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Too bad ‘us’ is going to bring Obama down…

Posted by TYRONE STEELS II, Site Administrator in Politics.
Mar 17th, 2008 | Comments

Conversation I just had with my Uncle Ronny over Yahoo Instant Messenger. Text is accurate. I added the who said what and cleaned up the punctuation:

Uncle Ronny: “Well it’s all over for brother Obama.”

Me: “How so?”

Uncle Ronny: “He has to be the black guy tomorrow at his big race speech. That’s all some folks need to hear to not vote for him.”

Me: “Yeah. Obama’s in a difficult situation. The hope campaign seems a million miles away.”

Uncle Ronny: “You only get one strike when your black. If your associated with an inflamer, you get flamed. I’ll cast my vote for Ol’ Hillary in GE. She’s a tough cookie and I like her. But man I dreamed of seeing the first black president. Rev. Wright is us. Too bad ‘us’ is going to bring Obama down. ‘Us’ should have just chilled out and kept our mouths shut”

Me: “Keep hope alive Ron-Ron.”

Uncle Ronny: “I’ll just hope the USA sweeps the 100m gold in the Olympics this summer. Nothing to hope about in politics. Nothing at all.”

Interesting. Especially the part about “us” bringing “Obama down”. He attributes the words of Rev. Wright as part of the black consciousness and that it has ended Obama’s campaign. My uncle is utterly depressed about the whole Wright-Obama affair. I don’t know what Senator Obama is going to say at his “race speech” but one thing is for certain, it promises to be a watershed moment in his campaign.

Personally, I think Senator Clinton is somewhat conflicted in this issue. She wants to win and sees political opportunity in this. But she’s also a woman and has been very close to the black community. I bet she’s heard a few choice bits from some of the black people she knows and have met throughout her travels. Personally I find her relative silence on this issue refreshing. Much respect to her.

  • Race is a double edged sword. Society is still trying to grapple with it.

    Right now as I am trying to think of someway to respond to your post I am finding myself having to carefully choose my words so that I do not appear racist or inflame tensions. The fact that I am having to do so means that racism is still a very integral part of America.

    White people who fan the flames of racism tend to go down in flames on the national stage. A black man that fans the flames of racism is most likely going to suffer the same fate. Right or wrong. It is still who we are as a nation. We have come a long way but we still have miles to go before we can sleep.
  • Marlowecan
    Why is Obama speaking about "race"?

    The democrats I have talked to about Wright have been troubled, not by the racial paranoia, but by the "Goddam the United States of America"..."The U.S. of KKKA"

    i.e., They are troubled that someone who wants to be President of the United States is so closely associated with someone who is damning the same country and the ideals the United States tries (and succeeds/ fails) to aspire to.

    I was watching the YouTube measuring audience reactions to Wright by race/ethnicity - and even though African-Americans gave him higher approval curves than other groups - when Wright "Goddamed America" the curves plummeted identically for all race/ethnic groups.
  • StockBoySF
    T-Steel, thanks for the post. I don't really have anything to say on it, except that it's one of those posts which will percolate in my mind until someday something connects to it. There's a lot in it that's implied (i.e. the comment about getting only one strike when you're black) which makes it so interesting. It's one of those personal observations/experiences that I love which I can't offer anything on. Thanks again.
  • StockBoySF,

    My family's conversations have been EXTREMELY interesting to say the least this campaign season. So much honest talk that I'm in awe sometimes.
  • I'm not convinced that the Wright affair will hurt Obama significantly in the long-run. At the moment the view of Wright has focused entirely on the negative image of a radical firebrand who preaches hatred against his country and against white people. There is obviously another untold side to this story - Wright is a leading minister in the UCC, he has inspired thousands of parish members in Chicago, and led Obama to formulate his current message of hope and unity - and I suspect that as those aspects of the man are explored it may inspire some to re-evaluate this story.

    T-Steel had a post the other day that talked about how some former Black Panthers have had a profound influence on his life, and when all is said and done we may see Wright in a similar light. He obviously has some issues that he needs to deal with, but this issue (like most) is not as simple as a case of good vs. evil like the press and many commentators make it out to be, and there is another side that needs to be explored.
  • I agree with Marlowecan. As a white male, I am not particularly offended by Rev. Wright's racial understanding of the Bible. But as an American, his anti-American comments are like cheering the World Trade Center collapse.
  • domajot
    It's startiling to hear an American curse the US.
    It's outright shocking that some people are surprised to learn that this degree of anger.ever existed. Where have you been?

