Americans Don't Like Facing Up

Iinstead of talking about how to solve the housing problem, we get caught up in our racial prejudices. after all, if only everyone was white, then the world's problems would go away.

Instead of focusing on improving our relations in other countries, we wave our flags and say america is the greatest. instead of improving education, we talk about immigrants destroying our education system. After all, if there weren't any immigrants then we'd have the finest educational system around.

It goes on and on and on. We're so easily distracted from the things that matter because it's easier to blame someone else for our problems than actually do the work and fix them.

In Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech he said "not this time" but we got lost in damning pastor wright. Ironically, racism has caused the "Budweiser" class to vote against the person who could help them the most.

nyt: Racial prejudice, ignorance, hostility — whatever — has caused millions of Americans to vote against their own economic interests, and for policies that have damaged the country.
“It’s hard to address big issues,” Mr. Obama told me, “if we’re easily diverted or distracted by racial antagonism.”
Far more people will see the endless loop of Senator Obama’s frenzied former pastor than will ever read or hear the sober, thoughtful, constructive words of the senator himself.

This story, now one of my all-time favorites, by Gary Kamiya in Salon illustrates our predicament. it says "stupid patriotism," the kind that says America is always innocent and always good has left us doomed to repeat past failures.
It starts out like this:

Maybe we really are doomed to elect John McCain, remain in Iraq forever and nuke Iran. Nations that forget history may not be doomed to repeat it, but those that never even recognize reality in the first place definitely are. Last week's ridiculous uproar over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons proves yet again that America has still not come to terms with the most rudimentary facts about race, 9/11 -- or itself.

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Obama: the Un-Beholden President

Poll: Obama's Speech Was Spot On

those who heard/saw obama's "a more perfect union" speech liked it, according to a poll. but when republicans were asked, they said they didn't:

More than six in 10, moreover, said they mostly agreed with what he said about race relations in this country, including a broad majority of Democrats and independents, but fewer — four in 10 — Republicans.

what i don't understand is why republicans can't just admit that the speech was good but still disagree politically? is it because they are childish? racist? afraid?

there are some republicans, however, who were bold and mature enough to admit to a good speech, while disagreeing on obama's politics. that i can respect.
Context to Pastor Wright’s Sermon
Truth About Trinity
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CNN: Obama is Leading

i wonder why cnn chose to state this fact now? it's been a fact for a while. obama has been leading in delegates and popular vote since super tuesday. and he's won 30 states to clinton's 14. the ONLY way clinton can win is to present her case to the superdelegates (or cheat). her case: she is more electable.

turns out clinton's looking to capitalize on the pastor wright controversy to make her appear more electable. that seems suitable, since her campaign started the fervor by passing around the video to start. (that's according to newsweek).

but if the race issue didn't bubble up, we never would've gotten that great speech from obama, which has led to people talking. everywhere.

unlike clinton, mccain continues to shut down the people in his party who keep acting like children. i don't agree with mccain's political views but i think he's an upstanding person.

for clinton, it looks like her strategy might just come back to bite her because it appears that following obama's "a more perfect union speech," more people have joined the obama camp than have left. of course, that's just my anecdotal evidence.

what would really be cool is if the superdelegates came out. a flock of them could do this. but i don't think they'll do it until after pennsylvania. that state is one that clinton has staked the rest of her campaign on. she's expected to do well. but who knows? i secretly hold out for an obama win. that would take plenty of new voters, which reminds me, that pennsylvanians who want to vote for obama have until march 24 to register as a democrat if they aren't already.

Obama's Speech: A Rorschach Inkblot Test

"It calls out of you what is already in you."
Let the conversation begin.
Read more from this fascinating NYT's story today:

The speech Senator Barack Obama delivered Tuesday morning has been viewed more than 1.6 million times on YouTube and is being widely e-mailed. While commentators and politicians debated its political success Wednesday, some around the country were responding to Mr. Obama’s call for a national conversation about race.

Religious groups and academic bodies, already receptive to Mr. Obama’s plea for such a dialogue, seemed especially enthusiastic. Universities were moving to incorporate the issues Mr. Obama raised into classroom discussions and course work, and churches were trying to find ways to do the same in sermons and Bible studies.

The Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of a mostly white evangelical church of about 12,000 in Central Florida, described Mr. Obama’s speech, in which the Democratic presidential candidate discussed his relationship with the former pastor of his home church in Chicago, as a kind of “Rorschach inkblot test” for the nation.

