Obama's speech, and my daughter's tears

POSTED BY: RocketJock
UPDATED: Sunday, March 30, 2008 15:32
VIEWED: 11731
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ROCKETJOCK

Saturday, March 22, 2008 6:12 AM

First off, I'd like to introduce you to my family.

I'm half of a salt-and-pepper marriage. (I'm the salt.) I was raised in darkest suburbia, observing the civil rights movement mostly though the medium of an 18-inch B&W tv. I think the first black person I ever met face-to-face was my fifth grade teacher.

My wife grew up in the ethnic enclaves of Southern California. She lived through the Watts riot, and has memories of a childhood bus trip through Jim Crow country where she accidentally drank from the wrong fountain. (Her mother nearly pulled her arm off jerking her away to safety.)

We have two kids, both mixed-race. One is a grown man, raising a family of his own. The other, our daughter, not quite of drinking age yet, still lives with us.

As you might guess, the subject of race in American society is one that we've got a slightly unusual, if not unique, perspective on. We've developed quite an assortment of family in-jokes on the subject. (It's nicely ironic, for example, that I'm the only one in the family who likes watermelon.)

I've probably had more exposure to the Black Evangelical tradition than most white guys. Even before I met my wife, a lifelong interest in comparative religion led me to attend an old-fashioned Rock-Baptist service in Meridian Mississippi, on a side of town where an unescorted white man probably shouldn't have gone any other day of the week--but on Sunday, all were welcome.

It was a definite eye-opener. Until then, I'd thought that scene with James Brown in The Blues Brothers was fiction! And since then, attending various weddings, etc., on my wife's side of the family has done nothing but expand my horizons.

So when all the flap about Rev. Wright began to develop, I was naturally intrigued. The Youtube clips and TV news sound bites struck me as being a tempest in a teapot (pretty obviously cherry-picked for maximum out-of-context shock value), but I realized how much gravitas they might hold for someone unfamiliar with the black church experience. I wondered how Obama would respond.

Well, we all know the answer to that now.

I'd read the text of Senator Obama's speech on the subjects of Rev. Wright, and of American race relations, while at work. Once I got home, I pulled the video up, to share it with my wife and daughter.

We heard him speak of the necessity of context in understanding a complex man who he obviously feels a great kinship with, despite disagreeing with him on many things. It sounded fairly reasonable to me -- and having done some research, knowing that Rev. Wright had been invited to the White House by Bill Clinton himself in 1998, and that John McCain's declared spiritual advisor, Reverend Rod Parsley, has some pretty outlandish conspiracy theories himself -- I figured he'd said just about as much as the topic deserved.

But then he moved on to other issues.

When he spoke of the difference a generation's experience can make in our view of the world, I understood. My father was as even-tempered a fellow as I've ever met, and everything I know about patience and the wisdom of perseverance comes from him. But I have a distinct memory from the late 1960's of him saying some things about blacks that I have a hard time reconciling with the man I know he was. But then I remember that he was born in 1910, and I cut him some slack. When Obama spoke of his grandmother, and the love she had for him, and the emotional disconnect he felt when she displayed the feet of clay that we all share -- I knew what he meant.

When he spoke of the historic forces that had shaped Rev. Wright's attitudes, my wife was calling out "Yes!" and pumping the air. She lived through those times, gentlefolk, and knows that, if you haven't walked that particular mile in those specific shoes, you'd better be careful about having opinions about what theories deserve the tinfoil hat, and which don't. She doesn't believe the same things the Reverend does -- Hell, she's not even a Christian -- but she was in the midst of many of the same pres

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, March 22, 2008 9:23 AM

Interesting...

The simplest way to subvert the whole issue is to just regard other people as individual human beings, which is what I have always done.

That's why I have some trouble with the concepts involved in racism as a whole, it's not like religion or political bent, it's not something the person themself decided - that they would look different than me, be darker or lighter in complexion, genetics chose that, not them, and thus it has utterly nothing to do with how I regard them as a person, only their behavior does.

But yanno, one doesn't really have to understand racism to find those who practice it a pack of idiots.

I catch occasional crap driving a cab in certain areas, sure - but it's an easy answer, I ain't never done nothin personally against them, they ain't never done nothin personally against me, and only an idiot somehow manages to find a way to create a problem out of that.

Like I said, the whole concept is idiotic, one can maybe, maybe, make a case for cultural misunderstandings, but pure racism makes utterly no sense whatsoever.

I just wish other folk would get that, some days.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, March 22, 2008 9:50 AM

Thanks for sharing. Racisism is anacronistic bullshit and really needs to come to an end, and so too is getting passed up for a job because the company needs to fill government quotas and your white skin doesn't fit the bill. Hate crimes should not ever be tried as hate crimes, because a crime is a crime is a crime and should be punished for it based simply on the fact that one person wronged another and broke the law in doing so.

