Boulder Dude

So the speech.

There really was no reason I could see for even having to give it other than a bunch of white people got the vapours over black people not buying into the same view of America that white America has, that somehow not everyone is a same, with the same experiences in life, or that their people didn’t have the same experiences through out the history of this nation. Personally I am still looking for the Bulworth candidate, but that will never happen, but I can hope.

I will say again the man is just a pleasure to listen to after having to deal with George II over the past seven years. There were some nice bits in the first part of his speech that really spoke to his past and soothing the ruffled feathers of whites. He rightly slammed the press for the way that it has been covering the Democratic Primary season. Then he tossed Rev. Wright onto the sacrificial pyre of Racism to further placate white America, to secure the smugness and make everything alright for white America by removing the mirror from their field of vision.

But then…

He actually did started to address real issues, it was a nice thing to hear and I really did like the following:

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.

And I have to agree, people should go to other people churches, temples, synagogues and listen and learn what is going on around them, I think just doing that would help a lot.

This passage is sort of a grey area…and mostly I see it as again pandering to White people and letting them off the hook.

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.

Have things gotten better? Slowly, but they have stalled out pretty much and are starting to reverse as the Ward Connerly’s of the nation go about undoing the past 40 years of the Civil Rights movement.

So, all in all it was a speech that should not have had to been made, just as Kennedy’s speech about being a Catholic should not have had to been made, and we will keep having to make the “other” make these speeches as long as keep dividing folks up and sorting them into other little tribes and finding them to be “exotic” or “strangely articulate” just because they are not like you. We need to find a point were we can see that we are all in this together and stop trying to blame our failures on the Scapegoat de jour.

And yes, this comes from a person that is far from perfect, on that has to struggle with his own bigotry because of his life’s experiences, but I do try to be open minded and was taught to be excepting of all people since you never know what they can teach you or they may be a friend that you never knew you needed.

The Daily Show had a good point about the speech…and yes it is still sad that a Comedy show is the only show in the nation that does reporting and getting to the heart of the matter:

Just to prove Obama wrong, we have a man that loves to have Sex with Goats show us that we still have a long way to go in this nation.

And lastly I want to thank Dave for the following, since I am sure that I am in his heart and mind in a small way when he wrote this:

To wit, I have friends, and family, who hold views I disagree with. In some cases, vehemently. Like Obama, I’ve had relatives who I’ve loved dearly, but who have not been politically correct (to say the least), or even held beliefs, or expressed stereotypes or epithets that “made me cringe.” I’ve had friends who I care for a lot who’ve held positions, or said things, or even done things that I disagree with. Sometimes vehemently.

Yeah, I know you love me man. =D