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Originally Posted by robot_parade
I read the transcripts. I listened to what he said. I disagree with your assertion that his statements were racist or race-baiting. They were certainly anti-government - when the government has done *bad* things, I'm anti-government too. I notice you switched from "anti-american" to "anti-government". Those two things are not the same.
I disagree that Rev Wright being *angry* with America, and white Americans, for treating him and other black people is racism. It's anger. It's *justified* anger. Now, I agree with Mr. Obama that the way in which the anger was expressed by Rev. Wright was divisive and unhelpful - but losing your temper and saying hurtful things is not the same as racism.
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US of KKK A is very racist. There is no justification for the divisive, hatespeak of Rev. Wright.
Losing your temper and saying hurtful things is human. Passing those in the name of God and doing things like going to Libya in 1984 with Louis Farrakhan or naming him a "great humanitarian" is more than just losing your temper and saying hurtful things.
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Rev. Wright said some unhelpful destructive things recently. I do not agree with your assumption that these angry unhelpful things are a sign of racism or anti-americanism.
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He's been saying it for quite sometime, not just recently.
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Mr. Obama has been attending that church for *20 years*. These statements were made very recently, while Obama was on the campaign trail, not even in the church. Do you have proof showing a pattern of such divisive rhetoric from Rev. Wright? Do you have any statements of his that are actually racist or anti-american? Cite them, please.
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Wrong, again 1984 going to Libya with Farrakhan was not "very" recently. His speech on 9/11 happened very shortly after 9/11.
"God damn America not God Bless America" is Anti-American and where does that exactly belong in a church?
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(For the record, I'm not black, not that it really matters for this discussion.)
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Neither am I, and it shouldn't matter that I'm not but alas, it does to many if not all Obama supporters, because you can't call me racist if I'm a black man saying this.
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It's a statement of faith *of the church* as a *body of believers*. It is not a gospel or life statement or a set of commandments that each of the members must subscribe to. It explains why they are together as a body of believers.
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So then we need to ask Obama which "truth" we should believe from him. Up until very recently he stated "I never heard any of these things sitting in his pews or in personal contact with him"
But Yesterday, he admits to hearing them and disagreeing vehemently with them. Yet, he named Rev. Wright to his campaign as an adviser.
Now, Obama wants to be this great Uniter, but he puts Rev. Wright on his advisory committee, then takes him off when the heat gets to hot.
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Try using 'French' and 'France'. Do you really fail to see how "black" people have been oppressed in this country?
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Exactly when did I ever oppress a black man. When have you? I have never seen or been employed in a place that did not hire black people. I have never worked for anyone that did not have black people in upper management, in some form.
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Do you really believe that all of the oppression is in the past - something in the dim memory of our culture, but of course never happens today?
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Oppression goes both ways in this country today, trust me. The oppression I see most common today isn't that between color but of financial class and that is regardless of race.
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Do you really not understand why a community of black Christian believers, especially within the context of when the document you quote was written, might form to support one another, to share faith, and to foster a community identity?
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But that is not a church's mission. A church, especially on that supposedly teaches Christ's teachings should be working to support ALL men.
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Do you really equate these oppressed people, banding together in a community with a 'black' version of white supremacists?
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Yes, I do. Hatred is hatred, prejudice is prejudice and putting one group over another is by definition "supremacist".
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Obama is not a racist - check.
He associates himself with those who are racially controversial - check.
(Shouting now)
GOOD FOR HIM! RACIALLY CONTROVERSIAL?! THAT MEANS "ANGRY BLACK PEOPLE", DOESN'T IT? DAMN RIGHT THEY'RE ANGRY - THEY HAVE A DAMN GOOD REASON FOR BEING ANGRY. WE FUCKING ENSLAVED THEIR ANCESTORS, RAPED THE WOMEN, FLOGGED THE MEN, CALLED THEM "NIGGERS", LYNCHED THEM, TOLD THEIR CHILDREN THEY WEREN'T "GOOD ENOUGH" TO GO TO SCHOOL WITH WHITE CHILDREN, AND EVEN, TO THIS VERY DAY, SUBJECT THEM TO SUBTLE RACISM *EVERY* *SINGLE* *DAY*. AND, WHEN ONE OF THEM *DARES* TO GET ANGRY ABOUT IT, PEOPLE GO AROUND FAINTING AND CLUTCHING AT THEIR PEARLS AND CRYING "OH, NO, REVERSE-RACISM!".
