Some Blues for Mr. Charlie: Obama's Moment of Truth
It probably had to happen. Maybe better now than later. But still profoundly depressing to see that the practical effect of The Speech was to push down Obama's numbers significantly among Democratic voters, according to Gallup.
I do not fault the candidate for campaigning on the premise of a post-racial culture. I do not tax him with naivete. To my knowledge Obama never denied that the old divisions and wounds are real. But it took the firestorm over Jeremiah Wright's sermons to show yet again just how real the wounds are. And, more importantly, just how real white fears and white naivete remain four full decades after the murder of Martin King.
The Speech was brilliant, no doubt. But the Democrats, mostly white, who no longer support Obama want to know why he stayed in that Chicago church. It must be because he really is one of "those" Black people -- one of those with a big chip on their shoulders. Uh-oh.
As it is Good Friday, and as I am a minister (and yes, of Rev. Wright's tribe -- the UCC), let me suggest that white people still want forgiveness without repentance. They only want to hear from Black folk who will tell them not to worry -- that it's okay -- all is forgiven and forgetten. And Obama didn't say in Philadelphia that all is forgotten, nor did he condemn his pastor for having a long memory -- for sharing the collective memory of the terror and suffering experienced by Black people on these shores.
All of this put me in mind of James Baldwin's unforgettable insight that "whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves."
And that, in turn, took me deeper into Baldwin, whose sense of the twinned tragic histories of Black and white Americans remains unsurpassed.
I will simply let Baldwin do the rest of the talking here. As someone once said, the truth will set you free -- but first it will make you damned uncomfortable. Baldwin wanted white people to be released from the burden of their racism. But first he had to tell the truth.
So here is some classic Baldwin to ponder on an Easter weekend, a time when the full reality of human failing meets with the hope of something new:
"I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."
"Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable."
"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them. "
"People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned."
"The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions."
"To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time."
"There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now."
"No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable."
"Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have."
"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster."
"The future is like heaven -- everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now."
"[The Negro past] of rope, fire, torture, castration, infanticide, rape; death and humiliation; fear by day and night, fear as deep as the marrow of the bone; doubt that he was worthy of life, since everyone around him denied it; sorrow for his women, for his kinfolk, for his children, who needed his protection, and whom he could not protect; rage, hatred and murder, hatred for white men so deep that it often turned against him and his own, and made all love, all trust, all joy impossible."
" [Whites] are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it....I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be 'accepted' by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don't wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet. White people will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this-which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never-the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed."
"Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety."
"A liberal: someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do."
"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have."
"People who have been wronged will attempt to right the wrong; they would not be people if they didn't. They can rarely afford to be scrupulous about the means they will use. They will use such means as come to hand. Neither, in the main, will they distinguish one oppressor from another, nor see through to the root principle of their oppression."
"It's no credit to this enormously rich country that there are more oppressive, less decent governments elsewhere. We claim superiority of our institutions. We ought to live up to our own standards, not use misery elsewhere as an endless source of self-gratification and justification. Of course, people tell me all the time in the West that they are trying, they are trying hard. Some have tears in their eyes and let me know how awful they feel about the way our poor live, our blacks, or those in dozens of other countries. People can cry much easier than they can change, a rule of psychology people like me picked up as kids on the street."
"I have never seen myself as a spokesman. I am a witness. In the church in which I was raised you were supposed to bear witness to the truth. Now, later on, you wonder what in the world the truth is, but you do know what a lie is."
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Most whites may NOT think Obama has a chip on his shoulder; likely, some do. what's he got to be "chipped" about ? This white wonders how Obama can bring us all together while he attends a church that preaches radial hatred and divisiveness. That's NOT the way to start. I would not listen to that diatribe in any color church, madrissa nor synagogue.
Obama either did not know what was being said in his own church or did know and aceepted it. In addition he first said he didn't, then said he did know. Either way the American people deserve to know which it was and why; perhaps he has an explanation. Meantime, excuse me if I don't trust anyone of any color that preaches "GD Amercia" and "black values" "white values" "Portguese Values". I'd like to hear support for American values including equality for all.
For just a glimpse of what blacks have been and are up against , read this and multiply times 50 states.:
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=3658
But, there's great news on the daily Gallup. Obama is back up just one point below where he was one week ago.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/105529/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Edges-Ahead-Clinton.aspx
The brilliance of Baldwin! Thanks for reminding me that I really have got to get on with my intention to read the works of this great writer -- all of them.
GwenElle .... (you said) "The brilliance of Baldwin! Thanks for reminding me that I really have got to get on with my intention to read the works of this great writer -- all of them."
QUESTION: Baldwin said "Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable."
Yet he seems to NOT apply that STATE to himself, or other "Negroes" based on some of his other comments...
