What A Speech! Obama: A More Perfect Union

I had heard that it was a strong speech. An elderly British man and I chatted about it last night- he had been impressed. A friend from Vermont, active in the Obama Campaign, to whom I expressed concerns about the Wright/Obama issue, emailed me as Obama's talk was being broadcast live: "This speech is incredible on so many levels... I hope you're getting or will get the chance to see it -- not just read it.."

Now, I've heard it for myself, complete, and in it's entirety, thanks to the magic of the internet. It got past the editorial gatekeepers of the sensationalist media, and I was able to judge it for myself. I agree completely with my friend...it was an amazing speech and it lifted my heart. Barack Obama gave the best reasons I've heard in my lifetime to justify my hope for this country, my pride in our history, and the work we have to do to move ourselves to where we would wish to be as a nation.

I urge you to watch the speech in it's entirety...I'll put up a link to the video at the end of this post, but in a world of sound bites, I'll choose a few that stood out for me:

Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger... The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.

I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who... on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are part of me. And they are part of America...

Barack Obama spoke of the kind of politics we have been practicing in this country:

We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

And he spoke about the way politics could (and I believe must) be practiced in this country:

Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time."

This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children.

This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time 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, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time 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.

This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.

Senator Obama spoke about the anger of Black Americans trapped by a past they did not make.

And he spoke of the Anger of White Americans are are tired of being blamed for an evil which they have not personally committed.

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.

He spoke of the anger on all sides of those who know that they are not reaping the just rewards of their hard work and he spoke of the dangers of allowing our anger at other Americans to keep us from joining together, as Americans, to overcome our shared problems.

"The path to a more perfect union," Barack Obama said, "requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper."

Our arrival at a better America will not be simple, nor will it be quick, but it can come. He said:

It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

It is a great speech, and, for me personally, those are exactly the words that I, and I believe the nation, needs to hear. Not just as damage control for the Wright episode, but because we stand at a juncture in history where, with hard work, and with - to borrow Lincoln's phrase- a dedication to the unfinished work which our ancestors have thus far so nobly advanced, we can continue our forward journey.

Great rhetoric is not not enough, but it is where we start.

I hope you'll watch or read the speech.

Put That Fire Out: Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright

I love my grandmother's politics. She is one of the last of a vanishing breed- a White Southern Evangelical Christian who, nevertheless, has stayed passionately true to her New Deal roots and the Democratic party. This, despite having watched her family and her friends become seduced by the empty promises of Reagan, and conned by the false promises of Bush for an easy victory in a war we didn't need to fight.

So, when she told me that she was probably not going to bother vote for President this year...I was alarmed. This, I thought, is not good. Why not, I asked?

And it was then that I heard for the first time about the Barack Obama/Jeremiah Wright controversy.

"It's been all over the news, " she said, "his preacher's been on the news shouting out: 'We don't say God Bless America- We say GOD DAMN AMERICA!'

"Now," my grandmother went on, "Obama says he didn't hear this, he didn't know, and he wasn't there when that preacher said that. But Alex? How can a man be your pastor for twenty years, and you not know what he thinks? How can you be friends with the man, the man preforms your wedding, baptizes your children, and you don't know what he thinks? It's just not possible."

"I can't vote for somebody like that, I can't vote for somebody who hates this country," my grandmother said. "And I can't much stand Hillary either. So I think I'm just going to stay home this year."

Our talk drifted to other subjects, but this stayed with me. Here in secular Europe, it was easy for me to miss the story...but I'm sure that CNN and FOX are having a field day with it at home.

And, before I had a chance to start catching up, I found myself wondering- could I vote for Barack Obama after this? If this were true, that Barack Obama's paster of twenty years could think this way, what inferences would I be justified in drawing about the candidate himself?

The subject of patriotism has always been tricky for those of us who stand anywhere from the center to the left.

On the one hand we feel contempt for the shallow, meaningless displays of patriotism adopted by right-wing charlatans: the cheap "made in China" American Flag lapel pin sported by Bush leaps to mind.

Even more, we truly despise the kind of "patriotism" that is used to cover up, excuse, or rationalize the acts of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. These are not the acts of patriots, but of thugs, killers, and villains.

