Obama’s Speech on Race a Rare Event
By Jason | Related entries in 2008 Election, BarackThe scandal surrounding incendiary statements by one of Obama’s pastors was supposed to be the silver bullet long sought by Clinton supporters and other Obama haters. Finally, the specter of black militancy was to stick to the Teflon candidate. And certainly the reactions in the media and blogosphere have followed the predictable scripts: Those long dedicated to personally hating Obama were able to find additional excuses within the text of the speech to justify their crusade, those still seeking to concoct some contorted path to Hillary Clinton’s coronation nomination were able to find more chum from Rev. Wright to keep media sharks in their frenzy, and those conservatives who think all Democrats are extremists who vary only in their relative ability to hide it found more rationalizations to wave away the unusual and even remarkable portions of Obama’s response.
But none of the script-following droning can alter the fact that it was a singular event — a politician speaking earnestly about a controversial issue in terms guaranteed to provide enemies with reasons to condemn. I agree with Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan (hardly a liberal) in assessing Obama’s performance as educated, erudite, and unusual in American politics. I would add that Obama’s performance provides an outstanding refutation to the charges of many critics that he is an immoderate panderer pulling wool over the ideas of legions of moronic followers.
The heart of moderate politics is an ability to see the legitimate parts of views from both sides. In this, Obama’s speech does what none of the script-following, focus-tested, talking-pointed, sloganeering preferred by his critics can do — it acknowledges in very specific terms the legitimate concerns of both whites and blacks in regards to racial issues. It recognizes the pervasiveness of the problem in ways guaranteed to be exploited shamelessly by critics (Obama’s grandmother) but which highlight honesty to others.
Obama’s condemnation of Rev. Wright’s words coupled with his refusal to “disown” one of the several pastors at his church is a point too nuanced to fit well into the stark dichotomies demanded by the professional cynics and wildly spinning partisans that dominate political discourse these days. But it does correspond to the actual political experiences of more normal people — those of us who have family members, teachers, colleagues, and yes, even pastors whom we admire without demanding their political purity as a precondition.
When I first heard them, Rev. Wright’s rantings concerned me greatly. I worried that Obama might actually be the wolf in sheep’s clothing that some are obsessed with exposing him to be. But in the course of his speech on race, I found myself seeing something that appeared to be genuinely different in a modern American politician. I believe that Obama’s promise to attempt to bring together different sides in American politics is genuine, not just a pander. I believe this not solely on faith (though some professional cynics will surely continue repeating that meme ad nauseum), but rather based on the evidence in the speech itself — the undertaking of a risky attempt to appeal to the intelligence of the electorate and its ability to see the fine distinction between condemnation and alienation.
Will it work? It has certainly become clear that there are strong vested interests, both professional and emotional, in keeping the atmosphere of cynicism and vitriol untainted by moderation or tolerance. And those interests will no doubt continue to seize enthusiastically upon any detail that can be spun into more cynical yarn, attacking Obama as a charlatan and his supporters as morons (even while consistently ignoring the specific points made by both Obama and his supporters in their own defense — an interesting performative contradiction on their part).
But I’m not buying it.
And I’m not alone.
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March 21st, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I dont know that there is anything all that unusual about the reactions various people have had to all of this. You have always been more impressed by/interested in Obama’s rhetoric than by Obama’s actions, and this fits this pretty well. For you, the content of this one speech is of paramount importance. For myself, I view Obama’s 20+ years of support for this church as being of primary importance. If there was ANY indication that Obama, during those 20 years, had tried to be a moderating force in that congregation, that he had attempted to say something akin to “I understand where the rancor originated, but it is time, in fact it is past time, for all of us regardless of race to attempt to go beyond this” I’d have given him some slack, and I would have said that was courageous.
But waiting until this moment, when this threatens his standing in the polls, feels phony. It feels like a CYA exercise pure and simple.
If this is really Barrack Obama’s motivating principle then why was he silent for 20 years?
March 21st, 2008 at 4:16 pm
To Rick
It amazes me that you can shrug your shoulders at the Republican coalition, where batshit loonball rhetoric is heard everyday and everywhere, but muse knowingly that Obama’s judgement over 20 years is deeply flawed because he never became a “moderating force” in his Church. Have you ever called into question the judgement of a white candidate for their associations with a particular religion or minister? Have you ever held white politicians that you favor to the same standard as Obama? Should we demand that John McCain produce evidence that he attempted to moderate religious intolerance of gays so we can be assured he doesn’t hate gay people? Should George Bush insist on reforming the Catholic church by allowing women to become priests and reverse celibecy laws before we can trust his judgement? Should Hillary Clinton denounce anti-Semetic remarks day in and day out until we can be assured she’s not a “closet Nazi?” She does look particularly Aryan, after all.
