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Barack, Even Jesse Jackson Knew America is a Rainbow
by James Glaser March 19, 2008 I heard Barack Obama's speech yesterday addressing how he felt about the views of his minister and race relations in America. A couple of decades ago, another African American ran for President, the Reverend Jessie Jackson, and his whole campaign was about bringing together the "rainbow" of races in America that make up the melting pot of our population. Oddly, Senator Obama's speech made it seem like everything was black and white. (No pun intended.) America does have a race problem, but if I were Hispanic or Vietnamese, or a Cambodian, or was from Somalia, or maybe one of our new friends from the Middle East, or how about this, a Native American, I would be wondering if Barack Obama understood that I have problems with race, too. Now think of this, what if you are a white hillbilly from Appalachia, or a white cowboy from Oklahoma, or even a white carpenter from the North Woods of Minnesota, you might just think that the rest of America treats you differently, because of who you are and where you came from. Obama does have a point about the black and white issue though. If you watch any African American media person talk about Obama's speech, you would think he is the second coming of Martin Luther King. But if it is a White American media person, and they found anything lacking in the speech, they dance around verbally trying to say something that won't get them fired. I listened to Barack Obama's minister The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, preach in those sound bites the media played over and over again, and you know what, I agreed with him sometimes. Like when he said our foreign policy has made the chickens come back to roost, or this direct quote: "The stuff we have done overseas is brought right back into our homes." I believe that to be true. When Reverend Wright started talking about how, "The government gives them the drugs [referring to the Iran-Contra Affair], builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America." I can see where he is going. I think if I were a black minister, I would be preaching on those things. That is how a minister gets a dialog going in his church so his congregation can start problem-solving in their community. I'm white, so my church doesn't do it that same way, but white ministers also speak out on social problems. So, my question is, didn't Barack Obama find any "meat" in his minister's preaching that he could defend? Was everything Jeremiah Wright said offensive to Senator Obama? If it was, then why did he stay in that church for 17 years? If he did agree with his minister on some points, them why didn't he defend the man on at least one of them. Barack Obama sure let his minister and his friend hang out there in the wind all by himself. I don't understand how a friend can do that to a friend, and I would never want to think a President of the United States would do that to his friend either. Post Script: The quotes of Reverend Wright came from Wikipedia. |
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