“It calls out of you what is already in you,” Dr. Hunter said, predicting that those desiring to address the topic would regard the speech as a spur, while those indifferent to issues of race might pay it little heed.

Dr. Hunter said the Obama speech led to a series of conversations Wednesday morning with his staff members. “We want for there to be healing and reconciliation, but unless it’s raised in a very public manner, it’s tough for us in our regular conversation to raise it,” he said.

The Obama speech was also a topic of discussion on Wednesday at the Washington office of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy and social welfare group. Hispanics can be white, black or of mixed race. “The cynics are going to say this was an effort only to deal with the Reverend Wright issue and move on,” said Janet Murguia, president of La Raza, referring to the political fallout over remarks by Mr. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., which prompted Mr. Obama to deliver the speech.

But Ms. Murguia said she hoped that Mr. Obama’s speech would help “create a safe space to talk about this, where people aren’t threatened or pigeonholed” and “can talk more openly and honestly about the tensions, both overt and as an undercurrent, that exist around race and racial politics.”

On the Internet and in many areas of the traditional news media, such a discussion was already taking shape. Some four million people watched Mr. Obama’s speech live, and it is now the top YouTube video.

The speech has stimulated passionate discussion on scores of blogs of varying ideological tendencies, and an article about the speech in The New York Times has provoked more than 2,250 comments.

On the ABC talk show “The View” on Wednesday morning, the co-hosts discussed the substance of Mr. Obama’s speech and its impact on the presidential campaign. “Finally we can talk about” race “without being afraid we are offending” others, one co-host, Barbara Walters, said, while Whoopi Goldberg said she “felt he was talking about stuff that we tiptoe around.”

Some conservative commentators, including Bill O’Reilly on Fox News, found positive elements in the Obama speech, which Mr. O’Reilly called “a mixed deal.” He criticized Mr. Obama for not repudiating Mr. Wright’s views in stronger terms but also said that Mr. Obama “was right that race remains an unresolved problem in America on both sides.”

There have been other efforts to stimulate a national dialogue on race. A commission on race relations was appointed in 1997 by President Bill Clinton with the historian John Hope Franklin as chairman. But that effort produced few concrete advances, and those who said they had been inspired by Mr. Obama’s speech said a different approach was needed.

“This has got to be more than a speech because these things don’t just happen spontaneously,” said Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the Jewish magazine Tikkun and a founder of the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

“There needs to be some systematic, organizational commitment to making this happen, with churches, synagogues and mosques working out a plan for continued dialogue,” Rabbi Lerner said. more more more

Does anybody see a leader here? 
Context to Pastor Wright’s Sermon
Truth About Trinity
FoxAttacks.com Fights Fox

Republicans Say Obama Hit One Out of the Park

now here's a couple of clear thinking people. they're republican but all the same they can still see obama's speech for exactly what it is-- brilliant.

really, some of the extreme conservatives ought to take note that it's okay to give a little. you can disagree politically but you don't have to tear a person to shreds at every chance. i think that john mccain is a honorable man with great character but I disagree with his political views.

see, conservatives, you don't have to entrench further into your hole out of duty. if you think obama's speech was brilliant just go with it. it feels nice. and don't worry, we won't get the wrong impression and think you like us. we should be debating the politics anyway not the stupid stuff.

As a Republican who will vote for John McCain in November, I watched Barack Obama's Philadelphia speech with awe--as a New England Patriots fan might have watched the New York Giants' Eli Manning hit David Tyree with 75 seconds to go. I was like the Oakland A's fan during the 1988 World Series when crippled L.A. Dodger Kirk Gibson limped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth. As Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully said about Gibson:

All year long, they looked to him to light the fire.

Gibson quickly fell behind 0-2 then worked the count up to 3-2. The A's pitcher Dennis Eckersley threw a slider, and Gibson, using only his upper body strength, yanked it out of the park. The Dodgers won 5-4. The national TV announcer, Jack Buck, said:

I don't believe what I just saw!

On Tuesday Obama, whose momentum was evaporating in the heat of his pastor scandal and poor Pennsylvania poll numbers, did what he had to do.

He did more than that, actually. He stepped to the plate and swung for the fences. Obama gave the best, straightest talk on American race relations ever heard from a national politician.

The reaction to Obama's speech quickly broke along partisan lines. Rush Limbaugh called Obama a "guilt monger," while Michael Gerson spoke for many conservatives when he said, "Barack Obama is not a man who hates--but he chose to walk with a man who does." The unfailingly sour Michelle Malkin wrote: "Barack Obama--the self-anointed soul-fixing, nation-healing political Messiah--has lost his glow."

