If you read Kimberly's post from last week, or followed the campaign news over the weekend, you know that there has been an uproar over parts of sermons that the pastor of Barack Obama's church gave in the past.Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the now-retired pastor, had used some very strong language critical of the United States and U.S. foreign policy. (BTW - most of these sermons were given a few years ago, before Obama became a senator. But what some people are asking is how could he attend a church with a pastor that would say such things.)
Obama gave a speech yesterday, that not only addressed his relationship with Rev. Wright, but really laid out some important issues that we are dealing with in this country. At least I thought it was a great speech. What did you think?
You can listen to it here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords/ ; read a trancript of the speech here, or read the coverage in any of the major news outlets.
I am so curious to see how America receives this speech. But I am fearful that people will not look at the complexity of the issue Obama tried to address. The intellecutally lazy will be tempted to simply retreat back into old stereotypes of what "blacks are like" and what "whites are like". Obama was calling on blacks, whites, and also Asians, Latinos, and others to try to understand each others attitudes and to reach out to one another to bridge the differences that we have inherited from a divided an ugly history of race in the U.S. It is so important for all of us to understand that history, and to understand how to use our constitutional system to make "a more perfect union".
I loved this speech not only because I support Barack's candidacy, but the message he was trying to get across is one of the goals upon which I have built my teaching career - trying to get diverse Americans to empathize with, and understand one another. Only Barack can deliver the message much more effectively and reach a lot more people than I ever will.
1 comment:
This is Hellen speaking.....
Sel made our whole family watch that speech by Baracke Obama like one thousand timeS!!!!!!. IT's like 30 minutes too! Anyway, the first statement I want to make is for dirty politician campaigning to end NOW!!!I mean I think that this speech shouldn't of even happened in the first place for something that happened like 3 years ago and has nothing to do with what Obama beleives, just because it is his pastor does not mean that they completely agree with eachother. Also, this defense that Obama brought forth was so inspiring and so real, it's like he was brought to us to be our president...HE CAN MAKE A CHANGE!!!Also, the whole thing about Obama's pastor being retired and these videos being brought from a couple of years ago... That alone just shows you how sad Clinton is to have to dig deep and be so dirty and try to get votes by making the country beleive false statements, on top of that statemenets not even stated by Obama alone. The fact that Obama explained to the country his relationship with his Rev. shows that he truly has nothing to hide and that he knows he will make it so that the world knows the situation, and now we do. It only made Hillary look dumb, honestly it really did. I honestly do wonder how America took the message, but honestly it seems like people who dont have faith in a change and people who are traight up racist are the ones who would be like... heck no that aint happenin in the United States... I really do hope it was taken the way I took it in because if everyone took that way.... The world not only our country but the world would change!
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