41 Comments

1. Cap'n Billy:

Good poem, Roger, although it didn’t rhyme. I apologize for the loss of the use of your hand in my native state, although I wasn’t living here at the time and was living in Southern California. After almost a quarter century in SoCal, I’m back in SC (a VERY different place than it was when you were injured) and here I plan to stay.

Mar 18, 2008 - 12:09 pm 2. Roger:

Cap’n Billy, I have been back in South Carol recently (three mos. ago) and it was indeed very different. Charleston was terrific.

Mar 18, 2008 - 12:22 pm 3. David Thomson:

The white grandmother agrees with Jesse Jackson! A few years back—he also admitted worrying about black street criminals. This has nothing to do with racism. It is simply a recognition of the harsh fact that in certain parts of this country a very high percentage of the violent criminal element is black.

Mar 18, 2008 - 12:23 pm 4. David Thomson:

White grandmothers often have a right to be concerned about black street crime:

“There is also no evidence that black criminals target whites because they are white. They target them for their money and valuables. These crimes are almost all cases garden-variety street crime. Police and prosecutors in trying to determine whether to prosecute an interracial murder or attack as a hate crime or not have to figure out is their racial animus in the crime.”

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

http://tinyurl.com/33uu76

Mar 18, 2008 - 12:33 pm 5. Lem:

This is not the Obama I was geting used to.
This is another Obama.

Reports that Hillary was jumping for joy on a hotel bed have been denied by the campaign

Mar 18, 2008 - 1:40 pm 6. David:

When I was an ignorant 18 year old I walked all the way through Watts, had no problem (I did have my summer tan and was very dark when I did,Cherokee blood). I did not know I was in Watts until I got to the other side when an elderly black gentleman told me I should never do that again.

Mar 18, 2008 - 1:40 pm 7. neobuzz:

Roger,

Many years ago, I lived in a downtown barrio that was being gentrified. A black family purchased and began renovating a beautiful Victorian just a couple of blocks from my home. I watched the renovation progress with great eagerness and, I must admit, some envy. I could only afford a cheap apartment at the time. One evening, after dark, I was out for a walk and passed by the renovation project. It did look nice. Far down the block, in the direction I was heading, I could see the homeowner walking my way. Then something strange happened, at mid-block, he quickened his pace and crossed the street to the other side. His motive was unmistakable: he didnt want to meet a big white guy on the street in the dark of night. I was stunned. I had the urge to call after him: Hey, dont you have that backward! I am the one who is supposed to be crossing the street. Somehow, I contained myself.

neobuzz

Mar 18, 2008 - 2:06 pm 8. Lem:

I’ll tell you who will not be fisking the speech - it’s very creator Andrew Sullivan.

Mar 18, 2008 - 2:08 pm 9. Richard J. Nieporent:

Barack, I idolized Stokley Carmichael and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Roger, I guess Stokley’s social conscience (and anti-Semitism) was kindled in college. When I knew him in high school he was the class clown.

Mar 18, 2008 - 2:12 pm 10. Roger:

Richard, you knew Stokley in high school (we’re all showing our age!)? That was Bronx Science, no? I think he started going more extreme AFTER college… but I’m not sure.

Mar 18, 2008 - 2:18 pm 11. Jamie Irons:

Roger,

What you wrote was quite powerful.

I am sorry about your hand; I never knew that about you.

Barack Obama has really pissed me off; I thought this guy was for real (though I worried it was too good to be true).

I think he has alienated a large segment of the population, and I am appalled at those who make excuses for him in the media.

On the positive side, I am somewhat impressed by Juan Williams’ response.

Jamie Irons

Mar 18, 2008 - 2:23 pm 12. Richard J. Nieporent:

Roger, that is correct. He was in my English class in my senior year and the teacher was constantly having to shout “Stokley will you please pay attention”.

Mar 18, 2008 - 2:30 pm 13. Always right:

White grandmothers aside, I find other stuff more troubling.

TODAY, he had no excuse of not knowing all the entirety of Rev. Wright’s rants. Yet he no more can walk away from Wright than a mild denouncement of “occasional fierce critic of US domestic and foreign policies”? That his church is “not particularly controversial”?

The judgment thing came to mind with regards to this person. Is he fit to be the father of his children, let alone his current job as a US Senator inspired to be the next President?

See if anybody can put the question to him:
What if another 9/11 happens under President Obama’s watch and Rev. Wright whipped his church into a frenzy about American chicken coming home to roost, what then would he do?

