The significant failure in Obama’s speech
Bookworm on Mar 18 2008 at 11:46 am | Filed under: African-Americans, Barack Obama
In my look-see at Obama’s speech, I sort of backed my way into saying that Obama’s speech basically just gives credence to the black sense of victimhood. Thus, at the end, I noted that I could bored and tuned out because Obama started bloviating about the same old cycle of poverty and victimhood which, I pointed out, is a mantra that precisely coincides with the decline of the black middle class, which was just pulling itself out of the abyss into which centuries of slavery had plunged it. Trust Jonah Goldberg, who wrote his column when Barack Obama hadn’t even given his speech, to hone in precisely on the problem with the speech (emphasis mine):
Barack Obama will reportedly give a major speech this morning at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, addressing the controversy about his extremist pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
Obama needs to do two things. First, he needs to make it incandescently clear that Wright doesn’t speak for him in any meaningful way. If he won’t do that, his campaign is a fraud and he is not qualified to be president.
Second, he needs to explain to black America why Wright’s views are so poisonous.
[snip]
Obama righteously deplores “divisiveness.” And yet he literally worships at the altar of division. He wants to transcend race, but his black nationalist church and his liberation theology pastor consider race permanent and central issues.
Obama claims that he’s a different kind of politician, but his “repudiation” of Wright last week is traditional pol-speak and nothing more. To listen to Obama, you’d think he was the only person in Chicago not to know that his minister is a hatemonger. Either Obama is the worst judge of character in living memory or he’s not the man he’s been portraying himself as.
Or there’s a third option. Perhaps Obama didn’t hear Wright’s bilious rhetoric because it blended in with the chorus around him. This is the fact that Obama really needs to address if the “Obama movement” is about more than getting the junior senator from Illinois elected.
[snip]
A 2005 study by the Rand Corp. and the University of Oregon found that nearly half of African Americans say they believe that HIV is man-made. More than 25% think that it’s a government invention, and one in eight say it was created and spread by the CIA. Just over half believe that the government is purposely keeping a cure from reaching the poor.
And please, spare me the rationalization that blacks have reason to be conspiratorial. Doubtless there’s truth to that. But that doesn’t make the conspiracy theories any more true or any less destructive.
In the 2005 issue of Social Science Quarterly, Sharon Parsons and William Simmons tried to explain why conspiracy theories like these persist in the black community. Part of the answer, they concluded, is that black politicians have no interest in dispelling them. Paging Sen. Obama!
Obama preaches unity. Well, real unity requires real truth-telling and the ability to tell right from wrong, and Wright from right.
Yeah, what he said! Goldberg neatly anticipated precisely what I found wrong with Obama’s speech, which is that it criticizes Wright’s more hate-filled rhetoric, even while giving continued credence to the pathologies that underlie it.
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2008.03.18 Politics and National Defense Roundup…
This post will grow as the day goes on. Please don’t forget to check back later. For a while I was absolutely elated to see Obama’s racist-to-the-core, God damn Whitey, God damn America spiritual advisor start getting some belated press….
Some time ago, the nice person that cuts my hair, an ardent Democrat, told me that Hillary gave her the creeps but she was worried that Barak was too much into (her words) “the black thing”. I didn’t know what she meant by that. Now I do.
I think that this is a mortal blow for Obama but that the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet on Hillary.
Time for more popcorn before the next round begins.
Obama explained himself quite clearly. And “the black thing” is just American history from black point if view. Why would anyone expect a black man not to be into “the black thing’? If Americans can’t elect a black person who’s into “the black thing,” then we can’t ever elect a black person. Not all people who are against Obama are racists, but people who expect black candidates to be more concerned about ‘the white thing” than “the black thing” most likely are.
And may I suggest reading Obama’s actual speech. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/18/obama.transcript/index.html
How about candidates who are concerned about “the America thing?”
Helen -
I expect candidates, regardless of their color, to be concerned about “the American thing.”
It is irrelevent to me whether or not they are “into” their family’s particular racial heritage. However, it is of utmost importance to me that they are into our traditional American values, free markets, protection of individual liberties, the promotion of liberty and democracy abroad, and a strong defense.
