is a time for self-examination of ourselves and our families.
2. This is a time for social transformation (then he went on to say they won’t put me on PBS or national cable for what I’m about to say. Talk about prophetic!)
“We have got to change the way we have been doing things as a society,” he said.
Wright then said we can’t stop messing over people and thinking they can’t touch us. He said we may need to declare war on racism, injustice, and greed, instead of war on other countries.
“Maybe we need to declare war on AIDS. In five minutes the Congress found $40 billion to rebuild New York and the families that died in sudden death, do you think we can find the money to make medicine available for people who are dying a slow death? Maybe we need to declare war on the nation’s healthcare system that leaves the nation’s poor with no health coverage? Maybe we need to declare war on the mishandled educational system and provide quality education for everybody, every citizen, based on their ability to learn, not their ability to pay. This is a time for social transformation.”
3. This is time to tell God thank you for all that he has provided and that he gave him and others another chance to do His will.
By the way, nowhere in this sermon did he said “God damn America.” I’m not sure which sermon that came from.
This doesn’t explain anything away, nor does it absolve Wright of using the N-word, but what it does do is add an accurate perspective to this conversation.
The point that I have always made as a journalist is that our job is to seek the truth, and not the partial truth.
I am also listening to the other sermons delivered by Rev. Wright that have been the subject of controversy.
And let me be clear: Where I believe he was wrong and not justified in what he said based upon the facts, I will say so. But where the facts support his argument, that will also be said.
So stay tuned.

 

[MovingForward]

read that earlier ... you might want to read it after acquiring some critical thinking skills ... and doing some massive amounts of reading in history ... not revisionism

I have actually have pictures from such barbeques. I have pictures of black men being hung. I have pictures of dead burning black men piled on top of each other.

A hit dog will always Holler.

 

[B_Nick4444]

A hit dog will always Holler.

good analogy ... a hit dog will holler ... it will also try to bite ANYONE who comes to its aid

there is no question that inequity has occurred in American society, some of it quite appalling (in NO society has inequity NOT occurred -- if you want to make comparisons, look in the direction of Obama's homeland -- ANY country in Africa, ANY country in Europe, look at Israel)

that you are a member of such a group, brooding over it, imparts a different perspective

one that may be skewed in predictable directions

skewed in ways that do not encompass the larger picture, other unrelated issues

Again, the election is about the future of America -- not Obama

 

[gjorg]

Oh did it now? You can't prove it by the number of threads in this section that are proving that to the contrary.
Oh by the way, tell that to Ms. Ferraro.

Mrs. Ferraro's statment was not really racism but reality ,you hussy! Standing there in MY light egyptian.

 

[playainda336]

Ferraro's question was just as valid as asking "would Hillary be where she was if she were a male"?

It was a dumb question and totally unnecessary.

 

[gjorg]

Ferraro's question was just as valid as asking "would Hillary be where she was if she were a male"?

It was a dumb question and totally unnecessary.

Ferraro did not pose a question, she made a statement.
The situation is not as simple as you let on.
It is not even close to being the same and you know it!
If she were in Obamas camp she would have claimed that Hillary only got as far as she did because she is a woman.

 

[naughty]

Mrs. Ferraro's statment was not really racism but reality ,you hussy! Standing there in MY light egyptian.

It is your ROYAL HUSSINESS to you, sir.
Racism to some is keeping it REAL to others...

 

[playainda336]

Ferraro did not pose a question, she made a statement.
The situation is not as simple as you let on.
It is not even close to being the same and you know it!
If she were in Obamas camp she would have claimed that Hillary only got as far as she did because she is a woman.

It's just as simple as I said it.

Occam's razor, dude.

At any rate...John McCain's pastor responds to Wright and Obama:

I'm sure John McCain would probably say the same thing about me if he were asked "So, do you agree with everything your pastor says?" he added with a laugh.

Source: McCain's pastor a sharp contrast to Obama's - Yahoo! News

 

[B_Nick4444]

from the foregoing posts, does everybody see how the same event is subject to different interpretations, based on pre-existent perspectives?

 

[D_Kaye Throttlebottom]

from the foregoing posts, does everybody see how the same event is subject to different interpretations, based on pre-existent perspectives?

yes.

Still I think Obama's speech on race was the most honest and wasn't contrived for constituency...or to bait one side. He said this side feels angered by a segregated upbringing and this side resents being penalized for actions they never personally committed. I thought he gave everyone a challenge - how do we move forward from here?