Obama addresses America's racial legacy
Posted: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 11:41 AM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan
PHILADELPHIA -- Barack Obama gave a sweeping address on race in this country today, using the statements made by his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, to reflect broadly on the racial stereotypes and conditions that have polarized the country.
"The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks 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. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American."
Obama's speech comes after a week of negative news stories and cable news chatter over Wright's comments. Obama tried to staunch the flow of criticisms through a series of interviews on Friday evening, but the story didn't go away.
In today's speech, Obama did not shy away from addressing the controversy that Wright's comments sparked. "Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork," he said. "We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias."
Obama reiterated his condemnation of Wright's comments, and acknowledged that he had known and had heard Wright express some of his controversial views. "Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely -- just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed."
But he argued that this only represented a small measure of a man who had done much to bring Obama to Christianity and through his church, The Trinity United Church of Christ, help the poor in Chicago. Obama praised Wright for his service and provided a personal testimony, saying that Wright had never said denigrating remarks about any racial or ethnic group in all their personal conversations.
Obama even compared Wright to his white grandmother, using the two as foils of each other to represent how the legacy of racism has steeped itself into the fabric of who many Americans are. He said that he could no more disown Wright than he could disown the black community, just like he couldn't disown his White grandmother for making racially derogatory comments that have made him "cringe."
"These people are part of me. They are part of America," he said of both.
It was in that reference to his family and his own background that Obama also tried to move the discussion past Wright's comments to insist that his candidacy, as best as it could, was attempting to move beyond race and unite the country in "a more perfect union" -- the title of today's speech.
"It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional of candidates. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts -- that out of many, we are truly one."
He said that Wright's comments disregarded stories like Obama's and didn't acknowledge that the country wasn't "static" and could change.
Obama argued that his candidacy and his message reflected a "hunger" for unity within the country, while also contending that there were a set of racial biases and resentments, carried through America's convoluted racial past, among both black and white that made moving forward difficult.
For African Americans, Obama claimed the path towards unity "means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life."
For whites, he said: "The path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination -- and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past -- are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds."
Obama ended his speech with the story of an organizer on his campaign who forged a connection with an older black man in South Carolina. It's a story he's told before and from that one connection he claimed lies the potential to forge a larger coalition across the country.
His tone throughout was quiet and thoughtful. The same speech could have been delivered in a fiery tone. But Obama chose one that was quiet and thoughtful. It did little to lessen the impact and may have added to the weight of his words.
A small crowd of fewer than 200 hundred people were present for the speech -- a mix of white and black -- who listened intently and applauded occasionally during Obama's remarks.
