Obama's speech on race

[bobbob1313]

go back to sleep.

 

ok.

[rghammo]

"This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected."

 

I keep a list of favorite quotes and wanted to add this to it. Does anyone know if it originated with Obama? I know that speeches sometimes draw on/play off of other passages/speeches/texts, but this was unfamiliar to me and I wanted to make sure to appropriately attribute it. Thanks.

[W(TF)]

But, take it as a whole and I think it's as powerful a piece of oratory as we've had in four decades or more.

 

I agree, providing Obama is elected president. Gore is an intellectual, and look where that got us. John Kerry made some damn good speechifying, and we elected the turkey again.

 

Obama clearly has the capability to help America move forward, if they want it. But he won't be able to work miracles in four years.....it might be enough time to undo some of the foreign mess. He'll need two terms to make a real impact on the nation. And by then he might just become a political fucktard like the rest.

[bobbob1313]

So I finally listened to the whole thing (rather than just reading it) and it's pretty incredible.

 

If anything's going to push me to his camp, this speech may do it. Jon Stewart summed it up best: "And so, on tuesday morning, a politician actually made a speech about race and treated Americans like adults."

[mountain bed]

Yeah Chomps I just now had time to watch the whole thing. You know I've watched a lot of speeches over the years but that was a really good one. I can't accurately describe how it made me feel.

 

When Barack talked specifically about white resentment, the part about anger over things like affirmative action being a catalyst for the Reagan Coalition was right on the money in my opinion. Very unfortunate.

[bobbob1313]

So I finally listened to the whole thing (rather than just reading it) and it's pretty incredible.

 

If anything's going to push me to his camp, this speech may do it. Jon Stewart summed it up best: "And so, on tuesday morning, a politician actually made a speech about race and treated Americans like adults."

 

"And so, at 11 am on a tuesday, a prominent american politician spoke to Americans about race as if they were adults." That's the line.

[TheMaker]

Please elect this man. Thank you.

 

Signed,

 

Canada.

 

(Seriously, we have to live vicariously through your progressive candidate, because we might not have another bona fide one for several generations. Obama is probably the greatest politician North America has produced since Pierre Elliott Trudeau. And Jesus Christ, after eight years of that chimpanzee you've got in the White House right now, you so deserve this guy!)

[OOO]

I really will be kind of devastated if he doesn't win.

[Good Old Neon]

I really will be kind of devastated if he doesn't win.

 

Personality-wise, Obama and Hillary are, in many respects, polar opposites, policy-wise, however, they are pretty much on the same page

[Good Old Neon]

From, The Onion.

 

 

Black Guy Asks Nation For Change

 

CHICAGO

[bigshoulders]

I just got through telling someone I don't get involved in these kinds of threads... but here goes anyway...

 

It seems to me that if Obama really wanted to exert change he would have had dialogs with this pastor long before now. Sitting silently in the pews and not saying anything comes across as being lazy, or cowardly

[cryptique]

I just got through telling someone I don't get involved in these kinds of threads... but here goes anyway...

 

It seems to me that if Obama really wanted to exert change he would have had dialogs with this pastor long before now. Sitting silently in the pews and not saying anything comes across as being lazy, or cowardly

[MrRain422]

Also, how do we know that he never spoke to the pastor about things he disagreed with? Because this is the first time he gave a big speech on it? I bet they've discussed lots of issues in private before.

[OOO]

Also, it is true that hypocrisy in US foreign policy over the years has pissed a lot of people off.

[bigshoulders]

The comments at issue were not made in Obama's presence.

Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

When Obama disagreed with things said during sermons he attended, they weren't nearly as inflammatory. What, you're going to go confront your pastor over everything he says that you disagree with? Right.

 

From his own speech he admits to hearing these sermoms.

To answer your question: "No" but if my pastor was spewing that kind of venom, I certainly wouldn't have sat on my ass for 20 years listening to it.

 

I'm not going to keep stirring this turd.

[EL the Famous]

From his own speech he admits to hearing these sermoms.

 

incorrect. go back and read the speech. he stated they he had heard the pastor say things that he disagreed w/ in sermons.

[MrRain422]

When Obama disagreed with things said during sermons he attended, they weren't nearly as inflammatory. What, you're going to go confront your pastor over everything he says that you disagree with? Right.

 

 

From his own speech he admits to hearing these sermoms.

To answer your question: "No" but if my pastor was spewing that kind of venom, I certainly wouldn't have sat on my ass for 20 years listening to it.

 

I'm not going to keep stirring this turd.

 

 

You make it sound like that that's all this guy ever talked about in his sermons.

[Good Old Neon]

The comments at issue were not made in Obama's presence.

 

When Obama disagreed with things said during sermons he attended, they weren't nearly as inflammatory. What, you're going to go confront your pastor over everything he says that you disagree with? Right.

 

True enough, but Obama did appoint him to his African American Religious Leadership Committee, so, it should come as no surprise that he is feeling the heat as well, and rightly so perhaps.

 

Propagating outright absurdities such as the following does verly little to help heal racial divides and only serves to widen them:

 

"The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color" - Rev. Wright

 

If a Bush campaign appointee was found to have made similar incindiary remarks, regardless of when the remarks were made and in whose company, you can bet democrats would be calling for his or her head, while casting aspersions on Bush

[Vacant Horizon]

Well, here's where the firestorm begins.

