The Speech

Couldn’t get to this earlier in the day, so I’m going to go through as much of the commentary as I can right here and now.

The complete transcript is here. Video is here, and below:

Rather than tell you what I thought of the speech (you probably already know, anyway), I am going to let you read what Andrew Sullivan thought of it:

Alas, I cannot give a more considered response right now as I have to get on the road. But I do want to say that this searing, nuanced, gut-wrenching, loyal, and deeply, deeply Christian speech is the most honest speech on race in America in my adult lifetime. It is a speech we have all been waiting for for a generation. Its ability to embrace both the legitimate fears and resentments of whites and the understandable anger and dashed hopes of many blacks was, in my view, unique in recent American history.

And it was a reflection of faith – deep, hopeful, transcending faith in the promises of the Gospels. And it was about America – its unique promise, its historic purpose, and our duty to take up the burden to perfect this union – today, in our time, in our way.

I have never felt more convinced that this man’s candidacy – not this man, his candidacy – and what he can bring us to achieve – is an historic opportunity. This was a testing; and he did not merely pass it by uttering safe bromides. He addressed the intimate, painful love he has for an imperfect and sometimes embittered man. And how that love enables him to see that man’s faults and pain as well as his promise. This is what my faith is about. It is what the Gospels are about. This is a candidate who does not merely speak as a Christian. He acts like a Christian.

Bill Clinton once said that everything bad in America can be rectified by what is good in America. He was right – and Obama takes that to a new level. And does it with the deepest darkest wound in this country’s history.

I love this country. I don’t remember loving it or hoping more from it than today.

This, actually, is what all faiths are about, at their source.

There was nothing divisive about this speech. It was inclusive, welcoming, open-hearted, and meant to unite, not divide. Here is one paragraph that stood out for me:

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

Is that divisive and anti-American? No, but this is:

Obama is no longer a post-racial candidate. In his speech (it’s still going on, but I’ve heard enough) today, he has embraced the politics of grievance. He says that the Rev. Wright has “elevated what is wrong” with America — elevated?

Not fabricated but elevated. Does that mean the Rev. Wright is correct about America’s deserving the attacks of Sept. 11 — but he just elevates it to undue prominence? Obama says that we shouldn’t “condemn without understanding the roots” of remarks like those Wright made. Whatever the roots, these remarks are to be condemned. Within what context is it correct for the Rev. Wright to say “God damn America?”

I stopped listening when the senator started talking about immigrant Americans and it was clear that he was going to extend the roster of victims to include everybody. There is no excuse for Wright and his ugly sermons. Obama could have said he loved the man, but he’s wrong in his hatred of America. But that is not what Obama said. There is no excuse for Wright’s brand of hatred.

My bolds above — read the emphasized words again, and then take a look at the context from which Hays took the phrase “elevated what is wrong”:

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

So now tell me whether the true hater is Barack Obama, or whether it’s Charlotte Hays and her ilk. I mean, this is more than mere distortion — this is lying by omission. Clearly, Obama’s meaning was exactly the reverse of what Hays made it out to be — but she is determined to hold on to her hatred come hell or high water.

Far right bloggers were also quite displeased with Obama’s refusal to disavow his relationship with Rev. Wright. In true Stalinist fashion, the wingnuts would have liked Obama to declare that Rev. Wright no longer existed for him as a person; that he was not his friend; that he was not his spiritual mentor. Instead, Obama chose to explain why he could not and would not do that:

… As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He 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.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

This raised hackles on the far right, because Obama was, of course, suggesting that white racist behavior is just as offensive as black racist behavior.

Karl at Protein Wisdom:

… That Obama insists on claiming Wright is like part of his family whom he cannot disown, when he self-evidently chose the association — and that he compares Wright to “the entire black community” tells Obama’s audience much more about Obama than about Wright or the black community.

