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Obama on Race in the Election
Submitted 2 years ago On Tuesday, Barack Obama gave a speech to address the issue of race on the campaign trail and the racial issues we face in this country.Tuesday in Philadelphia, Barack Obama gave a speech entitled "A More Perfect Union". The speech was intended to address race in the country. Many were comparing it to say Mitt Romney's speech about how Mormonism plays into his elected official life or the same as John F. Kennedy addressing religion. But unlike religion, which can be a choice, race and ethnicity are luck of the genetic lottery.
Events over the past week have also seemingly forced Barack Obama to comment on the issue of race. First, was Geraldine Ferraro's comment that Barack Obama has the advantage of being a black male in the election cycle and then her lack of apology for making such comment. Next, were the questionable remarks made by Reverand Jeremiah Wright (allegations that the government created AIDS to unleash on African-Americans or God damn America, et cetera.) Obama distanced himself from those remarks and condemned as something which does not represent him, his campaign, or the way he would govern.
The statements made by both are divisive to this country and the least of the most important things the media should be arguing about. So, Barack Obama decided this past weekend the issue needed to be addressed.
I found the speech incredibly refreshing. He addressed the very beginnings of racial divide in this country- our Constitution and the "original sin of slavery". We had to compromise to make this country eventually work. And it was a devastating compromise to millions of people and generations of innocents. We can't undo what happened in our past, so where do we go from here? What are we fighting about? And why?
One of the most intelligent remarks made in the speech was this:
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle ... or as fodder for the nightly news. ...
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
He makes such an outstanding point (and here is why I like him so much.) He is incredibly thoughtful about addressing these issues. He is a man not just made of words, but he is a man that says and understands thoughtful words.
In his speech, Barack Obama remarked on both the black and the white communities. How blacks still have anger left from the '50s and '60s and middle-class, working whites have sentiments leftover from the time of immigration, working hard, and making everything from the bottom-up. Both groups feel left out and jaded by poltics. Not to mention pandered to or taken advantage of.
Perhaps one of the difficulties of speaking about race is that it's been a long time since the Civil Rights movement. One of the things of being a twenty-something is that I've never seen enforced segregation. I've never seen separate bathrooms. I've never not been aware of civil rights. I've lived in a different generation where diversity and acceptance are normal. But I have seen the results of neighborhoods that segregate themselves or people who stereotype. Or people who live those stereotypes. It's an unfortunate result of those prior things that were left unfinished.
But Obama makes an excellent point that I agree with, these remarks and focal points act as a distraction. It's fodder for the news and pundits. It misses the issues which matter to everyone and our day to day life. We've been split in so many ways- through economics, by red and blue states. Divides in race, gender, and generation seem to be so staunch this election. If we cannot move past these things we are just born into and cannot change, we have no hope of succeeding in the future. Our Constitution was full of compromises and a document, albeit great, was made by man. Our uniting factor is our faith in politics and the dreams, hopes, posterity that democracies provide.
We all see the war. We all experience the faults in healthcare. We all suffer from the drop in economy. We must realize that our race, our gender, our age cannot change ANY of that, but it is attitude and politics that can and that will.
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Also posted on my Barack Obama blog and Progressive U.
Comments (1):
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Red,
No doubt Obama gave a great speech on Tuesday. Certainly it reminded me why he's been able to take on Senator Clinton so effectively and leads in the Democratic Primary process.
And his speech should also reinforce for everyone who listened why he is just another politician, not this great "agent of change" he's selling himself as to you and anyone else who will listen. Why is he just another politician? Because in his speech he did what any good politician will do, he threw his loved ones under the proverbial bus in the hopes that he could shore up his poll numbers.
First, he didn't hesitate to say all kinds of things about a pastor whom he so obviously has looked up to and admired over the years. That was understandable as his pastor's comments were public statements, published on the web no less.
But then, Obama revealed very private statements made by his own grandmother, using her statements to help justify why he would spend 20 years as the member of a church which requires an allegiance to Africa and a condemnation of the concept of a the middle class, which Pastor Wright believes is a white society's way of stripping the Black Community of its culture.
When Obama started airing his own grandmother's dirty laundry to the whole world, it revealed to me that the speech was just a skilled politician working his way out of hot water. Another spin-meister hard at work.
Regards,
David