But on the other hand, many of us are still proud of the history of the United States. We know that our country has held out the hope that all of mankind is created equal, and that people have a right to a free and open Government. We look back with pride on our nation's struggles to rid itself of the evils of slavery, we know that we have been constantly redefining and enlarging the definition of what it means to be a participating citizen of our Republic. We can look back with honor at our fight, alongside our gallant allies, against fascism. We can marvel at our ability to overcome those voices who clamored for "America First" and "Isolationism" to engage with the world and to push back, over the course of several decades, the long shadow of the iron curtain- and to do so in a way that did NOT bring about global conflagration.

I'm proud of all of that. I'm proud to be a citizen of a nation that has produced Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Martin Luther King Junior.

Our country has engaged in great wrongs, both past and present, but our nation has also consistently worked to redress those same wrongs...and I have no doubt that, if we continue to cherish what we have been at our best, we will continue to find ways to atone for what we have done at our worst.

If we give up on that ideal, however, then we will have nothing left to fight for- there will be no standards to which we can hold ourselves and our leaders accountable.

Reverend Wright seems to have given up on that ideal. He seems to be one of those on the left who seeks to blame America for every evil, both foreign and domestic. While I can share the anger of the Reverend at many of the evils that he points out, I cannot share in his condemnation of the country.

America was, after all, the first nation on the earth to consciously set itself against such evils- evils which have been perpetrated by every society on earth. It is no wonder that we have not been completely successful, this country, is, in many ways, a miracle simply in the fact that it has held together- the fact that it has won so much justice for it's citizens, in spite of history's trends, is all but beyond belief.

Those are my feelings and they run very deep.

But what of Obama? Does he share the opinions of his pastor? If not, then how could he remain in this man's church and not be culpable?

I don't have an answer, and I must admit, my support for Obama is not as strong today as it was before I heard the Reverend Wright's comments.

But, if there is one thing I know, it is "NEVER TRUST A SOUND BITE". The ethics of today's partisan and sensation seeking media will never allow it to give up a good controversy in search of a more complicated and nuanced truth.

So, it pays to dig a little deeper. Fortunately, the tools are at hand...a quick trip to You-Tube showed me another side of Pastor Wright. Here is a man who is shepherd to a flock which is sorely pressed by the world. The African American community suffers from economic destitution, from violence, from drugs, from disease, and yes, from prejudice...anyone who would deny that is just plain foolish (or worse).

Any leader of the African-American community is going to have to work hard to create an feeling of esprit de corps within that community. Because their problems are largely separate, their solutions and their rhetoric will have to be largely separate, too. Wright is preaching to his people that they are going to have to work hard, stay healthy, and stick together... I can at least follow him that far, and have no problem that Obama would follow as well.

I find it ironic to watch the clip of Sean Hannity castigating Jeremiah Wright on FOX: "This is on the website today....commitment to the black community, commitment to the black family, commitment to the black work ethic..." Here, by repeating the world black, Hannity is hinting that it is racist for Wright to be exhorting the black community to make these values their own.

Yet, the very next time someone brings up the poverty and destitution of the black community- exposed by Hurricane Katrina, for example- you'll hear the same old conservative song about how a community needs family values, thrift, and industry if they are to thrive. (Thereby implying that, since the African American community doesn't seem to possess these values, the rest of America has no obligation to help.) So, I give up, Mister Conservative, IS Wright supposed to help instill these virtues in his people or not?

Going back to You-Tube, we see another picture of Paster Wright. This time, he is telling his congregation about a free AIDS testing clinic at the Church. He is warning them of the dangers posed to the black community by AIDS, and he is showing, by example, how easy it is to be tested.

This doesn't look much like Church in my neighborhood, I have to admit, but I can respect it all the same. This is an involved and passionate Christianity, with a leader who is truly caring for his flock and leading by example. I can easily see how a political leader like Obama who wants to make things better in this country might take great inspiration from moments like this...




This video is long, four minutes and thirty seven seconds...exactly four minutes and seven seconds too long for a controversial sound bite.

Does it absolve Wright for his Anti-American comments? No. Does it go a long way to explaining why some, like Obama, might continue to attend his church despite disagreeing with what the Reverend says about our nation? Perhaps.