Mar 18, 2008 - 3:01 pm 14. markus:

Nice poem, Roger.

The guy had me in swoon for a couple of hours after his speech, notwithstanding the line about his grandma, which grated from the moment it was delivered.
As Steve Sailor, my favorite writer on racial/ethnic matters, puts it, it is due to the “gleaming image that Senator Barack Obama has so artfully created for himself as a combination of all the best qualities of Socrates, Neo from The Matrix, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”

Now that I’m coming down, I’m finding things to complain about. I’m asking why we are expected to forgive and understand, or better yet, forgive and forget, the bias and bigotry of a Rev Wright, or a Jesse Jackson talking about Hymietown, or a Sharpton defaming someone without cause, when a key tenet of modern racial etiquette about “white racism” is absolutely unforgivable.

Mar 18, 2008 - 3:21 pm 15. Phelps:

Obama didn’t pick his grandmother — he picked his minister and spiritual mentor. Maybe it is because I read the speech rather than being mesmerized by the delivery, but I am totally underwhelmed.

Mar 18, 2008 - 4:04 pm 16. David Thomson:

I had no idea when I wrote my earlier comments that “Barry” Obama’s grandmother was still alive! This guy is truly a dirt bag. He does not deserve an ounce of respect. The very idea that he compares his grandmother’s rational concerns about black street criminals with the lunacy of Jeremiah Wright’s obnoxious rhetoric should enrage anyone possessing a lick of sense. As I said previously, even Jesse Jackson admits his own fears when seeing black young men walking down a dark street. When Is Obama also going to throw Jackson under the bus?

Mar 18, 2008 - 4:31 pm 17. Lem:

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man.

But in all truth I’m sure there was more to David Duke than his racism too.

You know, he may have gone to church and donated blood

Mar 18, 2008 - 4:35 pm 18. belladonnarogers:

Your poem is powerful, moving, brilliant and speaks for many of our generation. Candidate Obama is now toast, which is always the same color, whether it began as white, rye, whole wheat or pumperknickel. I predict his demise will benefit McCain.
It’s good you wrote such a moving and powerful poem. Maybe you should stay in closer touch with at least this part of your high school self.

Mar 18, 2008 - 4:41 pm 19. vnjagvet:

Great poem, Roger.

In addition to Juan Williams, who called bs on the speech immediately after its delivery, Newt had the money observation for me, which went something like if BHO was unable in the last twenty years to convince the Rev. Wright to abandon black nationalist and anti-american rhetoric in his preaching to his congregation (and the general public through DVDs) how do you think he will do when trying to convince Putin, Ahmadinijad, and others who are testing us to stop their shenanigans?

I suspect that a large majority of ethnic european and hispanic democrats will find his judgment and skill are not yet ready for prime time. I also suspect that a great majority of independants and republicans will agree with those democrats.

Mar 18, 2008 - 4:50 pm 20. Lem:

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.

If I’m Ferraro right now I’m calling everybody with a talk show (from cb radio to network tv) asking them to let me come on the air to defend myself.

Mar 18, 2008 - 4:59 pm 21. OregonGuy:

Pluvian perspective…

My own time working for the rights of the poor lead me to wonder how the Senator, an educated man, can give us the images of his speech and ask us to simply move along.

To the Fuller Court, Plessy was business as usual. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t compliant to the law. And it took all of 60 years to get it right.

And now, 54 years later, we’re being asked to go back to Plessy. This just isn’t right. We are being gamed. There is a reason why Harlan was a great justice. And now we’re being asked to turn back the hands of time?

“And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States.

“What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part — through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk — to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

“This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign — to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America.” (Obama, March 18, 2008)

To narrow that gap. Pray tell, how one accomplishes this while following the teachings of your pastor, Reverend Wright? Please, do not game me.

Mar 18, 2008 - 5:03 pm 22. Richard J. Nieporent:

In case anyone missed it in his speech, Obama admitted that he lied when he previously denied that he had ever heard or was told about any of the “controversial” comments made by Wright during his 20 year membership in his church.

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.

Mar 18, 2008 - 5:32 pm 23. Jim Ryan:

In case anyone missed it in his speech, Obama admitted that he lied…

Not so. He admitted that he heard some “controversial” things. His speech today is consistent with his denial of a few days ago (with Major Garrett) that during the twenty years at the church he heard remarks of the caliber of the vitriol at issue. It was masterful obfuscation.

