Mr.
Obama’s Profile in Courage
"He not only cleared the air over
a particular controversy — he
raised the discussion to a higher
plane."
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.
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Moment of Truth
Prompted
by the
Rev.
Jeremiah
Wright,
Barack
Obama
squarely
addresses
the
issue of
race.
Editorial
" An
extraordinary
moment
of
truth-telling."
Wednesday, March 19, 2008; Page A14
Yet Mr. Obama didn't condemn the Rev. Wright even as he rejected his rhetoric. Instead, he placed the 66-year-old pastor into historical context: "For the men and women of Rev. 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." He added, "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."
Mr. Obama then described the resentment among some whites over affirmative action, busing, crime and a shrinking job base, saying those feelings also "are grounded in legitimate concerns." He talked about the need for whites to recognize the lingering problem of racial discrimination -- and for blacks to embrace the "quintessentially American -- and yes, conservative -- notion of self-help."
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. We don't agree with the way Mr. Obama described some of those problems yesterday or with some of his solutions for them. But he was right to condemn the Rev. Wright's words, 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."
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March
19, 2008
-
John Kass: Obama speech isn't about race
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Mary Schmich: Obama raises bar on talks of race
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To Trinity member, race and religion not black and white
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Clarence Page: Saying a mouthful
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Don Wycliff: A healthy new dialogue on race
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Obama on race
His speech proved to be that rarity in American politics -- a serious discussion of race.
When the Illinois senator took the podium Tuesday at the National Constitution Center, he already had condemned a series of inflammatory statements by his friend and mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. In his speech, Obama reiterated his view that some of Wright's comments were "not only wrong but divisive."
That description certainly applies to Wright's suggestion that "God damn America" is a more appropriate sentiment than "God bless America" and his assertion that the 9/11 attacks represented the "chickens coming home to roost" for a racist society that dropped nuclear bombs on Japan and helped to oppress Palestinians and black South Africans. (9/11 seems to bring out the demagogue in preachers on both the right and the left. Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell famously portrayed the attacks as divine retribution for the abominations of legal abortion, feminism and gay rights.)
But in his speech, Obama also offered a context that explained (without excusing) Wright's ravings: "For the men and women of Rev. 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."
This is the sort of blunt language that is seldom heard in stump speeches by politicians of any race. And Obama was equally direct in pointing out that fulminations like Wright's have an analogue in the angry utterances of white Americans who believe -- and are encouraged by politicians to believe -- that their interests are threatened by progress for African Americans. He noted that these resentments as well "aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation."
That landscape has claimed many victims, and as he and Hillary Rodham Clinton continue their contest for the Democratic nomination, Obama conceded that some of the crasser remarks by their 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.
Obama's Lincoln moment
Never before has a candidate for national office spoken so frankly about race in America.
The lawyer was Abraham Lincoln, and the speech was the famous "House Divided" address with which he accepted the Republican Party's nomination as a candidate for the U.S. Senate. Lincoln lost to Stephen Douglas, but the address changed the national conversation on slavery and, two years later, Lincoln was on his way from Springfield to the White House.
America's political story is studded with such addresses -- historical signposts that divide that which went before from all that followed on an issue of crucial national importance. Franklin Roosevelt's "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" speech fundamentally changed Americans' expectations of their government in times of social and economic crisis. John F. Kennedy's address on Catholicism and politics to the Greater Houston Ministerial Assn. in 1960 forever altered the way we think about religion and public office.
Sen. Barack Obama, another lanky lawyer from Illinois, planted one of those rhetorical markers in the political landscape Tuesday, when he delivered his "More Perfect Union" speech in Philadelphia, near Independence Hall. The address was meant to dampen the firestorm of criticism that has attached itself to the senator's campaign since video clips of race-baiting remarks by his Chicago church's former pastor began circulating last week.
But instead of offering a simple exercise in damage control, Obama chose to place his discussion of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright's incendiary comments in a wider consideration of race in America -- and the results were, like those Kennedy achieved in Houston, historic.
Just as every seasoned political hand in 1960 knew that, sooner or later, Kennedy would have to tackle the question of his Catholicism head-on, it's been clear for some time that Obama would have to speak explicitly to the question of race in this campaign. Still, polished orator that he may be, no one could have predicted an address of quite this depth and scope.
"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.
