Tuesday
Mar182008
Video And Transcript Of Obama Speech On Race In America
Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 17:40
I put it on Jack & Jill Politics.
It's amazing. It's one of the reasons I think it is so clear that Obama needs to be the president right now. He understands America, and with that understanding he is in the best position to lead.
It's amazing. It's one of the reasons I think it is so clear that Obama needs to be the president right now. He understands America, and with that understanding he is in the best position to lead.
Reader Comments (12)
I agree. It is one of the best speeches I have seen by any politician in the last four decades. It gives me hope that we can find a way out of this mess.
I disagree. I thought the speech fell short. The end result is that he's still sticking with Wright. Not a good call.
http://guidetotheperplexed.blogspot.com/2008/03/19-march-2008-what-obama-should-have.html" rel="nofollow">What he ought to have said. At least in my opinion.
man joel, i'm more strongly disagreeing with you with every comment you leave son! obama absolutely did the right thing. whether american's can accept that is another question. Rev Wright has preached probably thousands of hours, and a few comments are supposed to undo all of that?
also, it seems easy to forget WHAT he said. what was so wrong?
he said 9/11 was a result of american foreign policy. that is CLEARLY true to some degree.
he said america was founded on racism. again. CLEARLY true.
the standard you're holding obama too is excessive, and i don't see you holding mccain to the same. were your out protesting mccain when he spoke at falwell's liberty university? Falwell, unlike Wright, WAS A PREACHER OF DISCORD in america. he villified entire groups of people yet was embraced. EMBRACED by your chosen candidate
at least try to be consistent in your expectations.
I'm not worried that we disagree--debate is fun.
The comparison with McCain doesn't hold up, because 1) we're not talking about McCain's own church and 2) he has immediately spoken out against the ministers in question (e.g. Hagee's views on Catholics).
I think Wright is totally wrong, but that's not the issue for me.
What's most concerning about Wright is not his support for Obama but the way in which Obama has handled this.
Suddenly it's not about his judgment; suddenly it's about everyone else's racism. I mean, who calls their own grandmother a racist on national TV?
Suddenly Obama's waving the American flag. Suddenly he's admitting he knew about Wright's views.
There's just a lack of authenticity here, and I think Obama's supporters ought to be more worried about it than his opponents.
In the speech that Obama gave there are some very uncomfortable truths there though.
Who calls their grandma racist? Someone who's honest.
Someone who's less honest will make the "some of my best friends are black" arguement and think that that gives them a pass on issues of prejudice. If we're truly honest with ourselves we'll acknowledge that everyone in the world, even ourselves, has prejudices and assumptions about others. It's not always someone who looks different but might be someone in a different class, or someone who thinks differently, or someone in a different religion, but human nature leads us to be suspicious of that which we don't know or understand.
There is anger in the black community and there is resentment in the white community. Both groups are in different circumstances and feel slighted for different reasons. But it's what's done with those feelings that's important.
The American Dream postulates that we can do anything, that no dream is too big, that not even the sky is the limit. But that dream comes with some cold hard facts. Firstly that the playing field simply isn't even. Everyone has advantages and disadvantages that are both personal and attached to how and where they were born. Those all add up to an uneven sum. But the other real fact is that The American Dream requires damn hard work. It requires grit and a eagerness to take responsibility for one's own life--to take the oranges or lemons that your childhood has given you and squeeze as much juice from them as possible.
It's those things that I think we all have in common, that we can use to empathize with each other and break us all out of this complacent mold we've constructed from the false assumption that the legislative breakthroughs we've made over the past 150 years were enough--that we could assume that we wouldn't need to deal with problems that laws alone couldn't fix.
joel you wrote
"What’s most concerning about Wright is not his support for Obama but the way in which Obama has handled this.
Suddenly it’s not about his judgment; suddenly it’s about everyone else’s racism. I mean, who calls their own grandmother a racist on national TV?
Suddenly Obama’s waving the American flag. Suddenly he’s admitting he knew about Wright’s views.