Mar 18, 2008 - 6:24 pm 24. David Thomson:

Hat tip to the National Review:

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see someone white and feel relieved.”

—Jesse Jackson

http://tinyurl.com/2lq3z9

Mar 18, 2008 - 7:06 pm 25. Pat Patterson:

I think, impetus provided by markus, that we can fairly claim to have been Livingstoned by Sen. Obama. And I hope I can remove them!

Mar 18, 2008 - 7:11 pm 26. Lem:

What Obama was in a round about way trying to say was that America (in the words of MLK) ‘will get there’ when America votes for him in November.

Voting me in will create a more perfect union.

I give him a B for _alls
The more I listened to this thing the more convinced I become that Obama has called everybody including his grandmother racists.

Mar 18, 2008 - 7:15 pm 27. Richard J. Nieporent:

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation.

Jim, the above is an exact quote from (one of) Obama’s denials that he made previously. I guess you can say it depends on which controversial statements he was referring to for the statement:

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.

not to be a contradiction of the previous statement. We are getting into the Clintonian it depends on what the meaning of is is territory now. Somehow he doesn’t sound like a new type of politician.

Mar 18, 2008 - 7:26 pm 28. Lem:

BTW - I want to take this opportunity to say on the record and without any reservation that my brown grandmother is the sweetest, kindest, most generous brown grandmother in the brown world

Mar 18, 2008 - 7:31 pm 29. Jim Ryan:

Richard, you take my meaning exactly. Exquisitely Clintonian. He denied hearing “these statements”: exquisitely Clintonian term, since of course what his audience want to know is whether he heard any such statements during the 20 years, not just the statements we have recently been introduced to. Then, in the interview with Major Garrett, he gave the blanket denial of having heard any such statements, adding in Clintonian reply to the question as to whether he would have quit the church had he heard them, that he would have left had he heard them repeated. So he heard them not at all? Or only once? Or very little?

Today’s speech is logically consistent with the blanket denial: He’s heard some harsh things but nothing of the now-well-known extreme statements by Wright. Now having heard the extreme statements, he issues his condemnation of them. Slick as they come.

I think he is a liar. Since he stayed in that church for 20 years and was intimate with the bigot and hate-monger Wright, and since we judge people by their actions as well as their words, I think he has, surprise, his own church’s social disease.

Mar 18, 2008 - 7:45 pm 30. Lem:

I guess you can say it depends on which controversial statements he was referring to for the statement:… not to be a contradiction of the previous statement.

Is it possible we haven’t heard all there is?
That there is so much more, is hard even for Obama to parse it.

Check E-bay for the “The lost Jeremiah Sermons”.

Mar 18, 2008 - 7:51 pm 31. Lem:

Is there any truth to the rumor that there is a Jeremiah audio-tape with gaps in it
Where is Al Haig?

Mar 18, 2008 - 8:04 pm 32. Oligonicella:

And in the end….
      &nbsp We started the AIDs virus.
the love you make…
      &nbsp we are doing is the same thing al-Qaida is doing
is equal to…
      &nbsp U.S. of KKK A
the love you make.
      &nbsp God damn America!

Mar 18, 2008 - 8:06 pm 33. miguelj:

Roger, I liked your poem; reminded me a bit of Ginsberg.

Hereís an angle to the Rev. Wright situation you may not have considered: certain cultures have a tradition of ritual boasting or ritual exaggerating, especially when declaiming speeches. I donít mean this as condescending towards Africans; the Celts did it too. And when the Scotch-Irish came to America, they brought ritual boasting with them. The ìbragsî of Mike Fink and Davy Crockett have made it into the folklore anthologies:
ìI’m a Salt River roarer and I eat live coals .
I’m a half-alligator and I ride tornadoesî etc. etc.
And of course, Texans are legendary for boastful exaggeration.

(Yíknow, back in í62 or í63 at Dartmouth, I recall hearing a speech by Paul Zuber, a lesser-known civil rights figure, and he was full of fury, shouting to the white liberal college kids about how the combined armies and navies of Ghana and Kenya would soon storm Americaís shores to free its oppressed Negro people. I just dismissed him then as nuts; nobody had explained to me about ritual boasting).

Also: the other side of exaggerating your own prowess is to exaggerate your adversaryís wickednessói.e, he is not simply bad, but monstrous, and only the oratorís superhuman strengths are sufficient to overcome the monstrous enemy.

