Obama Breaks With Pastor-What Else Could He Do?
I got a chance to watch Rev. Wright at the National Press Club and listen to what he had to say. He was smart, articulate, and funny, I even laughed out loud a few times. I have to admit that the reporters were trying to go for the jugular and he was having nothing of it. I also noticed that he was “showing out”. There were people in the audience who obviously supported him and they “hyped” him up a bit. Wright proved he was not a push over and that he would not allow the media to paint him into a corner. That’s all fine and dandy, but it won’t get a Democratic president elected.
The preacher is an important part of the African American community. I’m a fourth generation preacher’s kid so I understand that ministers tend to be good people who want the best and who are also as human as you and I. Anyone in Wright’s position would want to defend their name so I believe I can see where he is coming from. The only thing is, as good as the African American preacher is in our community, they can’t push legislation through congress and they cannot veto bad bills.
We have lived under one of the most incompetent presidents in our nation’s history. We have the opportunity to elect a president that cares for the nation as a whole and also has an intimate connection to the African American community. It would not be reasonable to ask the Wright fall on his sword to protect the chance for electing Obama, but I do not think it is too much to ask that he remain silent until the primary has been decided. Winning the election should be our number one priority, and since he is a minister I understand why it may not be Rev. Wright’s, but I do wish he would, for the sake of our people and our nation, step out of the limelight.
Brandon Whitney is the creator of Homelandcolors.blogspot.com a blog that focuses on issues that affect the African American community. He is also a frequent guest on News and Notes’ Blogger Roundtable. Brandon has political experience as an Outreach Director for the Democratic party and is passionate about being a positive force in his community regarding African American issues. He is also a frequent guest on News and Notes’ Blogger Roundtable. You read more of Brandon’s work at Homeland Colors.
May 19, 2008 at 6:28, pm
He had the opportunity to clear his name or the air on Bill Moyers. The press conference in front of the NPC was over the top and unnecessary, to say the least, and I think either he was going out there for himself or the Black Guard pushed him to do it, take your pick, neither makes a difference to me.
Mr. Obama, if he was to win, which I’m not sure is possible, will not be able to do very much for black people and for that matter, the agenda of “leaders” in the black community. The system isn’t set-up for it nor will it allow any overt legislature to really benefit our communities. Cops are still gonna be scared of black men and shoot first, relations between black men and women will continue to flounder, education will know no change under a president just because he is black. So what, I ask, is it we expect from Mr. Obama in exchange for our vote.
Fairness would be a great start. To be protected by the government we pay for, locally and national could be just the thing needed to get us back to a state of salubrity. Nothing special outside of that of a dignified life, allowing one to move forward on a productive course of free citizenship. No affirmative action, which benefit so few of us and isn’t really clear as to its fucntion and criteria, and crazy schemes like “40 acres & a mule” which is never going to happen. We must deal with profound troubles with far reaching and comprehensive plans that will accomplish positive change for the future of our communities.
Very few Presidents have been able to affect those needed changes, so we must ask: what would be possible if he gets into office? I’m terribly concern with the impending storming of the gates or the Oval Office by black officials whose pursuit of style over substance and the damage of poorly thought out policies, such as the drug arrest related to crack verses cocaine and its’ effect on enforcement in black communities by the Congression Black Caucaus, which had to be rethought after-the-fact, may have been seen as good law, but I my estimation were inacted and proferred by opportunistic politicians. We can ill-afford to allow a black man in high office to waste his energies and the ggodwill of white power holders with bad laws or policy. We’re going to need to get answers to these and many questions before damands are made.
Like the Civil Rights Era, the window that wasn’t supposed to be opened was short lived and since, many, many opportunites were lost and generations of black children betrayed by forced bussing, illusory intergration and independence from governmental programs which weren’t at all protective, well though out or implemented to completion. We need to look at this as another, short-lived opportunity that must be given serious thought and made with serious intent to move toward progress and success. And that requires hard-nosed honesty as to whom the targeted recipients will be. Will it be to those who are worthy, because the help will be minimal and resoures few, or those otherwise chosen because it makes some look good and others important.