I've been so far unable to hear or read the context of the "God Damn America" sermon- but it can be noted that, if we go beyond the "God Damn" sound bite, we can hear that Wright is in some measure "damning" America for using the same violent tactics as Al Qaedia...he might be, in fact, urging his flock to do the Christian thing and turn the other cheek.

Still, this is a sentiment that could have been expressed in HUNDREDS of different ways...all of them would have been better...

...as one commenter on MyDD wrote: "Once you hear Reverend Wright, it makes it much more understandable as to why Michelle Obama has never been proud of this nation..."

I am still just as outraged at Wright's anti-American rhetoric as I was when I first heard it. I am still, like my grandmother, confused and angry about this. I'm sure that is true for many American voters.

Unlike my grandmother, however, I have yet to make the decision to stay home in November.

Senator Barack Obama is on probation with me...I am not going to dismiss him out of hand, he strikes me as worthy of more than that. But I will be very interested to listen to him for the duration of the primary fight and the campaign. I will not vote for a man (or woman) who does not share my vision of America, and who does not support my hopes for America.

I do not see the United States in the starkly negative terms of Reverend Wright. I do not see her as a rotten power structure that must be kicked over, attacked, and Damned. We have made mistakes, we need to recover from those mistakes. We have made promises...GOOD PROMISES both to our own people and to the world. We need to keep those promises.

As a nation, we are on a journey, and we are family...all of us, black, red, yellow, and white...anyone who doesn't share that vision of America, for whatever reason, cannot win my vote.

I had, and still have, high hopes for Barack Obama...but he MUST put this fire out.

Postscript

After finishing this, I wrote to a couple of Obama supporters I know. Neil of What's the Point? sent me back a link to an interesting article in the Washington Post.

It's definitely worth the read, and reminds us of the divides that separate us as Americans. It is here.
Here's a quote from the article:

"Things that might mean one thing in the church take on a new meaning when you don't see the full sermon, or understand the full context," said Dwight Howard, a theologian and a longtime Trinity member.

Said Cone: "There are moments for [Wright] when the anger, when the rage about what's happened to poor black people in the ghetto is so tough, so deeply painful, that he says things most whites would find off the charts and unpatriotic. But you don't preach in sound bites."

another quote that stood out:

If he were racist, Wright's friends ask, why would he arrange bus trips for predominantly white congregations to visit Trinity each Sunday? If he were racist, why would he have steadfastly maintained Trinity's relationship with the United Church of Christ, a denomination with only a handful of black churches?

"He's been a wonderful friend to white pastors, and he's gifted the organization financially," said UCC President John H. Thomas. "That charge is false."

So, as usual, the truth would appear to be, both from what I'm reading and what I'm seeing for myself on the You-Tube footage, more nuanced than the Headline Sound Bites make it out to be. Learning more is helping me settle down again.

But, of course, that's what scares me. The American people as a whole CAN learn- but we do NOT learn fast. If you doubt we can learn, look at Bush's approval ratings and attitudes toward Iraq. But it took us at least two years too long to absorb the truth that Saddam, while evil, had nothing to do with 9/11, that there were no WMDs, and that victory would be neither quick nor painless- and that Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech only marked the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end.

I fear that, while Obama will probably regain traction as more people hear more of the story, this may be another issue on which our learning curve is just too long.

At present, I'm waiting to see Obama's speech. I've heard, both from friends here in England, and email correspondents at home, that it is good. I'm hoping that it will be effective.

Speaking of Obama and Wright

Speaking of the Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright flap, here is a fun little opinion piece by Debra Saunders in the San Fransisco Chronicle about why Right-Wingers who attend glass churches shouldn't through stones:

Conservatives ought to be careful before they insist that Barack Obama further renounce his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. This vicious guilt-by-association political game cuts both ways.

The left has used this game to marginalize conservatives. In 1993, the Rev. Eugene Lumpkin was fired from the San Francisco Human Rights Commission because he said he believed the Bible told him that "the homosexual lifestyle is an abomination against God." This year, critics called on GOP nominee John McCain to denounce supporter Pastor John Hagee, who called the Catholic Church "the great whore."

The rest of the piece can be found at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/03/17/ED47VLAPA.DTL