Now look again at some of Rev. Wrightís worst statements: does he really believe, for example, that the US government invented AIDS to destroy black people? If you or I really believed such a thing, I think weíd leave the country at once and do everything in our power to bring such a government down (much the way Willy Brandt left Nazi Germany and took up arms against it.) But the reverendís parishioners hear this horrific accusation and respond ìYes! Thatís right! Preach the truth!î etc., and then drive to their jobs the next day and stop off at Starbuckís on their way and, at the end of the year, pay their taxes. The reverend is implicitly understood to be exaggerating for effect (though he would vigorously deny it). There is even an African-American slang term for this kind of speech: ìwolf ticketsî

Likewise, he has called on God to curse America, an America in which the Reverend has actually done pretty well for himself. Is he really praying for God to sink the ship on which he and all his flock are traveling? I doubt it.

In his way, Obama is trying to explain this. This is what he means when he says ìthe anger is real.î Implicitly, he is adding: but the accusations against America are false.
Heís asking us to understand it in the ìAfrican-Americanî cultural contextówhich of course he himself was not born into, but acquired in order to establish his political credentials in Chicago. These are undoubtedly personally painful areas for him to dig into, which was why he didnít face all this till it became a political liability.

A politician of greater candor and courage would have met these issues head-on long ago. Obama may project a well spoken sincerity, but he has neither candor nor courage.
–Mike Reynolds

Mar 18, 2008 - 8:35 pm 34. Lem:

I don’t know if is true but the story goes that the OJ dream team was urged not to go after Christopher Darden too hard, because after the trial Darden would still be a member of the black community.

It seems to me that Obama is at pains to completely disassociate himself from the revered lest he be accused in the black community of the worst of the worst ñ selling out.

Mar 19, 2008 - 5:10 am 35. Cap'n Billy:

The more I see of this dust-up the more I believe that Obama is attempting to perpetrate a massive fraud on the American people. I just recently saw a rebroadcast of an interview Wright gave to Hannity & Colmes sometime last year, in which Wright attributed his “liberation theology” to the writings of one James Cone. Here is an example of Cone’s Writings, from the 03/18 edition of BWTW:
“Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community. . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.”

I don’t know about you, but I would be extremely uncomfortable entrusting this country to a person who subscribes to this type of theology, and would even (God help me) prefer Hillary if I were forced to make a choice.

Mar 19, 2008 - 6:09 am 36. ex-democrat:

some revealing backstory re the grandma parable here: http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/03/obama-throws-his-own-living-grannie.html

Mar 19, 2008 - 7:47 am 37. Neo:

Come on now .. Barack Obama has expanded our universe.

By his example, there is now the “Obama-Wright escape” clause for those embarrassing situations where you can now say .. “I can no more likely renounce him/her than Obama could renounce Rev. Wright.”

Wow. Doesn’t that make the world a better place ?

Or .. I would like to invoke my “Obama-Wright escape” clause rights.

Ranks right up there with the 5th amendment and has the Constitutional feel.

Example:
Mary Jo Kopechne could no more likely renounce Ted Kennedy than Obama could renounce Rev. Wright.

Yeah. That feels right, doesn’t it ?

Perhaps we should all automatically consider this response the next time we consider demanding a repudiation of someone.

Mar 19, 2008 - 8:12 am 38. Ray:

It appears that Obama learned the lesson of the three wise monkeys:

See no evil,

Hear no evil,

Speak no evil,

However, there is a fourth monkey (Shizaru),

Do no evil.

By covering his eyes, ears and mouth, Obama allows evil to sit at his table. In doing so, Obama allows evil to exist.

Mar 19, 2008 - 8:18 am 39. iceberg:

Obaby sure lost me with his moral equivalency — his grandmother’s use of stereotypes etc and wright who not only preaches hate but actually sells the hate videos aren’t even on the same planet……..

Mar 19, 2008 - 9:17 am 40. iceberg:

Obaby sure lost me with his moral equivalency — his grandmother’s use of stereotypes etc and wright who not only preaches hate but actually sells the hate videos aren’t even on the same planet……..

Mar 19, 2008 - 9:18 am 41. Michael Smith:

Obama’s speech boils down to the claim that Wright’s statements should not be held against him because there are legitimate causes of anger among blacks — just as there are legitimate causes of anger among whites — and the real problem is that all this anger distracts us from the real cause of all our problems:

“..a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.”

In other words, it’s American businesses and the Bush administration’s tax cuts that are to blame.

Mar 19, 2008 - 12:13 pm

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