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AnonyMouse
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 461
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 Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 10:40 pm Post subject: Inspiring |
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After reading some of the profoundly ignorant and bigoted Topix postings by our local ultracons today, this post at the Daily Kos lifted my spirits. It's long but definitely worth the read.
| Quote: | Watching Obama with Strangers
by socratic
Tue Mar 18, 2008 at 06:09:19 PM PDT
I haven't had that many "standing around with strangers watching events unfold" moments in my life. In roughly chronological order, the Challenger explosion, the OJ verdict, 9/11, the Red Sox winning the World Series. Maybe one or two others scattered through my 33 years. But not many. Most events are, I suppose, not big enough, not loud enough, not important enough to make people stop and just watch. Today was another one of those days.
My morning started uneventfully. I left my house later than I intended to take my car to a Jeep dealership for some service. I changed my mind about the route I was going to take, which caused me to backtrack a bit to hop on I-20 towards downtown Atlanta. At the intersection with I-75/I-85 (the "Midtown Connector"), traffic slowed to a halt, and I saw the damage to Atlanta's buildings from Friday's tornado for the first time. It was jarring and far worse than I'd expected. Massive numbers of windows were just gone. I found myself thinking of all that flying glass (or plastic) and all those basketball fans if the tournament game at Phillips Arena hadn't gone into overtime. For all the damage, it could have been a lot worse.
But that's not what this diary is about.
I drove up the Midtown Connector and stayed on I-75 into the suburbs, just beyond the Perimeter, I-285, what folks in other cities might call the Beltway or the Loop. Things change out there. The area inside the Perimeter, or "ITP", is diverse, racially and otherwise. There are folks with Obama stickers, Clinton stickers, houses with "Anti-Bellum House" on the white picket fence, Carter Centers and MLK Monuments, Coca-Cola and the Braves, Falcons, Thrashers, and Hawks. Aside from its remarkable lack of public transportation and bloody-minded sprawl, the area immediately surrounding Downtown and Midtown is easy to call home. Lots of good folks of all types. Lots of quirky neighbors. Few gated communities.
Outside the Perimeter, "OTP", is a different thing indeed. Racially, religiously, and politically almost homogeneous. Passing the Perimeter is like passing into a different world. Suddenly streets look different, signs look different, Bradford Pears are everywhere. Lots more W stickers, yellow ribbons, and megachurches. I've lived a lot of places, and I haven't seen many geographic/cultural divisions quite so stark.
I pulled up to my dealership, just down the street from an Air National Guard base, near the Lockheed plant that builds C-130s and F-22s for the Air Force. The guy who took my car was friendly. The salesman inside who showed me a diesel Jeep was friendly. Everyone's real friendly in the suburbs. But I kept thinking that I was in the suburbs, not friendly territory for my "Brite Blue Dot" and Obama stickers.
I'd planned to wait for my car to be worked on, because it was only a minor brake job. No big deal. An hour in and out, and the dealership has wifi. I could work from where I was. So I sat down in the waiting room.
My backtracking after deciding to take a different route. The slow traffic through Downtown. A few minutes spent with a salesman talking about the diesel Jeep. The strange sums of seconds spent here and there through the morning caused me to sit down almost at the moment Barack Obama walked up to the podium to begin his speech.
Now, I'm not going to talk about the speech itself. Plenty of folks have done that. I'll just say that I was watching intently, pleased with what I was hearing. When, after about 5 minutes, the guy who was working on my car came by to tell me that the car wouldn't be ready until the afternoon, I thanked him and stayed right where I was to watch the rest of the speech. But something curious happened. I was snapped out of the moment of the speech by the mechanic's visit, which was fine because Obama was, in a very real sense, giving the speech about race in America that I've wanted to hear my entire life: genuine, personal, intelligent, and direct. I've watched the speech again since this morning, and it didn't disappoint, but just at that moment I stopped watching it ...
... and started watching the people around me. The young black man. The elderly white couple. The two white women, one college-aged, one in her late-20s. One middle-aged white woman. Two white men, one college-aged, one in his late-30s. One Asian couple. All of them were watching the speech. Rapt. Nodding.
