That was an incredible speech. Thanks for sharing it Mallika! I was ready to cry at the end, but maintained :-)

Love, Char

Obama's speech.. moving, inspiring, and downright poetic in delivery!! Bravo, Obama!!

Mallika,

Obama said "I can no more disavow him than I can the black community". Is it poetic or noble to equate a hate-spewing pastor with the black community? No, it isn't. Obama then speaks of his white grandmother and how loving she was but that she "on more than one occassion uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe"--what a clever way of distracting our emotions away from a racist preacher stirring up hate in a congregation of which he VOLUNTARILY was a part of by painting a picture of a flawed yet loving grandmother who raised him. Somehow the metaphorical camera panned away from the topic at hand (hate-filled preacher preaching to Obama) to the entity of the entire black community and then to a touching scene of a woman whose love outweighed her flaws.
I wish he would not have insulted my intelligence by attempting to lump very dissimilar things together. If he cannot tell the difference between his grandmother's flaws and a
hate-mongering preacher, this is not someone I want running our country.

Indeed, great speech, Mallika

Olvia is labeling Wright as a "hate-mongering" preacher. That's not the case. The Obama critics had to dig up thousands of sermons of Wright to come up with the snippets they are repeating on TV to make a caricature of him. She is a typical low info American who is a victim of MSM and her own cognitive biases.

I cringed when he talks about Wright and his grandmother in the same breath, as if it's a moral equivalence.

But good speech that's all that counts right? Home run, yippeee!

If the disowning part of the speech is most remembered, I wonder....

Steve

"I cringed when he talks about Wright and his grandmother in the same breath, as if it's a moral equivalence."

"Good" speech takes that into consideration as well.

Washington Post: A Deeply Personal Speech…

Time: Obama Did What Politicians So Rarely Do...

The New Republic: A Brilliant Argument For The Modern Liberal Agenda...

NY Times: Obama Advisers Knew Speech Was One Of His Biggest Tests…

Jesse Jackson: Obama Just Turned Crisis Into Opportunity…

David Corn: “A Speech Unlike Any Delivered By A Major Political Figure”...

Obama Race Speech Reaction...

The Corner, Charles Murray:

I read the various posts here on "The Corner," mostly pretty ho-hum or critical about Obama's speech. Then I figured I'd better read the text (I tried to find a video of it, but couldn't). I've just finished. Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one? As far as I'm concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant--rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America. It is so far above the standard we're used to from our pols.... But you know me. Starry-eyed Obama groupie.

***

The Politico, Ben Smith:

A smart colleague notes that this speech is the polar opposite of this year's other big speech on faith, in which Mitt Romney went to Texas to talk about Mormonism, but made just one reference to his Mormon faith.

Obama mentions Wright by name 14 times.

***

TPM, Josh Marshall:

I think I have to dissent from David's view that Obama didn't bring his A-game to the speech this morning. I was only able to listen/watch out of the corner of my eye because I was on deadline for something else. But my sense was that the tempo and tenor was suited to the occasion. The kind of stirring delivery he's made a trademark of in his victory celebrations would not have been appropriate for the moment.

***

Mother Jones, David Corn:

With racial sentiments swirling in the 2008 campaign--notably, Geraldine Ferraro's claim that Barack Obama is not much more than an affirmative action case and the controversy over his former pastor's over-the-top remarks-- Senator Obama on Tuesday morning responded to these recent fusses with a speech unlike any delivered by a major political figure in modern American history. While explaining--not excusing--Reverend Jeremiah Wright's remarks (which Obama had already criticized), he called on all Americans to recognize that even though the United States has experienced progress on the racial reconciliation front in recent decades (Exhibit A: Barack Obama), racial anger exists among both whites and blacks, and he said that this anger and its causes must be fully acknowledged before further progress can be achieved. Obama did this without displaying a trace of anger himself.

***

Atlantic.com, James Fallows:

It was a moment that Obama made great through the seriousness, intelligence, eloquence, and courage of what he said. I don't recall another speech about race with as little pandering or posturing or shying from awkward points, and as much honest attempt to explain and connect, as this one.

***

Radar, Charles Kaiser:

He did it.

No other presidential candidate in the last forty years has managed to speak so much truth so eloquently at such a crucial juncture in his campaign as Barack Obama did today. And he did it by speaking about race, the most persistent source of hatred among us since America began.

It turns out that a candidate for president with a white mother and a black father has a capacity that no one else has ever had before: he can articulate an equal understanding of black racism and white racism --and that makes it possible for him to condemn both of them with equal passion.

***

Atlantic.com, Andrew Sullivan:

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.

***

The American Prospect, Kate Sheppard:

Obama's much-anticipated speech on race today hit the appropriate tone not just for addressing the Jeremiah Wright flap, but for framing the relevance of his candidacy in general. It was best in the way it framed the discomfort and resentment in the discussion of race in America that has lead to a "racial stalemate" for so many years, and made race "a part of our union that we have not yet made perfect."

Well done, Mallika!

barack's victory in november will be historic, sweet and monumental! to say the least...it will make some cynics cringe! no doubt! damn!

Diablo:

Dude, don't get too excited and over-confident. Obama will most probably get the dem nomination(the sooner the better,) but its still a long way to go in the general election where gentle breeze can change directions and create doldrums, perhaps a map-changing landslide for Obama or a small victory for McCain.

Remember, most intellectuals and highly elected individuals in America still vote Republican because of their political philosophy. Lets see oif the bad name brought by Bush and the pandering to the far right wing religious element of the GOP, will have some toll on the party. Had Iraq war succeeded it would have been one of biggest strategic victory for the GOP, and also one of the the greatest investments. But it failed, let see if there are any repercussions.

I believe the Conservatives have one of the best economic philosophies. Obama's economic plan is influenced by the Chicago School Economics which set the agenda for the Conservatives for decades. And that's a good thing but still, he is way too liberal for intelligent people from the GOP block to support him.

Ref. 12

"Highly educated" not "Highly elected"

Here's a nice parallel:

The BJP in India is like the GOP in Amercia.

We can be assured that while 'most' Indian Americans who emigrated to USA would have voted for BJP in India, they would vote predominantly for Democrats in the USA. Considerings the voters' own self-interest, the Republican party should be their choice, but they are simply not informed of what's the right choice for them, and the reasons for them.

