Comments on: RETHINKING “THE SPEECH”

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 01:14:35 +0000

The speech was simply designed to change the subject of Obama’s racist pastor to a history of racisim. It’s the same old race hustling crap that Jackson and Sharpton make their living doing, that whites will really always be racist deep down inside, and blacks are incapable of racism.

Why is it that when a black pastor goes flaming racist and whites call him on it, that whites get the lecture about racism?

My favorite part was being called a “typical white person” who if afraid of a stranger approaching them on the street. Is he saying that little old black ladies are not afraid of some white thugs heading their way?

Obama, go lecture your pastor, the rest of us love America.

By: funny man

funny man — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:13:55 +0000

Syn: your comments show that you are not capable of a thoughtful discourse. For example, in Detroit most middle class moved out of the city and the upwardly mobile leave as well. It is therefore difficult to change the dynamics in a place like that.
Sure, it is true that incompetent morons have their own little fiefdom with the help of the democratic party. That liberals didn’t demand excellency in the school curriculum etc. However, to just say racism ended by decree in the sixties is stupid and suggests you are not a real conservative who knows the present is always linked to history.
Sure Rickielee, thoughtful debate is always welcome

By: syn

syn — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:22:48 +0000

“Thatâ€™s right. Black people COULD make themselves not poor, not live in inner city ghettos, not have broken families, not resent white people after institutionalized slavery, lynching, and segregation. If they WANTED to.”

Ever consider the possibility that Democrat’s Plantation Party is what has kept blacks poor, living in inner city ghettos, having broken families while believing that slavery never ended?

After all which is the political party consistantly votes for Margaret Sanger’s ‘Negro Project’; the real problem in all this is that liberals don’t like to admit they are the Klan in the Hood.

By: Rickielee

Rickielee — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 02:18:51 +0000

hey, HE HATE ME, or whoever you are….

Gee, thanks for that important correction, and forgive me for impugning anybody connected with the Tuskegee Institue, or the US Office of Public Health. They did not diliberately infect young black men in Tennessee in the 30’s and 40’s, they went out and found young men who already had it, and then gave them a placebo for the rest of their lives, telling them that they were being treated, and took notes while they spent the next 50 or 60 years dying. For the greater good. Next time you get the clap, light a candle buddy.

I just posted over here (I am, as I’m sure you suspect, a practicing liberal) to see what level of intellectual discourse they had on the right wing blogs. I have yet to discern a level, so I will take my leave. Enjoy each other’s company guys.

(and I invite Funny Man Said to come with me and we can find a place were honest talk can happen. It ain’t here. You might try The New Republic)

By: funny man

funny man — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 22:05:26 +0000

I have to say something from my personal perspective. I, for the most part, found blacks to be more honest when talking about racism than whites. That was regardless of the political spectrum that people belong to. We always rightfully point out the hypocrisies of the left. However, this is also alive an well among people calling themselves conservatives. The beginning of this country was tainted by slavery and later Jim Crow and the KKK. So clearly there is a difference between the pastor and the KKK. He also served the US in the marines and similarly the black population always was loyal to this country.
Now since I used to live in Detroit proper and being white I won’t deny there is plenty of hostility still going around and unfortunately pastor Wright’s comments are not untypical. As an American, and this has nothing to do with being a conservative, I certainly hope that we can overcome this racial stalemate and in this I agree with Barack Obama.
As I pointed out in the beginning of my post I would like to hear an honest assessment of one’s own racism and contradictions than always the easy way out.

By: mannning

mannning — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:33:37 +0000

Rethinking: Someone tell me why we need to have Obama in the White House along with his mentor Wright always near? Do we really want to be subjected for four or eight years to such overly nuanced black issues as seen by Obama, and the “undernuanced” diatribes of Wright popping in whenever it suits, followed by the usual apologia from Obama that tries to make us accept these poisonous rants? I think not. Do we not have any sense of the integrity, decorum, and balance that should be shown from this national pulpit? Or, will we hear “God Damn America” over and over again? I cannot imagine why we should!