Did he believe in the Purity of Heart of those with white skin tones who stood up and ended Slavery?
My Ancestry is basically (Heinz 07, LOL).. I am of English, Irish, Dutch, Welsh, French, German and Cherokee Indian, Ancestry... My so called "roots" I am supposed to know... I speak American "English"...
I will NEVER be a "WHITE" Person... I will never meet a "BLACK Person... I will never be a "SMOKER"... I will never be an "ALCOHOLIC, DR, TRUCK DRIVER, LOGGER, or any other LABEL... I AM that I AM... The closest to a "labeling" I might accept would be I AM of Godly Nature... Spirit Nature... I accept the Nature of my Godliness as well the Godliness of the Nature I AM that I AM... That ALL that is Natural, IS!
I agree that some, make that most People, Believe they are a Physical Being, who have a Spirit... I have a Vehicle I drive, but I do NOT mistake me for that Vehicle... Nor would I mistakenly identify me, by the color of my vehicle...
WE learn Language and much more by Osmosis (a usually effortless, often unconscious, assimilation )... I wanted to know if I learned Racism by Osmosis...
Hence my deep pondering... Belief in a "Black America, Black Community, Black People" is a Racial and skin color Segregation in my observation and pondering... Done from "within", as much from "without", so to speak...
Personhood is equally of Godly Nature... Is a "BLACK" Person a Fact of Godly Nature, or a taught/ learned Belief??? Is the Spirit animating the Body, Black, White, Yellow, Red, Brown, or any other color??? I asked ME, would I, do I, color Segregate Spirits??? Does skin color create a "Black" Person??? Or, "White" Person... Personhood is Equality... Racism is inherent in belief...
LarBear,
Sorry, but I did not (could not) follow all of what you were saying, but I will try to answer what I perceive to be your basic question.
My interest in reading Baldwin is not as a polemic or for any other reason other than to read the words of someone who was absolutely gifted in his ability to express his personal experiences and observations. My desire to read his works is not based on a premise that I must, or that I necessarily agree with him; though I imagine that as an African American who grew up in the American South in the generation just after Baldwin's that our observations and experiences will be quite similar.
When it comes down to what matters most to me, it is not race, not gender, not nationality, sexual orientation or most of the things that so readily divide us; but who I am as a soul on this planet doing the best I can to be the best that I can with what The Divine has given me. What matters most to me is who we all are at the core of our beings and how our abilities to express that Essential Self is stifled and damaged by outer forces. In a nutsshell that is the tao of me. That is why I want to read Baldwin.
Hop that answers your questions.
How naive it is to be outraged that Americans, black, white, yellow, brown or red, are angry with America. We hear and see the angry people every day. We routinely hear from these people who want America to stop this, stop that, change the evil ways or face hell and damnation. It is a big part of America that someone or some group is angry with something going on in this country. Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the right to protest the ills of America's ways are very much a part of this country..
Why would an angry black preacher provoke this much outrage or deserve to be labeled anti-American any more than any of the multitude of people that have preached condemnation of this country? It is misplaced, misspent outrage that is driven by the politics of the right - the side that gave hate speech to America.- injecting the right into the middle of the democratic primary race. What!! The most outraged people had no plan, never intended to vote for Obama, but clearly want to drive the democratic nomination process. Working the gullible into a rage, and controlling elections in this country has become the favorite past time of the Right-minded, the side that can ill afford to practice quilt by association. So, to divert the real outrage and the very real anger of the people for the criminal cabal in the White House and their illegal war, the Right has succeeded by creating outrage over a phony scandal.
I'm so tired of being told what I think, feel, know and don't know as a white man by someone is not me. I'm tired of being lectured on slavery and the damage it did to people long dead. I didn't live during t hose times and my family didn't even reside in this country then.
Seems to me people need to tend more to their problems of today, concentrate on moving forward then pointing fingers and crying over the past.
But I suppose that if you stand up and let the past go that makes you responsible for your own self today ... what a horrible notion that must be.
Learn and respect the history of the nation that you and your family reside in. Slavery made that possible. Slavery fed and clothed this nation and financed its expansion. You, of the "huddled masses, yearning to breathe free". Think about what financed your freedom.
Wow, thankfully someone else answered the smug denialist stupidity of your offering to the conversation much more kindly than I could have. Thank you Nommo. I guess, the views of those whose ancestors came to America chained under the decks of the boat, just might have a different view of history, than that held by those whose family came over waving on top of them.
"But I suppose that if you stand up and let the past go that makes you responsible for your own self today ..."
If you were listening carefully, you would recognize that this is part of what Senator Obama said in his speech of this week and says repeatedly in his stump speeches. It is what he has done in his own life. Why is it you hear selectively and with resentment only that part of what he said that requires something of you but not the part that requires a great deal more of blacks?