It was all the more remarkable because, while Kennedy presided over what may have been the greatest speech-writing team in electoral history, Obama -- like Lincoln -- wrote his address himself, completing the final draft Monday night.
Obama did what he had to do, unequivocally repudiating Wright's extreme rhetoric. But what was truly radical about his analysis was his implicit demand that black and white Americans accept the imperfection of each other's views on race. Embedded in such acceptance is the seed of that "more perfect union" toward which this country -- unquestionably great but itself imperfect -- must strive.
It was a concept that Obama subtly invoked near the beginning of the speech by pointing to the fact that although the Constitution "was stained by the original sin of slavery," the "answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution -- a Constitution that had at its 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."
Theologically, original sin is the source of man's fallen nature and the root of his imperfection. Obama went on to build on that concept, invoking the authority of his own mixed heritage -- son of a black immigrant father and white mother, raised by a loving white grandmother -- and refusing to reject either Wright, a man of good works as well as extreme rhetoric, or his loving grandmother, who was prone to racial stereotypes. Obama demanded that black anger make an allowance for white anxiety and that white resentment make a place for black grievance.
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."
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Obama speech confronts America's racial divide
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Democrat Barack Obama, who has catapulted to stardom as the first major African American candidate for president, took the boldest risk of his political career Tuesday by confronting head-on the matter of race relations in America - an issue that suddenly threatens to derail his White House bid.
Obama's speech in Philadelphia called on America to break the "racial stalemate" that has long divided the country. It produced widespread agreement among political observers that it was a defining moment in the campaign, one that underscored what sets the Illinois senator apart - ethnically, politically and oratorically - from the rest of the presidential pack.
But it was less clear whether American voters - ethnics, whites and working class in key states like Pennsylvania - would embrace the frankness of a discussion in which Obama said he couldn't denounce his mentor and former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, while acknowledging he had heard controversial sermons in the pew of his Chicago church.
Political insiders, preachers and academics who have examined the issues of race, politics and religion say that whether Americans accept or appreciate his candor will become clear over the coming days. But many suggest that Obama's gutsy and heartfelt appeal will be remembered as a watershed in American presidential politics.
In the speech, delivered just a stone's throw from where the Declaration of Independence was drafted and signed, Obama said he would no more disown Wright for racially oriented comments from the pulpit than he would disown his white grandmother for her own occasional insensitivity and racism.
"These people are part of America," Obama said. "What we know, what we have seen, is that America can change."
Obama advisers said he wrote the deeply personal speech himself. They said it was delivered in Philadelphia because of the city's historical significance, not because it is the most populous black city in Pennsylvania, site of the next primary vote on April 22.
Rage acknowledged
James Taylor, associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, where he teaches classes on politics, race and civil rights, said Obama's speech acknowledged what has been simply unmentionable before, that "there's a certain rage ... in dealing with the grievances that different segments of society have."
Obama's pastor Wright "was part of a generation who had to sit in the back of buses," and while many whites still say that "slavery was 150 years ago, leave it alone," Obama pointed out that "there's still a lot of people who have lived the experiences (of segregation and racial prejudice) and were traumatized by it," Taylor said.
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown said those comments showed that Obama "took the issue of race in the world on ... he personalized it in a way that made it believable - and he got away from what could have been a fatal liability for him."
"You're never going to be able to get rid of race as an issue, period. It's crazy to think that," said Brown, who addressed his own issues of race and culture in "Basic Brown," his recently published memoir.
Still, the man once known as the powerful "ayatollah" when he was speaker of the California Assembly noted that until recently, Obama's campaign looked to be blind to the potential damage from Wright's incendiary comments in the pulpit at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, where Obama has worshiped for 20 years.
'A maturing moment'
But by speaking frankly to both black and white Americans about his experiences as a biracial man in racially divided America, Obama delivered "a real maturing moment," Brown said.
Garry South, who was a senior adviser to the presidential campaign of Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman - an Orthodox Jew who also faced questions about his religious and cultural beliefs on a national stage - said Obama's "candor, bluntness and reasoning" were the backbone for an address that "has the potential to be a game-changer in the race."
"He took a development that could have derailed his candidacy and turned it around in a brilliant and stunning way," South said. "This is the stuff that presidential leadership is made of. No other candidate for president in the history of America could have given this speech, and the historical nature of it should be striking to Americans."
