At 9 P.M. October 2, 2012, a day before the first 2012 Presidential Debates are to take place, The Daily Callerreleased a 54 minute video (video below), from 2007 featuring Barack Obama, speaking at length at a ministers conference. The speech reinforces his long-term relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the man who mentored him and his faith for years. The same Reverend Wright he kept “under wraps” during his 2008 presidential run. He speaks in a very different “dialect”, as well as rhetoric that can only be called divisive and racists. This may explain his campaign tactics against Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP Presidential candidate – a campaign characterized as divisive and racists. He may know no other way to relate.
It is disheartening for those who have lived long enough to see past race, to have been alive in the 1950’s, the 1960’s and found our lives changed through Civil Rights and the way in which we have brought up our children not to see a person’s color, or religion or ethnicity, rather to see a person for who they are, regardless of circumstance, lofty or low.
This type of speech, in the twenty first century, by anyone in a position to be admired, whether that individual is a teacher, a minister, a little league coach, or a President, does nothing but take us backward, backward to the 1950’s, to the 1940’s when there was real division is this nation. To deny that racism in society exists is ridiculous; there are a minority of individuals, of all races, who are indeed racist. However, for a person of authority, to use racism as a platform and insist it is practiced by a majority – it is, in a word, despicable. The fact that a news outlet could find the speech, the entire speech, and had shown bits and pieces to the majority of the media in the U.S. five years ago, and those in the media ignored this, is reprehensible. At the very least, this type of explosive racist language coming from a candidate should have been investigated, and the President should have been allowed to answer questions regarding the fact that not a year before the election, he had indulged in this type of racist rhetoric. From the media, came one soft question, not hard questions. It remains to be seen if they will, at this point, do little more than ignore and bury this video. It is, in today’s society a shame, a shame, that we are still living in the past, not in the historical context, but in the very real context – where our neighbors may hate us because of our color, that our neighbors may believe we hate them because of their color.
To raise people up, to encourage, that is the job of a President, to unite, not divide, to put down, to shackle in fear.
We, as a nation, should not forget our past, never - but we should not believe, in our hearts, that we have not moved past this, as a nation, as a people, as a culture that celebrates diversity and embraces every single citizen, regardless of race.
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2 comments:
There is nothing explosive about this message. Why do all this republican support medias hate truth. To hell with this Dailycaller media..
Hello Anonymous
Perhaps you find nothing out of the ordinary about the entire video – and the angst has nothing to do with either being a “Republican” (when one is an Independent, Moderate, leans Conservative), nor much about Jeremiah Wright, it is more about the messaging, and that messaging is toxic. Perhaps it is because one who has witnessed the extreme, and then saw that extreme almost disappear (with exceptions being those die-hard bigots who see color in everything) – to hear it and see it palpably surround us today is extremely disturbing. It is a point of view that has little to do with political ramifications rather, the national ramifications that speech that pits one “race” against another, as if it does exists in every household, in the government – it is incredulous – perhaps it is a utopian ideal, stemming from the 1950’s and 1960’s that we are all American’s, that we are all part of the nation, not separate groups harboring hate, perhaps there are those who feel the message should be about inclusion – rather than division. When listening to the entire 54 minute clip, one finds that it is a “religious” mindset that fosters continued separation, and victimization of an entire group. Perhaps that is why so many find organized religion to be – objectionable. If you are perfectly fine with the message that one segment of our nation finds themselves to be maligned about all others - then one must agree to disagree.
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