As I watched Barack Obama confront the circular media firing squad about his relationship with his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, I was not angry or judgmental, shocked or apprehensive. Over the past several weeks I have felt that the divisiveness of this presidential race was like a heat-seeking missile searching for it's ultimate target. There was collateral damage inflicted along the way: South Carolina, the question of Obama's middle name, Samantha Power's attack of Clinton, Geraldine Ferraro's remarks and all of that lay between. All of these hurt. All of these gave the media a lot to work with -- and, of course, were being banked as precious currency for the GOP carpet-bombing mission to come in the general election.

I guess I had some ideas about what I thought and hoped Obama would say. But when he said that he was not present in the pew when Reverend Wright spoke the words that sparked all this fervor, I was sure that it would not be the end of the story...

What I was wondering was: what could be more constructive than the emotional and intellectual expression of anger, resentment, injustice and despair in church and with God? How can we truly come together without respecting the angry voice that lives inside all of us? And isn't it better to grapple with all of life's complexities in a spiritual context?

And then Barack Obama delivered his speech this morning. A speech that confirmed the historic value of his campaign no matter what happens.

"...we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together -- unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories."

Obama is not a conventional candidate. And it is because of all the things he is and all the things he is not. He understands that we ought to respect all of our stories and learn each other's stories to protect ourselves from our destructive patterns and from ignorance. He is working to help us find the connections between all our stories while not losing our distinctive narratives. And to accept our multi-layered memories as the truths they tell us about ourselves and one another.

And as much as anger and resentment can be an obstacle to progress, polite denial of what is real is another form of tyranny.

The ability to connect the threads of these stories and work toward a whole may be a new way to define leadership -- and Barack Obama could be the leader to point us all in that direction.

Perhaps the thing that will stay with me for a very long time about this speech is Obama's assertion that the one thing we all share -- no matter what our story is -- is the choices we make in how we live those stories out and how we visit them on others.

We each write our own story. But not without acknowledging that there are some indelible touchstones we carry with us. The balance between where we come from and where we are going allows us to become who we are -- as individuals and as a country.

If we choose now to relinquish the opportunity to embrace a leader who sees contradiction with such truth and tolerance we may be doing so at our peril. Because this kind of emotional and intellectual intelligence isn't born from the kind of black and white way of looking at the world we have been living with for the past 8 years. This is a man who dreams in color, and we should seize the opportunity his candidacy offers all of us -- together.

"Barack Obama in Black and White in Color" by Julie Bergman Sender

Senator Barack Obama's speech today was eloquent, insightful and unprecedented.

Unlike the analysis of race that conservatives, liberals and progressives have made in the past, Senator Obama's marriage of race with the nation's economic challenges was deeper and broader than any speech given in recent memory. He brilliantly steered this campaign season away from the old, business-as-usual politics, to the visionary politics that Americans demand during a race for the White House.

I'm reminded of another politician who initiated his own conversation on race, former president Bill Clinton. In 1997, the then-president launched a year-long race initiative. But Clinton's race dialogue took place without a corresponding economic proposal. As a result, the race talk in the absence of economic action ran the risk of being merely -- what I called at the time -- "race entertainment."

There's been too much talk about race in politics for too long. Senator Obama gave us an opportunity to take positive action.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did the same thing. When he died, Dr. King was not organizing a discussion about race. He was organizing a "Poor Peoples' Campaign" to fight for economic and racial justice. Dr. King argued that the money we were wasting to conduct an immoral war in Vietnam should have been used to conduct a moral war on poverty at home. And the economic effect of money invested on a war on poverty at home would have had an even greater positive economic impact on a booming domestic economy than the war in Vietnam. Sound familiar?

To talk about race without committing to a quality education for every American child, as well as fairness in wealth and income, is just talk. And all of that talk can only lead to more hostility, frustration and racial animosity. That's been the path for too long. No more talk.

Barack Obama gave us a real choice today. Some may want to continue with the economic and race entertainment of the past, but I join him in choosing something much better this time.

-- Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)

It didn't make sense. A politician responding to a TV news scandal during an election and he's not on the attack or the defensive. Instead he's asking us to look at the forces that shape our feelings on race and understand them. My first reaction was to call DirecTV. Clearly my antenna was out of alignment and picking up old broadcasts of the Outer Limits or Playhouse 90 that are bouncing back to earth from Jupiter. Or maybe that California roll I ate was a week old and I'm unconscious on my living room floor and chemicals in my brain are sloshing towards the wish fulfillment part of my frontal lobe.

But it happened. Barack Obama spoke like an enlightened leader from 2008 instead of like the fake cowboy from 1885 that most politicians evoke or like a pharmaceutical salesman talking about change, but "not that much change" at a team building exercise in Tahoe. In other words, he didn't pass the buck to save his own ass. It was a monumental moment in modern American politics. He didn't distract, deflect, or attempt to frighten. He didn't accuse, declare war, or get angry. He didn't game play, scape goat, or blame. Can you imagine? We need to engrave this shit onto a commemorative coin fast.

Corporate tabloid news coverage, the influence of lobbyists and opinion polls have turned our politicians into the biggest group of hacks since the writing staff for Real People disbanded in the eighties. It's been all button pushing and gamesmanship for our representatives over the past twenty years. Anyone who stepped out of line (Howard Dean, Jimmy Carter, Paul Wellstone) was either written off as boring, naive or nuts. All real issues faded to the background and instead "gay marriage" and "tax breaks" and "military photo ops" became the go to bag of hack political tricks. And our newspapers and TV news shows loved it because it took the discussion away from anything constructive and instead veered it towards juicy programming (Governor is Gay! Congressman involved in Three way! Do Gay Flag Burners Want to Pick Up Your Kids on the Internet?! etc.) and the corporate agenda.

But today's speech was different. It felt like a noise I had never heard but someone once tried to describe to me. It was somewhere between a good episode of The Wire and a John Dos Passos novel. It had perspective. Barack Obama was talking about the future of man and whether or not we will continue to fight each other because of random colors (flags, skin, etc) or whether we will solve big problems together like we have done before (medicine, space travel, democracy). Will we evolve or will we skirmish...? Tilt your head the right way when you listen to the speech. I'm pretty sure it's there.

And then as Obama finished I had to laugh. "Man this must have fucked Wolf Blitzer's shit up" I thought. He spends all of his time trying to avoid constructive discourse and discrediting those who do... This must have made him feel like he was on the tilt awhirl with a belly full of funnel cake and Stroh's. I haven't see his response but I'm sure he turned to the speech into a tactical move on Obama's part. If he didn't and was actually thoughtful about it then Hallelujah.

But enough about the fun-dents, as Ice Cube said "today was a good day."

