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Mr Obama called on his own history in an ambitious speech
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Obama on race issues
Posted on 03/18/2008 2:53:17 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has sought to tackle the issue of race and defuse a controversy over comments made by his former pastor.
Mr Obama said he understood the history of anger between black and white Americans but that the US could not afford to ignore race issues.
He referred to the uproar over what he called the Rev Jeremiah Wright's "profoundly distorted view" of the US.
Mr Wright said the 9/11 attacks were like "chickens coming home to roost".
After the remarks resurfaced, Mr Obama denounced them as "incendiary" and "completely inexcusable" and said he had not been present when they were made.
Mr Obama is locked in a close race with New York Senator Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, with the significant Pennsylvania primary vote due on 22 April.
The BBC's Jamie Coomarasamy in Philadelphia says this was a bold speech with considerable risks, but one which Barack Obama clearly felt he had little choice but to make to defuse the race issue.
'Racial stalemate'
Speaking in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania city seen as the cradle of US democracy, Mr Obama drew on America's long history of racial inequality - and called on the US to move beyond it.
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 I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community
Barack Obama
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"The anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races," he said.
As the child of a black father and white mother, he said he understood the passions of both sides in what he called "a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years" - and said he was not so naive as to believe it could be overcome in one election cycle.
However, Mr Obama said, he believed the nation could - if it worked together - move towards healing some of the wounds caused by racial injustice.
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OBAMA SPEECH IN FULL
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And while he condemned many of Mr Wright's political views as "not only wrong but divisive", he said it was important to remember that he had grown up at a time of racial segregation.
"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," he said.
He recalled that his grandmother had raised him and loved him - but that at times she had used racially-tinged language or stereotypes that made him "cringe".
'Don't walk away'
Mr Obama also said that it should not be news to Americans that anger over racial injustice still finds voice in many black churches.
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 The row was sparked by sermons given by the Rev Jeremiah Wright
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"The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning," he said.
He challenged the nation not to ignore the issue of race "this time" - while acknowledging that white Americans, especially the working class, also had their problems.
"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."
Race has emerged as an issue on several occasions in the battle between Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, but at no time before has Mr Obama addressed it so directly.
Former President Bill Clinton was accused of stirring up racial politics over remarks he made after Mr Obama's victory in South Carolina's primary in January, in which he seemed to try to marginalise Mr Obama as a black candidate winning a state with a heavily black electorate.
In an interview with US network ABC broadcast on Monday, Mr Clinton rejected that criticism, saying the story had been spun out of nothing and that it was a "myth" that the Clinton campaign had engaged in racial politics in the state.
Last week, former vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro resigned from her unpaid advisory post to the Clinton campaign after a row over remarks appearing to suggest Mr Obama had only got where he was because of his race.
'Tragic history'
Mr Wright has resigned from an honorary position on the campaign's African-American Religious Leadership Committee, aides to Mr Obama said.
Before his retirement from Trinity United Church of Christ, in Chicago, the pastor helped Mr Obama affirm his Christian faith, officiated at his wedding and baptised his daughters.
Mr Obama said he had looked to Mr Wright for spiritual, not political, guidance.
In a sermon on the Sunday after the attacks of 11 September 2001, Mr Wright suggested that the US had brought the terror attacks on itself through its own foreign policy.
And in a 2003 sermon, he said blacks should condemn the US because of continuing racial injustice, saying: "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human."
Trinity church said the recent attacks on Mr Wright had been made by "external forces" that want to "vilify us".
He has now turned this whole thing into blame America and I and I alone will heal you! Prophetic,isn’t it. I mean pathetic isn’t it. The spin doctor is in da house.
We must move beyond my race and recognize that there is a difference between the races which I shall exploit in my bid... Wait, I didn’t mean that...
Please; Hint Obama, your speech will be remembered for 15 minutes, those youtube videos will be seen by more people than hear about your speech.
But ignoring Black racism and passing it off on black anger is just fine huh???
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OBAMA SPEECH IN FULL: A MORE PERFECT UNION
Really? The Michigan Courts just threw out a challenge to a voter passed Constitutional Amendment that prohibits use of Race in any hiring or appointment positions. It appears Michigan is about to 'Ignore Race' in the bestowing of benefits and privileges. So sometimes it is good to 'Ignore Race'.
Blah, blah
Yeah Blacks suffer and suffered and a black church more likely will bring up these things
But how many adopt Marxit/Third-Worldist pseudo-intellectual rants and boilerplate?
I’m sorry Mr. One-Note, but YOU’RE the one that makes it all about race - black this, black that. You NEED it to be all about race. If you weren’t black, you’d have been a footnote in this campaign.
You’re half white Obama - how do you sleep after attending a church that literally insults your mother week after week. Better yet, run as a White candidate and see how many votes you get.
That was just a law passed by evil whitey and Jooos.
Obama hopes to promise hopeful change, so that future generations can have change of hope.
Let me get this straight; blacks think that they’re the only people that have been enslaved throughout history? Wrong! How about citing world history that Osama’s “enraged” pastor apparently never heard about. Try going back to Roman and Egyptian times when conquered people were enslaved or killed. How about remembering the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and other periods through time when millions were slaughtered and enslaved. Blacks don’t own this issue.
“we are supposed to be a color-blind society, and I believe for the most part we are...”
You are correct.
And, it has happened in an amazingly short period of time. America has offered reasonably equal OPPORTUNITY for decades. I say reasonably, because no, not all of us have elite connections to give us a leg up. But of course, that has little do with race, anyway.
Is that a real picture from Obama’s blame whitey speech? If so, what is a man who refused to wear the American flag on his lapel doing surrounding himself with American flags when he needs to bail his butt out of trouble?
As as to his call for not ignoring race, for once I agree with the little sheister — which I why I will not vote for a black man who refuses to lead his people in apologizing for destroying all of our once-beautiful cities and paying reparations so that we can once again rebuild them.
So much for Martin Luther King
If this guys gets elected we’ll have years of nothing but race talk. Not looking forward to it.
LOL...Lovely!
Actually, my whole life was based on the premise that you CAN ignore race.
Hire the BEST person for the position...
An a-hole is an a-hole no matter what color he is...
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