Besides, you may think that Obama explained himself quite clearly but in my mind, we are being asked to believe that Obama, who called his pastor his mentor and has been a member of this church for many years, was not fully aware of his pastor’s beliefs.
That simply strains credulity.
I have been a member of a couple of churches in my life and while politics and big social issues are not directly discussed in the sermons (no pastor of mine has ever performed a “grinding” motion in the pulpit), I could easily tell what my pastors believed simply by listening to his sermons.
Obama is either poorly adept at understanding what is right in front of him, which would be a concern if he is to become president, or he is telling a lie, which also would be a concern if he is to become president.
Deana
JudyRose -
Ha! Good to know I’m not the only one worried about “the American thing!”
Deana
Helen, I did read Obama’s actual speech — and I didn’t like. Also, I think Obama’s into just one side of the black thing. The other side is Shelby Steele, Michael Steele, Larry Elder, John McWhorter, Star Parker, Walter Williams, Condi Rice, Herman Cain, Ward Connerly, Clarence Thomas, and any number of conservative blacks who see themselves as Americans who have opportunities and, given the choice between casting themselves as victims of America or citizens of America (albeit with some hurdles), have chosen the latter. Obama, for all his slick rhetoric, and for all the extraordinary opportunities he and his wife got (a heck of a lot more than I got educationally, for example) is an angry victim of America, I fail to see how he can be a capable or inspiring leader — and that’s aside from the fact that his political record is a big, fat zero. (And yes, Helen, I know you’re not an Obama supporter, so I appreciate that you’re probably not that thrilled with his political record either.)
I like to be led by leaders, not by a person who define himself by misery and pessism, which is what is Left when you back away from Obama’s blah-blah about unity. My belief in the power of positive leadership exists regardless of whether the blacks are in fact having a harder time of it than whites. My sense also is that much that is wrong in the African American community is an attitude problem foisted on the community by leaders with a vested interest in preserving grievances. Certain the numbers show that African-Americans have opportunities to join the American mainstream, now that the political and economic hindrances that were forced upon them in times past are gone, and that the black political leadership, in order to retain its power, is singing a dying swan song to be a people who ought to be doing as well as anyone else.
Please take note here that nothing I’m saying should be construed to mean that blacks are in any way incapable of success or to diminish the profound hardships they suffered. It is to say that attitude counts, and that what you consider the one and only black viewpoint, Helen, is instead the victim black viewpoint that’s fomented by a shoddy leadership that maintains power by depriving its community of a sense of the opportunity inherent in the American system.
Very well put, Book. However, what does upset me is that I believe Obama has now made it much more difficult for qualified African Americans (you gave a pretty good list - Herman Cain would be interesting!) to make a run for the Presidency.
Obama, and the people that helped him to bring himself down (see Hillary) have likely poisoned the well for the foreseeable future and given succor to the true racists in our midst. In that sense, I believe that we all lose.
Let’s see what happens with the Hillary camp, now. I suspect that there will be hell to pay.
give it a rest book
that was a great speech. he did just about as well (if not better) than anyone could have expected behind this nonsense.
heck, he even threw you some red meat re your israel obsession. what more do you want?
peacd
Yeah, it’s a pretty bizarre obsession, isn’t it, to want the sole liberal, pluralist democracy in the Middle East to survive against people united around a faith that demands Jewish genocide as a predicate to the desired Armageddon. Call me crazy, but what can you do?
You thought it was a good speech, Dagon, because you listened with your heart. I thought it was a bad speech, because I analyzed it like a legal brief. Under the latter analysis, it was internally inconsistent, devious, disjointed, elliptical, and full of rhetorical sleight-of-hand. But other than that, it clearly said what you wanted to hear — and I guess that makes it a good speech.
book,
i wouldn’t allow you to take a deposition from my milk man (in my favor)! in light of the accusations against obama, exactly what was he supposed to say?
he is still trying to get the nomination (and probably will imo). listening to wright is a mistake; but i think listening to ALL charismatic religious leaders is a mistake inasmuch as they have about as much insight as my college math professor. please feel free to differ on this point.
