Obama's major speech needs to be SERIOUSLY discussed: some commentary

[cloudythescribbler]

At TheBlackCommentator.com, some 10-11 commentors responded to Obama's speech, mostly from the left of Obama and CONSIDERABLY to the left of the mainstream here at DU. Here is the link, and one of the responses that are closest to the current of debate on DU.

It appears that many people at DU are so enraged at Rev Wright's comments (that, as with McClurkin, but without the same 'politically correct' cover), they insist on blaming Obama according to the dictates of 'guilt by association' and derivative 'guilt by association' (the latter being the key argument -- that the American MASS PUBLIC will blame Obama).

Here is the link, and one of the comments, as described above:

http://www.blackcommentator.com/269/269_cover_obama_race_speech_analysis_ed_bd.html

.....

David A. Love

Obama Spoke The Truth



In his Philadelphia address, Senator Barack Obama spoke the truth. And he has taken us where no major political figure has dared to take us in decades. Obama had a clear choice: either respond to the attacks against him, out of cold political cynicism, desperation and blind ambition - and throw his pastor and mentor Rev. Jeremiah Wright off the cliff (not to mention the African American community, in the process) - or speak from the heart and make it plain. He chose the latter.

And he provided what this campaign season had been lacking - a sense of context on the issue of race. Members of the conservative punditoracy, the talking heads who are dependent upon the 24-hour news cycle, the 30-second sound byte and the sensationalism of reality-show faux-journalism, never have visited a Black church. Rather than sensitize themselves to the inconvenient realities of racism, they, in their discomfort and false outrage, demanded Dr. Wright’s head on a platter. The senator refused to participate in the Willie Hortonization of Rev. Wright, or the demonization of a rich legacy of political expression in the Black church.

But more importantly, Obama redirected the current discussion away from the unhelpful distractions, the scapegoating and the smokescreens, and towards the larger fundamentals of inequality and power in America. He addressed the legacy of oppression that people of color face, and the economic deprivation that many whites experience, all against the backdrop of corporate greed and a devotion to business as usual among the political elites. This is just the beginning of a conversation that is needed in this country. Obama is challenging the people to take advantage of a window of opportunity, and to try a refreshingly new and different approach to this American experiment.

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BlackCommentator Editorial Board Member David A. Love - A lawyer and prisoners’ rights advocate based in Philadelphia, and a contributor to the Progressive Media Project, McClatchy-Tribune News Service and In These Times. Additionally, he contributed to the book, States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons (St. Martin's Press, 2000). Love, a former Amnesty International UK spokesperson, organized the first national police brutality conference as a staff member with the Center for Constitutional Rights, and served as a law clerk to two Black federal judges. His blog is davidalove.com.