There’s just a lack of authenticity here, and I think Obama’s supporters ought to be more worried about it than his opponents."
----
Suddenly?? Obama has "waved the american flag" since his first book which he wrote in his late 20s. There's nothing "sudden" about his love for America nor his recognition of this nation's contradictions.
You are way oversimplifying his speech. I know you're smart and literate, so asking you to read it again won't accomplish anything. I'm actually at a loss for how to respond to this. It's impossible for me to understand how you can say he's being inauthentic when the EXACT opposite is true.
Inauthentic would have been to completely reject and abandon his relationship with this pastor, despite the large role this man plays in his life. I have a hard time believing you'd have been satisfied by that even though you now say that's the preferred response. Had Obama simply said, "I totally reject and denounce Rev Wright" you and other critics would have screamed "INAUTHENTIC!! EXPLAIN HOW YOU KEPT ATTENDING THE CHURCH. EXPLAIN WHY THIS MAN YOU NOW REJECT MARRIED YOU AND BAPTISED YOUR CHILDREN. YOU'RE JUST A SCHEMING POLITICIAN WILLING TO FLIP FLOP WHEN THE PRESSURE GETS APPLIED."
Joel, can you not honestly see that he took the most honest and authentic path available. He not only explained his continued relationship with Wright, but he explained why such a reaction to Wright's limited excerpts represented a failure of information and understanding between the races. The fact that so many WHITE people were shocked by Wright betrays their ignorance of the role of the black church.
I'm stunned that you could oversimplify Obama's 38 minute analysis of American racial tension -- the most open discussion on the subject by a presidential candidate, probably ever -- and reduce it to him making it "about everyone else’s racism."
That is NOT what he said at all.
one more thing. please read this
http://www.prometheus6.org/node/20249
Intruiging article, but I think the problem might be that Obama's asking more from the American people than they're used to. One of the central themes of his campaign that gets overlooked is his riff on JFK's line "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." It's more than has been asked of them in a very long time. The American people have been spoiled into complacency by an over-simplified political system and media. We're normally asked to believe things are good and evil. Obama's political fate depends on the American people to challenge themselves, and Senator Obama himself, to ask hard questions and be hungry for the hard work it will take to answer them.
Are we up to the challenge?
A clarification:
The "more" that I was referring to was the research neccesary to understand Barack Obama's background, but I'm also referring to the broader ideas addressed in the above post.
OK, maybe the link didn't come through, but here's what I think Obama should have said:
“The Bible teaches us, in Ephesians 4:31: ‘Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.’ My faith is one that teaches forgiveness. Not just for individuals, but for nations. Not just for the righteous, but for those who have not yet found the way to the truth and the light.
“The Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright played an important role in my life. He led me to a deeper connection with my Christian faith. For that, I will be eternally grateful. I reached out to him not just to discover what I believed, but who I am. But when he condemned white Americans, when he blamed America for the terrible events of 9/11, when he damned America itself, I should have spoken up, or walked away.
“I did not. And for that, I apologize and ask the forgiveness of my family, my fellow congregants, and the American people. The truth is that I did not raise my voice because I was afraid. I was afraid that my friends and neighbors would turn away from me—not only because of what I believe but because of who I am, a man of mixed parentage in a country still struggling to come to terms with its past.
“My mistake was to underestimate the people around me. For in silencing myself I failed to trust them. I failed to trust the decency of the people who prayed with me. I failed to appeal to their sense of right and wrong. I also failed to give Reverend Wright the chance to change his ways. I failed to challenge him to refine his faith, the way he once challenged me to search for mine. For that, I am truly sorry.
“I will now be leaving the Trinity United Church of Christ. Some may see this as political expediency. I leave them to judge as they will. For my own part, I can only say that I am still finding my way to God. I have the privilege of serving in the U.S. Senate. I have been a successful lawyer. I have been blessed. But in religion I am still a beginner. And so I must continue searching, continue reaching for answers.