 

 

 

 

As for me, I think that this is the kind of speech that, at least in days past, would find its way into the history books. But today, with soundbites and pundits taking every phrase out of context and parsing the thing to no end to meet their own agendae.... well, we'll see what becomes of it.

 

But, take it as a whole and I think it's as powerful a piece of oratory as we've had in four decades or more.

 

thanks for posting the text. this whole thing with his pastor is being blown out of proportion. there are much more liberal churches out there than the one he comes from. hell, the right wing churches are utterly extreme in their views on homosexuality, divorce, women, capitalism. no candidate is getting lambasted for going to a church where a minister out right condemns 10% of our society for who they want to love.

pastor wright sound bites are way out of context. anyone who has any sense about mainline theology is at least familiar with black theology. just like we have black music, feminist theology, latino music, latino theology, black psychology, feminist psychology. the list goes on. it's no surprise at all that a black church, a church of an historically oppressed group, would define their own theology in the midst of a 'white society'.

did love the speech, but sad he denounced his pastor while espousing the basic tenets of black theology; reconciliation, unity, and healing.

[Vacant Horizon]

I thought it was a pretty great speech, but I also found many of the problems he says are due to race have more to do with poverty.

 

 

right on. i think he alluded to this when he validated white resentment of welfare and affirmative action, but it was very slight.

[Vacant Horizon]

Too bad McCain is not being pressed as hard on the things said by preachers that he is actively courting because of their influence. Guys Like Tim LaHaye and Pastor Hageee down there in Texas, both virulent anti-catholics. The press has chosen not to pursue McCains courting of these guys, they choose instead to focus on Obama. Though for the life of me I can't figure it out, last week on Fox Obama was a closet Muslim waiting unleash his jihad on the US, now this week he is a christian following a radical preacher? I'm so confused.

 

excellent point about mccain! how about the fundamentalist leaders stating that Jews and Muslims will spend eternity in a lake of fire if they don't become christians? will it ever end. how about food, houses, and jobs for everyone. then lets work the other stuff out.

[JUDE]

I think McCain would like to be pressed by the press about anything right now rather than fading into the shadows of the Clinton-Obama contest.

[Good Old Neon]

Too bad McCain is not being pressed as hard on the things said by preachers that he is actively courting because of their influence. Guys Like Tim LaHaye and Pastor Hageee down there in Texas, both virulent anti-catholics. The press has chosen not to pursue McCains courting of these guys, they choose instead to focus on Obama. Though for the life of me I can't figure it out, last week on Fox Obama was a closet Muslim waiting unleash his jihad on the US, now this week he is a christian following a radical preacher? I'm so confused.

 

excellent point about mccain! how about the fundamentalist leaders stating that Jews and Muslims will spend eternity in a lake of fire if they don't become christians? will it ever end. how about food, houses, and jobs for everyone. then lets work the other stuff out.

 

Good point, and I agree with you 100% - though, to be fair, McCain did not appoint either of those fellows to his campaign.

 

Seeking someone

[John Smith]

Too bad McCain is not being pressed as hard on the things said by preachers that he is actively courting because of their influence. Guys Like Tim LaHaye and Pastor Hageee down there in Texas, both virulent anti-catholics. The press has chosen not to pursue McCains courting of these guys, they choose instead to focus on Obama. Though for the life of me I can't figure it out, last week on Fox Obama was a closet Muslim waiting unleash his jihad on the US, now this week he is a christian following a radical preacher? I'm so confused.

 

excellent point about mccain! how about the fundamentalist leaders stating that Jews and Muslims will spend eternity in a lake of fire if they don't become christians? will it ever end. how about food, houses, and jobs for everyone. then lets work the other stuff out.

 

But the guys McCain is courting as supporters are virulently anti-Catholic, so bad that William Donohue, an extremist nut if ever there has been one, has been speaking out. If Donohue was speaking out against Obama it would be all over the news, but he is not so the issue remains largely unnoticed. It's easy for the public at large to accept anti-Muslim or anti-Jew because "those people" are generally not like us so "it's OK" and easy for us to swallow. Anyhow my point is not that the remarks of McCain supporters do not come under more scrutiny its that the remarks of Obama's come under tremendous scrutiny by comparison. Ditto for the 180 degree turn in McCain's campaign such that he now mirrors Bush on nearly every issue. Should Obama change even one position he will be instantly labeled a "flip flopper" and it will dominate the news. My argument here is with the media by the way.

 

By the way criticising how our country operates is not anti-american it is very American. Dissent is at the heart of who we are as a nation. It's why we have those pesky rights.

[cryptique]

From his own speech he admits to hearing these sermoms.

The "sermoms" that are causing the current shitstorm are ones he wasn't present for.

 

All Obama said was that he knew his pastor held some controversial views, and that he occasionally said controversial things in his sermons. So what? Obama spent years listening to that guy, and this stuff accounted for a tiny percentage of his oratory during that time.

 

McCain, as has been pointed out, eagerly embraces a man with far more hateful views. When it comes down to the general election, this issue is at worst a wash for Obama, and by comparison, probably favors him overall.