--Adam McKay

If his speech resonated with you,
you'll love his book:
THE AUDACITY OF HOPE

Barack Obama gave his much anticipated speech on race today. The speech was primarily given in response to the controversy over his association with Jeremiah Wright which I recently discussed here(http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=3037) This speech should put an end to the problem. That does not mean that we won’t hear more about this. Right wingers, and possibly even some Clinton supporters, will continue to try to drag up anything possible to attack Obama with, but Obama has made it clear there is nothing there. No reasonable person could claim that the controversial statements from Wright in any way reflect Obama’s thinking or that they will have any bearing on what he would do as president. If anything, the manner in which Obama took some messages from Wright while rejecting those based upon racial hatred or hatred of America in formulating his views can only be taken as a positive sign about Obama’s ability to transcend old style racial politics and deal with divergent viewpoints.

One of the most favorable comments comes from a conservative site, The Corner, in which Charles Murray disagrees with others posting there who are critical of Obama:

"I read the various posts here on “The Corner,” mostly pretty ho-hum or critical about Obama’s speech. Then I figured I’d better read the text (I tried to find a video of it, but couldn’t). I’ve just finished. Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one? As far as I’m concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant—rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America. It is so far above the standard we’re used to from our pols…. But you know me. Starry-eyed Obama groupie."

Another conservative “Obama groupie” also has a favorable review. Andrew Sullivan wrote:

"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."

A lot will happen between now and November, but it is possible that history will mark today as the day in which Obama’s election became inevitable. Obama has eliminated the obstacles to his election based upon race and religion. As an added bonus, after this controversy much fewer people should buy the smears that he is actually a Muslim.

Written by Ron Chusid.

The transcript of Barack Obama’s speech:

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in...

Read the rest at:

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/full_text_of_obamas_big_race_s.php
(or click my name)

US has been "Glorified" in recent times and its electoral candidtates add more fuel to get them monumented. But US as a country has been solely responsible for destruction of majority of mankind be it anywhere on this peaceful world.

Nevertheless, people has been victims of sweet words and bitter promises which kindles the hope of bringing a noble US.

Mallika, is no exception and Obama knows the game.

Happy hopes.

Regards,
Swami

Jay Rosen: Obama Tells the Best Political Team on Television: You Guys Have a Choice...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-rosen/obama-tells-the-best-poli_b_92139.html

Following his big speech on race Tuesday in Philadelphia, Obama sat down with ABC's "Nightline" and reflected on the potential impact of his speech, for better or worse:

Obama believes giving a speech on race was necessary but concedes that it is a politically risky move. By embracing race and bringing it out in the open, he admits that he could be perceived as "the race candidate."

"Absolutely," he said. "And so, hopefully this is something that we have talked about, we've lifted up, it will spur discussion, like Robert Kennedy's wonderful metaphor, "ripples of hope." You know, you throw a rock into a pond and those ripples will go out. We don't know where those ripples will go. I have no idea how this plays out politically. But I think it was important to do."

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Vote2008/story?id=4472576&page=1

You know what is funny? Obama is being heralded as so altruistic for giving this speech, for delivering this balm of healing to the race problems in America. The funny thing is the only race problem that inspired the speech was the fact that he, Obama, had attended a church with a racist pastor for 20 years. Otherwise he would not have given the speech!!! But for some reason, denial sets in and we don't want to see the actual context of the speech never mind how condescending the speech and our hearts billow with hope that what? Obama will stop opening old wounds? Will stop associating with racist pastor (he already said he wouldn't stop)?
There was a 10% chance I may have voted for him but now not a chance. I think he insults everyone in this nation's intelligence with this speech.

I appreciate but don't empathize with Olivia's sentiments, unless she is acting like a troll by repeating herslef again and again on this blog by labeling and her unreason.

******

"I think he insults everyone in this nation's intelligence with this speech."

Speak for yourself, stupid!

You low self proclaimed low intelligence online caricature and your cognitive biases is no excuse for the shit emanating from your mouth region.

"There was a 10% chance I may have voted for him but now not a chance"

Now that you have DECIDED absolutely, based on his speech which was incidentally appreciated by even long term conservative critics on the Wright issue, and by the newspaper editorial boards and many intellectuals, I think you have no business to partcipate in a discussion in Obama related blogs at Intentblog, where the hosts and bloggers predominantly support Obama and/or Hillary who will certainly support Obama against McCian.

Olivia, you are not going to get any converts here with your vitriol and low intelligence opinions and appeals. You are simply ignored from now on.

In response to the Barack's speech, the New York Times released the following editorial:

Editorial
Mr. Obama’s Profile in Courage

There are moments — increasingly rare in risk-abhorrent modern campaigns — when politicians are called upon to bare their fundamental beliefs. In the best of these moments, the speaker does not just salve the current political wound, but also illuminates larger, troubling issues that the nation is wrestling with.

Inaugural addresses by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt come to mind, as does John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religion, with its enduring vision of the separation between church and state. Senator Barack Obama, who has not faced such tests of character this year, faced one on Tuesday. It is hard to imagine how he could have handled it better.

Mr. Obama had to address race and religion, the two most toxic subjects in politics. He was as powerful and frank as Mitt Romney was weak and calculating earlier this year in his attempt to persuade the religious right that his Mormonism is Christian enough for them.

It was not a moment to which Mr. Obama came easily. He hesitated uncomfortably long in dealing with the controversial remarks of his spiritual mentor and former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who denounced the United States as endemically racist, murderous and corrupt.

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama drew a bright line between his religious connection with Mr. Wright, which should be none of the voters’ business, and having a political connection, which would be very much their business. The distinction seems especially urgent after seven years of a president who has worked to blur the line between church and state.

Mr. Obama acknowledged his strong ties to Mr. Wright. He embraced him as the man “who helped introduce me to my Christian faith,” and said that “as imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me.”

Wisely, he did not claim to be unaware of Mr. Wright’s radicalism or bitterness, disarming the speculation about whether he personally heard the longtime pastor of his church speak the words being played and replayed on YouTube. Mr. Obama said Mr. Wright’s comments were not just potentially offensive, as politicians are apt to do, but “rightly offend white and black alike” and are wrong in their analysis of America. But, he said, many Americans “have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagree.”

Mr. Obama’s eloquent speech should end the debate over his ties to Mr. Wright since there is nothing to suggest that he would carry religion into government. But he did not stop there. He put Mr. Wright, his beliefs and the reaction to them into the larger context of race relations with an honesty seldom heard in public life.