I don't trust the man though. I trust him even less because of the hold he seems to have over so many people. At least most of us are in agreement that George W. Bush can't be trusted at all.

Don't EVER trust a politician.... particularly one from Illinois and the Mayor Daily Democratic Machine.

I'll be voting for Mayor McCheese come November.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

PIRATECAT

Saturday, March 22, 2008 3:32 PM

Prejudice-prejudge, Bigotry- all you can eat catfish night nope not eaten there, Racism-darwin's theory proves I'm right in my superiority. The forests are cut down but the old stumps are still their with moss on em. Blacks say the same thing whites say cause their my friends. It was so simple when Ike Turner was the most hated black man in America. The good ole days when everybody piled on.

"Battle of Serenity, Mal. Besides Zoe here, how many-" "I'm talkin at you! How many men in your platoon came out of their alive".

HKCAVALIER

Saturday, March 22, 2008 3:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'll be voting for Mayor McCheese come November.

Another victim of the McCheese propaganda machine, sounds like to me. And this from the man who said "never trust a politician!" You obviously have some reading to do: http://www.dannebohm.com/mayormccheeseandcivilunrest

http://ollysonions.blogspot.com/2008/01/education-standards-scandal-in
.html

Seriously, though. I thought it was a very important speech and one no other candidate could have made. I think Jon Stewart summed it up best: "So, at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday, a prominant politician spoke to Americans about race as though they were adults."

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

SIGNYM

Saturday, March 22, 2008 3:48 PM

I missed the first few minutes of Obama's speech, but managed to catch most of it.

Up until then I thought Obama was an empty suit. Someone who said pleasant, nice-sounding but essentially meaningless things to get elected. But when Obama chose to tackle racism and poverty head-on, he earned my vote.

"The enemy" is not black or white or brown or young or old or male, female, straight or gay. We all have far more in common that what separates us.

---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.

LEADB

Saturday, March 22, 2008 7:25 PM

I thought he definitely stepped up to the plate. I had been worried he didn't have the chops to handle the controversy; I think he did well.

KIRKULES

Saturday, March 22, 2008 8:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RocketJock:

I'm just looking to state that, whatever his political fortunes may turn out to be, in his speech, Barack Obama said truths that the country has needed put on the table of discourse for too long! And whether he wins the nomination, or the general election, or not, our nation owes him a debt of gratitude for daring to speak the complex and fundamental truths of a complex and fundamental issue.

I think the reason this speech will hurt Obama's chances of getting elected is not because of the content of his speech, or the content of Wright's sermons for that matter. The problem is the idea that we need to have more discussions about race in this country. We've been talking about race in this country non-stop for my entire life and I'm sick of it. I think a lot of other Americans are also. Bringing up race just leads to the inevitable finger pointing that follows. I'm tired of being told I'm a racist because of things that happened before my birth. The black community needs to take a look in the mirror and start to realize that many of the residual effects of racism from the past are perpetuated and exacerbated by Democrat politicians like Obama using race for political gain. Obama wont get more white votes by bring up a subject that has been used by politicians to make white people feel guilty and uncomfortable their entire lives. Many of us were raised from birth to believe that all men are equal and have lived our entire lives believing that. It doesn't help the cause of blacks to lump us all together and label us racists just because of the color of our skin. I'm not saying that is what Obama is doing, but Rev. Wright and others are. Just the fact that this subject has been brought up at all is enough to lose the election for Obama in my opinion.

TANKOBITE

Saturday, March 22, 2008 9:18 PM

Not going to get too into this (not a big fan of politics over the internet) but I did find one part of his speech funny: the part where he claimed he had

Quote:
a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas.

Take it from a person from Ft. Leavenworth area that's plain wrong.
That aside-I'm reading the speech now and it just doesn't speak to me, to be honest.

-----------------------------------------------------------
There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.

RUE

Saturday, March 22, 2008 9:28 PM

Being the child of Polish immigrants I had absolutely nothing to do with slavery and racism in this country. That doesn't mean I didn't benefit, though.

Where does racism (and sexism and ageism) come from ? My opinion - it comes from a shortage of opportunities and the desire of the dominant group to keep them corralled.

One concrete example - medical school. There are always far many more applicants to medical school than there are seats. And virtually all applicants are more than qualified. Back in my day - no women need apply. And that was despite the fact that many supposed 'issues' of women doctors - some going back hundreds of years - too emotional, too flighty, too tender, too stupid and illogical, and too valuable as womanly women to turn them into hardened doctors - were debunked many, many years ago. No women need apply.

You could look at any discriminatory 'ism' and find the same cause at work.

That answer is to not only address the biases we are taught, but to create more opportunities so everyone has a vested interest in the system.

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"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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