Reply #143: This issue is about more than Obama.

[jonestonesusa]

The brief OP oversimplifies the issues of race in this campaign and provides nothing of substance in response to Obama's speech, and this is all too common in the overly personalized politics of today. Whether Obama wins or loses is not what really matters, and I say that as an Obama supporter. We all should consider the candidates' records, vote our conscience, and put our hearts and minds into our own activism for the betterment of the country, no matter who is the president. We also owe ourselves a thoughtful dialogue on all issues and should take the time to have that dialogue right here on DU as well as in other settings.

What really matters is the issues involved in this campaign - including racial division, which has been a huge impediment to true democracy in this country. Senator Barack Obama did his best to put some of our racial conflicts into perspective - he suggested that we do not have to be entrenched in our respective bunkers, and that we all need to initiate conversations across racial lines and engage in a dialogue with each other whether we agree or disagree. These issues do not belong to just Obama - he is doing his best to address racial divisions and their social costs by his personal commitment to activism and public life. That's more than many of us can say, that he cares enough about these issues to get personally involved. It's a sad comment on our country that we have so little ability to look at the substance of a speech like this without oversimplifying, and that we are all about the horse race and nothing else. It's sad that we get so personally attached to our individual preferences that we do not think them through.

One more thing - we like to play the equivalency game when it comes to identity politics (i.e. Obama addressed race but not gender, white men would get fired for saying the same thing Wright did, etc). Very little time is taken in these arguments to insure that the comparison is valid by looking at what was actually said. Wright has been compared to Don Imus, for instance. But did Wright use any racial slurs in what he said? Did he intentionally target any individuals? Does it make a difference that Wright is pastor of a church supported largely by African American dollars, where as Imus worked for a publicly traded company? As Obama mentioned in his speech, I think it is important to look at both sides, but there's some lazy thinking going on in making comparisons without thinking through what is similar and what is different.