"Every American schoolkid - indeed, every American, regardless of race - should be required to read this speech," he said.
Obama's long-time pastor became a major issue after video clips appeared on the Internet showing Wright, in a booming voice from his Chicago pulpit, suggesting that Americans were partly to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks, and accusing the country of continuing to treat African Americans as second-class citizens.
Hard to navigate
The Rev. Amos Brown, whose passionate sermons in San Francisco also have stirred controversy, cautioned that discussions about the issues Obama addressed Tuesday are particularly hard to navigate because they raise the matter of a cultural as well as a racial divide.
Brown, pastor of San Francisco's Third Baptist Church, made headlines after Sept. 11, 2001, when he gave a soul-searching sermon criticized by political leaders, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi. But he said that, like Wright, his comments also were widely misunderstood; he said he intended not to assign blame but to engage in a broad discussion of America's political and leadership role in the world.
"Black preaching is engaged, passionate, and those who don't know it and never heard it would be offended," Amos Brown said. In his own sermon, he said, "I raised questions: America, what did you do to invite this kind of activity upon us?"
But many Americans outside such traditional congregations "don't understand that in the black church, traditional funerals are not just for mourning," he said. "They are an occasion not just to honor the dead but give a challenge to the living."
Obama's weaknesses
Still, Shelby Steele, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University - and author of "A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win" - wrote this week that the controversies surrounding Obama's relationship with Wright underscore his biggest weaknesses.
"What could he have been thinking? Of course, he wasn't thinking," Steele wrote in a piece in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
"But now the floodlight of a presidential campaign has been trained on this usually hidden corner of contemporary black life: a mindless indulgence in a rhetorical anti-Americanism as a way of bonding and of asserting one's blackness," Steele wrote. "Yet Jeremiah Wright, splashed across America's television screens, has shown us that there is no real difference between rhetorical hatred and real hatred."
But the Rev. J. Alfred Smith Sr., longtime leader of Oakland's Allen Temple Baptist Church - and an Obama supporter - said the Illinois senator accomplished a major feat.
"The purpose of the speech was to deal with the broader issue of race, which the country has not been willing to face," he said. "He was endeavoring to get people to look at race not specifically as it relates to Jeremiah Wright ... but as it relates to the issue of justice: Why do we have disparities in education, in employment, in health?"
"He talked about how race is exploited to produce division ... and how politicians have exploited race to produce fear in order to get elected," Smith said. "He pointed out that his mother is white, his grandmother is white, and his daddy is black."
"If there's anybody who can understand both sides, he can," said Smith. "And he has refused to play the race card himself."
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Article Launched: 03/19/2008 01:38:07 AM PDT It's ironic that the final nudge to bring race to the surface in this historic Democratic face-off was not innuendo from Republicans or the Clinton campaign but the fiery rhetoric of Barack Obama's own longtime pastor. Perhaps it's just as well. Obama rose to the challenge Tuesday with a stirring speech, condemning racism without condemning individuals, and calling upon Americans of all races to rise above the divisions of the past. What could have been a political cataclysm was transformed into another opportunity for the first serious black presidential contender to show how he can bridge divides. One speech may not do it, but the address in Philadelphia was a very good start. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright became a YouTube phenomenon with his rants condemning America and invoking racism - a dream come true for some of Obama's detractors, who had struggled with how to bring race front and center without themselves seeming racist. The pastor may yet prove to be Obama's undoing as a candidate. Yet it is not unusual for Americans to disagree with their pastors, who sometimes are provocative to incite action, whether from the right or the left. Nor is it un-American to continue a personal relationship with someone who questions America's priorities. What's unusual is to have a presidential candidate who is, as Obama reminded Tuesday, "the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas." "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," the senator told the crowd at the National Constitution Center, the symbolism of which was strong. In that context, Obama took on black anger, white resentment, generational divides and prejudice so institutionalized that many no longer see it. He also showed the ability to face down critics and criticism, a knack John Kerry never mastered in the last presidential election. Race should not be central to this or any presidential contest. Yet, at least for this groundbreaking campaign by a black man, its shadow inevitably will be cast. If Obama is, as we hope, the leader who can draw people across political divides to create real change and a renewed optimism in America, then confronting race head-on was inevitable. Perhaps Pastor Wright did us all a favor. OBSERVERS