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I listened to the entire speech live and took notes as I listened. I’ve written up this review in the hour or so since the end of the speech and may make corrections and addition when I can either get transcripts or a recorded version that I can rewind and pauses, as I’m no professional transcriber, so I couldn’t get every word down that I tried as I listened and typed.

Obama delivered his speech on race today at the National Constitution Center, across the street from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the U. S Constitution was written, and the Declaration of independence was signed.

The Senator started with a quick recap of the dichotomy of slavery and constitutional pronouncements of freedom, that this nation was birthed into.

He continued, that to secure the rights of all “what would be needed is American’s in successive generations willing to do their part, to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals, and the reality of their time…This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign”

He talked again of having a Black farther from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas saying that it doesn’t make him a conventional candidate, but it “seared into my genetic makeup that this nation is more than the sum of its parts.”

He spoke of how through the process of this campaign, the American people are building a “powerful coalition of all races”; while “the press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization”; a point that I just augured and debunked in a piece two nights ago.

He addressed the Geraldine Ferraro comments, on multiple occasions actually, first saying that we have heard recent comment that his campaign amounted to nothing more than “wild eye-liberals trying to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap”.

He soon then after turned to his former pastor Jeremiah Wright, who’s comments have been pushed to the light in the past week, prompting this speech at this time. “I’ve already condemned in unequivocal terms the statements of Rev. Wright”, Obama said.

Obama rhetorically asked, “did I know him to be a fierce critic of American foreign and domestic policy, yes”; but said he’d never heard in person Wright be so inflammatory. He then went on to say that Wrights views expressed in the video snippets on racism and why 9/11 happened were “profoundly distorted”.

We Gonna Have to Disagree on Wright’s Perspective

He called Wright wrong on 9/11 characterizing Wright’s comments to something of the effect as blaming the wrong people and our allies in Israel; and countering that the motivation for the attacks simply came from extremism. He then moved on to say that Wright was wrong, by characterizing Wright as believing “that white racism is endemic” and saying that “reverend Wright’s words weren’t just wrong, but divisive.”

This is where I get into commentary. Yes Wrights words were divisive, because hard truths are often like that. People who don’t want to hear and deal with the truth divide against it even being spoken, and this is how truth dies; by slandering and demonizing those who dare to speak it.

While Martin Luther King was hailed today in the pre-Obama speech, by his announcer as the standard bearer, it was King who said “I can no longer speak against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government”; and he then, much like Wright now, despite the media and popular culture pretending to love MLK now, was excoriated by the mainstream media and Black folks who didn’t want to lose their position with White’s, alike.

The Washington Post even declared that MLK had “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people” and Time Magazine called him “irresponsible demagogue”; all because he spoke truth the American psyche didn’t want to hear. And low these 40 years later America has not dealt with, or resolved it’s domestic violence problems nor it’s foreign aggression temperament; yet has done nothing but repeat the same aggression that King spoke against then.

Further, I vehemently disagree with Mr. Obama saying that white racism isn’t endemic, if not endemic it would not be so long lasting and enjoy the breath and scope and depth that it does so pervasively throughout American society. That while things have “improved” as you say, things have much stayed the same as you also demonstrated. Understanding how racism and latten white supremacy driven ideology is in the fabric of our social and political institutions is necessary to finally rooting it out.

On Disowning Wright

Obama would then rhetorically ask, “why associate with reverend White in the first place”? Senator Obama answered himself saying that if Pastor Wright was nothing more than the clips shown on t.v. the past few days and that if he and “Trinity (his church) conformed to the caricatures of some commentators” then he wouldn’t. Obama went on to elaborate how they are much more than those caricatures. He delineated the numerous ways in which the church community engages in social uplift from housing the homeless to AIDS support; finishing by describing his former pastor as having “led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth”.

Obama sought to bring cross racial understanding of his church community’s complexity saying, “Like other black churches Trinity embodies” the black experience, reeling off a list of dichotomies, finishing with saying they contained both “the love and yes the bitterness and biases that make up the Black experience in America”.

After harsh criticism of Wrights perspective, which he largely attributed to being generational, Obama would not disassociate himself from Wright saying, “as imperfect as he may be, he’s like family to me; he strengths my faith. He contains within him the contradictions, the good and the bad, of the Black community. I could no more disown him than I could disown the black community. I could no more disown him than I could my white grandmother who…sacrificed again and again for me…[yet who] uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”

Senator Obama declared that, “race is an issue that we cannot afford to ignore right now.” He said that the current row over Wright’s words and people’s reactions to it “reflect the complexities of race in this country that we have never worked out, and if we walk away now, “if we retreat into our respective corners”, we will never come together to figure out health care, jobs, ect.

Longstanding Racial Divide Issues Not Fixed

Obama went into a narrative explaining still standing Black disenchantment with the level of racial disparity in American society, saying in part “segregate schools are inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them 50 years after Brown vs Board of education”. He then did a good job of explaining the wealth gap having to do with blacks not being able to access business loans and job loans in the past, accounting for a wealth basis that larger segments of the white community has been able to pass down; that hasn’t been there in any significant portion of the Black community.

The erosion of black families he partially blamed on welfare policy. He said those economic and family erosion problems “all helped create a cycle of violence, blight, and neglect.” He went on though, “what is remarkable is not how many failed in the face of segregation, it’s how many that succeeded.” He stated that even for those who did make it, “questions of race continue to linger.”

And speaking of lingering anger in the Black community Obama said that “to condemn it without understanding its roots, just serves to widen the chasm.”

He also spoke of disenchanted portions of white society, and those whites who don’t feel their race has given them advantages in life. He said that we can’t diminish white concerns as merely racist if they express concern about crime in urban areas.

Spoke of resentment of whites who have come to believe “your opportunity comes at my expense”, saying the “anger over welfare and affirmative action fueled the Regan coalition”; and noted to applause that politicians and commentators have made whole careers exposing false racism while at the same time dismissing real racism for their own benefit.

Barack’s No Fool

“Contrary to my critics claims, both black and white, I have never been so naive as to think that we can get past racial divides in one presidential cycle, or because of one candidate.”

Obama extolled the need for mutual understanding of one another’s plights. He even spoke, as he has before in recent weeks that farthers in the Black community have to be held more accountable to their children. He spoke of self sufficiency as a component to continuing to rise, which I as a Carter G. Woodson/Marcus Garvey/Malcolm X disciple totally applaud (as they were strong teachers of such ideology).

He returned to Pastor Wright one more time. He said that self-help was “a principle, yes a conservative principle” that was part of Wright’s sermons, but that Wright had somehow, I didn’t get his logic, missed the boat because Wright didn’t realize that self-help didn’t come without opportunity in society, or something. I’ll have to go review that part.

He said that we can play Wrights comments on every channel all day and try to gin up anger, and referred to Ferraro’s comments again, taking a generous position that we can continue to attributed biased to a “gaff” (it wasn’t a gaff Barack, it was repeated publicly by Ferraro before it was finally reported, then she piled on top of it, in what is a continuous campaign that can be demonstrated).Anyway, he said we can continuous this, and keep on with the distractions “and nothing will change”! Then 4 years from now will be talking about another distraction..

He finished on a note that progress “requires all Americans to realize that your dreams don’t have to come at the expense of my dreams.”

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Cultural, Social Commentary, News & Events, Racial Injustice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.