Questions About Senator Obama's Speech
By Harris R. Sherline
March 24, 2008
Many of Senator Obama's statements in his March 18 speech have stimulated more questions than answers and leave open the question of whether it adequately explains his 20-year relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, considering Rev. Wright's many biased, inflammatory and prejudicial statements.
Obama: "I can no more disown him (Rev. Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown the black community."
Does disowning the "black community" mean that Obama must always accept any and all Blacks no matter what they may say or do? I can think of many people for whom I have no respect because of their values, beliefs or conduct, and I would not hesitate to disassociate or distance myself from them with nary a thought that I might be disowning my own "community" in doing so.
Obama: "Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place...?"
Good question. The Senator explains it this way: "And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentator, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way."
However, that doesn't adequately explain, at least to me, why Obama would continue to listen to the prejudiced rants of this particular pastor, who has been "like family" for 20 years.
Obama: "I can no more disown [Rev. Jeremiah Wright] than I can my white grandmother."
Does this imply that there are no conditions under which any of us should "disown" a close relative: brother, sister, cousin, even a parent or grandparent? What if they abused you? What if they were just plain worthless? Must we always accept our relatives regardless of what they might have done to you or to others? I can think of plenty of reasons for disowning someone, and near the top of my list is that they are offensively prejudiced toward others.
Senator Obama also describes "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..."
All true. But, this is also true of many other minority groups at various times in our history, including the present: For example, the Poles ("Pollocks"), the Irish, Czechs, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Mexicans, Philippinos, American Indians, women and others. They have all experienced and continue to experience similar prejudice in a society that is striving to be colorblind. We can argue about the merits of each group's claim to having been discriminated against, but they have all had their share.
Obama's speech contains appeals to the poor and underprivileged with statements such as, "But it also means binding our particular grievances -- for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs -- to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family...we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Native American children...we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington...we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life...it's that the corporation you work for will ship it (your job) overseas for nothing more than a profit."
This is nothing more than the standard Liberal appeal to minority voters. His list includes just about every conceivable popular grievance against business and government that foretell a program based on budget busting expenditures to remedy.
In the final analysis, the Senator's speech does not adequately explain why he sat in a congregation for 20 years listening to the repeated prejudiced, anti-American diatribes of a friend and mentor who was also his pastor. Nor does he disassociate himself from his pastor, excusing it on the grounds that to do so would also mean that he would be disassociating himself from the Black community.
Barack Obama is a gifted speaker, with a talent for weaving words together that inspire hope and confidence. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, they don't really seem to say very much at all.
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NOTE: Read more of Harris Sherline's commentaries on his blog at "opinionfest.com."
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.