Reverend Wright and other African- Americans of his generation ... came of age in the late '50s and early '60s, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. ...
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations ...
Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their world view in fundamental ways. 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 the beauty shop 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.
And then, in a stroke of pure political genius, Obama acknowledged that working-class and middle-class whites begrudge affirmative action, busing and other measures meant to redress "an injustice that they themselves never committed," particularly since "no one handed [their immigrant forebears] anything," and equated these feelings with the ongoing resentment blacks feel – continually stoked by Rev. Wright and other race-baiting pastors in churches nationwide – even as one of their own is making a credible attempt at capturing the highest office in the land.
As befitting a man who is right up there with Washington and Lincoln before he has even assumed the mantle of the presidency, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof declares Obama's speech "a masterpiece to go down in history along with Bryan's 'Cross of Gold' and Kennedy's about his Catholicism." (Yes, Nick, but did you feel anything going up your leg?)
It was a good speech – perhaps even a great speech – but The Stiletto wouldn't go that far, especially as Obama got cute in a few spots and was less than forthright:
† Obama misleadingly referred to Rev. Wright as his "ex-pastor," implying that one of the ways in which he has repudiated Wright's racist, anti-American rhetoric is to choose to receive spiritual guidance from another pastor. The truth is, Wright resigned and another pastor is assuming his duties.
† Obama's view of his obligation as a Christian is fine in so far as it goes ("Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well."), but most Christians do not equate Jesus's exhortations that it is our collective obligation to G-d to help the poor, the weak and the despised as a call to adopt a Marxist regime. And Obama does not say whether he thinks Jesus was a poor black man who lived in a country and a culture controlled by rich European white people, as Wright has taught.
† Obama says that Rev. Wright and his fellow congregants at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ "are a part of me, and they are part of America, this country that I love," but he did not explain why his wife had a profoundly different reaction to the same sermons he listened to for 20 years and had become inculcated with the belief that there was nothing about America she could be proud of – at least, until her husband's candidacy – and has even called America an "outright mean" nation.
† Obama points out that whites do not express their anger "in public, in front of white co- workers or white friends" – unless they are suicidal and want to lose their jobs, get pilloried in the media and become pariahs in their communities – but they do talk amongst themselves "in the barbershop or the beauty shop or around the kitchen table." As OpinionJournal's James Taranto astutely points out: "Note how Obama elides the difference between a comment at the 'kitchen table' and a sermon delivered to a congregation of thousands and recorded on DVD."
† Obama complained that, "[Republican] politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends" and that "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." What was Rev. Wright doing if not exploiting the fears of the black community for his own political ends ("The government gives him the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing 'G-d Bless America.' No, no, no. Not 'G-d Bless America.' 'G-d damn America.'"), or making bogus claims of genocidal racism ("The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color.") while dismissing legitimate advances blacks have made socially and economically? Obama should have clearly equated what Wright was doing with what these divisive politicians and pundits were doing.
It remains to be seen whether Obama's speech allays the concerns of Americans who wonder whether he is really what he presents himself to be. Is he a biracial, multi-ethnic man who transcends race and embodies the hopes and promise of America? Or is he a closet racist (AKA "black separatist") who believes that Jesus was a black man; that the U.S. government purposefully infected blacks with the AIDS virus to wipe them out; and that America should be damned for its treatment of blacks from its inception onward?
One doesn't have to be an anti-black racist not to want to vote for an anti-white racist.
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