Mr. Obama spoke of the nation’s ugly racial history, which started with slavery and Jim Crow, and continues today in racial segregation, the school achievement gap and discrimination in everything from banking services to law enforcement.

He did not hide from the often-unspoken reality that people on both sides of the color line are angry. “For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation,” he said, “the memories of humiliation and fear have not gone away, nor the anger and the bitterness of those years.”

At the same time, many white Americans, Mr. Obama noted, do not feel privileged by their race. “In an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero-sum game,” he said, adding that both sides must acknowledge that the other’s grievances are not imaginary.

He made the powerful point that while these feelings are not always voiced publicly, they are used in politics. “Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan coalition,” he said.

Against this backdrop, he said, he could not repudiate his pastor. “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community,” he said. “I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother.” That woman whom he loves deeply, he said, “once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street” and more than once “uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”

There have been times when we wondered what Mr. Obama meant when he talked about rising above traditional divides. This was not such a moment.

We can’t know how effective Mr. Obama’s words will be with those who will not draw the distinctions between faith and politics that he drew, or who will reject his frank talk about race. What is evident, though, is that he not only cleared the air over a particular controversy — he raised the discussion to a higher plane.

Vanessa,

I think I see your point. If I am not going to vote for Obama, I have no business discussing him or his speech. Certainly doesn't sound like free speech to me, but I guess I am kind of short on IQ points (saving you the trouble there John of pointing it out) so perhaps I am mistaken. Carry on then. I will not comment further and ruffle anyone's feathers.

Hello Mallika and Everyone,

Well I think it is safe to day that the Barak Obama supporters "loved" his speech and found in it the usual "inspiring" words to validate their support of him for their Presidential candidate.

It was pointed out numerous times in the media by folks discussing the speech that the backgroung setting was "very Presidential," the flags, the coloring and then I started to wonder...about this whole situation..

"So, this is what I was wondering, since, the back drop of his speech was made to look very Presidential, kind of like a dress rehearsal could it be that the Barak Campaign put out Reverend Wrights videos in order to bring up an occasion of just this sort, where Barak gets to "show" his "stuff" do what he does best, share his thougths on a public forum by making a "much" anticipated speech about the "race" issue, a very stimulating issue, for sure. Just wondering...hmmm.

Now, I know his supporters will think me cynical to a demonic degree..."how could she even entertain such a thought about our BARAK?" oh, excuse me, isn't this a "political race" with "polticians running against each other, fighting it out, tooth and nail, always looking for "the" opportunity to "strut their "stuff," and do they not "all" employ political strategists? Probably not Barak Obama.

just wondering. have a great day ruth

Mallika,

Beautifully expressed. Thank you for your leadership that is our leadership as women of all ages. Obama is a breath of fresh air!

Trish~~

"Hope" is secret code for communist redistrobution. So Obama isn't vague, he just talks in a secret Democrate language. He scares the hell out of me because communist redistrobution is slavery...but..they'll never take me alive...

"Hope" is secret code for communist redistrobution. So Obama isn't vague, he just talks in a secret Democrate language. He scares the hell out of me because communist redistrobution is slavery...but..they'll never take me alive...

An Obama view from the Right:

"More than anything, Obama's promise of post-racialism depended on a popular, charismatic, biracial man, uniquely positioned to do so, taking the lead in a national conversation on race, inviting white people to participate in it, and taking demagoguery to task no matter what color its face. If Obama had had the courage to do that, his candidacy might indeed have yielded results as lofty as his rhetoric.

So much for that."

Mary Katherine Ham

Reactions to Barack's speech:

A brilliant, beautiful speech which clearly outlined the issues, past and present, in the fiber of America … Congratulations Mr. Obama, you deserve our praise, our thanks, and our prayers that you, as President, will indeed lead this nation in a new, more positive, and more inspiring direction.

***

Lydia from Durham, NC wrote:

Obama has opened up a necessary conversation which prompts us to see race through the lens of other racial or cultural identities, not just through our own. His speech demonstrated his ability to appeal to the best in people. He has given us a way to deal with our racial differences. It gives white and black people agency to make this nation a more perfect union -- not just by transcending race but by addressing health care, joblessness, needless war, home loss, etc.

***

John from Eunice, LA wrote:

As a veteran, mid forties, father of three, I'd like to thank Mr. Obama for addressing this most difficult of topics... I can honestly say that as an "uncommitted" republican voter, Mr. Obama has most definitely caught my attention.

***

And Kathy from VA wrote:

I am so proud to be a part of this man's effort to better my country. I was on the mall the day of Martin's "I have a dream" speech - as a young, idealistic white girl. I have seen growth in the racial divide - but I've also seen racism in the very core of our society. Senator Obama gave a life changing speech today... I believe in the intelligence and patriotism of Americans - I believe in Senator Obama.

Matt from Philadelphia wrote...

After today's speech, I got a call from my dad -- a retired, gun-owning Republican Vietnam veteran who still lives in the little broken down central PA town where I grew up. He happened to turn on the tv today and saw the speech. Immediately afterward he called me at work (which is unprecedented) to say that he was moved and had decided to give Obama $100. That's a lot of money for my dad.

Today's speech was supposed to inspire people like me -- a liberal, thirtysomething lawyer, Philadelphia resident, and longstanding member of the Obama bandwagon -- but when it gets to my dad, you're really on to something. He's McCain's base.

Keep up the good work,

Matt

More Reactions to Barack's Speech

From Political Wire:

Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race this morning showed off exactly why he's become the Democratic front runner for the presidential nomination. He's absolutely willing to challenge the conventional way of how politicians approach controversy. In my opinion, it was the best speech so far in this campaign.

**

From Politico:

It's quite a speech: autobiographical, embracing complexity, and answering questions about Wright… Throughout, he insists on things that you don't get much of in politics: context and nuance.

**

From the Dallas Morning News:

Obama's speech will go down in history as one of the best modern speeches about America's ongoing racial divide and the failure to address the roots of it.

**

From Time:

An extraordinary speech — not because of any rhetorical flourishes, but because it was honest, frank, measured in tone, inclusive and hopeful… [Obama] clearly demonstrated today his capacity to lead public opinion and not simply be a slave to it. Indeed, I would say he appeared wise beyond his years and genuinely presidential.

More thoughts following Barack's Speech:

Cheryl wrote:

Barack is able to clarify issues with such great sensitivity and possesses an uncanny ability to see the views of others in an honest and sympathetic way, and address the difficult issues with such great finesse. It is these qualities which will make him a great leader, one who can unite this broken nation, encourage us to move us past the pettiness and bickering to address those issues which affect each and everyone of us. And the most exciting part is that he invites us along, that we may be participants in not just our own destiny but that of our nation.