history…and this present election will tell.
and since you’re pathologically off-base about virtuallly everything, i think i’ll go with my take.
peace
Oh, Dagan. How I wish you left a link to a blog.
sorry helen,
i had one up for a while but life interfered.
peace
I always wonder, when told that this or that spokesman is expounding “American history from black point if view” why we never hear about the successful businesses and other enterprises started and successfully run by black Americans for many decades, during the worst of Jim Crow……
Why is that history left out? Families in those days were largely intact, despite the bitter legacy of slavery - at that time, even closer to the community than it is now. There were drug problems, but nothing like we see today. Young people preying on their neighbors were taken care of by their elders, if the local white oppressors didn’t do it in a timely manner. And there were benevolent societies, insurance pools, service clubs, and so on to supplement the business enterprises that weren’t affordable for everyone.
There is no question that even today, depending on where one lives, it can be a significant trial to be black - and I only know a hint of what that might be like by calling on my experiences in South America. But, it was MUCH worse for black Americans in the first half of the last century, and yet the pathologies currently on display were curiously absent back then. Why isn’t that ever talked about?
ear
they were largely absent back then BECAUSE of jim crow and assumptive aparteid in the rest of the country.
we squandered a tremendous moment for our nation in the 50’s through the 80’s. the country swung to a more punitive stance during the late 70’s and the freedoms bestowed upon the black community promoted empowerment, which further solidified the punitive practices of the reagan, bush AND clinton administrations.
this was to a greater sense enabled by fearful and punitive actions such as hoover’s “final solution” and the “southern strategy”.
those in the community who figured it out have seen gains in their prospects but they remain the exception that proves that rule.
unless america addresses it’s decades long systemic oppression of minorities; blacks in particular, we will see permanent poverty, ignorance and degradation within these groups.
a good case is that there should have been a national dialogue following the riots in watts, detroit and chicago. 3 cities which have seen minority areas devastated by revolt yet the citizens were left to fester to this very day. that is largely where wright is coming from but i think obama provided a cogent counterpoint today.
peace
Nice line, Dagon, but statistically wrong. The swing did not coincide with government policies in the late 1970s and 1980s (”it’s all Reagan’s fault!”). Instead, if you read the careful data compiled in John McWhorter’s book, it started in about 1966, under Johnson’s Great Society, when well-meaning social workers insisted that African-Americans replace family ties with government dependence.
book,
excuse me…..huh???
where did i ever say it was “it’s all reagan’s fault”? he was just taking advantage of a constituency that was already carefully cultivated in the south.
as for the rest re the stuff about “the great society”……huh? please explain
peace
You are absolutely right, Book. I recall a conversation that I had with an old (to my 14-year old eyes, any way) black fisherman on the banks of Ohio’s Miami river in the 1960s. He decried to me how his daughters had betrayed everything his wife and he had worked for by getting into drugs, pregnancy and “the welfare”. I recall other younger black people on that river castigating him, “don’t you go telling him that s***!”. They were all embarrassed, even then, by what Johnson’s welfare system was doing to them.
Another great source on this is Thomas Sowell, who documented how Johnson’s Great Society Program neatly clipped a fast-rising black middle class in the bud. And, let’s not forget about the horror’s of government housing projects.
and since you’re pathologically off-base about virtuallly everything, i think i’ll go with my take.
Why is it not surprising that someone with the pathologies of the superiority and inferiority complexes will prefer his own take on the world rather than those others he sees as being different from his way of wrecking things.
Southern state governments quickly enacted the restrictive “black codes”. However they were abolished by Congress and seldom had effect because the Freedman’s Bureau (not the local courts) handled the legal affairs of freedmen. The Black Codes were based off of northern vagrancy laws.
