Obama Plans Major Speech On Race Tomorrow

Politico:

Barack Obama will give a major speech on "the larger issue of race in this campaign," he told reporters in Monaca, PA just now. He was pressed there, as he has been at recent appearances, on statements by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

"I am going to be talking about not just Reverend Wright, but the larger issue of race in this campaign," he said. He added that he would "talk about how some of these issues are perceived from within the black church issue for example," he said.

Read the whole story: Politico

Comments

[rwferr]

01:56 PM on 03/18/2008

So I guess then when he said the election was not about race before that was a lie right?

[IndependentTogether]

10:06 PM on 03/18/2008

Wow, rwferr. Could you be any more disingenuous? I don't think so.

[finethnx]

11:49 AM on 03/18/2008

The time to rise above racial divisiveness was before you used it against the Clintons, before you warned the congregation in SC about being bamboozled and hood-winked, before you insulted white America by eluding to the fact that somehow we don't understand, don't really care or get it. You have insulted all the white people who have tried and are trying to make things better and make make things right.
You have used the race issue as a political weapon against the Hillary Clinton. That is not staying above the fray. We're not perfect, but were not stupid.

Had you actually stayed above all of this, we might still believe you. But you didn't and we don't.

You managed to get full coverage for a stump speech.

You gave yourself away when you still referred to Geraldine Ferraro.

[mcfried]

02:52 PM on 03/18/2008

All white people - What ? Speak for yourself this white person isn't insulted by anything except the Clinton tactics - you are right we are not perfect but we are not stupid either. I think it may be time for you to take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself why you think you speak for all white people.

[finethnx]

11:44 AM on 03/18/2008

The time to rise above racial divisiveness was before you used it against the Clintons, before you warned the congregation in SC about being bamboozled and hood-winked, before you insulted white America by eluding to the fact that somehow we don't understand, don't really care or get it. You have insulted all the white people who have tried and are trying to make things better and make make things right.
You have used the race issue as a political weapon against the Hillary Clinton. That is not staying above the fray. We're not perfect, but were not stupid.

Had you actually stayed above all of this, we might still believe you. But you didn't and we don't.

[IndieGirl]

10:27 AM on 03/18/2008

Obama should give a great speech on his faith like this one by JFK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Jr03ADQmk

[IndieGirl]

10:01 AM on 03/18/2008

For over 100 years America has been influenced by a history of racism and unequality of blacks and whites, only a few brave white people marched with MLK or were abolitionists. This is America's history my friends, now you want to condemn one potentially great President for his so called 20 years of influence of a pastor.

How many of you have white grandparents, parents, uncles that lived through the civil rights era that still have severe or minor prejudices towards black people. Well guess what, there are black people who grew up in that era that have severe or minor prejudices towards white people.

Barack did not grow up during this time but he can understand the injustices of that time. It is competely unfair to judge him based on this one issue. The man went to Harvard, taught constititional law, worked with people of all races who lived below the poverty line, passed legislation that supported people of all races. There is not a single shred of evidence that his pastor influence has led him to hate white people.

What is the big deal, do you actually think as President he would:

Enslave white people, enact legislation with congress to exile white people to Europe, lynch white people, racially profile white people for crimes?

Someone please explain to me how Wright sermons would lead President Obama to disenfranchise white people with the help of a 95% white led congress.

This issue is absolutely ridiculous. Everyone against Obama on this issue should admit they are actually scared of the roles being reversed in America. The minority leading the majority.

The hard truth is America has been led by Presidents who supported slavery, lynching, Jim Crow laws, segregation, racial profiling, inequality in education, Hurricane Katrina debacle but they are considered great Presidents. Which they truly were regardless of their role in black oppression.

[blastocyst]

10:17 AM on 03/18/2008

[ insert *cricket* midi here]

[harriscrl3]

08:57 AM on 03/18/2008

It amazes me that we have a war in Iraq that has started illegally. We have a government that is bordering on FASCISM that bails out Wall Street and did LITTLE for Americans who are losing their homes and their jobs. We have a president to be that promises 100 years Occupancy in two countries and yet we have the NERVE to be outraged saying what Wright did is treason. NO he Criticize an American government that is Getting OUT OF CONTROL that doesnt give a damn about most of its citizens that only care about the wealthy that only wants to LINE his pocket. That has taken Cronyism and incompetence to a new level. Imagine for a second how the people of American felt about their country after Katrina I know it could NOT have been positive. He has destroyed American reputation in the international community yet Wright is the one that is committing treason because he dare to call the US govermnment on their imperialistic practices. If Anyone should be accused of TREASON it should be George Bush and Dick Cheney. Americans need to wake up and see where the true danger to their way of life reside. He is currently at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue.