***

Phyllis from Brooklyn, NY wrote:

I have been switching back and forth between Obama and Hillary. I voted for Hillary in my state's primary. But after today's speech I am for Obama. It is the first time in a long time a politician has spoken in a way that truly respected the intelligence of his audience. The speech on race was complex and nuanced and true to my own experience. It was honest and brave. I will gladly vote for this man for president.

***

Sharon from California wrote:

As 58 year old black woman, I see the destiny of America being revealed in the open minded, unifying spirit of the young people I see. My generation passes the torch to you. Now get to work everybody!!! You/We have an election to win!!

Morning News[March 19]: 'A More Perfect Union'

From the Washington Post:

Yesterday morning, in what may be remembered as a landmark speech regardless of who becomes the next president, Obama established new parameters for a dialogue on race in America that might actually lead somewhere -- that might break out of the sour stasis of grievance and countergrievance, of insensitivity and hypersensitivity, of mutual mistrust.

"My goal was to try to lift up some truth that people talk about privately but don't always talk about publicly between the races," Obama told me in a telephone interview later in the day. He delivered his speech, titled "A More Perfect Union," in Philadelphia just yards from Independence Hall.

... "What was fascinating over the last three or four days was to see how Reverend Wright's admittedly offensive comments . . . were packaged in sound bites in a way that didn't contribute to understanding between black and white Americans but only expanded the chasm between them," [Obama] said. "I thought it was both a challenge and an opportunity to use this moment to describe, to black and white, why there is this chasm."

And that may have been the most significant aspect of the speech: the fact that Obama proposed a conversation, not a monologue. He not only laid out the reasons some African Americans might feel alienated or resentful but also the reasons some white Americans might feel the same way.

... This amounts to a new set of talking points for a discussion about race: Don't be paralyzed by history but acknowledge its effects. Recognize that whites have legitimate grievances that are not racist. Don't cling to victimhood as an all-purpose excuse. Accept personal responsibility.

Obama told me that he doesn't intend to make race a major theme of his campaign. "I don't think that we are going to be gnawing on this bone at every stop," he said. But I believe he might have pulled off something that seemed almost impossible: He not only ventured into the minefield of race and made it back alive, but he also marked a path for the rest of us to follow.

***

From the Washington Post:

Sen. Barack Obama's mission in Philadelphia yesterday was to put the controversy over inflammatory statements made by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his spiritual mentor and pastor for 20 years, behind him. But Mr. Obama (D-Ill.) went deeper than that. He used his address as a teachable moment, one in which he addressed the pain, anger and frustration of generations of blacks and whites head-on -- and offered a vision of how those experiences could be surmounted, if not forgotten. It was a compelling answer both to the challenge presented by his pastor's comments and to the growing role of race in the presidential campaign.

... Mr. Obama's speech was an extraordinary moment of truth-telling. He coupled it with an appeal that this year's campaign not be dominated by distorted and polarizing debates about whether he or his opponents agree with extreme statements by supporters -- or other attempts to divide the electorate along racial lines. Far better, he argued, that Americans of all races recognize they face common economic, social and security problems.

... [Mr. Obama] was eloquent in describing the persistent challenge of race and racism in American society -- and was right in proposing that this year's campaign rise above "a politics that breeds division and conflict and cynicism."

***

From the Los Angeles Times:

Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia on "A More Perfect Union" was that rarity in American political discourse: a serious discussion of racial division, distrust and demonization ... [that] redefines our national conversation about race and politics and lays down a challenge to the cynical use of the "race card."

... Obama conceded that some of the crasser remarks by [some his and Senator Clinton's] supporters "reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through -- a part of our union that we have yet to perfect." That is undeniably true and refreshingly honest. No single speech will recalibrate America's consideration of race and politics, but we are closer today, thanks to this remarkable address, to facing our history and perfecting our nation.

***

From the Los Angeles Times:

"That was the most sophisticated speech on race and politics I've ever heard," said CNN's Bill Schneider, the only network pundit who actually has taught American political history at elite universities.

... No candidate for national office has ever spoken so candidly or realistically about race as it is lived as a fact of life in America. As he put it Tuesday, "The profound mistake of Rev. Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country ... is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past."

***

From the New York Times:

In a speech whose frankness about race many historians said could be likened only to speeches by Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, Senator Barack Obama, speaking across the street from where the Constitution was written, traced the country's race problem back to not simply the country's "original sin of slavery" but the protections for it embedded in the Constitution.

Yet the speech was also hopeful, patriotic, quintessentially American — delivered against a blue backdrop and a phalanx of stars and stripes. Mr. Obama invoked the fundamental values of equality of opportunity, fairness, social justice. He confronted race head-on, then reached beyond it to talk sympathetically about the experiences of the white working class and the plight of workers stripped of jobs and pensions.

"As far as I know, he's the first politician since the Civil War to recognize how deeply embedded slavery and race have been in our Constitution," said Paul Finkelman, a professor at Albany Law School who has written extensively about slavery, race and the Constitution. "That's a profoundly important thing to say. But what's important about the way he said it is he doesn't use this as a springboard for anger or for frustration. He doesn't say, 'O.K., slavery was bad, therefore people are owed something.' This is not a reparations speech. This is a speech about saying it's time for the nation to do better, to form a more perfect union."

... Julian Bond, the longtime civil rights activist, said the speech moved him to tears. Orlando Patterson, a professor of sociology at Harvard, said he believed the speech would "go down as one of the great, magnificent and moving speeches in the American political tradition."

"I hear so many people saying we want a national conversation on race but it's never quite worked," he said. "He was able to do this in one speech. But he was able to do it in a nonpartisan way in that he saw both sides."

***

From the Chicago Sun Times:

On Tuesday morning, Barack Obama delivered the speech of his life about the most divisive issue in America in this day or any day -- race. He spoke for millions of Americans of good will and open minds -- Americans who have struggled to find just these words -- challenging us to heal our painful racial wounds by first admitting the deep roots, complexities and truths of our grievances. The grievances of black America are not imaginary, he said. And the anger and frustrations within segments of the white community cannot always be dismissed as bigotry.

... Until all of us come to understand this more tangled truth about race in America and "work through" it, as Obama said, we will never seriously take on the great problems that trouble us all.

"If we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners," Obama said, "we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education or the need to find good jobs for every American."

