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Obama's speech on race


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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.

 

So, what you're saying is - he didn't inhale.

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So, what you're saying is - he didn't inhale.

 

Essentially, yes.

 

But it still ignores the fact that he, Wright, was a hired, and one would imagine, paid member of the campaign.

 

I wonder how well it would go over if Don Imus was given a position on McCain

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Wright was not and has never been a paid member of the campaign. I don't think he's even done any unpaid campaign appearances. That's just false.

 

He was a member of his African American Religious Leadership Committee (one of 130), but did no campaign work and was certainly not paid.

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this issue is at worst a wash for Obama, and by comparison, probably favors him overall.

In terms of relevance, accuracy, fairness, and context, I agree with you. Unfortunately, in the political arena perception counts for more than relevance, accuracy, fairness, and context, so I'm not quite as optimistic.

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Wright was not and has never been a paid member of the campaign. I don't think he's even done any unpaid campaign appearances. That's just false.

 

He was a member of his African American Religious Leadership Committee (one of 130), but did no campaign work and was certainly not paid.

 

I stand corrected.

 

However, as you

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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.

not only that, but who is to say that Reverend Wright has held these types of beliefs for 20+ years... it's quite possible (i've experienced it with people i know) that he started to go off the deep end after 9/11 (when some of his first "controversial" comments were made supposedly).

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not only that, but who is to say that Reverend Wright has held these types of beliefs for 20+ years... it's quite possible (i've experienced it with people i know) that he started to go off the deep end after 9/11 (when some of his first "controversial" comments were made supposedly).

 

 

Watching you guys tap dance is really entertaining...

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Watching you guys tap dance is really entertaining...

who is tap dancing?

 

is it impossible to take someone at their word?

 

besides, i personally didn't find the sermons offensive or shocking, but then again i've attended black churches on occasion in the past as well...

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The stuff about the CIA creating AIDS to kill black people is insane. But the rest of it sounded pretty reasonable to me. Sure, it was angry, and maybe not what people like to hear, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. Why is it so controversial to comment on the fact that a lot of fucked up things have been done in the name of our country? It's a fact, and yet when someone says so, all of a sudden people are mad about it. Black people have been systematically fucked over to varying degrees from before the founding of this nation right up until the present day, and a lot of inequities exist now as a direct result of travesties that happened 150 years ago. Why shouldn't he be angry about it?

 

It's also obvious to anyone who has bothered to think about it that a lot of our problems in the middle east are a direct result of bad policy. Why is wrong to comment on that?

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The stuff about the CIA creating AIDS to kill black people is insane. But the rest of it sounded pretty reasonable to me. Sure, it was angry, and maybe not what people like to hear, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. Why is it so controversial to comment on the fact that a lot of fucked up things have been done in the name of our country? It's a fact, and yet when someone says so, all of a sudden people are mad about it. Black people have been systematically fucked over to varying degrees from before the founding of this nation right up until the present day, and a lot of inequities exist now as a direct result of travesties that happened 150 years ago. Why shouldn't he be angry about it?

 

It's also obvious to anyone who has bothered to think about it that a lot of our problems in the middle east are a direct result of bad policy. Why is wrong to comment on that?

 

 

On the whole, I tend to agree with you.

 

I just came across Barack

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Sure, but it shouldn't discredit the candidacy of someone who you're associated with either. Especially given the context.

Exactly. That's what I hate about all this crap. Who cares what Geraldine Ferraro, Samantha Power, or Jeremiah Wright said? They're not running for president, and when their comments came to light, the candidates to whom these people are connected issued appropriate repudiations. That should be the end of the issue.

 

That said, I'm still waiting for John McCain to wash his hands of John Hagee.

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The stuff about the CIA creating AIDS to kill black people is insane.

 

was that the first time you've heard it though? it's actually a quite common comment/conspiracy theory among the black community... not saying it's not far fetched, but it's not like Reverend Wright came up with it, it's been uttered for decades.

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was that the first time you've heard it though? it's actually a quite common comment/conspiracy theory among the black community... not saying it's not far fetched, but it's not like Reverend Wright came up with it, it's been uttered for decades.

 

I'd heard it before. I just meant that that's the only part of it that really struck me as being wrong at all, regardless of how commonly held the belief is. Obviously that's not something that Obama would want to be associated with him personally. The rest of it just struck me as angry though factually correct and rational. Maybe angrier than most of white America wants to see a black man act, but that doesn't mean that what he had to say was wrong, nor that he was wrong to be angry.

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was that the first time you've heard it though? it's actually a quite common comment/conspiracy theory among the black community... not saying it's not far fetched, but it's not like Reverend Wright came up with it, it's been uttered for decades.

 

That is certainly true, among other conspiracy theories.

 

The irony, is that the continued propagation of these sorts of theories, by a pastor no less, only serve to further alienate the black community

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That sort of thing isn't unique to the black community.

 

Agreed, but it is, I think, especially damaging to and for the black community.

 

EDIT - example:

 

Release Date:August 9, 2005

 

Conspiracy Theories Affect Birth Control Use by Black Men and Women

 

By Becky Ham, Science Writer

Health Behavior News Service

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

In a recent survey of 500 black Americans, only half believed that the government tells the truth about the safety and side effects of new birth control methods.

 

Birth control conspiracy theories still affect the use of birth control by black men and women, according to a study reported in the latest issue of the journal Health Education and Behavior.

 

One-third of participants of the telephone survey said that medical institutions use poor and minority people as

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For anyone interested, here is an interesting writeup by Scott Horton, a professor at Columbia Law School:

 

The Speech

By Scott Horton

 

The world sometimes envelops us in a strange mist. It has streams of the sublime, of the ridiculous and the grotesque. Viewed under too much light, perhaps, the mist recedes and marvelous things suddenly seem mundane. The mist, however, is an important part of our world.

 

Most of us live plodding lives, walking down well-worn tracks, often filled with cynicism and disdain for the world around us. And appropriately enough, we usually reserve the strongest cynicism for the world of politics, which in most societies quickly emerges as a theater for the ridiculous and the grotesque. But the sublime also crosses this stage, however fleetingly, and it is a test for each of us and for the society that we constitute: can we recognize it when it appears?

 

Yesterday was the day for such a test. Barack Obama was to give a speech responding to concerns raised about the rhetoric of his former pastor. I was doing some research on developments in Tibet as the speech came on, and I found myself halfway listening to it in the background. It was, I thought, just another of the speeches which cover the landscape of the presidential campaign, sure to be filled with phrases and messages that have been carefully vetted with focus groups.

 

But as the speech unfolded, I realized that it was nothing like what I had expected. I stopped my work and started to focus on it. The voice was level, unagitated but still intensely personal. The speaker tackled issues that by common wisdom could never help his political cause; that could only damage him. He spoke the unspoken truths about racial divide in America, and he spoke with a strong sense of wrongs, yet with no anger, and a clear vision of justice. The vision he presented was more than simply compelling in a political sense. It rang of dangerous truth.

 

Barack Obama

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