    When I read how blacks have been treated by white America during its wars, I'm absolutely stunned that there has been so little cursng. After blacks were reluctantly granted the privilege to fight and die during WWII, for example. they were rewarded with the privilege to return to a life as second class citizens., complete with Jim Crow laws and lynchings.
    What shocks me is that there was so little anger openly expressed at the time.
    Well, anger without an outlet seethes and bubbles , and at some point it finally boiled over.
    Rev. Wright, like many of his generation, let the anger boil over on behalf of all those who for cnetures couldn't, because it was simply too dangerous to say anything but 'Thank you, sir and madam", regardlss of treatment received.

    Today is a different day, the post civil rights legislation world, and the new generation, like Obama, think and live according to today's conditions..
    For the Rev. Wrights, though, who decides what is the correct number of years he is alotted to lick old wounds?
    How many years are given to Jews to forget the Holocaust?
    Why do other peoplel who have never experienced the pain, assume they can dictate how many generations it takes to heal the wounds?

    This is like the adult who beats a child, and then beats him some more for crying in pain. That, too, is shocking.
  • Marlowecan
    Domajot said: "For the Rev. Wrights, though, who decides what is the correct number of years he is alotted to lick old wounds? . . . Why do other people who have never experienced the pain, assume they can dictate how many generations it takes to heal the wounds?"

    Because everyone hurts, Domajot.
    Look at Irish history, with the emigration in the wake of the famine (c.1 million dead) and British oppression. All the celebrations of "Bloody Sunday" and "Black Friday" and "Black Monday". It's like all of Irish history happened last week.

    Like James Joyce said: "History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awaken."

    America is a land where many have come to escape endless cycles of rage and outrage.

    Wright is claiming exclusivity for his pain. Get in line...lots of Americans come from legacies of pain and suffering.

    That is, I think, one of the reasons for the general distaste for Wright's comments.
    If Obama remains associated with that anger...if he cannot move beyond it in the public consciousness...his candidacy is toast despite the support of white liberal media.
  • I agree with Marlowecan. As a white male, I am not particularly offended by Rev. Wright's racial understanding of the Bible. But as an American, his anti-American comments are like cheering the World Trade Center collapse.


    I don't know how you got that from what Rev. Wright said. And as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in his excellent post yesterday, white evangelical ministers that are tied to Bush, McCain and other Republicans (Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, etc.) have said plenty of "anti-American" stuff themselves. Like blaming America's sinfulness for Katrina and 9/11. I guess that means they were "cheering on" the Trade Center's collapse and the flooding in New Orleans.
  • Wright is claiming exclusivity for his pain. Get in line...lots of Americans come from legacies of pain and suffering.


    Well, you're absolutely wrong about that. He doesn't just talk about the pain of black America, but what do you expect when he's talking to a black congregation?

    "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

    "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost," he told his congregation.

    http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4443788

    The sick part about this entire controversy is that Rev. Wright is almost 100% correct in the supposedly "inflammatory" quotes I just pasted. Righteous indignation is flying from all quarters because he basically said that violence and war begets more violence and war.
  • Marlowecan
    ChrisWWW said: "white evangelical ministers that are tied to Bush, McCain and other Republicans (Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, etc.) have said plenty of "anti-American" stuff themselves."

    Greenwald is being typically rhetorically slippery in this defense of Obama.

    (1) None of the people you mention have called God's damnation down upon the United States.
    (2) Those that have blamed America's ills (e.g., Katrina) on US tolerance for homosexuality have made public apologies (has Wright...no!).
    (3) All the preachers you mention are only linked to Bush or McCain. None has been as integrally tied up in a candidate's life as Wright is in Obama's.

    Finally, equating Hiroshima (a bombing meant to end the Japanese war and avoid the massive costs of an American invasion of Japan) with the attack on New York on 9-11 is not "100% correct" in the view of most Americans.

    As I noted above, the audience response analysis of Wright revealed that all American groups - including African Americans - views of Wright plummeted immediately after his "Goddaming" America.

    You can persist in believing this is not a problem, but it clearly is.
  • domajot
    Marlowecan:

    Re: "Wright is claiming exclusivity for his pain. Get in line...lots of Americans come from legacies of pain and suffering. "

    No, you are putting words in this mouth.
    He is speaking for his pain; Jews speak for theris. The Irish still sing their songs of revolution. Every group cries for and commerates its own history.

    Do we tell the Irish which songs offend us because they rage against our allies, the British?
    Why are you applying special restricitons on blacks?

    As to:: " America is a land where many have come to escape endless cycles of rage and outrage."