Carol

[AguynamedWayne]

08:27 AM on 03/18/2008

Today Senator Obama is expected to give a speech on race in America and how it has effected this election season. Obama says that he decries the "forces of Division" that are now roiling the campaign. But let us remember that Obama is the one who attended a Black Separatist Church for twenty years! His mentor and pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been quoted blaming White Americans for every ill within the African American community. He has blamed White Americans for the drug addiction problem within the Black community, he has even made the outrageous and deplorable claim that AIDS was created by the evil White Man to destroy the African American race! And Obama himself has allowed his campaign to tarnish and ridicule Bill Clinton as a racist because Clinton described Obama's war record as a "Fairytale". His campaign has also accused Hillary Clinton of being a racist because she made remarks comparing LBJ's civil rights record to that of MLK (both of whom are historical figures within the civil rights movement). Obama has been quoted as saying that Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton are "a perpetration of the same divisive politics that has done us so much damage". This from a man who attends a church that preaches that God should DAMN America because of the evil White Man! THE HYPOCRISY IS ASTOUNDING! The "forces of division" are not being driven by the Clinton campaign, but rather by Obama and his campaign tactics of constantly playing the race card and making accusations of racism! In Obama's speech today you can expect to hear more blame being put on White Americans, but the truth of the matter is that all Americans be they Black or White have got to start taking responsibility for their own actions, and stop blaming others for their own personal failures! Until Obama learns that and repudiates his own latent racist attitudes towards White Americans there can be no reconciliation!

[RobertHewson]

07:07 AM on 03/18/2008

Re: Obama's Speech on Race

From today's "Head of State"
http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/03/speech.html

"Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The Speech

The speech that Obama will give today on race will likely be the most crucial one of his political career. Up until the questions raised about Wright, Obama had instilled a powerful and resilient enthusiasm in the American electorate, standing fast against virtually every line of attack from the Clinton camp. It was only the vivid clips of Wright's impassioned statements from the pulpit, and a line of questions that have arisen in association with those remarks, that has given some of those who had been most supportive of Obama campaign some manner of pause and reconsideration.

The questions are of two types. The group of explicit questions are now well-known. Given Obama's 20 year membership at the church, does he endorse the views of Wright? If not, why did he remain a member, or raised objections to Wright's more inflammatory positions before this date?

The implicit and unspoken questions are themselves more inflammatory, and uncover more deep-seated discomforts and fissures that many Americans still experience regarding race. Those who have embraced a new message of change are vulnerable to triggers of fear and doubt--the most primitive triggers, as we have seen throughout history, move electorates most effectively, despite the intellectual justifications for these reactions that may ride along the top of such reactions.

Those who hear the Wright clips have a chain of unspoken associations that can be described as follows: Obama brought a message of change and hope to American politics that was embodied by his calm, measured and hones judgment, juxtaposed with the distortions of the previous Administration. Obama offered not only a new view of American politics, but a new paradigm of race--of post-racial politics--as a part of this message of change.

Wright now evokes the inchoate fears associated with the old political paradigm--of incendiary conflict rather than unity. In this case, in an odd and uncanny echo of the self-restricting responses that occurred in the run up to the Iraq war, many now hear in Wright's statements a warning that support of Obama may lead them to be viewed as unpatriotic, and instill a deep, unspoken fear that Obama may be like the "old" rather than the "new"--with all of the unstated uneasiness that Obama supporters have celebrated the divestment of as a part of his message of transformation and change.

These underlying emotional doubts, precisely because they are impulsive rather than fully considered, can have considerable power--unless they are themselves calmly, clearly, and fully addressed at both the explicit and implicit levels.

One, of course, may attend a house of worship of any denomination, often for a lifetime, in which one does not fully embrace all of the enthusiasms of the Pastor, Reverend, or other religious leader of the church. Such intense enthusiasms are often issued from the pulpit among many denominations--think of your own house of worship, for example--and are often viewed by the congregations as the specific preoccupations of the pastor, products of differing generations of life experience, experienced by one who has been fully immersed in the work, issues and expressions of that time.

Congregants do not typically attend simply because of a specific attachment to the particular preoccupations of the pastor--they seek the spiritual and communal fellowship of others, and recognize the difference between generations in the experience of spirituality, struggle, and life, much as many congregants do in making distinctions between the positions of church elders, often steeped in an earlier set of issues, and their own spiritual positions, values and needs. A house of worship is a community, and as in any community, members vary and understand that they vary by differing life experiences, and recognize that these generational variations do not reflect the core issues of theological belief shared by congregants.

You can probably see this in your own house of worship--or, indeed, in any community of belief.
The hard core adherents. The old fighters. The blind followers. Those who come for largely social reasons. We understand such variance in a community, and yet often continue to attend because it *is* a community that represents the variants of time and humanity, yet brings us together because of, and to discuss, a set shared beliefs and commitments.

To succeed in his speech today, Obama will need to make clear those principles of shared belief. He will have to help those who are new to understanding the generational struggles of those who fought for spirit in the face of intense racial hatred, how the product of such struggles differs from those who have emerged today, from different experiences--that, just as the spirituality of the Protestants who arrived in fervid protest on our shores to escape religious tyranny differs in rhetoric and form from that of today's Protestants, all forms of belief are reflective of such struggles and change.