(Ok, done shouting)
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What's this "we" bullshit? I cannot state with 100% certainty but I'm 99% sure that my ancestors never owned 1 black man or black woman as slaves. Raping a black woman? I seriously doubt. Flogged a black man? I doubt it. Called them "niggers", that may have been a strong possibility. But then again, my family were called "krauts", "Mics", "Degos" and so on. (I'm German/Welsh/Irish/Italian with some Dutch.)
My grandmother was alive when in 1917 during WWI, people blamed those in the community of German descent for the war. She watched her father get beaten to a bloody pulp because he was married to a German woman. She saw her uncles have their store windows broken, robbed and boycotted because they were German.
She doesn't hate America. She doesn't find churches that keep that prejudice alive.
My mother and father went to school with every race. My mother was teased as a kid because she was of a "weird religion" (7th Day Adventist) by all races. My mother was not allowed to play with many kids because of that reason.
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These are not things that happened 'a long time ago'. People alive today remember some of these events. They are our history.
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Hate in many ways is still alive in this nation. Hate is a part of our past and our present. For a Presidential candidate to have a person of such hatred of this country, sit on his advisory committee, one has to ask who he will select for his cabinet.
We must ask, if Obama states he wants to be a uniter and loves this country enough to be president, why did he put such a hateful divisive person to be on his election committee? Why does he not confront what his minister and spiritual adviser and talk about how wrong it is? Instead, we get "he's like an old uncle", "do you agree with everything your pastor/rabbi etc states?"
How was it reconciling? It was a very good well rehearsed speech but I don't know let's see.
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Originally Posted by Obama
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
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You disagree, condemn in unequivocal terms with many of Rev. Wright's political views....... but you named him to you political advisory committee.
Again, when I have gone to church I have sat, listened and if I didn't like what the message was, I got up and left and did not go back. I go to be uplifted and worship my God and be in the company of others whom share my views that religion was to be uniting, not divisive. There are enough ways to divide, I do not need my spiritual leaders to add fuel to the fire, but to try to put the fires out.
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Originally Posted by Obama
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
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Knowing this, he still named him to his political advisory committee.
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Originally Posted by Obama
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? 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 commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
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First, all these hateful things said are SOLD by the church. Yet, Obama states it's only seen on YouTube and the news.
Secondly, Oprah supposedly went to this church for 3 years and disliked the message and stopped going.
He's doing God's work? Is that the God he states should "damn America"?
Reaches out to those with HIV/AIDS? You mean the disease the Rev. states was created by our government to destroy the black race?
Does he help all needy people, all homeless people or does he just go to black communities?
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In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”
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That is a great, positive uplifting message for a church to have. But was this before or after Rev. Wright went to Libya to meet with Khadaffi with a most racist and divisive Louis Farrakhan?
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That has been my experience at Trinity. 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. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. 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.
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I have known many racists and severely prejudiced people on all sides and they are almost like psychopaths. They can be the nicest people to those they hate for prejudicial reasons and then go on rampages and show hatred as soon as the person is gone.
I find it hard to believe in 20 years of listening to this hatred from the pulpit, that if you disagreed so much with it, that you, who wants to unite have not confronted this Rev. and talked to him personally, even if in private about his views and hatreds and tried to help him talk about the hatred he preaches and why he won't change his message to be more uplifting. Instead, you continued to go to his church and just as McCain is guilty by association for just trying to get support from racists, you should be guilty by association with your 20 year support of one.
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Originally Posted by Obama
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 once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
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No one has ever asked you to disown the black community. No one asks you to disown your grandmother, who obviously had some prejudice of her own. But you through her under the bus and said worse things about this woman, "who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world" than you did about a man that says "God Damned America".
No one asked you to disown Rev. Wright. You have though:
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/p...obamas-website
Funny how all of a sudden Rev. Wright's words have been taken off and you have added those from an Orthodox Jew.
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Originally Posted by Obama
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
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Let's see Rev. Wright says, "God Damn America", meets with Farrakhan and Khaddaffi in Libya in 1984...... but Geraldine Ferraro is worse because she stated somewhere in a written essay that you are where you are only because you are black. Those are comparable statements and actions to you?
Your statement about Imus and how you were one the first to demand he be fired:
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Obama said. “He fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two young daughters are having to deal with today in America."
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Yet, you are wanting us to forgive and understand a Reverend... who from the pulpit of your church, the man you call your "spiritual mentor", the man you had sit on your political advisory committee until the heat got to hot.... who says, "God Damn America"... who says, "the government created AIDS to kill the blacks".... who says, "America deserved 9/11"... who in 1984 went to Libya with Louis Farrakhan... who calls Louis Farrakhan a great American?