    There you hit the nail on the head. Every group came here to seek refuge. from some form of outrage against them elsewhere. . Only the blacks were brought here, in chains and aganst their will to be subjugated to horrors AFTER they got here.
    And how many of those voluntary immigrant groups were subjected to treatment equivalent to lynchings aftercoming herre?
    Every immigrant group got better treatment than the black Americans who lived and died here for centuries.
    IT IS NOT THE SAME THING.
  • Marlowecan
    Domajot: "And how many of those voluntary immigrant groups were subjected to treatment equivalent to lynchings aftercoming herre? Every immigrant group got better treatment than the black Americans who lived and died here for centuries.
    IT IS NOT THE SAME THING."

    I disagree. It is the same thing.

    You want one example of a voluntary immigrant group who has suffered similar to lynchings: the Chinese! Another, the Japanese!

    Anti-Chinese riots on the West Coast in the late 19th and early 20th centuries commonly resulted in murdered Chinese.

    Violence against minorities and peoples of colour is as American as apple pie.

    That is why Wright's monopolization of suffering is distasteful to many Americans.
  • domajot
    Marlowecan:

    Re; "You can persist in believing this is not a problem, but it clearly is."

    You are right. It is aproblem., but it's not a problem of either Wright's or Obama's making. It's a prolbem because those who judge do so without understanding or acknowledging the roots or the history that produced a Rev. Wright. They are willfully ignoratnt crowd. I hate to say this in 2008, but it looks to me as if some folks are just upset because blacks got too uppity and forgot their place.- in spite of the fact that the generation after Wright are getting over the anger just fine on their own.


    You use opinion polls as a reference?
    Should we rely on international opinion polls to determine the worth of the US?.

    Not everything can be determined by majority opinion.Even if 99% of Americans agreed that the earth was flat, that darn globe would refuse to change its shape to accomodate the opinon.
  • Marlowecan
    Instead of "monopolization of suffering" I should have said "wallowing in suffering".

    My point being: persecution on the basis of race/ethnicity is a heritage of many Americans. Obama seemed to many to offer a way of moving beyond it (or of "bargaining" with white liberal guilt to ignore it, in Shelby Steele's view).

    Instead, because of his close, long-term association with Wright, Obama has been re-defined (despite the best efforts of the NYT, CBS News etc) as being immersed in the grievances of one group.

    Obama has to try and re-define himself against this to move forward. Whether he can or not is the question.
  • domajot
    Marlowlecan,

    To your list of those Americans have mistreated, you forgot to add the original sin group - native Americans.

    Wright is not claimeing that blacks own exclusive rights to suffering. That's a notion you invented and are trying to pass off the authorship to others.

    If you insist on comparing appples to oranges, let's look at some items on your list.
    How long did the internment of Japanese last in comparison to the length of slavery and Jim Crow laws.?
    How many generations of Chinese had to live here before they were allowed to travel freely and to own land.?
    How many bullets did the Italians or Jews have to dodge in order to get the right to vote?

    If you want to compare, compare honestly.
  • white evangelical ministers that are tied to Bush, McCain and other Republicans (Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, etc.) have said plenty of "anti-American" stuff themselves. Like blaming America's sinfulness for Katrina and 9/11. I guess that means they were "cheering on" the Trade Center's collapse and the flooding in New Orleans


    Pretty much the same. I don't know why you expect me to defend everything my race does.
  • ChrisWWW, my last comment was for you.

    I will add: The bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, while tragic, were not terrorism.

    I've now read the Glenn Greenwald piece now and agree with much of it. I didn't know that about Francis Schaeffer
  • domajot
    Marlowecan,

    "Wallowing' is not an improvement, it is equally an offensive misrepresentation.

    I'm beginning to wonder if you really know anything about Rev. Wright, his generation of blacks or his church.

    What percentage of his sermons could remotely be described as 'wallowing' as opposed to sermons dealing with general topics of Christianity, as , for example the topic of love or the topic of family?

    Have you absorbed what young blacks, including Obama, are saying about Wright being representative of an older generation? Or is that factor just an inconvenient truth?

    Are you aware that the congregation in Wright's church includes many whites and some say whites are the majority? It isn't race or a particular view of racial problems that attracts people to the church; it's religion and community.

    You address and riff off of one narrow strip of the subject we are discussing (I'm guessing cable news or certain blogs are your souce) and procede without looking left or right to check if you're on the right road.









    ,
  • Marlowecan
    Domajot said: "If you want to compare, compare honestly.":

    Domajot, that is just my point. Countless groups in America have grievances...but aren't necessarily "damning America".