Gradually, the twentysomething white woman went back to her laptop, but kept smiling when Obama would say something important. The elderly white couple whispered in their Southern accented way: "He's really good... He's saying good things... He's a good young man..." The young black man chuckled when Obama said that Sunday morning was the most segregated hour in America, but was otherwise simply watching. And at one point, the middle-aged white woman asked one of the dealership folks, in another thick, thick Southern accent if she wouldn't mind turning up the volume, because she really wanted to hear this speech.
She, this white Southern woman from the suburbs, wanted to hear this speech, delivered by a Black man with a funny name running for President. And she was nodding.
But she wasn't the only one. Folks from the dealership, passing through on their way to and from whatever they do (most of them for not a lot of money) stopped and watch for 3 or 4 minutes. A young mechanic of ambiguous ethnicity stopped by at least a half-dozen times (hours later he stopped me as I was walking to the cashier to pay and said "That was some speech," then paused awkwardly, and said, hushed, "It's good that folks our age are getting involved, I think, right?"). Two salesmen, white, mid-40s, Southern as sweet tea, stopped and watched. And nodded. And I wasn't the only one to stick around to watch the speech after my business at the dealership was done.
Never seen anything like that. I bet a lot of folks in that dealership were Republicans. Most, based on snippets of conversation I heard, were Southerners. Almost all were white. And they watched, listened, and agreed with what Barack Obama was saying about race in America.
I decided today that there are a lot of good people in the world. I decided that after all the slogans, after all the bumper stickers, and after all the excruciating hours of listening to Bill O'Reilly divide us, most folks don't hate most other folks. And when someone stands up, and explains the situation clearly, concisely, and directly, they can see that, yeah, we have issues to work through and that, yeah, we need to do something.
Today's speech wasn't about right or left, black or white, man or woman. Today Barack Obama gave a speech about basic human dignity, dignity that all of us deserve. And my brothers and sisters from OTP, many of them folks I would've considered culturally very, very different from me just yesterday, watched, listened, and saw with their hearts and minds what Barack Obama was saying.
The Challenger, OJ, 9/11, the Red Sox. Three difficult days and one frivolous but happy one. And today, difficult but incredibly happy. Today. Thank God for today. |
Sometimes it feels like the deep south here in Franklin County, and sometimes I'm just overwhelmed by the shocking levels of unthinking, knee-jerk malice posted on the Topix - people overflowing with hate toward people they don't even know; people who are willing to attack strangers in the most repugnant way possible simply because they have a different political philosophy.
It's easy to lose sight of the fact that, by and large, our neighbors are inherently decent people who, on a one-to-one, face-to-face basis, will extend themselves to lend a helping hand, even to those who look or speak different. And even well-meaning people get tripped up on unintended or unconscious stereotypes now and then, but most certainly don't want to offend or hurt their neighbors and are willing to honestly look at it when it's pointed out.
I hope Obama's speech affected some people that way - that it made them stop and think about themselves; that some were able to reflect on their own feelings and consider the perspective of people who are different than they are. My friends and neighbors are certainly capable of that. I'll bet yours are too.
I'm grateful that the PO published Obama's full speech. I'm disappointed that most of the folks on Topix aren't equipped to discuss it in any meaningful way. But if nothing else, go read it again or watch it on YouTube again. He said some deeply meaningful and relevant things that shouldn't be dismissed as election-year politicking. He expressed a vision for our future as a melting-pot nation that is more inspiring and hopeful than anything I've heard from a politician in my adult lifetime.
Peace. |
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munchkin
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 235
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 6:34 am Post subject: |
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Here is what Obama has to explain
1) Why stay in a church for 20 years with a racist pastor?
2) Why do you take your kids to here his racist rants?
3) First Obaba said he NEVER heard and was not AWARE of his racist comments. Then in his speech he said he did hear them.
4) Why the different standards for Imus. Obaba called for him to be fired
5) Why stay with a church that obama's mentor of 20 years gave louie a life time achiement award?
6) His comments about his grandmother's fear of black men who passed by her on the street does not mesh with what he wrote about this subject in his 1996 book "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
This is what we are in for, anytime you ask hard questions to or about Obama the left will play the race card and accuse those asking the questions of being racist |
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munchkin
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 235
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 6:40 am Post subject: |
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Not only did Sen Obama call for Imus to be fired, he demanded Trent Lott resign over his comment at Strom Thurman's birthday party
Yet he stands by his mentor over his hate speech and racist sermons |
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AnonyMouse
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 461
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:44 am Post subject: |
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| munchkin wrote: | Here is what Obama has to explain
1) Why stay in a church for 20 years with a racist pastor?