The same sorts of turns and twists in the story of the relationship with god and the angel satan. Love is strange.
Thank you Reverend for pointing what many thinking blacks know from experience. Despite the fact many whites think they are not racist or that the issue is moot in 2008 and blacks should just get over it, not many want to trade places with a black person to find out for certain.
thank you so much for your words. God bless you.
The speech was not brilliant to me. It lacked a clear focus. It begged the real question of why he sought out such a hate-mongerer as a mentor. It focused on defining the racial divide without offering a solution other than to wag the finger, yet again, at the press.
The real problem is that the speech represented his true attitude, and I heard a man who has not transcended racial anger himself. He can hard lead the country anywhere on that issue.
The truth is that he and Wright have more in common than not. The language of Wright is described as a "bit rough" and minimized. OK, but the truth is that Wright and Obama have startled even AA pundits who had assumed he was above that old thinking. No, he's not above it.
The truth is that Obama generalizes about white people.
AnninCA, you've posted a lot of this stuff all over this site. You are a person that is not interested in the truth. Fine. But, to anyone who agrees with this person, but still has a little glimmer or an open mind, go look at Rev. Wright's actual sermons on YouTube and you'll see that he wasn't preaching hate. His comments about "chickens coming home to roost" weren't even his comments. He was quoting Peck, a former ambassador to Iraq. The closest he came to agreeing with him was to say that violence begets violence and that we need to change our course to change this reality for this country. He ended by asking what he needed to do in God's eyes. He asked God to tell him how we should respond to the tragedy that was 9/11.
AnninCA, it's fine that you didn't like the speech. But, it's not fine for you to continue to lie about Rev. Wright when his true, full words are as close as YouTube. You should thank God for the anonymity of the internet, because in the real world your words would have a name - slander.
There's a lot of speculation about Clinton planting people on the blogs.
AnninCA, congratulations. You're on the list.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/gregmcgannon/gGgMbn
It's too bad the speech went over your head. I voted for Hillary, but that doesn't mean I'm going to bring everybody else down with me just because she is going down too. That's low. And that's one of the things I liked about his speech: in spite of all the opponents trying to tear him down, he still demonstrated honorable character.
For those who had questions about him because of anything related to the recent smear campaign directed toward him, this had shown to largely answer them for people.
Now I respect all voters. And I'm sure voters for any candidate are largely good. But the idea that some voters want to bring everyone down because Hillary is going down is poor character.
The truth is, it's not good to spread lies and hate.
Let's focus on what matters.
That was the the "clear focus" of the speech you missed.
AnninCA --- Five to one odds you cannot specifically cite a passage from the speech because you never listened to the speech ... You can maintain an opinion on whether it was brilliant or not, if you listened ... But, of course it maintained a clear focus ...
Obama never generalized white people and your analysis shows either a lack of understanding or a rather simplistic grasp of nuance ... or else and this is something I do believe it is a series of talking points that you picked up in order to inflame people ... and that is the saddest of all
Ann,
I think your own bitterness is threatening to consume you. You seem to have no grasp of the larger issues that you would prioritize if Hillary were not in this race. Your infighting attitude will do nothing but increase animosity within the democratic party, no matter who wins. Please just stop.
I guess it's sort of ironic that the people Obama was trying to reach out to are the ones who really 'NEEDED" to see and hear or read and most importantly, "COMPREHEND" the speech . It's a shame that all that brilliance was lost cause for some people.
Barack Obama has proven that all things work together for good for those that Love . . . So, bring it on. Barack Obama just keeps on ticking, and ticking and his drum is his truth and the sound is his hearts voice.
Fact: Obama can't see an election win without the votes of many minorities AND-and-AND his much maligned "white" voters (whoever that is).
Fact: Ellis Island was only one of 30 US immigrant processing stations, and 17 million immigrants were processed through Ellis Island ALONE in the 62 years it was an active immigration portal to America. There have been 3, 4, 5 generations of immigrants and descendants who were processed through these processing stations, with the bulk of the immigrant population arriving here as "steerage", a term Obama and his team know absolutely NOTHING about. In 2000, the number of immigrants to the US reached the 1 million per year mark, with 1.25 million in 2006. These numbers DO NOT! include figures on illegal immigration.
Fact: Obama, by (stupidly, in my opinion) using the term "whites" and "white people", has condemned and laid blame on millions and millions of people, proud immigrant families and their descendants, who had no part in segregation or slavery. This is beyond comprehension, that a man with his own multi-ethnic background, is so ignorant about the history of immigrants in this country. It is almost beyond belief. Yet, he wants those same descendants, of those very immigrants, to support his desire to be their President. Obama, Wright and anyone else who believes guilt is hereditary and follows skin color, should hand out boxes of guilt to newly arriving, light skinned immigrants to the US. Don't be shy, meet them at the gate with what you expect them, and their descendants, to shoulder for eternity.
