Posted on 03/23/2008 12:37:40 PM PDT by vietvet67
If Sen. Barack Obama loses the presidency, he can very likely trace the beginning of the end of his unprecedented run for the White House to last week's much-discussed speech on race.
He never should have gone there. It was a deadly mistake, a political blunder of the first order.
Not because what he said wasn't heartfelt, intelligent and balanced, or because it obviously reflected the unique experiences of a man with a foot each in the very different worlds of black and white America.
But like so many brilliant men and women I've met in politics, Obama obviously believes his powers of observation and persuasion are far greater than they actually are. That viscerally charged issues like racism, racial divide, discrimination, affirmative action and black power can be reduced to simple, rational discourse. And that dialog inevitably leads to resolution and progress.
It does not. Sometimes all it does is draw unwanted reaction, not thought. In this instance, Obama managed to roil waters that were calming down for him and create further doubts as to where he stands on angry black politics. He made the supreme mistake of assuming that just because he is ready to have a dialogue about race, so are the American people.
I doubt it.
We're at least a generation or two from that, but we're getting there.
What the overwhelming number of white American voters wanted to hear from Obama on Tuesday was a clear, unequivocal Nancy Reagan repudiation of a man who speaks a troubling doctrine of hate against America.
Just say no to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
Instead, we got a "no, but." A repudiation of the words Wright spoke, but a half-hug still for the man. Well, what we say is what we stand for; it's what we are. You cannot separate the two, and the American electorate took note of that without another word being spoken.
Predictably, many editorial writers and some prominent members of the intellectual community got weepy over Obama's speech, calling it groundbreaking, brilliant and on a par with Abraham Lincoln. Please. As eloquence, it was unexceptional. I will grant you it was candid and had the ring of truth about it.
But did it need saying? No. Does it advance his cause? No. Does it help America become less racist? A tougher call for history to make. It might help, but that's immaterial to this political campaign. While Obama proclaimed himself not as politically naive as some think, he in fact confirmed it by giving this speech in the first place, as well as by what he said. Excusing Wright is wrong.
"For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away, nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years," Obama said.
I am also of the Reverend Wright's generation and can attest that there was in broad form a white counterpart to the black experience. Forty-one years ago, when I started at our sister newspaper, The Knickerbocker News, the headlines were that Newark was aflame with race riots. Tanks would soon patrol the streets of Detroit. Watts, Black Panthers, the inflammatory rhetoric of Louis Farrakhan edging out the nonviolent voice of Martin Luther King, were all part of confusion that made this country very anxious, fearful and seemingly unstable. That is the well Sen. Barack Obama dipped into with his speech Tuesday. The majority of white voters I alluded to are the majority of voters, period. And the largest block of that majority are members of my generation. That's just the way our voting patterns have been historically, regardless of what youthful appeal Barack Obama has as a candidate at the moment. Come November, it's we oldsters who turn out in droves. It's we oldsters who will elect the next president. That's why that speech was unnecessary, and counterproductive, because we oldsters didn't think much of it.
Barack Obama, for all his brilliance, misses the basic point that he himself embodies the very dialogue he wants to externalize.
All he had to do was be himself, a product of black and white America, a good and decent man voicing his concerns and fears and hopes for this country -- but not try to take the American people where, frankly, they are unwilling and/or incapable of going.
A dialectic over time rather than the dialogue, I am convinced, will get America the racial equality our founding fathers could not even contemplate when they created our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Two steps forward, one step back. Not with words, but with the passing of time, and the death of the generations locked into their experiences that hold the country back, like mine and the Rev. Wright's.
For proof that's happening all on its own, without being pushed, just look at how much has happened that's positive in race relations in this country since the Newark headlines. And oh, by the way, look who's running for president of the United States.
Fred LeBrun can be reached at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com.
It wasn't any of those things, was it?
Still waiting for the Rev. Wright to be charged with hate speech.
...the rioting that will follow will make L.A. '92 look like a day at the beach.
Perceptive: Obama’s statement (unnecessary), truncates his candidacy as merely a racial artifact.
No, it can be traced back to Obama's decision (over 20 years ago) to join Wright's "church." .....or at least his decision to remain there after hearing one of the "reverend's" countless racist, black nationalist, anti-American rants.
We are not racist.
artifact.
A very good article.
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The double standard again. Because wright is black he is able to call white America racist bigots and not be charged with a hate speech. If it were the other way around they would be up in arms calling for a resignation, condemnation, apologies to everyone who is someone in the black community, and of coarse the loss of ones livelyhood, just for starters. This is the ugly reality.
Comment:
Horse Shiite.
America had it's dialog on race during the 1860’s and slavery and it's supporters lost.
It's the Democrats who do not want to have a dialog on all races getting along.
Most blacks like most Muslims are being bombarded by race mongers hoping to stir past transgressions into major everyday problems.
Sorry pardoner true patriotic Americans will never be ready for the one sided argument that it's Americas fault for all the ills that affect them and the world.
I would not want to be a member of Pastor Wrights church and have to live with and carry the burden of seething hatred of most of Americas population and my country.
Just a damn shame that a man such as Obama associated with hate mongers and false prophets was even elected to any office representing all races and religious beliefs.
Just the lowly opinion of a red state wannabe.
“Does it help America become less racist? A tougher call for history to make.”
You’ve got to be kidding. If absolutely every black person in America believed, BEE-LEEVED!, as Obama does that there’s an excuse, any excuse, for black liberation “theology,” there might be room for discussion. But we’ve got thousands of patriotic, Christian black leaders and citizens who HAVE made it past the hate-stage. That most are Republicans stands to reason.
And it'll have nothing to do with "diologue" and everything to do with the new generations not giving a hoot about race.
“It wasn’t any of those things, was it?”
Not that I saw.
A simple ploy. Nothing else..
Not if McCain beats him by a significant margin. If Hillary beats him, probably... and especially if Hillary beats him at a brokered Denver Democratic Convention!
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Even if you can’t disown a crazy uncle, you don’t keep going back to him time and again to ask for advice and counsel. I mean, really.
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