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Violanti: Obama makes historic speech on race in America
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Location: Blogs Marion Politics |
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| Posted by: Ocala.com Election Coverage |
3/19/2008 10:48 AM |
Sen. Barack Obama brought the issue of race out of the political closet and into the public dialog.
Barack Obama is a black and white man of color. His father is black and his mother white. And on Tuesday, Obama met America's racial divide head-on in a remarkably forthright and revelatory speech in Philadelphia.
He brought the issue of race out of the political closet and into the public dialog.
In an era of sound bites and YouTube, Obama's speech was one of the those rare, serious political moments when a candidate sheds his media image and public relations aura to reveal his true self.
Truth, honesty and self-revelation were the essence of Obama's speech, and it offered a lesson to all Americans.
It's time to grow up and deal with the issue of race in a serious way. It's not only a distraction but a costly division. And racial division won't go away until all of us are willing to come to terms with our past and present.
This didn't come easy for Obama. He was motivated to make the speech after comments by his longtime pastor, Jeremiah Wright, at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
In previous sermons, as the Associated Press reported, Wright had "damned" America, and explained the 9/11 attacks as the result of "the stuff we have done overseas now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
Such toxic language could diminish Obama's Democratic presidential hopes. But the Obama speech was just as private as public. Wright is the pastor who presided over Obama's marriage ceremony and baptized his children.
What's a black presidential candidate to do?
The usual way out would be to condemn Wright's statements and then disown the minister.
Obama condemned the statements but not the man of God.
"The man (Wright) I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor," Obama said.
"As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me," he added. "He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years."
Obama found a bond between his black minister and white grandmother.
"I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."
America is divided by race and also age. People over 50 grew up in a time of segregation when the N-word was as American as apple pie. Those days are gone but the struggle remains.
"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.
Governments can legislate freedom but can't stop prejudice.
"Race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now," Obama said. "We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality."
Political reality these days seems to be television commercials and staged debates, more talk show than discourse. Obama was searching for something more relevant to all Americans in his speech, including understanding the anger of whites.
"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."
Such frustration creates an divisive atmosphere and lends itself to a movement.
"Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company," Obama said. "But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan coalition.
"Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism."
And that brings us to today.
"This is where we are right now," Obama said. "It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
"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 is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union."
Then came the crux of Obama's speech and the essence of America: the hope for a better tomorrow. It's the reason so many white immigrants came here over the past two centuries. It's also the reason African-Americans, descendants of slaves, have faith in the future to overcome the country's sins of the past.
Obama, part black, part white, is living proof that American dreams can come true. His life and candidacy is a testament to living in the present and building for the future.
"The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society," Obama said. "It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country ... is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.
"But what we know - what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow."
The historic imprint of Obama's speech is that this country will not become whole - or "a more perfect union" - until we deal with racial division not as a wedge issue or political distraction, but as a fact of life. The time to come together and confront our racial past and present is now.
- Anthony Violanti |
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Re: Violanti: Obama makes historic speech on race in America |
By Dee on
3/23/2008 12:37 PM |
| There are different races for reasons. If two people fall in love and respect each, great. However, to shove "diverstity" down everyone's throat and insist that we all have to live with one another is insane! It's not done in the wild and it shouldn't be insisted upon just because we're have this "intelligence" that can help us rise above whatever. It gets down to "courtesy and respect." END OF STORY. If one doesn't want other races living in the area that should be respected just as much as our freedom of speech is allowed. If this is such a free country then it needs to be agreed that we respect each other. If that means we create white neighborhoods, or black neighborhoods or mexican neighborhoods or WHATEVER, we should be allowed to do that. The racial problems we are encountering are because we're told we have to approve of each other 24 hours a day. We have to work together and live together and that's not real. It's just not real. Work together, respect each other? Absolutely! That is paramount. But quit making it to where we can't get away from each other. I can respect anybody's ways but don't shove it down my throat every day of the week! |
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Re: Violanti: Obama makes historic speech on race in America |
By Don K on
5/21/2008 8:16 AM |
| <br>From the writings of Senator Obama, ie: "I ceased to advertise my mothers race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites" or "There was something<br>about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white", makes you wonder if he is objective enough on the issue of race to moderate a public debate on the issue. It is quite clear that the Obama's have racial issues they need to overcome before becoming a moderator on the subject.<br> |
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Re: Violanti: Obama makes historic speech on race in America |
By sammy story on
5/22/2008 3:28 PM |
| i have no problem w the color of his skin - its the content of his character that scares me- he says we need to change america- well all we need is to change the people in public office- ain't nothing wrong w the system- just the players- and america doesn't need any more liberals |
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