Barack Obama gave a major speech on race in Philadelphia today. Inflammatory statements by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, have been receiving a lot of media attention — they feed into fears that many Americans have about a black guy with a funny-sounding name. Obama has strongly condemned the statements, but refused to dissociate himself from his pastor.
Instead, as evidenced in this excerpt from his speech (which he wrote himself), Obama is choosing to respond with a nuanced and honest assessment of race-based resentment in America. It’s a novel strategy; we’ll have to see if the collective attention span of the media and public is up to the task of absorbing something like this.
… This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – 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. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
A bit more below the fold.
This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path 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. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, 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 – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina – or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
That was an incredible speech; given his current predicament it would be hard to write a better one. I can imagine it someday appearing (alongside Nixon’s Checkers speech) in an anthology of “America’s Most Famous Hole-Climbing-Out-Of Speeches.”
It is simply not possible to sweep 20 years of support under the rug with a single speech. Trying to distance himself only when it hurts his “political viability
does not change the facts. It is dillusional to think otherwise.
There is more substance in a 20 year relationship then a 30 minute speech. Yes, let us hope “the collative attention span for the media and public is up to the task of absorbing something like this.”
John Derbyshire at National Review Online, always with the nuance, parses it thus: “Blame whitey, and raise high the red flag of socialism.” This is what we are up against.
Slide2112, you say “There is more substance in a 20 year relationship then a 30 minute speech.”
Ironically though, you judge the substance of a 20 years relationship based on a 3 minutes speech (even more, one of the 2 participants in that relationship wasn’t even there when the speech was delivered).
Slide2112:
I think you overlooked the crux of his speech. Obama is not distancing himself from Rev. Wright, he’s reconciling his belief system with that of his church.
I know plenty of devout Christians that approve of gay marriage even though their Bible and their ministers rail against homosexuality. I think it’s intellectually dishonest that the public and media have been so eager to damn Obama for his pastor’s words. Is it so unbelievable that personal belief systems vary from the Church’s or pastor’s? Of course not, this is a commonly held, and encouraged, social behavior in America. We pride ourselves in maintaining the ideology of the majority while protecting personal beliefs of the minority… which is why our country is called a Republic.
Barack: “B0…”
Hillary: “You sunk my battleship!”
PS: I voted for Hillary in the MI primary.
Caving into organized religion is what got Obama into this mess. When will america have a viable rationalist candidate?
I found it a very thoughtful speech. (How will it be interpreted through our attention-deficit soundbite culture?)
I’d nominate it alongside
Hillary’s speech on science funding as the most carefully reasoned & thoughtful political rhetoric in years.
Xenu: scientists are people, not brains on sticks. We think about science, and the politics of science, and politics. And given the factor-of-ten underrepresentation of people of color in academic astronomy, discussions of race are especially germane.
Caving into organized religion is what got Obama into this mess. When will america have a viable rationalist candidate?
I’m finding Ralph Nader increasingly compelling.
Obama has his head on pretty straight- and I’m impressed. Now:
1. Lets see if he can get elected, and
2. If he is elected, what he can do about these very mean spirited attitudes which go far beyond race relations, rotting American society at the heart.
At the very least, he has sure “cleared the air”.
The hilarious part of watching the physics community support Obama is that you think he’s your buddy and is going to put money into physics. Maybe you should try listening a little closer to what he and his preacher say about science.
Slide2112,
“Not this time.” Please.
AstroDyke: I agree and I would welcome this post if it related to science, science education, research funding, encouraging minorities to participate in science, scientific controversy in politics, politicians inability to rationally discuss science, anything having anything whatsoever to do with science, or basically any of the many reasons I subscribe to this blog.
I am interested in science and I am interested in politics. But when I go to the dailykos.com I am not interested in what the author thinks of the latest dark matter theories. Just like when I go to Joystiq I don’t want to know what they think about politics or science, I am interested in videogames and when I go to 101cookbooks I am interested in recipes.
Now sometimes those fields overlap. Sometimes there are relevant discussions about politics and science, about politics and videogames, about science and videogames. And then I am glad to see that connection being discussed.
A scientist in congress is such a case: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/03/08/another-scientist-in-congress/
McCain bashing scientists is such a case: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/03/12/culture-war-by-proxy/
McCain being full of it about vaccinations is such a case:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/03/03/mccain-talks-nonsense-about-vaccinations/
But this is not one of those cases.
If Obama were demonstrably the “science candidate” it might even be tolerable to have blog post after blog post on a science website stumping for him. But he’s not.
Look at it another way. What did I get out of this post, as a reader? More confirmation of who Sean wants to be president, and not much else. Why would I come to a blog that is ostensibly about science to find out who a particular physicist who I don’t particularly care about wants to be president?
