Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Barack Obama just won the election



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.

The biggest threat to Obama winning the nomination was that Clinton could convince superdelegates that he was unelectable, unable to win enough votes as a black man in the general election or incapable of defending himself against the Republican attack machine.

Barack was able to turn a potentially crippling scandal into an opportunity to define himself to the country and he did it by directly addressing the fears of the black and white communities.

Text of the speech here:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The speech was a disaster, actually. What's happened is Obama's too far along the path to the nomination now. The left was never unhappy with Wright, and agrees with what he has to say.

We'll have a radical, unpatriotic collectivist in the White House if the radical forces have their way.

It's not a good time for the country.