“One thing that I have learned is to love another human being in spite of his or her flaws. And so in leaving Reverend Wright’s church I wish him no ill will. But I have realized—as I have met so many Americans, from so many walks of life, in the course of this campaign—that our country is far bigger than the one he has portrayed. Ours is a land of hope, a land of true freedom and opportunity.
“I would like to thank my opponents in this election for the grace they have shown me by not exploiting this issue to political advantage. I am sorry for the hurt this has caused my supporters and all Americans, of all faiths. I hope that this episode will herald a new start for this campaign: a movement towards a better kind of politics, the kind of politics in which leaders can learn from their mistakes.
“Let us now go forth and continue the work of this great democracy, this land that God has blessed.”
Instead, we got:
1) A speech about everyone else's racism.
2) A religious speech without religious content.
3) An attack on political opponents when humility was called for.
I think the speech succeeded in rallying Obama's supporters--people who already agreed with him--but it alienated a lot of other people.
Obama had a choice to make: stay in the church and leave. Each option has consequences. Each requires some explaining.
Baratunde, this speech did not lack wisdom. It even had a bit of courage. What it lacked was authenticity.
Obama refused to be himself. That's what I believe.
Also, he never apologized.
Would that have really been too much?
I think even Wright would have understood.
This is the article Baratunde linked to above. It explains why it wouldn't have been so easy just to leave his church or his pastor, nor should he have. There's been a turn in this campaign wherein Hillary, McCain, and Obama have all had to apologize for multiple surrogates. It's getting a little ridiculous to expect them to do so every time as if each supporter agrees exactly with their candidate.:
Many of the alleged pundits and so-called analysts who appeared on television and radio yesterday to offer their interpretation of Obama's speech were quick, in fact, too quick, to decry the analogy that Obama drew between his relationship with his maternal grandmother and his relationship with Rev. Wright. Many of the talking heads and far, far too many of the black males and females who appeared on these programs dismissed this connection because, as they stated, one can easily choose to find another minister as opposed to finding a replacement grandmother.
This line of argument has a certain logical appeal because the church one chooses to join is a matter of choice. That is, one can choose to belong to this church or that church or no church at all. Whereas one has no choice over selecting one's grandmother. People are continually born into a world that is always older than they are and they have no choice as to who is their grandmother. Natality and chance rule over this process.
The problem here is that this way of looking at Obama's decision tree ignores the very specific circumstances of his life and biography. When Obama likens Rev. Wright to an uncle and describes him as being a member of his family he is quite sincere and, more importantly, he is, psychologically speaking, correct. Obama's biological father was virtually absent during his formative years and he was dead by the time Obama became an adult. In addition, Obama had no substantial contact with his father's male siblings and adult male cousins. In other words, he had no older adult black males in his life with whom he could form close and enduring bonds until he met Rev. Wright.
Consequently, when Obama says that Rev. Wright is like an uncle to him and that he could no more disown him than he could disown his maternal grandmother he is expressing a deeply felt and psychologically true statement. Rev. Wright may or may not be crazy (I don't believe that he is crazy or intemperate although I disagree with him about the origins of the AIDS epidemic.) but he is someone who Obama has chosen to be his uncle.
What Obama did is no different from what tens of thousands of gays and lesbians have had to do when they were rejected by their families because of their sexual preferences. They went out and over time created their own families. I met a young sister, for example, in graduate school who later came out to me. She and I became very close friends and when she unexpectedly died several years ago I felt as if I had lost one of my own biological sisters. I miss her a great deal. She considered me to be a member of her family because her own family looked askance at her sexual preferences. The human need for familial association and acceptance is an evolutionary fact.
Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright should and must be seen in this context instead of through the superficial and grossly over simplified choice of simply switching ministers. His bond was with Rev. Wright and the community he found at Trinity United Church. Expecting or demanding him to sever those bonds would be tantamount to asking him to exile himself. Cutting off all of his ties to Rev. Wright would be exactly like asking him to cut off contact with his maternal grandmother. Blood may be thicker than mud but the ties that are created when you choose to call someone family are no less thick and lasting.