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Originally Posted by pan6467
US of KKK A is very racist. There is no justification for the divisive, hatespeak of Rev. Wright.
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No, it isn't. It's a statement of anger at racism in the US. I really fail to understand how, in your mind, anger at racism is the same as racism itself. Now, stuff like that *is* divisive, and inappropriate. But I don't understand how it could be considered racist.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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.
He's been saying it for quite sometime, not just recently.
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My mistake. There are several quotes under consideration here, some of them recent, some of them not so recent.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
Wrong, again 1984 going to Libya with Farrakhan was not "very" recently. His speech on 9/11 happened very shortly after 9/11.
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Honestly, I don't care about Farrakhan, at all. AFAICT, he's a bit of a crank. I'm having enough trouble keeping track of you damning Obama for his close contact with Wright. I don't have time for two degrees of separation here.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
"God damn America not God Bless America" is Anti-American and where does that exactly belong in a church?
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Listen to the context. Really. It's exactly the same formulation as right-wing ministers use when they say God damns America because we don't round up all the gays and force them to be straight, or whatever they want to do. I don't agree with it from a theological perspective, and it isn't exactly helpful, but there it is. He's saying that, because of America's actions, God will 'damn' it. Actions like wars in the middle east, supporting dictators, etc. If God goes around damning entire countries, I think he's far more likely to do so for starting unnecessary wars that for toleration gay people.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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.
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No, he didn't. He heard about them when the media generated this controversy.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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.
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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Racism is *not* dead. Amazing amounts of progress have been made, but racism is not dead. The wounds of past racism have not been healed. There's natural resentment as we work to heal those wounds. Obama spoke very eloquently about this very subject the other day.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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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I have to say, I think you are completely ignoring the context in which this church was formed.
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Originally Posted by robot_parade
Do you really equate these oppressed people, banding together in a community with a 'black' version of white supremacists?
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Originally Posted by pan6467
Yes, I do. Hatred is hatred, prejudice is prejudice and putting one group over another is by definition "supremacist".
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Then I think we have an irreconcilable difference of opinion. A congregation of people gathered together for protection against racism and hatred in the wider society is not hatred, and it is not supremacist.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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.)
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"We" as in Americans. Oppression of black people is part of our heritage as Americans. It was codified in our laws, and part of our culture. Should we feel guilty about it? Of course not, we didn't do it. However, it is part of our culture, and our heritage, and we should understand the anger of people who have been oppressed all their lives, and work to correct the injustices.
For the record, my family on my father's side did own slaves. My parents still have some historical papers documenting the slaves our family owned. I don't feel guilty about it, but I do accept it as part of my heritage.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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.
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I don't agree with your assumption that Rev. Wright hates America, or that his church is based upon prejudice and hatred. A church founded around black cultural heritage is not prejudice. Anger does not equal hate.
Was your grandmother angry at those who beat her father? Was she ever angry at a country that was prejudiced against her family because of their heritage? Did she ever get together with relatives or people of German descent to discuss their shared experiences, and to encourage one another?
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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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Again, more prejudice. Is being angry at those who were prejudiced and did hurtful things prejudiced? Is banding together for mutual support and comfort anti-american?
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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?"
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I have heard nothing hateful from Rev. Wright. Angry, divisive, unhelpful...yes. Is that the norm for him, in his 20 years of preaching? Did he get up every week and say these things? I'm guessing that...certain people...have combed through everything Rev. Wright is documented to have said, looking for things that could be taken as controversial. We have a few clips of him saying controversial things.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
How was it reconciling? It was a very good well rehearsed speech but I don't know let's see.
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It talked about race in an adult way, for one of the first times I've ever seen in political dialogue. It talked about the challenges from multiple perspectives.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
You disagree, condemn in unequivocal terms with many of Rev. Wright's political views....... but you named him to you political advisory committee.
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And he said that the views were not everything there was to know about the man. He has been preaching in this church for 20 years, and you and I have heard 5 minutes of what he's said. Neither of us can say we know everything there is to know about the man. I'm willing to take Obama at his word that these statements were not the norm.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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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Obama says he was not present during the sermons in question. Is there proof that he was?
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Originally Posted by pan6467
Knowing this, he still named him to his political advisory committee.
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None of the people on his political advisory committee are likely to be perfect (I hear Jesus turned him down...)
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Originally Posted by pan6467
First, all these hateful things said are SOLD by the church. Yet, Obama states it's only seen on YouTube and the news.
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Again, we simply disagree that this church was founded on hatred.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
Secondly, Oprah supposedly went to this church for 3 years and disliked the message and stopped going.
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Oh, I so don't care about what Oprah thinks. It's like a not-care sundae, with a really big not-caring-at-all cherry on top.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
He's doing God's work? Is that the God he states should "damn America"?
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He said he believes that God *does* damn America when it does evil things.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
Reaches out to those with HIV/AIDS? You mean the disease the Rev. states was created by our government to destroy the black race?
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It's shocking how widespread this belief is within the black community. It's wrong, and it propagates a culture of victimhood.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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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This is the second time you've mentioned Farrakhan. I'm just going to ignore it.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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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Again, Obama claims that the statements Rev. Wright is being condemned for are not the sort of things he heard from the pulpit for 20 years. I'm not going to enter into a discussion about McCain in this thread.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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".
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My only response to this is that you were clearly listening to his speech through a very strange filter.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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He changed his website. Oh, darn. How about you listen to what he says instead of divining his intentions from changes to his website. He denounced the things Rev. Wright said, and re-iterated his respect for the man, despite is flaws.
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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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Originally Posted by pan6467
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?
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But...but...that's not what he said...at all. You quoted him and everything, and I don't see how you can interpret what he said in that way. He didn't say Ferraro's statements were worse. His point was we shouldn't judge people from sound bytes taken out of context.
Sorry, but I snipped a bunch of stuff that I can't respond to other than repeat what I've already said.
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Originally Posted by pan6467
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.
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I think I've made my case as best I can. If you've interpreted anything I've said as a personal attack, please believe it was not intended as such.
I've said everything I can to respond to your points - I'll read your reply, if any, but unless I have something new to say, forgive me if I don't respond.