What speech were they watching?

read the rest. it's pretty good.

NRO Charles Murray:

read the various posts here on "The Corner," mostly pretty ho-hum or critical about Obama's speech. Then I figured I'd better read the text (I tried to find a video of it, but couldn't). I've just finished. Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one? As far as I'm concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant—rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America.

and here's an outright republican switcheroonie:

Camp Hill Mayor Lou Thieblemont switched his lifelong Republican registration this week so he can vote for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary.

"I'm sick and tired of the politics of fear in this country. He's the only one who doesn't do that," Thieblemont said of Obama. "He's the only candidate who's said he'd talk to our enemies and try to get some common ground."

A retired airline pilot, Thieblemont, 62, said he doesn't believe the Bush administration's claims that the United States is safer now. "We're all alone in the world. We have basically lost all our friends in the world with comments like 'bring it on.'"

Explaining Obama's Church

obama's "a more perfect union" speech struck a chord with many of us and others can't understand why obama associated himself with pastor wright. some will actually try to understand while others could care less. they are so full of hate that they see only what they see.

i find that the real divide in this country isn't necessarily race but rich and poor and the various groups that fall in those groups. a wealthy black person is more likely to say they've transcended race than a poor black person.

i also find it remarkable that obama CHOSE to be part of a church that was socially oriented, one that focuses on the alleviation of poverty, one rooted in helping to make its community better.

as this story in time reports, obama could've went to a nice, quiet church. but he's genuine and at the heart of his campaign is his ideals of lifting the poor instead of giving more to those who already have wealth. attending that church helped him understand.

this from time.

...That desire for a more challenging faith helps explain the appeal of Trinity, despite its potential for controversy. The church, which has ministered to poor South Side families and Oprah Winfrey alike, isn't fringe, but neither is it a likely home for someone plotting a political career in Chicago. "If you're black and you're trying to get ahead in politics, you're not going to join Trinity," says Dwight Hopkins, a Trinity member who is also a professor at U. of C.'s Divinity School. "Not because it's radical — it isn't radical in its context. But it would be safer to join a North Side ecumenical church — the sort of place where people are quiet. They stand up, sit down, listen and leave."

As Obama's political career blossomed, he could have quietly left Trinity for one of those more staid black churches, but he chose to stay. In his speech, he said he disagreed with Wright strongly, and yet he didn't leave the church (or even criticize his pastor until Wright's sermons became a campaign issue). He didn't explain why he stayed, but by trying to show black and white resentment as the backdrop for Wright's comments, Obama suggested that his response to controversy isn't to walk out of the room but to try to understand what's fueling the fire. He also drew a distinction between political advice and spiritual guidance, arguing that many Americans know what it's like to disagree with something their pastor or priest or rabbi says.

By asking voters to understand the context of Wright's anger, though, Obama is counting on voters to accept nuance in an arena that almost always rewards simplicity over complexity. Politicians tend to offer deliberately banal choices: Either we move forward or we fall backward, either we let the economy falter or we help it grow, either we succumb to our enemies or we defeat them — the choice is up to you, America! Obama's formulation was different. Explicitly asking Americans to grapple with racial divisions and then transcend them — that's a bolder, riskier request.

After he delivered his speech, Obama found his wife Michelle backstage. She was weeping. He shared a quiet, emotional moment with her. Then Obama was all business again. "What's next?" he asked, as if anyone knew the answer.

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Who Can Beat McCain?

An Inspirational Crossover To Obama

My Mom has been a diehard HRC supporter from the start.

She has a Hillary sign on her bedroom mirror. She has steadfastly resisted the rest of the family's onslaught in favor of Obama. And we have really worked hard.

My Mom grew up white and poor in Detroit. And scared of black people.

She also worked and volunteered for years helping poor often black people in her new town.

My adopted daughter is from Liberia. I also have kids from El Salvador and Ecuador. My wife from Argentina.

'Race' is ever present in our lives

My Mom, the white grandmother of my black daughter, watched the speech.

you must read the rest

My Favorite Comment of the Day 3

this one made me laugh out loud. it was in response to a story in salon by joan walsh. the headline was: Was Obama's Speech Enough?

It's NEVER enough for you talking heads
Sophomoric Fallacy of Perfectionism 101. Were Barack to walk on water, you peeps would point it out as evidence of his inability to swim. Give it a break, Joan.

i couldn't have said it better. thank you.

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