The Obama speech

Both the Gallup and Rasmussen polls have shown a steady drop for Sen. Obama in the past week.  They both had him dropping at least a percentage point a day since March 13.  The Quinnipiac poll showed Hillary increasing her lead in Pennsylvania from 6 to 12 points.  Sen. Obama had to do something to staunch the wound.

His excellent speech was well-written, had depth and insight, and was a serious attempt to discuss the issue of race in a healthy, straight-forward, and productive way.  It is a major contribution to the literature of race and civil rights in our country.

Personally, I'm pleased that he didn't, as he was urged to do, "throw Wright under the bus."  Rev. Wright has clearly had a strong influence on Sen. Obama for many years.  To reject Wright personally would have been clear political pandering.  It might have "worked" politically, but it would have reflected badly on Sen. Obama's character.  To his credit, he owned his friendship with Wright, acknowledged his disagreements, and affirmed the over-all work of Wright and Trinity Church.  Obama today:

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Sen. Obama made several shrewd moves in this speech.  As the speech progressed, he shifted from race to class, which is more congenial ground for him politically, and also touches upon the divide in our country that may be deeper even than race.  He faulted Wright for not seeing that change is possible, thus criticizing Wright on an important point, and neatly underlining the theme of his own campaign.

Where he didn't do so well was in his weak attempt to drag the Clinton campaign into the fray.  He made reference to racial tensions "bubbling to the surface" during the week before the South Carolina primary.  The only "racial tensions" during that period were accusations that Bill Clinton had called Obama a "fairy tale," which he hadn't, and Hillary Clinton's thoroughly legitimate observation that LBJ pushed through civil rights legislation.  It was the Obama campaign that characterized these comments as racially tinged.  (Bill Clinton said on January 26, the same day as the South Carolina primary, that Jesse Jackson had won the state's primary twice.  This statement of historical fact was widely said to be a "dog whistle" to white voters, but wasn't.  Jackson himself took no offense.)

One of Obama's skills is his ability not just as a public speaker, but as a preacher.  This is infrequently remarked upon, but it's a very real strength.  With his alliterative phrasing, cadence and rhythms, and occasional call-and-response, you get a whiff of black preaching with Obama.  It can be enthralling, to which I myself can testify.  I'm convinced that at least part of Obama's appeal is that, for the first time, many white Americans are getting a glimpse of the power of the African-American pulpit.   

The problem is that there is another side to black preaching--a much more free-wheeling, confrontational, radical side.  Given the history of black people in this country, it is not surprising that bitterness and even anger would come to expression in the one institution they can call their own, the black church.  When white America sees that--as it just did--many will be very uncomfortable with it. 

In the long run, after lots of exposure and desensitization, people might react to it differently.  They may be able to set aside the things that hit them too hard right now, and come to see the black church in a new way.  This would be a good thing because the black church has a lot to say about life and the Christian faith that white people could profit by hearing and seeing. 

The Exodus event is seen differently in the black church than in the white one.  The Sermon on the Mount is heard in a different way.  The gospel looks and feels different from the "underside."  White America would benefit by learning to see the Lord Jesus as he is seen in the barrios, in the ghettos, and in the teeming cities of the third world.

Keep in mind:  The gospel originated from the "underside."  Whatever else he was, Jesus was definitely the leader of a peasant movement that was opposed by the religiously corrupt and politically oppressive powers of his day.  The black church, and third world churches generally, understand this in a way that prosperous white churches do not.

Yes, Rev. Wright went way over the top, and his more radical pronouncements are rightly rejected.  His remarks about Hillary Clinton were misogynist.  His repeating the old canard that the government deliberately fed HIV into the black community is paranoid and bizarre.  It is nonsense to say that 9.11 was our own fault--"chickens coming home to roost."  Yes, our government's policies toward Islamic countries has often been thick-headed and obtuse, but that doesn't justify killing 3000 innocent people.

It is strange, though, that white protestants don't seem to be held to a similar standard.  They can bloviate all kinds of ranting nonsense, such as gays being responsible for Katrina and liberals being responsible for 9.11.  They can holler "war, war, war" with just about anybody, but, as long as they do it wrapped in a flag, nobody gets too worked up about it. 

Obama's speech today is the third such speech in the past 50 years--one by a Roman Catholic, one by a Mormon, one from a member of the African-American church.  That alone should tell us that, if you deviate from white protestant, you've got some 'splainin to do.

JFK accomplished what he needed in his 1960 speech.  In 2007, Mitt Romney did not.  It remains to be seen how Obama's speech will impact this race.  The soundbites from Trinity UCC will be hard to overcome, and no doubt various pieces of Obama's speech will be highlighted and made to sound much differently than when viewed in the context of the entire speech.

Did he do what he needed to do?  If his intent was to draw us further down the road to racial healing, yes.  This speech deserves to be read, studied, and inwardly digested.  Did he turn it around politically?  Perhaps, although--I say with regret--I doubt it.

   

Comments

[poetryman69]

Getting yourself pastored for 20 years by a radical hater shows bad judgment. Lying about it when asked by the media shows dishonesty. Now we know the real reason why you refused to wear a flag lapel pin and why your wife has never before been proud of America. If we take you at your word, you spent 20 years in the company of a man, and never once figured out that he was a virulent racist. No Presidency for you.

--klqtzzz

[Dan Hays]

In the kitchen of half-baked notions
And cooked-up realities
One should not be taken aback
When on the tepid stove of thought we hear
The pot call the kettle black.