I do not blame Obama for Wright's racist and hate filled speech, but I do hold him responsible for his own. I expect a definition of this group of "white" people everyone keeps talking about- esp. Obama. I EXPECT the ignorant, color based racism and vitriol from the uneducated and superstitious, but not from a Harvard educated Presidential candidate who says he seriously wants to mend racial divides in this country.
Mr. Obama, as the proud descendant of (light skinned) proud immigrants (1892), you will not get my vote.
MRFisherman76
I'd urge you to read the speech carefully and completely.
"In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time."
Obama is not the proud descendant of "(light skinned) proud immigrants". You are. But I think you really meant "thin skinned".
You weren't going to vote for Obama anyway. Even if you never heard of Rev. Wright, you weren't going to vote for Obama no matter what. So spare us your BS.
Sorry MRFisherman76. Though you are your ancestors were not the "whites" that you seem to think Barack is referring to, the truth is that when immigrants come to these shores, they assum the full responsibilities and duties of citzenship, one of which is to make this nation a "more perfect union". As long as injustice exists in this country -- in any form -- then that goal, that dream, is unmet.
I regret that you do not feel that all Americans have a role to play in making our nation greater, regardless of *who* is speaking the truth of their own American experience.
Everyone's gotta get their big mouths into the action. What is is and what ain't ain't. Will you please shut up. We have our own thougts and Barack Obama has the grace of God that passes all understanding and he doesn't need anyones elses help. In the heart of man lies the truth no matter what has come before and the place where that truth comes from will guide and direct the events to come, just wait and behold. This is not vague to those who recognize the many kindnesses Barack Obama has expressed in connection with the flogging he has continually been gifted by Clinton and their ragtags. That kindness comes from Love, the strongest force/power in the world, and so kindness is a strength beyond somes comprehension and demonstrated daily by Barack Obama. What is in the heart of a women comes cout her mouth. And we know what that's been. What is in a man's heart comes out his mouth. And we know what that has been. Barack Obama is the best example to our young ones of the character, dignity, wisdom and so much more that we have been hungry for their waiting minds and spirits. Nothing wrong, not fault there, to be able to say to your young "look there and see President Barack Obama my dear and you too can be President" "Because my dear sweet innocent he is your example of decency lacking in the those who came before him.
I see no "flogging."
Unless your idea is that he should throw his hat into the ring and just be coronated based on his color?
He did choose this competition.
We know you see no flogging.
You see only what you choose.
When you say whites demand forgiveness without repentance, are you saying all whites, including those who actually do judge people by the content of their character must repent before they are forgiven for slavery and discrimination by other whites? It sounds as if YOU are not judging people by the content of their character but rather seeing race before character and pinning the sins of other people's ancestors on anyone who happens to have been born to white parents.
I think that whites are sometimes judged unfairly, but I think the bigger question is whether whites would challenge their own stereotypes and support changing unfair laws and policies. Think about the disparities in the criminal justice system, for instance. The tough on crime laws had horrible effects on the black community, and they were just used as political soundbites for white politicians. Did those politicians really think about those laws once they helped them get elected? We can't continue this dance of whites saying, "I personally did not discriminate," and blacks saying, "All problems are caused by racism." Racism caused immense harm, and the black community MUST work against defeatism. Individual whites may not have caused slavery, Jim Crow, and the sins of racism, yet they MUST work toward eliminating the perpetuation of that harm. If we cannot get past the stalemate, we cannot progress.
Sins of the fathers and all that.
thank you so much for the quotes. i am printing these out.
i don't know why people think Wright said anything out of malice. he saw an injustice and he spoke out against it. i don't think obama was as candid as everyone is claiming, but i guess we have to continuously spoon feed white america.
baldwin said it righteously
"All of this put me in mind of James Baldwin's unforgettable insight that "whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves."
what people are failing to really think about is not the one man who was shouting from the pulpits but the hundreds of black folk who were yelling in agreement. who felt as if his words struck a cord in the center of there heart.
Also, if you listen to the actual video of Rev. Wright's sermon you'll see that the words he was saying weren't even his own. He was quoting Peck who was a former ambassador to Iraq and it was used as a footnote to his actual sermon. He used it to emphasize that violence begets violence and that the U.S. has to start behaving differently in order to effect a different kind of outcome in the world. The thrust of his sermon was that he was very sad and upset about the victims of 9/11 and felt for their families and that we all need to look inside of ourselves to find out what the next steps should be (after asking God for guidance, something he said he did right after 9/11). Wright and Obama have nothing to apologize for.
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Posted March 21, 2008 | 09:50 AM (EST)