He will need to do so in the manner that has brought so many in enthusiasm to his campaign--and that both signifies and heralds such change--with the unifying clarity and honesty that will allow him to describe this spiritual world, etched and co-existing, like all such worlds, like the rings of a tree, with a history of struggle, growth and change--and his place within it.

With such a presentation, that his own views should differ from those of Wright should not be surprising to any member of a thinking community.

Cite:
Head of State
http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/03/speech.html

[Independentjunkie]

02:36 AM on 03/18/2008

Speech or NO speech!...

Can a single obama supporter please please tell me

When senator obama was quoted by NY times last year (prior)to his annoucement. Having a discussion ( loosely quoted) w/ Rev Wright " We may have to distance ourselves from you , since you have a tendecy of making fiery speeches that can hurt us " " your can't be present at my annoucement" and Rev Wright agreeing...


WHY WHY WHY WHY--- if you were aware of those comments and logically knew the kind of comments attributed to your pastor...

Did you reward him by placing him on campign for over 15 months thereafter? I just can't see resolving that argument away.

This is probably a bad example: But thats like someone telling me , I knew Hitler was a horriable man, but yet I decided to plaster my home office w/ his poster.

This flies in the face of common decency and logic.
Maybe I'm alone in thinking this...who knows but this stuff is devastating.

[RobinL]

02:34 AM on 03/18/2008

Go Obama!! Many of us will be praying for you to be heard above the divisive comments of J. Wright. Here's hoping you knock one out of the park for unity tomorrow!

[unsolved999]

02:31 AM on 03/18/2008

I'm still waiting for the Clinton supporters, and the Clinton's themselves to come out in defense of Reverend Wright. I'm sure there are a lot of Clinton supporters that truly believe that everything the reverend ever said is absolutely wrong and even evil. However, there must be some segment of the Clinton supporters who truly understand where the Reverend was coming from and what he was trying to express.
You all may absolutely hate Obama because he is the obstacle to Hillary Clinton's nomination, or because you believe he is an empty suit, or because he doesn't have enough experience. But to allow his candidacy to be destroyed because he belongs to a progressive Black church?
There's got to be some of you who can understand how wrong this is.
Anyone?

[AlaskaJunkie]

01:51 AM on 03/18/2008

Hillbots and Rovian Rethugs are on the loose tonight.

Get a life boys. Obama's voters don't give a damn about this pastor comment. I have talked to every single person I have even seen voting for Obama and I asked this question and they feel sorry for Obama now that they are energnized. The media is piling on him and this will rock the vote for him. The undecideds won't vote for 72 year old mentally ill ex-prisoner of war. No one in their right mind will also bring back the corrupt Clintons.

Rev Wirght is the best thing that happened to Obama. I just donated $250 to him.

I am white male from Alaska and I support Obama

Obama 08

[whatchamean]

01:48 AM on 03/18/2008

I turned on Fox tonight and they were still foaming at the mouth. I noticed that they had a flashing icon in the right corner that kept alternating between a picture of Obama and then the words campaign crisis. Very Owellian of them. The are obviously trying to conflate Obama with the minister so that there is no separation in our minds.

Will they win? We'll find out soon.

[Independentjunkie]

02:39 AM on 03/18/2008

screw fox. But obama rewarded the pastor even after knowing about his comments - by placing him on his official campaign.

[compassionone]

01:43 AM on 03/18/2008

Now that he has everyone's attetion it will be intesting what he says.

One of the most powerful thing Obama can do is embrace Wright and the movement he has led for all these years. Not embrace some of the views, rather make room for the people and honor them for the good work they have done. Period.

Likewise he can reach out to all the people crying "fowl" and embrace them too. If he can find the common ground among the people who denounce the religious views of Wright he will gain the respect of all across the board.

I honor the good that Wright has done, I honor the good that Fundamentalist churches have done both in the community and the hearts and souls of the people invovled. I honor the Muslims, and the Buddhist and Pagans as well.

Nobody has to pack up their bags and go home and there is no room to send anybody else home. This is a democracy in a religiously pluralistic society.

Obama can still embrace each group and still maintain his own positions. Being involved in politics at the national level is about being neutral in this pluralistic society with liberty and freedom for everyone to pursue what they believe about. More important is to work on tough issues, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddist side by side working at it together

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1358313999/bclid933143286/bctid1209568851

[authoritarianbootlicker]

01:33 AM on 03/18/2008

This whole Obama/Rev. Wright issue is the same as Catholics still going to church after the whole priest sex scandal.

Are you going to assume that Catholics condone this behavior because they still attend mass even though they are aware of the Church moving priests around or settling law suits?

What about Catholics that believe in a woman's right to choose although the Vatican clearly states supporting right to life?

Give me a freaking break!!