The standard Obama is being held to is ridiculous. Never have I ever witnessed in the news a white politician held accountable this way for the beliefs of his Church. That is why Obama had to make this speech. Political necessity. He met the incredibly high standard that the media created for him and went beyond it.
He joined Trinity probably for the political advantage of his then-young politcal career. It is a large, politically active church in Chicago. That’s probably why he joined and why he stayed. It is the same political advantage John McCain gets with Hagee, evangelicals, and is largely given a pass for. Oh there may be some on the left who point out Hagee’s loony views or bigotry, but white bigotry is not newsworthy and political fallout is limited. Black bigotry and ignorance, however!! That’s deeply threatening to people everywhere!! And as a white person, my daily lament is I’m not allowed to go to black churches or prison or Harlem or Compton or the South Side of Chicago. You don’t know what it’s like to be a white person in America.
Look, talk about Obama being an empty suit or his thin political record or his nonexistent credentials in foreign policy, economy, government, or any kind of executive experience. But holding him to this ridiculous standard which he mets and has met over and over again is called playing the race card. And it’s backfiring because it has “guilty white people” like me mad as hell.
March 21st, 2008 at 8:14 pm
No…you’re not alone. The cynics always have a field day with a story like this – it’s easier than examining their own motives. Just about everyone I have ever known would NEVER tell their local Rabbi/Priest/Reverend that they didn’t like his message that day – it rarely if ever happens.
Maybe Obama is a “backbencher” in that religious community and doesn’t feel it’s his place to offer up explanations on Wrights message(s) when he disagrees? Who knows – who cares? I have spent the better part of a week thinking about the whole Wright Obama thing, and frankly I can’t come to any conclusions.
Clearly Wright is passionate, clearly Wright is a very well respected pastor nationally, clearly Wright has a great delivery. Wright’s congregation is one of the largest UCC congregations in the country. Maybe Wright was playing to his audience a little bit. Maybe Wright believes much of what he’s saying but “sprinkles” messages throughout because he’s running a church too. After all, he grew that congregation from 300 people or so to over 6000 in his 40 years- that’s no small feat. No matter what anyone tells you religion is one thing but churches are something entirely different – and growing one to that size is a business. A business of making people feel good about themselves and what they do as a community – there shouldn’t be anything sinister attached here – Wright said some dumb stuff, but he’s done a lot of good work too.
The media blows these things way out of proportion – they always do, It’s up to us to spot the propaganda when it happens, marketing when it happens, BS when it happens, and good/decent things when they happen. This story needs to go away – because it isn’t a story anymore, but I know it won’t…………people never fail to amaze me with the blather they are willing to accept in order to reinforce their own beliefs rather than learning something new.
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:53 am
I’m so tired of reading comments like those of Mr Norton that are repeated ad nauseum across the internet, all too often unchallenged. It is an argument full of gaping holes and the very hypocrisy many accuse Obama of. Seemingly Obama’s actions speak louder than his words, but the reverse is true for Rev. Wright. It does not matter that this Reverend has been instrumental in his community in a myriad of important ways: providing much needed assistance to the poor, the unemployed, those with AIDS or in prison. All such christianly works are nothing to the likes of Mr Norton, in comparison to the 30 second sound-bytes he has been privvy to on imaginative ‘news’ channels such as Fox (who’s repeated attacks are even now beginning to make some of its presenters less than comfortable). Even worse, it is no sin whatsoever to extrapolate from those same sound-bytes to encompass “20 years of ministry”; for – by the reckonings of those who know Rev. Wright so well, each and every sermon delivered in those 20 years just HAD to have included similar controversial statements, over and over again, an insane assumption given that the media have relied so heavily on the few that are played.
Finally, the well rounded opinion is the informed-one to my way of thinking, Mr Norton’s words show that he has not bothered to seek the information to make the kind of condemnation he makes. The sound-bytes that have been hammered are taken entirely out of context, and watching just one of the sermons those comments are taken from in full, attests to the absurdly biased picture that is intentionally created for the un-thinking and eager to be judgmental audience they are intended for.