... It was a moving moment in American history to hear a man who could be president dissect the rancorous matter of race with such candor, and it called to mind other piercing addresses by the likes of FDR, Kennedy and King.

... Running for president inevitably is an act of self-revelation, and with this speech Obama peeled off many more layers and revealed something close to his true essence. He is the man in the middle, bi-racial and bi-cultural, inclined by both nurture and nature to understand if not always forgive both sides. He rightly denounced the many offensive comments by Rev. Wright, yet he refused to disown Wright or his overall message of self-determination.

... Obama on Tuesday spoke to our better angels.

And maybe America moved a little.

From Sissy C. in South Dakota:

My great grandmother was a young girl in camp at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. My grandfather was in Major Reno's Battalion during the same battle. Following the defeat of the Native American people, my grandfather stayed on in the Dakota's. There he met my grandmother. He could speak some of the Dakota language, my grandmother could not speak a word of English, however they managed to communicate. They married and became the parents of five children, one of who is my paternal grandmother.

We have deep roots, as do you and your children, in both cultures. My father fought in World War II in the US Navy. My brother was in the Special Forces and served in Viet Nam. My husband served his country during peace time when he joined the Navy. Our story is not unlike many other stories of people born in this country. My maternal great grandfather came here from Ireland at the time of the great famine. He later married a women who was half French and half Native American. They became the parents of my grandfather.

We have the blood of numerous cultures coursing through our veins. But we are first and foremost, Americans. We understand Reverend Wright's comments, and why he felt driven to vent his anger at the white man and this country. We have felt similar feelings. However, they are fleeting. We look at our grandchildren and can only thank God that they will not have to endure the discrimination our ancestors endured. We do not blame an entire culture for the actions of a few. Hate only breeds destruction. Hope is what we need. We have hope, that this nation can rise to the occasion and elect a man for all seasons. You have our loyalty and support.

A must-read in The Nation...

If you understand the risks Obama undertook, you can see the beauty and pain in what he did. He could not back away from the risks without betraying himself and all those people who are part of him. On the other hand, he was putting at risk his own great promise as a politician. In psychological terms, what's extraordinary is his refusal to split off himself and his own experience from those others. So he embraced them, knowing the risks. Then he tells us--audaciously--that we are capable of doing the same. Yet most of us do the opposite in everyday life, defining ourselves in contrast to the others we are not, idealizing our own selves by demonizing the others. Obama knows all this. He still insists we can do it. He has seen it happen in life...

...If people have the opportunity to hear him in full and think about it, they will recognize the strength it took for him to open his arms this way, casting aside all defenses and evasions. With the hope and everything else he stands for, this guy is one very strong character.

Obama is the new politics, I believe, whatever happens this year. His way of talking and thinking will shape the future because I think he has got it right about the country.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=300422

More messages and unique stories from the wind-swept plains of South Dakota:

Joe M. from South Dakota:

I just finished reading your speech. Through tears in my eyes, I can barely see what I'm writing. I'm a 58-year-old white man. I have been "around-the-block" many times while running my own businesses during the past 42 years. So I don't cry easily. Never have I been so moved by a speech that is so timely and honest. Barack, we need you now more than ever.

***

Stephanie T. from South Dakota:

When I first heard Senator Obama speak, I knew in my heart, that this country had a chance to be united. I haven't felt so much pride in so long. I am an American Indian from South Dakota, a mother of three boys … Having listened to Senator speak about the racial divide that exists in this country and define the direction that we ALL want this country to move towards, I am very excited and hopeful that people will hear him and realize the possibilities that exist for all of our children.

The only thing more impressive than the sheer number of responses to Barack's speech that the diversity of the people who have submitted them. People of all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs have found echoes of their own stories in Barack's words, and inspiration in the hope that he offered.

Messages from Pennsylvania:

Marcia B. from Pennsylvania:

I'm a white, 74-year-old-woman -- the demographic supposedly voting for Hillary Clinton. But I am for Barack Obama. I have been since he first spoke at the Democratic Convention refuting divisive politics, calling for the unification of what is desperate in America, asking Americans to turn the page and move into a new time and a new politics … America is and always has been multiracial and multicultural. I see in the younger generation such a willingness to come together with peoples of many colors and backgrounds and I applaud that. I hope those of my ilk can move beyond fear and prejudice and support moving into an America that can work to mend the broken places in our country and seek to lift us all to our greater possibilities.

***

Patrick K. from Pennsylvania:

I am a conservative Republican and have not always seen eye to eye with Sen. Obama on many issues. However, his words as well as his actions show that he is a great leader with a deep understanding of and love for our country as well as its people. This is not just change, this is a better way to run a campaign and a better way to govern our country. I will be proud to vote for him.

***

Randy C. from Pennsylvania:

Now I know why I am changing my registration to Democrat, so I can vote for Barack Obama on April 22nd.

Even as attention turns to Iraq and today's five year anniversary of the start of the war, news outlets and ordinary people throughout the country are continuing to discuss, debate, and react to Barack's speech in Philadelphia yesterday.

From supporters like Wendy H. in Golden, Colorado:

My family, in total, like Barack's, has all races, all religions, and more personalities and imperfections than can be listed. I have supported this campaign from the beginning, and have struggled to articulate to others the profound integrity that I feel Barack Obama has. Luckily for me, this speech says it all. He can and we can, and together we all can make this country great!

>>

... and Christina M. in Lawrenceburg, Indiana:

This speech has further inspired me to have strength in my convictions and teach my son lessons of acceptance, not breed further ignorance and fear of the people around him.

I will be voting in the Indiana Primary in May and I look forward to voting for Senator Obama.

>>

From the Washington Post:

In so many ways, Obama's speech was remarkable: ambitious, lofty, gritty, honest and unnerving. In tone and substance, and in the challenge he laid down to the country about the need somehow to move beyond the racial stalemate, it was the kind of speech Americans should expect of a presidential candidate or a president.

>>

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

With his brilliant speech on race relations yesterday at the National Constitution Center, Barack Obama showed why his campaign for president has the aura of a mission.

>>

From the New Yorker:

This speech should provide skeptics with a clue or two about why many of us are grateful for the opportunity—an opportunity that I, for one, never imagined might come along in what’s left of my lifetime—to support a Presidential candidate like Barack Obama.

>>

And from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

As an example of contemporary oratory, it was stunning. As political rhetoric, it was designed to do far more than damage control and, in the end, distilled the essence of his candidacy.

If Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination in the most unlikely campaign in American history, chances are good that his Philadelphia speech will have been a watershed moment.