That's a bit hypocritical and divisive isn't it? It's ok for 1 man to speak hatred and be considered a great church leader but another, who is a shock radio host doing what he does, shocking America, should lose his job? It's one or the other.... you either support one's right to have their beliefs and to speak out publicly those beliefs or you don't. It's not ok for Rev. Wright to have his hatespeak if you are going to demand Imus lose his job for what you consider hatespeak.
This is not a Uniter, one who wants political changes in how things are done.... this is someone who sees things politically and jumps on bandwagons demanding people's jobs, while dismissing worse statements from someone that can help him politically .... well until those words become an issue then it "he's a goofy old uncle".... "he's misnderstood", you excuse his words and actions away with excuses but vehemently repudiate what he says.... and so on.
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Originally Posted by Obama
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
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You had 20 years to help Rev. Wright understand his unjustifiable hatreds (but it seems some of your supporters wish to make us want to believe his statements are fair and supportable as seen here... but you state they aren't, I think you need to talk to some of your supporters who support those statements, even AFTER your speech and explain why they are wrong to support them).
Race isn't an issue, Colin Powell could have probably been elected to any office he sought.
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Originally Posted by Obama
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
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It's not a black/white issue, it's a poor/rich issue. But let's get in that "white guilt" and make the whites feel guilty about what their ancestors did to ours.
Why not, give us what your solution is to all this instead of harping on it and using it as an excuse to excuse away Rev. Wright's hatespeak?
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Originally Posted by Obama
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. 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. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
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This is what you were allowing your children to learn when they heard their pastor say, "God Damn America".... "The government created AIDS to kill blacks".... etc. But they can't succumb to cynicism, even though the pastor teaches hatred and cynicism and paranoia against the nation.
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Originally Posted by Obama
Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
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But he is your religious mentor..... he sat on your campaign committee.... you stated last week you never heard any of it... then this week you say you heard it but vehemently disagreed with it. You are also quick to say "former pastor". If he "too often failed..." then why did you continue to sit through his sermons, why up until all this happened did you refer to him as your spiritual adviser, your religious mentor? Then when this becomes a HUGE issue... he's your former pastor who "too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change."
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Originally Posted by Obama
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
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Yet, again, why did you not talk to Rev. Wright and explain that to him? And if he did not share those views, why did you continue to go to his sermons?
Or was it all for political gain and now you need to distance yourself because it is no longer politically helpful in getting elected?
How is that change from any other politician? How is that being a Uniter? That is the same politics as usual. Use what you can as long as you can, then discard what hurts you and distance yourself as much as possible.
I can go further, but why? To me, I have shown the questions I have and the responses will be hatred, attacks and more excuses.
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Originally Posted by robot_parade
ottopilot, I hope the above doesn't seem like a personal attack. I don't mean it personally. However, you express a viewpoint that I think is wrongheaded and dangerous, and furthermore make me angry. A black community coming together and forming a community, making a statement of faith that expresses their desire to strengthen that community (*especially* when this statement was written, which was a number of years ago), is not racism. An angry black man who has lived with racism his entire life, and sometimes expresses his anger, is not racist. An angry man who is fed up with the government 'of the people' doing reprehensible, ungodly, sinful things in our name is not anti-American. A man who loses his temper and says divisive hurtful things on occasion is not a crank, or a bad person. He is simply human.
And finally, Barack Obama accepting him as a flawed human being, who he loves even as he disagrees with, instead of disavowing that relationship, is a wonderful thing, and makes me proud to be an American, and an Obama supporter.
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Accepting one as flawed is one thing, calling him your "spiritual mentor", sitting through his hatespeak racist sermons (while you disagree vehemently), naming him to your political committee then dropping him as soon as he becomes a liability..... all seems very hypocritical, all seems very calculated to get elected.... but he is the agent of change and hope.... you have your opinions, I have mine. I just took a great deal of time explaining my views and opinions on all this and I stand by these beliefs, I make no excuses for them.
I am human though, I do get irrational, defensive and emotional. I do make mistakes getting my points across when I am attacked by being called (or implicated as) a racist for my views, for being talked down to and having my opinions and views dismissed as uneducated, so last week, divisive, and so on, while those attacking give no rational for their beliefs or it is lost in the process of the attacks, the put downs, the excuses. I do not believe I am alone in this. I tend to believe it is in fact human nature to have these feelings.