Which of course misses the point entirely. Family members disown each other all the time. Whether you can choose your family or not has nothing to do with it. Parents disown children, despite the fact that they chose to have those children, and adult children sometimes disown parents, too, although children do not choose their families. Whether you choose a relationship or it chooses you, it’s the meaning and importance of the relationship to the people who are in it that makes it trivial or essential — not whether you chose it or not.

Sister Toldjah:

My initial assessment of the speech is that it accomplished nothing, and was filled with moral equivalences galore, such as him saying he could no more disown Rev. Wright than he could his own white grandmother, who made comments about black people in the past that made Obama “cringe.” Same same [sic] for the black community. Disowning the Rev. to him would be like disowning the black community. He also implied in parts of the speech that we all knew people – black and white – who have made racist comments but who were/are also essentially good people who meant/mean no harm. IOW, Rev. Wright is overall a wonderful man, but he makes mistakes sometimes with how he talks, as do most people, on issues of race, so like, no one in this country can claim the high ground.

Bruce McQuain:

Moving on – the worst part of his speech is when Obama resorts to stereotype and overgeneralization to cleverly attempt to justify “black anger” by claiming it is no different than the successful political exploitation of “white anger” (and attempting to atone for having complemented [sic] Reagan at one time previously):

Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

That may sell well to those who embrace those sorts of stereotypes, but to attempt to describe a complex political coalition like that by citing two fairly marginal issues won’t sell to those who know better. Claiming “anger” was the catalyst which brought it all together ignores the fact that there was a pathetic President in office faced with major economic and foreign policy failures that had much more to do with the Reagan coalition than Obama’s assertions.

And claiming that a “victim culture” and “reverse racism” and “hatred of America” is the catalyst for Rev. Wright’s fiery sermons ignores 400 years of human bondage, torture, terror, disenfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation, separate and unequal education, fire hoses and snarling dogs, lynching, beating, mutilation, raping, humiliation, unequal job opportunity, private academies for white children and no schools at all for black children, screaming mobs, burning crosses, and more. But it’s always been easier for some white Americans not to see political exploitation of white racism and to dismiss African-Americans who do see it as “oversensitive” or as having a “grievance mentality” — while simultaneously deploring the inability of African-Americans to distinguish between white politicians’ appeals to white racism and “complex political coalitions.”

And possibly the most hypocritical, venal example of all, from Scott at Power Line:

When seeking to extricate himself from the tight spot in which he has been placed by his long association with the spiritual leadership of Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama hauled in his (living) maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham. Obama has previously characterized Mrs. Dunham as a “trailblazer of sorts, the first woman vice-president of a local bank.” She had a direct hand in his upbringing when Obama chose to live with his maternal grandparents rather than his mother, who was then in Indonesia. Today Obama brought Mrs. Dunham into his speech for a cameo appearance as a white counterpart to the fulsome Reverend Wright:

I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] 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.

Even amid the false equivalencies and obvious evasions of his speech today, Obama’s misuse of his grandmother seems to me a striking sign of poor character.

See, it’s “poor character” and a “misuse of his [white] grandmother” for Obama to reveal that, although she loved, helped raise, and sacrificed for, her black grandson, she was not totally free of racial prejudice, in an attempt to support his point that human beings are complex, and even very good and loving and decent people can say shocking and even on occasion terrible things. Indeed, as Scott informs us in his post title, it’s “throwing grandma under the bus.”

But disowning his pastor whom he has known for over 20 years; who was instrumental in transforming him from an atheist to a committed, devout Christian; who officiated at his wedding and baptized his children; whom he spent long hours talking to and seeking guidance from about spiritual matters; to whom he feels that he owes, in large and significant part, his passion for social justice and his concern for the black community he has lived in for decades; who is, simply, one of his closest and dearest friends and mentors, would have been the correct and principled thing for Obama to do. Sharing his memories of his grandmother as a whole, complex, loving and accomplished, yet flawed, human being, is showing poor character. Betraying his long-time pastor, spiritual mentor, role model, and heartfelt friend would be proof of good character.

Gotta love that moral consistency.

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