An excellent article from the Boston Globe which you can read, learn and appreciate (unless you are a close-minded moron like Olivia at intentBlog):

Obama's odyssey on race

Once viewed skeptically by blacks; now hit by whites

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/20/obamas_odyssey_on_race/

...It was as if Obama and his advisors knew that, this time, the candidate's legendary speaking skills were largely irrelevant. The delivery wouldn't count for anything. It would be all about the substance.

And the substance was true to the setting. I have never heard a political speech quite like this one. But, then, it really wasn't a political speech per se. A political speech would have been shorter, more simplistic, and more tightly focused. It would have hit all the right political notes, with maybe a dash of iconoclasm thrown in just so the pundits could marvel over his ability to stand on principle.

No, this speech was something else entirely--long and winding and intellectually honest; imprudent and, in many ways, impolitic. It was far from flawless rhetorically. Parts of it might best be described as tortured, the work of somebody struggling to convey complicated and deeply held beliefs in a context famously hostile to both ambiguity and honesty.

But in that candor lay its strength. While I have no idea how it will play out politically, I thought it made an elegant and, at times, brilliant argument--not just for the Obama candidacy but also for the modern liberal agenda.

Read the full article from The Nation - The Plank
By Jonathan Cohn

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/03/18/obama-s-challenge-to-everybody.aspx

Obama's Road Map on Race
The Washington Post | March 19, 2008

By Eugene Robinson

Once again, the conventional wisdom proved stunningly unwise. Barack Obama was supposed to be on his heels, forced into a backpedaling, defensive crouch after racially charged remarks by his former pastor, delivered from the pulpit years ago, suddenly became the hottest story of the presidential campaign. But instead of running away, Obama issued a challenge to those who would exploit the issue of race: Bring it on.

Yesterday morning, in what may be remembered as a landmark speech regardless of who becomes the next president, Obama established new parameters for a dialogue on race in America that might actually lead somewhere -- that might break out of the sour stasis of grievance and countergrievance, of insensitivity and hypersensitivity, of mutual mistrust.

Read the full article from The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/18/AR2008031802649_pf.html

Jon Stewart On Obama Race Speech: He "Spoke To Americans As Though They Were Adults!"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/19/jon-stewart-gets-all-earn_n_92448.html

Obama's Race Speech

Full Text

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
"A More Perfect Union"
Constitution Center
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

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.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

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.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

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.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. 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.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

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 - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview 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 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. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. 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.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path 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.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. 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.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

A More Perfect Union? Yes, We Can

Senator Obama gave a speech yesterday which will most likely be considered one of the most brilliant, profound and transformative speeches of his political career. The speech not only forced me to acknowledge my own anger as an African American, but I was forced to consider the genesis of the anger of many white Americans, more specifically, that not all white Americans have been privileged because of their race and should not all be held accountable for America's dark past.

Tears rolled down my face as he spoke of his experience as a bi-racial or multi-racial person in America. He is a man caught in two worlds. He can no more reject or hate the one than the other despite the fact that his appearance automatically associates him with one more than the other. I was reminded of my own experience and that of my family. I thought about the anger I feel when I think about how my grandparents (not great, great grandparents) were sharecroppers in Mississippi who picked cotton for a pittance in order to survive and care for their nine children. I thought about the anger I felt when I heard a young white college student tell a black woman to thank her grandfather for his cotton shirt. I thought about the pain in my heart when I think about how my grandmother received substandard medical care and botched surgeries as she suffered through cervical cancer because she was a poor, black woman in Mississippi.

While confronting my personal anger and pain, I was also forced to think about the opportunities America has afforded my family. No, my grandparents could not amass financial wealth that they could bequeath to future generations. However, had my paternal grandparents lived they could take pride in the fact that the same America that engaged in the atrocities of slavery, also provided their seed educational opportunities that produced a cardiologist, a gynecologist, a lawyer, a chief of police, a banker and various other professionals.

Just last year, we were dealing with the racial issues associated with the Duke LaCross players, Don Imus and Michael Richards. Prophetically, I wrote the following in an email to Bill O'Reilley:

"This is not an issue about Senator Obama, Mr. Sharpton or Mr. Jackson. This is about Don Imus' representation of the canker sore we identify as racism. It's just below the surface of our very existence and situations like Michael Richards and Don Imus indicate that racism permeates our nation. And, as progressive and idealistic as we may want to consider ourselves, we're still a nation with many, many problems that stem from our historical foundation. Until we are honest with ourselves about who we are, where we need to go as a nation, and what it takes to heal, we will continue to remain in the dark and situations like Imus and Richards will continue to arise to show us who we really are as a nation."

It should not be forgotten that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. The fact that Senator Obama has presented the boil of racism in an open forum to the entire nation, paves the way for us all to begin the journey of healing our divide and addressing the issues that presently impact our nation. As Senator Obama's speech revealed, the real issue is not about Rev. Jeremiah Wright and whether Senator Obama should denounce his inflammatory statements and disassociate himself from someone who has been a devoted friend and spiritual mentor, not political advisor. Rather, the real issue is our character as Americans, whether black, white, brown or yellow and whether we can come together, heal our divide and address our problems in a united front in order to journey on the road to being a more perfect union.

Yesterday, Senator Obama eloquently stated the following:

"Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding."

We have been so focused on Rev. Jeremiah Wright that we have ignored the fact that $30 billion dollars of taxpayer money has been given to bail out a Wall Street firm, while individual taxpayers are suffering all across America. This is the same Wall Street that has been doling out millions of dollars to its C.E.O.'s in the form of bonuses, stock options and golden parachute retirement packages. Thirty billion dollars certainly could have been used to assist quite a few homeowners who are in the process of loosing their homes. It could have assisted those without medical insurance to receive much needed healthcare. Or, it could help a student desirous of improving his or her life, attain an education in order to become a more productive citizen in this country.

The reality we face as Americans is that the economic, healthcare and education crisis' of this county ultimately impacts us all, whether black, white, brown or yellow. The infusion of race into the campaign of Senator Obama past yesterday will serve no purpose other than to continue to pour salt into a wound that has now been postured for healing, paving the path to a more perfect union.

--Lecia Shorter

"The Meanings of Obama's Speech" as explained by Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University and founder of Westen Strategies. He is the author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation:

I watched Barack Obama's speech yesterday morning intently. The "pre-game show" of cable commentators predicted a somewhat grim outcome. What could Obama say that could possibly overcome his association with the words of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Would he throw his pastor on the train tracks? And even if he did, would he still suffer from guilt by association?