By: Hoss

Hoss — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:05:28 +0000

The most striking and, seems to me, unnoticed inconsistency in Obama’s speech and in his relationship with Wright is this: he promises to heal wounds and unify us all, while he has apparently and dramatically failed (if he has even tried, which he never alludes to) to do so for (a) his pastor, mentor, and long-time friend, and (b) the several thousand members of his church family, and (c) his own wife and grandmother, among others (including apparently many within his campaign). If his family, church, pastor, and campaign are models of the kind of unity he hopes to effect on a much larger scale in our nation and world….uh, no thanks.

By: SShiell

SShiell — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:44:58 +0000

You can say what you will about the good and bad in this country. And it is your Constitutional freedom to do so. But as Obama himself earlier in this campaign stated: “Words Matter!” And he was not only supportive of the words that came from Reverend Wright, he further supported them with his tithe.

Iâ€™ll say this one more time for the reading impaired: Obama didnâ€™t just attend this church. He supported it with his tithe. You donâ€™t put $20,000 in the offering plate just to attend. There is no ticket being sold at the door - your tithe is your voluntary support of that church and its ministry. And he supported this congregation and its ministry with his attendance and tithe for 23 years!

I have been a regular church member all of my life. I began with my parents as a Southern Baptist and most of my adult life has been in the Presbyterian Church. You donâ€™t get much more “Hell and Damnation” sermons than you do from a Baptist ministry. I had no choice as a child but my preference as an adult is my choice, for myself and my family. Yes, I have heard sermons about ungodly actions and the evils of various sins but I have never heard a sermon preached against homosexuality or pornography in my life. To see a minister saying the things Reverend Wright said from the pulpit left me aghast. As a member of that church, nothing Reverend Wright could have said to me afterwards could undo his statements. No amount of rationalization could have been sufficient. I did not just disagree with those statements, they were horrible enough I would have quit such a congregation the very moment they were said. And the fact that Obama continues to support that church and its message with his attendance and tithe tells me volumns that all of his eloquence cannot.

By: Scooter

Scooter — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:10:03 +0000

Obama’s ivy league legal education shined in that speech. The subject everyone wanted to hear him explain was why he CHOSE to attend such a divisive church for twenty years.

With the slick nuance of a lawyer, he related to comments of his white grandmother - whom he had no choice of association - moved on to rationalizing larger race relations. While much of his rationalization was true, it only served to distract from the subject we all wanted to hear about, his choice to commune with god through such a divisive minister.

I suspect he cannot tell us why he CHOSE that church because it would reveal he used that congregation to launch his political career from the south side of Chicago.

He said these are all things we need to discuss as a nation. Well hells bells, I have been discussing many of the same ideas with my conservative friends for years. However, if a liberal is ever present during those discussions, the liberal will end it with their political correct multiculturalism. So, how are we to discuss this stuff when some of Obama’s own supporters will not allow it?

By: Lit3Bolt

Lit3Bolt — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:07:26 +0000

That’s right. Black people COULD make themselves not poor, not live in inner city ghettos, not have broken families, not resent white people after institutionalized slavery, lynching, and segregation. If they WANTED to. But clearly, they don’t. Therefore, black people deserve what they get, for they have made their own bed. Racism ended in the 1960s. White people have just been minding their own business until all this angry black rhetoric came out of nowhere.

Guys, honestly, what is this message board full of? White resentment. You hate the fact that PC culture has your hands and mouths tied, you hate the greased path incompetent blacks get to office and jobs.

But seriously, other than that, how does “black racism” affect you? Not one bit. Everything is right there in Obama’s speech, in context, but context gets in the way of your own pious screed about “how DARE someone hate American and our beloved white people! Black people have every advantage over whites, because they can call us racist, and we can’t.” Except that you just did. You’re so full of glee that you can gasp and point and turn the tables at Wright and Obama.

Read Mike Huckabee’s comments on Obama’s speech. Seriously, guys, this goes on in black churches everyday for years and years, but you’re just milking it now for political advantage.

Also, if you want to talk about politcal correctness, look in the mirror regarding “patriotism” and “flag pins” and “loving your country.”

You’ve set up so many strawmen I get the feeling I’m in a version of The Wizard of Oz.

ed.