Obama Addresses Racial "Anger"

[ChristopherHall]

Originally Posted by HeavenlyOne

While you continue defending something you keep going off the beaten path about that has nothing to do with the subject at hand, here are quotes from Obama about his now former pastor.....notice that you, so far, aren't even agreeing with him about his OWN former pastor:



But then, he seems to contradict what he just says about the man:



Makes you wonder why he's now his EX pastor, huh??

I've sat under pastors who have been men of their eras who I didn't agree with when it came to race. If I were running for President I'd condemn their statements but at the same time I too wouldn't disown them.

[ChristopherHall]

Originally Posted by COOPER

What is wrong with white people any way?

LOL

I'd vote that we sometimes fail to understand non-white people. I mean...why doesn't everyone else see things the way we do? After all...we're right. Right?

[HeavenlyOne]

Originally Posted by ChristopherHall

I've sat under pastors who have been men of their eras who I didn't agree with when it came to race. If I were running for President I'd condemn their statements but at the same time I too wouldn't disown them.

I still don't think you are getting it.

[ChristopherHall]

Originally Posted by HeavenlyOne

I still don't think you are getting it.

Ah...but I do get it.

In America a black man running for President has to declare his pastor his EX pastor if that pastor makes statements that are unpopular to us white guys.

[HeavenlyOne]

Originally Posted by ChristopherHall

Ah...but I do get it.

In America a black man running for President has to declare his pastor his EX pastor if that pastor makes statements that are unpopular to us white guys.

Chris, you didn't even address what he said that I quoted. How come?

Instead, you go off on bunny trails that have little or nothing to do with the subject or the post you respond to.

It's almost like you are purposely avoiding being reasonable.

[ChristopherHall]

Originally Posted by HeavenlyOne

Chris, you didn't even address what he said that I quoted. How come?

Instead, you go off on bunny trails that have little or nothing to do with the subject or the post you respond to.

It's almost like you are purposely avoiding being reasonable.

Maybe you're not being clear about what you're asking. Maybe you see something here I'm missing. Offer what it is you're hinting around at.

Obama said,

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. 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.

Obama also said,

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

No doubt the RNC will exploit this and use racial tension to galvanize whites against Obama by playing on our fears. If we don't overcome this and find understanding like a mature people...I think there's little hope for America.

[ChristopherHall]

Jeremiah Wright had said,

"God ****edited America ... for killing innocent people."

"God ****edited America for threatening citizens as less than humans."

"God ***edited America as long as she tries to act like she is God and supreme."

Let's say this was preached by a white man wearing a suit and tie in an Apostolic church. Would these statements be so shocking? Would we agree with the premise made?

[TRFrance]

Originally Posted by ChristopherHall

No doubt the RNC will exploit this and use racial tension to galvanize whites against Obama by playing on our fears. If we don't overcome this and find understanding like a mature people...I think there's little hope for America.

Oh please. Dont blame the RNC here.
Obama and company have practically put the loaded gun in the Republicans' hands.
Can you blame them if they decide to use it? Get real.

Obama has no one to blame but himself if this all blows up in his face.

[TRFrance]

CH....if your'e going to tell the story, tell the whole story, not bits and pieces.

Your selective memory is an issue here brother. I'm frankly sick of you defending this repugnant individual.Why is it so hard for you to see the obvious?

He is not just preaching against racial injustice. He is distorting the facts in order to stir up racial resentment and bitterness among the sheeple that listen to him. A true man of God should be putting out the fire, not pouring gasoline on it. Then again, he's not a true man of God anyway. But I digress.

Lets look at what the good Reverend said:

"The government gives them the drugs".... (the idea that crack and other illegal drugs are in urban ghettoes because the CIA planted them in black communities is a tired canard that race-baiters like Rev Wright keep on perpetuating)
...."builds bigger prisons".... (well if there are more criminals out there, whats wrong with building bigger prisons? Prison overcrowding is inhumane isn't it? Building bigger prisons isnt part of a "government plot" to stockpile black men in these prisons... although hate-mongers like Wright would like to imply that)
..."passes a 3 strike law"... (as if this was aimed specifically at African Americans. It was not).....

...and then wants us to sing God Bless America? No, no no, not God bless America. God (edited***) America!

See brother, my issue is not with you being a liberal. My issue is that you seem to be too blinded by your liberal ideology to see stuff like this for what it plainly is-- however, most decent people recognize this to be filthy disgusting race baiting. This kind of junk is stuff America needs less of, not more of. This stuff is just a snapshot of the hate-filled poison this man has preached for years.

And Obama sat in the pews for years under this junk, raising his children to sit and have this kind of poison injected into their minds. To me, this by itself makes his judgment so questionable as to immediately disqualify him from being our nation's president.

An Extra Bonus for you, sir: Still more lies and distortions from Jeremiah Wright, from another one of his sermons:

- The US government created the AIDS virus.
- America is the #1 killer in the world
- We bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and never batted an eye. (he leaves out that we were in a war at the time. This little thing called World War II)
- "We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional killers"
-"we only able to maintain our level of living by making sure the Third World people live in grinding poverty."
- "And, and, and… in light of these in fact God has got to be sick of this ---- " (Yes, he actually used the S-word in this sermon!)

The video is on youtube, & the transcript is here, if you want to see for yourself.

CH, for once, just recognize this for what it is, and call it what it is... And please.. stop making excuses for bad behavior!

[TRFrance]

Bro. Hall,
Please...