Obama gets this one absolutely right January 21, 2008
Posted by Evil Bender in Morality, Politics.trackback
I’ve made no secret of my irritation with Obama over his right-leaning rhetoric, praise for “bipartisanship” that’s code for giving in to conservatives, and his refusal to take a stronger stand against homophobia. His recent praise for Ronald Reagan didn’t do much to impress me either. But I’ll give this to the man: what he had to say the other day about bigotry was spot on:
For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.
And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.
Now that’s a message of inclusion I can get behind. Well said, Mr. Obama. I hope we see more of this from you in the future.
Why can’t Canadians vote in American federal elections? It practically effects us as much as them… :P
I actually almost wish I were American, just so I could vote in this one. I’ll be cheering from the side lines.
Looking back at your old post, I think the tricky thing with Obama (as well as what makes him appealing as a general election candidate) is that he walks the fine line of respectfully telling people they are wrong. Since he isn’t so strident, it often looks like he’s more conservative than he is. But I think he’s just as good as Clinton or Edwards on all the main issues (if not better than them).
Justin–
That’s a fair point. I still worry that Obama sometimes crosses the line from respectful disagreement to borrowing the rhetoric and tactics of his opponents, thus furthering their causes rather than progressive causes.
I’m going to have to agree with Justin. So many people are reactionary to all the candidates (I’m guilty of this as well) that we find ourselves reading into something that wasn’t quite there. The meme is then released onto the intarwebs and catches like a wildfire. I’ve accused obama of pandering which, to a degree, I believe he is guilty of. However, his comments on St Ronnie were, IMO, blown out of proportion.
I believe his desire to see his vision through has taken him to the dirty game of politics. In this town, you can’t win if you don’t play the game. If we get him into office and he turns out to be a pandering idiot who wants to line his pockets—well…shame on us. After having read both of his books, I think he’s playing the game for the ultimate prize. (remember who Slick Willie’s campaign manager was—James Carvelle–the Dirty Dem equivalent of Rove think he’s not consulting? Guess again. Us Beltway insiders know better.)
Does it make it right–well, that’s a debate for another day.
HolyFatMan:
Thanks for the thoughts. Those are all very good points. I still worry, though, that such tactics falsely legitimize right wing talking points that we have to overcome. We can’t get a progressive country by constantly giving ground to those who will oppose us at every turn.
That said, we also have to reach out for those who share common cause with us but might not identify as the progressive base. Obama does bring people together, I’ll give him that. But I’m torn. Clinton did that as well, and is very popular, and of course much better than Bush. But he also ran so hard to the center that he did a lot of damage to the left.
I’m not sure where to draw the line.