I want to be mad that my last post was deleted, but I understand. I’m not discussing the content of the post, I’m discussing it’s existence, and I guess that’s not the kind of discussion you guys like to promote on CV. I get it and I can’t really be mad about it. But a lot more posts like this and I’ll be making use of the “subscribe to certain authors” feature.
Carl, I’ll call your bluff. Exactly what are you talking about here? Or is this just the standard tactic of making a vague leading suggestion in an attempt to get others to infer what you want them to infer?
In response to #4 and #5
Christians can and do interpret their doctrine in anyway they see fit. The Constitution created by rich white people defends their right to do so. Obama chose to support this congregation and in particular he chose to support this Pastor.
To claim Obama was not aware of the racist and irrational views of this church that he chooses to support is just silly. He could have walked down the street and “found Jesus” of another stripe, color or sexual orientation, but he chose this one.
I’m finding Ralph Nader increasingly compelling.
Hahaha! You talked about rationalism and then Ralph Nader! Good one!
@Carl, who said:
I love how being a physicist makes one a single-issue voter, don’t you?
Re Rob Knop
What Mr. Carl is talking about is the feeling at the Fermilab that Senator Obama was less then supportive of that institution during budget cutting time.
Re Slide2112
Okay, Mr. Slide2112. How about the love affair between the Reverend John Hagee and Senator McCain. Reverend Hagee is at least as screwy as Reverend Wright.
All else aside, I have to give the Senator mad props for using the term “zero sum game”. A quick Googling finds examples from Tony Blair (a 23 June 2005 speech to the EU Parliament) and Tzipi Livni (speaking to the Knesset, 4 September 2007), but AFAIK, it’s not exactly a common term in political speeches.
I think this was a brilliant speech. I hope the subtext makes it’s way into the hearts and minds of Americans.
I bet even Aaron Sorkin was impressed.
e.
One of the great things about this blog is the readership who will always helpfully inform the authors actually writing the blog about the blogs true nature (while helpfully noting what kind of posts they are entitled to have on the blog).
Who cares what his idiotic mentor thinks. I prefer to judge people on their record and what they say, all things which distance Obama from people like him.
Ok, sure, its a little funny watching some people defending him when they use the ‘guilt by association’ trick vicariously when the political aisle is reversed, but that does not excuse anything.
I’d just assume people voted on the issues rather than on who a certain politician is friends with.
Pingback: Obama’s Speech on Race. My contribution to the dialogue. « blueollie
A few more thoughts:
1. Now that I reread the speech, the story at the end (“I am here because of Ashley”) really doesn’t work well — I would’ve cut immediately before that.
2. The rest of the speech, though, does indeed (as Sean says) do something that seems incredibly novel in American politics: turn what could easily be a career-ending scandal into a wrenching internal conflict, by letting the audience in thought-by-thought on that conflict. (“Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and YouTube … there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.”) And I say this as someone who was presumably part of the speech’s target audience (i.e. who did, in fact, want more clarity on these questions).
3. Now that he’s on a tear, maybe Obama should also explain his views on the origin of HIV? (Not that one can’t predict them, but I’d really like to hear him trash-talk some pseudoscience in his own words. Or has he done so already?)
4. One might ask whether it’s possible for any politician to acquire the zeal and eloquence Obama has, without hanging out with characters who will embarrass him later. I conjecture that the answer is no, that we’re seeing a fundamental tradeoff. Can anyone think of a counterexample?
5. It occurred to me that one thing is missing, before the speech can have its full intended impact on voters: namely for Wright to make a tearful admission that Obama’s rebukes of him were justified. (Has anyone seen any reaction from Wright?)
6. Assuming Obama wins the primary, it’s probably best that this is coming out now; hopefully people will get tired of it long before October.
The back-and-forth thought-by-thought examination of a difficult issue is precisely what is utterly alien to politics as it is currently practiced here in the U.S. I like to believe that it will actually be received sympathetically by many voters; it’s certainly a welcome respite from the usual simplistic pandering.
On the other hand, I may simply be naive and unable to remove my academic’s lenses in this instance. Obama taught constitutional law for some time at the University of Chicago.
But the real danger is that the media just won’t be able to convey the message to those who weren’t able to see or read the speech for themselves. It’s not easily extracted into soundbites.
If you don’t want to read about politics on this blog, set up filters in your newsreader. NetNewsWire and others allow you to do this.
I personally enjoy the political commentary. I don’t agree with it all, but I just finished watching that speech and was pleasantly surprised to see it covered here. I’ve tried reading Daily Kos in the past but couldn’t stomach it. Maybe a post on physics now and again would help me keep it down.