But then, for 45 minutes, I saw a man who for days had appeared somewhat at sea, buffeted by waves that relentlessly pushed him off course, seem to find his compass and chart a course directly into the eye of the storm. I saw a man with the inner confidence, and the steadiness of a captain who knew he was sailing on uncharted waters but needed to go there anyway, take the nation with him and land them safely on the shore.

The pundits were clearly stunned. They knew they had witnessed something extraordinary, a moment when time seemed to stand still and a politician in the midst of a withering electoral storm did the unspeakable: he spoke the truth. The unspoken, unspeakable truth. He told the nation that he understood what was happening in white barber shops and black barber shops, around white water coolers and black water coolers, and that we are neither free from our prejudices nor merely prejudiced in our respective grievances, and that in both our prejudices and our grievances, we have more in common than we know.

With the exception of commentators who pride themselves on their bigotry, the speech drew immediate, nearly universal acclaim, and I suspect that its lasting impact will mirror its initial impact. But as the great French sociologist Emil Durkheim described it, we live our lives in the realm of the profane, punctuated by moments of sanctity, only to return again to everyday life. And by nightfall, as I listened to reports of the speech on television, many of the talking heads had returned to the realm of the literal, the crass, and the profane: Did he distance himself enough from Reverend Wright? Did he condemn his former pastor enough to reassure white voters?

But the speech wasn't about Reverend Wright, even though the controversy surrounding pieces of his sermons was the impetus for it. Obama delivered a message that spoke to the conflicts and contradictions around race that have existed since the earliest days of this nation, and he delivered it in a personal way that spoke to his own history and his own complex response to his pastor's messages over many years. The speech brought to mind a passage written by the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson a half century ago in his psychobiography of Martin Luther, which could just as easily have been written last night. Erikson was describing that ineffable quality we call charisma, and the way an individual life history sometimes converges with the historical moment: "Now and again," Erikson wrote, "an individual is called upon (called upon by whom, only theologians claim to know, and by what only bad psychologists)," to lift his personal conflicts to the level of cultural conflicts, "and to try to solve for all what he could not solve for himself alone."

Obama clearly hadn't wanted to make this election about race. But the events of the last week led him to do what the nation has long needed to do: to have the kind of open conversation about race that Republicans have avoided because they've preferred to exploit it and Democrats have avoided because they've tended to fear it. We can't solve problems we can't talk about, and our better angels on race tend to be our conscious values. As numerous commentators described it, Obama led us to our better angels.

But from a political standpoint, at least as important as the primary message of his speech was a series of meta-messages he conveyed as much through his actions as his words. Obama's speech was in many respects a rejoinder to a number of questions raised about him over the last few weeks that contributed to defeats in Ohio and Texas.

Is he a moving orator who speaks pretty lines but lacks substance? No one can seriously ask that question today, after Obama offered the most eloquent, intellectually penetrating, and most moving description of the complexities of race in America of any politician in recent history. But he did more than talk about race. He began to build a progressive narrative that Democrats, and the progressive movement more broadly, have had difficulty developing. He offered a progressive vision of patriotism, integrating a more traditional view -- referring to his grandfather's service under General Patton, and the military service of Reverend Wright -- with the notion that love of country is not blind love, that forming a more perfect union -- the essence of progressivism -- is part of what it means to love one's country.

Does he have the courage, capacity, and cojones to lead? Yesterday, he led us as a nation, and he showed a firm, steady, and unflinching hand. Not only did he utter words most Democratic politicians don't speak in polite company but should have spoken years ago, but he refused to take the low road -- to denounce and cast aside someone who clearly matters dearly to him simply because he had become a political liability -- displaying both courage and conviction.

Is he really a Muslim, not just foreign but an "Islamo-fascist" in sheep's clothing? No one listening to his speech could come away with anything but the message that he is not only a Christian but a person who takes his faith seriously. He spoke of how Reverend Wright had "helped introduce me to my Christian faith" and baptized his children, and how he had preached about the importance of "doing God's work here on earth." Yet he condemned his former pastor for seeing "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."

And time will tell if he answered one last question: Can he win the respect, and ultimately the votes, of white males, and particularly working class males, in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania? I suspect his speech may have reopened a dialog with, if not the minds of, the kinds of voters he had won over in states like Wisconsin but began to lose for a number of reasons: Hillary Clinton's obvious command of economic issues in a time of increasing economic desperation, the fact that voters associate the Clinton name with eight years of economic growth between two disastrous Bushes, and Obama's resistance to swinging back when his opponent was throwing punches, which voters (particularly male voters) tend to take as a sign of weakness. But the meaning of Obama's loyalty to his pastor in the face of enormous pressure to cast him aside is not likely to be lost on white males who value strength, courage, honor, and loyalty. Nor is an aspect of his life story many Americans may not have known, about the role played by his two white working-class grandparents in his upbringing; or his criticism of the failures of fatherhood in the inner cities; or his willingness to speak openly about the seething resentments of the millions of white men who punch a time card every day, feel increasingly unable to provide for their families as the price of gas skyrockets and heath care moves beyond their reach, and who don't view themselves as all that privileged.

Vanessa,

Yes it would take an expert in psychiatry to explain Obama's speech. There is nothing better than hearing an actual "expert" on the human psyche (seriously those guys KNOW EVERYTHING)
explain all of our American psyches and how our psyches should react to Obama's psyche and his stunning speech.

John,
Thanks for reprinting his speech so I can comment on it more easily.

1) Does it matter to you that the speech was given in the context of his trying to "mend fences" after it was discovered he had a racist spiritual advisor for 20 years? Does that matter in any way or is it purely irrelevant?

2) Why does he imply that the constitution that was drafted spring 1787 was "unfinished"--why doesn't he mention the 14 th, 15th, 16th ammendments? HIs speech is deceptive and also race-baiting to imply that constitution has not been "perfected" since time of slavery. Is that irrelevant?

3) Since his speech is supposedly about healing race relations, why does he mention race throughout the speech--why does he go into such detail about he and his wives ancestry? Geez, I now know more about his and his wives ancestry than about my own. Basically b/c I don't think in terms of race and don't really care what my ancestry is beyond--yeah you had an Irish grandfather, grandma was French or German we're not really sure...
I do know that I am part Native American but would never dream of saying "that I carry in my veins the blood of Indians slaughtered in their village". It is just very odd to say--why say it?. I am Irish too--I do not say "I carry in my veins the blood of people who starved during the potato famine." I can see bringing all of that stuff up if you want t