2) Why do you take your kids to here his racist rants?
3) First Obaba said he NEVER heard and was not AWARE of his racist comments. Then in his speech he said he did hear them.
4) Why the different standards for Imus. Obaba called for him to be fired
5) Why stay with a church that obama's mentor of 20 years gave louie a life time achiement award?
6) His comments about his grandmother's fear of black men who passed by her on the street does not mesh with what he wrote about this subject in his 1996 book "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
This is what we are in for, anytime you ask hard questions to or about Obama the left will play the race card and accuse those asking the questions of being racist |
I could address everything that you raise, but based on past experience with you, I don't believe you are interested in real dialogue.
Because I'm forever optimistic, I will give you my thoughts on one of your points to see if you are actually interested in a fair give-and-take:
What Obama said last week in the piece that he wrote for the Huffington Post was that he had not been present to personally hear the comments (God damn America, etc.) that are showing on TV news. That was true - there is video of him giving a speech in Florida on that day. Then this week in his speech he said that he has heard Wright make other divisive comments and he disagrees with them. That was also true.
I think Obama has made every effort to be completely honest amidst this political minefield, and I believe that simply calling him a liar (as you did in Topix) reflects an unwillingness to listen fairly and take what he has to say seriously.
As a further effort of goodwill, I want to say to you that in the heat of discussion on Topix I let my passion on the race issue get the better of me and I responded to you in disrespectful ways. I regret that and I apologize.
I eagerly await your fair and thoughtful response.  |
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munchkin
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 235
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:33 am Post subject: |
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Obama had to know about the ractis comments AM. The video that is being shown on TV is from a DVD the church sells in it's gift shop
Obama disinvited Wright from his Presidential announcement because Obama said his sermons are controversial
A church is what the community makes it, and where the Preacher leads his flock. What road is it that is filled with hate and where does it lead a community, rhetorical.
This is not a religious, or church, or community issue so much as a political forum from the pulpit. My church doesn't teach politics as the word of GOD, does yours?
Obama didn't even make a try to change the tenor at Wright's church so how can he claim any credibility that he is running to heal racial tensions in America? He did nothing on his own turf!!! In fact, after Obama's 2002 speech at the convention, Wright became MORE radical and closer to Obama over the last 5 years! |
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munchkin
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 235
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:36 am Post subject: |
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AM, Obama has told different stories. First he said he never heard any of his racist comments - then in his speech he said he did
What is up here?
Or are we back to the days oof Billl Clinton when as we listen to his speechs we have to parse his words? |
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AnonyMouse
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 461
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:43 am Post subject: |
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| munchkin wrote: | AM, Obama has told different stories. First he said he never heard any of his racist comments - then in his speech he said he did
What is up here?
Or are we back to the days oof Billl Clinton when as we listen to his speechs we have to parse his words? |
Yeah, that's the one I answered. He didn't say last week that he never heard divisive comments - he said he wasn't there for the particular sermon that's being shown on TV right now. |
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munchkin
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 235
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:48 am Post subject: |
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AM, Obama said he never heard ANY of Wrights comments. That is very hard to believe since all the comments were highlighted on the DVD sold by the Church
If Obama was not in the church, I also find it hard to believe nobody said to him "Boy you missed a great sermon last Sunday"
Obama told Wright not to come to his Presidential announcemnt
This does explain why Me Obama was not proud of America until recently.
It is sad to see all the people cheering as this racist hatemonger sprews his lies to the masses
It is also sad to see the same people who savaged Imus, and Trent Lott over what they said, defend Obama |
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AnonyMouse
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 461
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:49 am Post subject: |
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I read what Mike Huckabee said when asked about Rev. Wright's comments:
| Quote: | | ... One other thing I think we've got to remember: As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, "That's a terrible statement," I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I'm going to be probably the only conservative in America who's going to say something like this, but I'm just telling you: We've got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, "You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus." And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would, too. I probably would, too. In fact, I may have had a more, more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me. |
It's good to hear from a fair-minded Republican. It captures part of what I've been feeling - I probably would have a much larger chip on my shoulder. Those sorts of injustices aren't the kind of thing that would be easy to let go of. |
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munchkin
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 235
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:50 am Post subject: |
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Check out the cover of Time this week - the media is doing all they can to save Obama
'The Incredible Ignorance of White Americans'
If a right wing publication had a headline 'The Incredible Ignorance of Black Americans' all hell would break loose |
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AnonyMouse
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 461
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:50 am Post subject: |
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| munchkin wrote: | AM, Obama said he never heard ANY of Wrights comments. That is very hard to believe since all the comments were highlighted on the DVD sold by the Church
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Can you point me to where he said he never heard ANY of Wright's comments? I never saw that. In his speech he said he heard them. |
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munchkin
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 235
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:53 am Post subject: |
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I finally found one of Obama quotes that go against what he said in his speech
Buried in his eloquent, highly praised speech on America's racial divide, Sen. Barack Obama contradicted more than a year of denials and spin from him and his staff about his knowledge of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermons....
