Race and Politics: Obama's Speech

Yesterday (3/17) Barak Obama made what is perhaps the most important speech of his political career. As the first really viable black presidential candidate, he and his campaign advisors felt the need to make a statement on race in America. The statement he made is, in my opinion, it is the best statement on race relations in America since Martin Luther King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”  There was no pandering to blacks or white.  It was a straightforward statement that seemed to come from the speaker's heart and had a ring of truth we often do not see in today's politics.  

Specifically, Obama was responding to some very outrageous, divisive, and disturbing comments made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of Obama’s church. While strongly condemning Wright’s words, Obama made an effort to help us understand them, in the context of American history. First, he pointed out that while we may not hear this sort of language in mixed white and black conversation, it is heard in black churches all over American every Sunday morning. He observed that the anger Rev. Wright expressed (but perhaps not his words) might be understandable in the light of slavery, a civil war, Jim Crow laws, segregation, forced integration, and prejudice which still exists among some in America. If you don’t understand why some African Americans are angry today – particularly those of Rev. Wright’s age, who experienced Jim Crow – you’re simply blind to our history.

The main point of Obama’s speech was not to excuse Rev. Wright’s words (indeed, he repudiated them in absolute terms) or to defend the anger of black Americans. His main point was that it is time to move past the attitudes of the last generation. Obama says he belongs to the next generation. The 20^th century was a century of racial strife and unrest. Now we are in the 21^st century. It is time to move past 20^th –century differences and begin to work together to find real solutions the America’s on-going problems. Problems such as poverty, joblessness, inadequate health care, and others which impact all Americans white and black.

As the campaign goes on, I suppose Obama will be asked again and again to explain his relationship with Rev. Wright. In my opinion, he answered that question as well as it can be answered. It is time to get past it. We may not want Barak Obama to be our next president. That is a personal choice we may all have to make some day. If that day comes, lets make the choice on our view of Obama’s ability to lead this nation in the 21^st. century and let’s not base our choice on the divisive, racial politics of the last century.