Under the black codes, the freedmen had more rights than did free blacks before the war, but they still had only a limited set of second-class civil rights, no voting rights, and their rights as citizens such as owning firearms, serving in a jury when no black was present in the case, and moving about the countryside without employment were prohibited. [11] Among other provisions, the Black Codes stringently limited blacks’ ability to control their own employment. The Black Codes outraged northern opinion. They were overthrown by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that gave the Freedmen full legal equality (except for the right to vote).[12]
The freedmen rejected gang labor procedures that had been used in slavery and with the strong backing of the Freedman’s Bureau they forced planters to bargain for their labor. Such bargaining led to the establishment of the system of sharecropping, which gave the freedmen greater economic independence and social autonomy than gang labor. However, because they lacked capital and the planters continued to own the means of production (tools, draft animals and land), the freedmen were forced into producing cash crops (mainly cotton) for the planters, and they entered into a crop-lien system which eventually led to the permanent indebtedness of the majority of the freedmen.[13]To pay off their debt, some freedpeople would even be auctioned off as servants.[14]
Northern officials gave varying reports on conditions for the Freedmen in the South. One harsh assessment came from Carl Schurz who reported on the situation in the states along the Gulf Coast. His report (available here) documents dozens of extra-judicial killings and claims that hundreds or thousands more African Americans were killed:
Northern anger over the assassination of Lincoln and the immense human cost of the war led to demands for harsh policies. Vice President Andrew Johnson had taken a hard line and spoke of hanging rebel Confederates, but when he succeeded Lincoln as President, Johnson took a much softer line, pardoning many Confederate leaders and ex-Confederates to maintain their control of Southern state governments, Southern lands, and black people.[8] Jefferson Davis was held in prison for two years, but other Confederate leaders were not. There were no treason trials. Only one person—Captain Henry Wirz, the commandant of the prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia—was executed for war crimes.
In March 1865, Congress had established the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Bureau provided food, clothing, and fuel to destitute former slaves and white refugees. It did not, as later myths said, promise 40 acres and a mule.[9]
Although resigned to the abolition of slavery, many ex-Confederates were not willing to accept the granting of civil rights to the freedmen. The defeated feared that after the abolition of slavery, the freedmen would threaten their economic and political preeminence in the South. In the words of Benjamin F. Perry, president Johnson’s choice as the provisional governor of South Carolina: “First, the Negro is to be invested with all political power, and then the antagonism of interest between capital and labor is to work out the result.”[10]
Reconstruction came in three phases. Presidential Reconstruction, 1863-66 was controlled by Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, with the goal of quickly reuniting the country. It can be said to have begun with the Emancipation Proclamation. The programs proposed by Lincoln and subsequently by Johnson (who by late 1865 had lost the support of most of the Republican party) were opposed by the Radical Republicans. This political faction gained power after the 1866 elections and began Congressional Reconstruction, 1866-1873 emphasizing civil rights and voting rights for the freedmen.
Supported by the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867, in 1868 new state governments came to power in the former Confederacy which were based on a Republican coalition of freedmen, carpetbaggers and scalawags. In the Redemption, 1873-1877, white Southern Democrats (calling themselves “Redeemers”) defeated the Republicans and took control of each southern state, marking the end of Reconstruction. In 1877, President Rutherford Hayes withdrew federal troops, causing the collapse of the remaining three Republican state governments.
Link
Oh, Dagan. How I wish you left a link to a blog.
Not surprising. What is surprising is that people can stomach the support of Democrats and recreate the Jim Crow laws designed to limit black economic and political parity. People who think they are uniting their little tribe for better days.
The tribal mind is easily manipulated by more advanced socio-political cultures. And we see it confirmed once again.
unless america addresses it’s decades long systemic oppression of minorities; blacks in particular, we will see permanent poverty, ignorance and degradation within these groups.
Until blacks stop obeying their white slave masters the Democrats, the century plus systemic oppression of black minorities will just keep on trucking.
What a short memory people have when it was only their ancestors that suffered and sacrificed for them. All they remember are events in their life, around their birth, and the stories their parents told them. Their long ago ancestors, they just got dumped I suppose.
In the Redemption, 1873-1877, white Southern Democrats (calling themselves “Redeemers”) defeated the Republicans and took control of each southern state,
I’ll leave it to people’s imagination how many the KKK had to lynch in the South before they were able to accomplish this little trick.
Given that Robert KKKleagle Byrd is still in the Democrat power seat, I imagine that it would have been quite a lot by the time federal troops were pulled from Democrat controlled areas.