IN BAY AREA DEBATE VIEWS OF VOTERS Article Launched: 03/19/2008 01:36:30 AM PDT And so the Atherton tech investor and African-American found himself riveted Tuesday as Barack Obama, the first black man who could be president, finally took on the issue of race in politics head on. "We often dance around the issue. Educated friends of mine, white and black, we're always trying to sound so perfectly PC and not really dealing with the issue," said Adams, who supports Obama. "It was a really good conversation and honest conversation and I think it will help him that he's willing to take these issues straight on." After months of downplaying race in his run for the Democratic nomination, Obama, in very personal terms, finally confronted one of the nation's most divisive topics: how Americans of different ethnic backgrounds perceive each other. Whether he helped or hurt his White House chances was a subject for debate among Bay Area supporters of Obama and those of his rival, Hillary Clinton. For many, it was cathartic to hear Obama explain his views on race, even if it had been a strong undercurrent for the past 13 months. Others said such an intense focus on race may not be in the candidate's best interest. One speech, they said, won't mollify voters on a topic that makes many Americans uneasy. "It's in our DNA to be racist and play racial politics," said the Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "We haven't come to grips with it. Every time we have a chance to get on the psychoanalyst's couch, so to speak, we refuse," said Brown, who earned his doctoral degree with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor. Wright's volatile remarks on racism in America, snippets of sermons played over and over on television and on the Internet over the past few days, prompted Obama to make Tuesday's speech. Brown, a Clinton supporter, argued that Wright's comments are no more volatile than well-known white preachers' and holding Obama responsible by association is "wrong, unfair." The speech came at a critical time for the Illinois senator, who maintains his lead in delegates but has seen white voter support erode in recent primaries. Noting Tuesday that discussions of race had taken "a particularly divisive turn" in recent days, Obama used the speech to distance himself from Wright. He called some of the views of the man who inspired the title of his bestseller "The Audacity of Hope" "profoundly distorted." He, too, called on Americans to move beyond "the racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years." Obama made a point of saying that some whites, too, struggle and some are angry because they feel affirmative action, for example, gives blacks an unfair advantage. Standing near where the Declaration of Independence was adopted in Philadelphia, Obama said he would not disown Wright, and sought to explain the roots of the comments. "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." He continued, "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." Nor, Obama said, would he disown his own white grandmother because she feared passing black men on the street and "on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." Tony Alexander, a civil rights activist in San Jose, said he identifies with Obama's struggle to deal with firebrand preachers, like Wright, and older generations of all Americans who grew up when discrimination was rampant. Obama's appeal, he said, is his ability to talk to a whole new generation that is attracted by the notion of unity. "He's got a great following of young people, not the status quo. A lot of people are listening," Alexander said. On the campaign trail, Clinton said she was happy Obama had made the speech. "Issues of race and gender in America have been complicated throughout our history, and they are complicated in this primary campaign." But Larry Stone, Santa Clara County assessor and a Clinton supporter, said Obama is taking a risk by focusing on race. "We live in a cocoon in the Bay Area. Race ought not to matter, but it does in a lot of places," he said. Stone said he is backing Clinton because he thinks she can better withstand the Republican onslaught in a November campaign. "Once the Republicans get through vetting him from the standpoint of race he won't know what hit him. It's unfortunate race is an issue, but it is. I'm a politician who deals in reality, not what you think is best or right." But Bill Whalen, a Republican political analyst at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, said the speech was mostly designed "to get the media off his back" about Wright and to make a pitch to Democratic white voters to not to be scared away. "In his speech, he was trying to placate everybody." Whalen said Stone's comments and Obama's speech suggest something that is not true: "White resentment is not the driving force of Republican politics." Now many think Obama will have no choice but to continue the dialogue. "This is a watershed moment. All of America, all over TV, people are talking about race," said Rick Callender, head of the San Jose NAACP. "It's a good thing we are talking about these issues. Race is absolutely an issue we've got to deal with." 
Beyond racism:
Obama strives to build bridge
"Obama rose to the challenge Tuesday with a stirring speech...
Perhaps Pastor Wright did us all a favor."
'Talking about race' after speech by Obama
This compellation of newspaper editorials, opinions and stories are posted together here
as part of the educational mission of San Jose State University
Journalism Professor Bob Rucker.
Journalism & Mass Communications students in each of his classes are encouraged to study closely
the media's approach to timely and important national issues.