    You are quite right to point to aboriginal Americans...the one group who can rightly say to have suffered far more at the hands of European Americans than African Americans.

    My point is not to say one group suffered more than another. My point is to try to explain why Wright's comments will not go over well with some other groups.

    Nationalism is an abstraction often rooted in ethnicity (as in the case of France, Germany, post-colonial nationalisms).

    The United States is the only nationalism rooted in an idea . . . America!

    By damning America, Wright attacked the foundation that links the multicultural diversity of the United States.

    That ... and not racism against "uppity Blacks"... is why Obama's link with Wright is damaging.
  • Marlowecan
    Domajot said: "What percentage of his sermons could remotely be described as 'wallowing' as opposed to sermons dealing with general topics of Christianity"'

    I don't know, not having attended his church for years. But, as Black pastors have commented (Dennis Sanders here at TMV, for example), there was nothing Christian about Wright's comments in his video. I have read the Gospel, as much as have you I imagine, and there is more divisiveness in Wright's words than unity or brotherly love.

    Domajot, I think we have got hold of different ends of the same stick. Like the parable of the blind men with the elephant.... You seem generally a supporter of Obama, and you do not think this matters. I disagree.

    Perhaps you are right, and it will blow over. Time will tell.
  • domajot
    Marlowecan,

    If you have children, sooner or later they are likely to say 'I hate you' to a parent.(you?)
    If you are or have ever been married, sooner or later you are likely to say or hear the words ."you're impossible and I'm leaving."

    Then the stormy moment passes and everyone loeves everyone else again.

    The height of anger among blacks rose when the peaceful methods of Martin King appeared to be failing. He was shot dead. Thatt happened after decades and decades, centuries of pent up, unexpressed anger and frustration. It was a stormy period in American race relations, much like the stormy momnets in families.

    When things got better, Rev. Wright's methods became ineffective, and a new generation of blacks (Obama) recognizes that. But you can't do lobotomies to expunge memories, and for some, the bad memories persisted. and the old anger would rise up from time to tome. That's human nature.i I certainly have memories that can produce old fears, old shame and old anger again when I entertain them. Why should it be different for Wright?

    You are right that this will be a political problem for Obama. A political problem is not a moral problem, however.
    I'm hoping he will have time to overcome this hyped up problem and people will remember to not judge a man by the hat (or skin) he wears but by what he is as a man.
  • I will add: The bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, while tragic, were not terrorism.

    They certainly were. The idea was to kill as many civilians as possible to terrify the Japanese into surrendering.
  • DLS
    > equating Hiroshima (a bombing meant to end the Japanese war
    > and avoid the massive costs of an American invasion of Japan)
    > with the attack on New York on 9-11 is not "100% correct"

    In fact, it is zero per cent correct.

    > The bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, while tragic,
    > were not terrorism.

    Absolutely correct. There is no excuse for PC revisionism as well as anti-nuclear hysteria, especially when the attacks hardly dwarfed the incendiary raids on German and Japanese cities, and when destruction of an enemy population's ability and will to fight (not merely "terrifying people" [sic]) was the real objective. (The atomic bomb made the goals of stragetic bombing actually achieveable, and it was the USA that succeeded rather than Germany or Japan. Are those two facts what really are resented by the PC crowd?)
  • Of course DLS, those of us that question the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima wanted Japan and Germany to win WW2. And when we question Bush's Iraq policy and torture regime, what we really mean is that we want the terrorists to win.
  • Tyrone, I believe "brother Obama" is finished in this election. Either Hillary will take him down, or if he survives Hillary, McCain will administer the coup de grace.

    You've known me and we've had some good discussions with regard to race relations, so it may come as a surprise to you that as a conservative, I like Barack Obama. When he started his campaign, I was infected by the hope that he was a black man who was above race, that I could relate to not as a white-American, but as an American-American. I would never vote for him, but his message of unity and hope from a Democrat was as refreshing to me as a cup of cool water in the political desert.

    But it turns out he's either:

    1. A political opportunist who cozied up to Wright's church simply to advance his political career.

    2. He believes in his heart the hatred that Wright preaches, and has thus far kept it hidden from the "white electorate" (how I hate that term). The quintessential "Manchurian candidate".

    3. He's a pussy who didn't believe what Wright was preaching but didn't have the guts to stand up to him.

    In any case, he's finished with me. My hopes dashed. Back to the racial desert with me. What is more alarming to me is the implication by brother Obama that Wright's views are mainstream in the black community.

    He may have done irreparable damage to black candidates for years to come.
  • This just in: black people mad about being treated as subhuman since being kidnapped to America...
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