Until yesterday, Obama said the only thing controversial he knew about Rev. Wright was his stand on issues relating to Africa, abortion and gay marriage.
"I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial," Obama said at a community meeting in Nelsonville, Ohio, earlier this month.
"He has said some things that are considered controversial because he's considered that part of his social gospel; so he was one of the leaders in calling for divestment from South Africa and some other issues like that," Obama said on March 2.
His initial reaction to the initial ABC News broadcast of Rev. Wright's sermons denouncing the U.S. was that he had never heard his pastor of 20 years make any comments that were anti-U.S. until the tape was played on air.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4480868&page=1 |
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AnonyMouse
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 461
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:02 am Post subject: |
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| munchkin wrote: | I finally found one of Obama quotes that go against what he said in his speech
Buried in his eloquent, highly praised speech on America's racial divide, Sen. Barack Obama contradicted more than a year of denials and spin from him and his staff about his knowledge of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermons....
Until yesterday, Obama said the only thing controversial he knew about Rev. Wright was his stand on issues relating to Africa, abortion and gay marriage.
"I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial," Obama said at a community meeting in Nelsonville, Ohio, earlier this month.
"He has said some things that are considered controversial because he's considered that part of his social gospel; so he was one of the leaders in calling for divestment from South Africa and some other issues like that," Obama said on March 2.
His initial reaction to the initial ABC News broadcast of Rev. Wright's sermons denouncing the U.S. was that he had never heard his pastor of 20 years make any comments that were anti-U.S. until the tape was played on air.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4480868&page=1 |
I hadn't seen that article. He said he didn't think his church was particularly contrivercial and that Wright had said things that are considered conrivercial as part of his social gospel. To me that sounds like typical hedging by a politician, but I can see why you would interpret it more harshly.
Doesn't the speech this week make any difference to you? He couldn't have been more clear and honest than in that speech.
Also, I looked at the covers of the past two issues of TIME (3/17 and 3/24). I'm not seeing your "white ignorance" quote there. http://www.time.com/time/searchresults?N=46 Where did you get that from? |
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munchkin
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 235
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:09 am Post subject: |
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AM, Obama has been caught telling different stories. As I said before, are we going back to the days of Bill Clnton where it depends on the meaning of is is?
All of his previous statements go against what he said in his speech AM
I stand corrected, it is not the cover - but the "reporters" make that comment in their article
Some of the other defenses offered by the unbiased reporters are
An important aspect of the problem is that white Americans are incredibly ignorant about black churches in America.
In fact, Rev. Wright's church isn't that radical as black churches go.
It was understandable for Obama to have joined Wright's church. At the time he was a 27-year old bi-racial man trying to figure out his identity as the son of an atheist father and skeptic mother and needed a church "he could learn from."
It's understandable that Obama didn't leave the church: it's like reading a book--you don't necessarily agree with the author.
Obama's speech was a "triumph," and Americans will be thinking "small" if they make the Wright thing a big issue in the campaign.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1723990,00.html |
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AnonyMouse
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 461
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:18 am Post subject: |
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| munchkin wrote: | AM, Obama has been caught telling different stories. As I said before, are we going back to the days of Bill Clnton where it depends on the meaning of is is?
All of his previous statements go against what he said in his speech AM |
I hear what you're saying. I disagree because I think Obama is clearer and more honest overall than most politicians. But we can certainly disagree here. I'm glad you didn't simply call him a liar.
Do you have a response to Huckabee's comment? If the tables were turned and you were the one receiving discrimination, do you think you would be as angry as Rev. Wright? I know I would be. |
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