It might be working!...NYT: Various Groups Responding to Obama’s Call for Discussion About Race

[TeamJordan23]

Groups Respond to Obama’s Call for National Discussion About Race
By LARRY ROHTER and MICHAEL LUO
Published: March 20, 2008

The speech Senator Barack Obama delivered Tuesday morning has been viewed more than 1.6 million times on YouTube and is being widely e-mailed. While commentators and politicians debated its political success Wednesday, some around the country were responding to Mr. Obama’s call for a national conversation about race.

Religious groups and academic bodies, already receptive to Mr. Obama’s plea for such a dialogue, seemed especially enthusiastic. Universities were moving to incorporate the issues Mr. Obama raised into classroom discussions and course work, and churches were trying to find ways to do the same in sermons and Bible studies.

The Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of a mostly white evangelical church of about 12,000 in Central Florida, described Mr. Obama’s speech, in which the Democratic presidential candidate discussed his relationship with the former pastor of his home church in Chicago, as a kind of “Rorschach inkblot test” for the nation.

“It calls out of you what is already in you,” Dr. Hunter said, predicting that those desiring to address the topic would regard the speech as a spur, while those indifferent to issues of race might pay it little heed.

Dr. Hunter said the Obama speech led to a series of conversations Wednesday morning with his staff members. “We want for there to be healing and reconciliation, but unless it’s raised in a very public manner, it’s tough for us in our regular conversation to raise it,” he said.

The Obama speech was also a topic of discussion on Wednesday at the Washington office of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy and social welfare group. Hispanics can be white, black or of mixed race. “The cynics are going to say this was an effort only to deal with the Reverend Wright issue and move on,” said Janet Murguia, president of La Raza, referring to the political fallout over remarks by Mr. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., which prompted Mr. Obama to deliver the speech.

But Ms. Murguia said she hoped that Mr. Obama’s speech would help “create a safe space to talk about this, where people aren’t threatened or pigeonholed” and “can talk more openly and honestly about the tensions, both overt and as an undercurrent, that exist around race and racial politics.”

On the Internet and in many areas of the traditional news media, such a discussion was already taking shape. Some four million people watched Mr. Obama’s speech live, and it is now the top YouTube video.

The speech has stimulated passionate discussion on scores of blogs of varying ideological tendencies, and an article about the speech in The New York Times has provoked more than 2,250 comments.

Continue Reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/us/politics/20race.html?ref=politics

[JorgeTheGood]

1. Most white people will not participate

in discussions about race because - one mistake and that white person is immediately branded as a racist.

[ericgtr]

2. Point taken but I think emphasis has been put on discussion none the less

maybe just over the dinner table or with friends is a good start.

[TeamJordan23]

3. exactly. nm

[ericgtr]

7. Thanks for the post - Here is a K&R from for being open to the idea

:kick:

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. the video of his speech on race forwarded by many WHITE people to me and elsewhere

with compliments about how much that speech meant to them.

Different ages etc.

Alot of us are ready to have a more unified country.

[KingOfLostSouls]

5. I'll respectfully disagree

if we as minorities and ethnic groups remind them that its ok to air their prejudices without us screaming, "BIGOT RACIST!!!" and such, then most people will talk about it.

I know plenty of people who just need to be told, "its ok." most people of color, we have our own prejudices against other minority groups as well.

fear is what keeps us divided. obama showed that being open and candid, we can, and NEED to have this discussion.

[EFerrari]

9. Is that true? This a world of difference between people who

just don't know how to talk about this and active bigots.

[Drachasor]

12. Obama just gave them the permission they needed

[Muttocracy]

14. but that was something Obama addressed - that even people close to him

have said things he found hurtful, but he tried to understand their perspective, and wouldn't disown or reject them for that. And that stereotypes and resentment go both ways.

[boppers]

17. People who fear being "branded" is the problem.

Branded as a "Black Extremist", a "White racist", a "Successionist Azatlan" (heard this one at work today), etc.

Honest discussion is the solution. I have no problem with people who can discuss their prejudices with me, because recognizing our prejudices is an important step to eliminating them.

Yes, some folks (of all creeds and colors) may be fearful, and not participate, but many can, and will. It's not like we can just declare next Tuesday "race discussion day", and end racism by Wednesday, but we *can* make those kind of discussions part of the American narrative.

[DerekJ]

24. Excuse my ignorance,but what is a "Successionist Azatlan"? N/T

[SeattleGirl]

18. In some cases, you are right. But I don't agree that "most" white

people won't participate.

There are many of us out here who want just such a discussion.

I've had many conversations about race with my black friends. They don't take offense if I ask them a question about black culture, because they realize that I want to learn and understand more.

And I am not offended if they ask me questions about white culture. They also want to learn and understand.

The underlying thing is that we recognize that we are ALL human beings, and that while race in this country has, and still does, divide us, we want to bridge that gap by having open, honest discussions.

[Cha]

19. Obama is calling on us to do it

in a different way..this is not about the same ol same ol.

[Forkboy]

20. One has to take that chance and start somehwre.

[Breeze54]

6. This is good news....

I hope it catches fire!

:kick: & Recommended

[DrFunkenstein]

8. Did Anybody Read Studs Terkel's "Race" Book?

It really made me burn for a national conversation after reading so many separate interviews between genuinely decent people who didn't know how to get the conversation out from behind closed doors because of the fear of what people think.

How marvellous it would be if this amazing speech actually set off that conversation!!

[EFerrari]

10. I didn't know he wrote one! Thanks, I'll have to go find it. n/t

[malik flavors]

11. I watched it again about 20 minutes ago, and was glued. It's really pretty mesmerizing.

and it's a speech that really hits you afterwards. When you're alone just thinking about it. There's so many layers to it, and so much to really analyze and pick a part. I can see why it's being discussed so widely right now.

[slinkerwink]

13. great to hear!

[andym]

15. Maybe DU can even be a forum for this discussion

Perhaps you should post a version of your OP in the Race/Equality forum to help get a dialog going among activists here at DU.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=225

[BenDavid]

16. That speech was no more about the race issue in america

then the price of lettuce in Asia. It was a speech about obama and the relationship with a bigot and a racist preacher and the lies that obama told in saying he never was present when he spoke about being anti white, anti jew, anti israel....this was to protect his ass and this issue will not go away...

personally, if i were an obama supporter i would have to drop my support because obama lied. obama lied to all of you supporters in here....but i reckon you all are going to give him a pass on this too...

if he becomes the nominee and he gets his ass beat by the weakest republican running since ford then do not come back in here and blame it all on hrc for not dropping out....if the shit that obama has lied about now you see why hrc might have stayed in the race....and just think if obama did not have the whoremedia holding his ass up by headlines of how great this speech was then obama would be the nominee that lost the election even before the convention......

[Forkboy]

21. You're getting closer to the "acceptance" stage of grief.

Good on your father!

[Skwmom]

22. The Clinton paper pushing for race to be front and center. Why am I not surprised.

Oh how I long for the days when I actually thought the New York Times was a publication with journalistic integrity. Now it's hard not to wonder about the motivation.

[DerekJ]

23. Did you notice in this article that academics, and others keep repeating that notion that they need

"Safe Space" to discuss it? That pretty much tells you the whole story. They know the problem exists, yet they are afraid to bring it the table. It takes one wrong word in those discussions to end your career. Obama created that safe haven for them.
Edit: typo

[JustinL]

25. talk about participatory democracy!

This is beautiful.

I just looked at Youtube's list of the 100 most viewed videos of the day. 15 of them are different versions of Obama's speech. None of them are clips of Reverend Wright (a Wright video is, however, the 26th most viewed video of the past week).