Halfway through, I already knew that this was the greatest speech on race that I had ever heard a politician deliver. Truly historic. The way he placed the issues in historical, individual, and universal contexts was really unprecedented in the world of politics. He used an issue which marred his reputation (his association with Reverend Wright) to make a grand statement about America’s entrenched racial problems while tying it to the complexity of the human condition. Amazing.
The way he dealt with Wright was masterful and took serious guts. His stance of repudiating the words of the man and not the man himself definitely makes him a vulnerable target for his opponents and places his candidacy at risk. And he risks losing voters who think he was too soft on Wright. Knowing this, he chose not to completely throw a person whom he loved under the bus. Instead, he humanized someone who had been demonized through providing a window into Wright’s world and many other black folk who share some of his incendiary views.
For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. 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.
And he connected his association with Wright to an experience we can all relate to–having strong objections to the beliefs and/or actions of a loved one. In doing so, he brought something real to the table that has been absent in other discussions of race. Far too often, we are subjected to binary public rhetoric of good/evil and right/wrong–language that hardly ever represents reality. Obama cut through all that and brought the discussion to a higher and more accurate depiction of who we and our loved ones really are:
[Reverend Wright] contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years. 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 - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
How Obama weaved together messages of personal and collective responsibility was particularly impressive to me. I loved how he spoke of the importance of black folks taking responsibility of our own current and future condition and to not completely separate our struggles for justice from the struggles of others. He doesn’t let black folks off the hook in how complicit we can be in the maintenance of our problems and doesn’t suggest that pointing the finger is in any way a solution (as many black leaders do). Yet, he stresses continuing fighting the good fight for equality and justice.
For the African-American community, that path [of moving beyond racial wounds] means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
More than ever, I want a president who can clearly see and communicate difficult issues like the U.S. racial problem. On the other hand, if his speech somehow kills his candidacy because some feel like he wasn’t hard enough on Wright, then so be it. This speech today needed to happen–whatever the result. A speech can’t change the world or solve deep racial division, but at the very least it might begin the first real public discussion on the topic of race.
7 responses so far ↓
1
JJ
// Mar 19, 2008 at 2:07 am
Great post Mike…I agree 100%. Obama’s speech was one of the best EVER. It will make history.
Below is a comment by a white lady in Alabama in response to Obama’s speech. I found it to be quite moving:
I too, hope the country will be smart enough to elect Obama for President. I hope Americans will seize this moment in history to become better people and a better nation.
2
Mike
// Mar 19, 2008 at 6:49 am
Thanks JJJ. That was a great comment by that woman. That is one of the great strengths of Obama–he asks something of all of us in making the country better. I don’t remember where I heard it, but someone said that great leaders always ask something of those they lead (e.g. “Ask not what your country can do for you…”). They don’t take the position of being able to make the change by themselves or through the policies they endorse. People who desire change must also change themselves and great leaders help facilitate that. I see no one better than Obama to achieve this.
I don’t know if the people will be smart enough to recognize these great strengths and vote for him. I don’t know how different our mindset is since electing Bush. But if he is elected, it will already represent a major shift in perspective among the masses.
3
E
// Mar 19, 2008 at 7:40 am
Mike, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments, and JJ that excerpt about that woman’s father weeping over the Obama speech was powerful. Thanks.
Obama’s candidacy indeed asks all of us to lead. The strength of his campaign is that he’s made it our campaign. He’s allowed us to take control. A movement of the people by the people.
I also love the fact that he explained the complexities of race. It’s not as simple as black and white, even among blacks. We need only to look at the tensions sometimes between American and foreign blacks to know that the issues are far more than meets the eye.
4
Vee
// Mar 19, 2008 at 9:40 am
“A speech can’t change the world or solve deep racial division”
I just finished reading the speech, unable to hear it. Cool post and comments, but I have one minute counter-point.
A speech or words can change the world, usher nations into wars, inspire revolutions, influence behaviors, public policy, thought, a speech alone can get you a job, or a great one delivered at the Democratic National Convention can make you a viable candidate for the White House.
I’m sure all politicians, business leaders are taking note and do not underestimate the power of influential speeches. The gift of gab can take you very far.
5
Mike
// Mar 19, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Very true, Vee. I think our perspectives are not that different from each other. Words, when used effectively can have a strong impact on behavior and speeches can really move people. My point here is that it will ultimately be the action/behavior (which may be influenced by the words) that will create the change. The words may be the trigger for something larger as it has been the case for many other social movements in the past.
6
L
// Mar 20, 2008 at 7:15 am
To me, the most powerful part of the speech–the part that for the first time in my life made me look up to a public figure as someone I wanted to follow and not box across the ears–was the way Obama framed the race issue as a two-sided problem. Too often, blacks see whites as racists and whites see blacks as incorrigible and deserving of their ire. In both instances, the perceiver is innocent and the object fully guilty. Indeed, my lens for viewing the race problem as often been an us vs. them polemic. Perhaps for the first time, Obama made me view racism as the product of interactive failure. That is, the way he framed racism as the product of blacks and whites both viewing opportunity and resources in America as a “zero-sum game” casts the race issue in a whole new light for me. Viewed this way, race in this country isn’t about hating the immutable characteristics of another group of people, it’s about fearing the possibility that the “thems” will take all the money, jobs, houses, and food from “us.” In that light, it doesn’t matter who the “them” is, nor who the “us” are: race is inextricably linked to class struggle. Of course, there are those whose prejudice emanates from the immutable characteristics of others, but it may be that that prejudice gives voice and context to a fear grounded not in race but a fear grounded in the prospect of being left with nothing, being the zero in the zero-sum game. This notion has always existed on the margin for me, but it finally makes sense. If Obama is right, that a black girl in New Jersey who gets a great rather than an OK education will somehow benefit a white man in New Mexico, then he has uncracked the code of racism in America. The only step left now is explaining the link. Damn.
7
E
// Mar 20, 2008 at 10:36 am
“Perhaps for the first time, Obama made me view racism as the product of interactive failure”
L,
I think you got it! One need only live in a country where everyone’s the same color to understand that ‘racism’ isn’t about pigmentation. but the perceptions of limitations. X’s success is Y’s failure. Therefore, because X’s hair is curly, everone with curly hair must be shunned for they’re not for the benefit of Ys. Obama’s speech unraveled America’s cognitive dissonance with race by declaring: Where we create policies aimed at conspicuosly demonstrating to one race that initiatives aimed at improving the lot of another race, lifts all race, we end racism. Sounds too simple, but I’m not yet–and not sure I can– able to disprove it.
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