obama

A great article in Newsweek gives some good insight into Barack Obama’s personality and background. I believe his heritage gives him a unique perspective on America that would make him a great president. He makes me proud of this country and I think President Obama would raise the world’s opinion of us and repair the damage done by Bush.

For those who dismiss the cult of personality surrounding him, I’d like to point out that every president since Reagan has been elected based on their charisma and likability, not their policy. Bush didn’t win because people agreed with his policies, but because he was the candidate people “wanted to hang out and have a beer with”, while his Democratic opponents seemed cold & stiff.

Obama has a unique ability to unite the country and move beyond partisan bickering. Handling situations with diplomacy and respect rather than bluster & threats will make him a strong and effective leader.

Someone emailed me a link to this article in which a white South African gives his views on Obama.

A racial divide, once lived, dwells in the deepest parts of the psyche. This is what was captured by Barack Obama’s pitch-perfect speech on race. Slavery was indeed America’s “original sin.â€? Of course, “the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crowâ€? lives on in forms of African-American humiliation and anger that smolder in ways incommunicable to whites.

It takes bravery, and perhaps an unusual black-white vantage point, to navigate these places where hurt is profound, incomprehension the rule, just as it takes courage to say, as Obama did, that black “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.â€?

Progress, since the Civil Rights Movement, or since apartheid, has assuaged the wounds of race but not closed them. To carry my part of shame is also to carry a clue to the vortexes of rancor for which Obama has uncovered words.

I understand the rage of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, however abhorrent its expression at times. I admire Obama for saying: “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.â€?

Honesty feels heady right now. For seven years, we have lived with the arid, us-against-them formulas of Bush’s menial mind, with the result that the nuanced exploration of America’s hardest subject is almost giddying. Can it be that a human being, like Wright, or like Obama’s grandmother, is actually inhabited by ambiguities? Can an inquiring mind actually explore the half-shades of truth?

Yes. It. Can.

The unimaginable South African transition that Nelson Mandela made possible is a reminder that leadership matters. Words matter. The clamoring now in the United States for a presidency that uplifts rather than demeans is a reflection of the intellectual desert of the Bush years.

Like countless others, I came to America because possibility is broader here than in Europe’s narrower confines. Perhaps it’s my African “original sin,â€? but when Obama says he “will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible,â€? I feel fear slipping away, like a shadow receding before the still riveting idea that “out of many we are truly one.â€?

Obama’s speech was simply brilliant. He said exactly what needed to be said about race and religion in America. Drawing on his half-black, half-white roots, Obama urged Americans to break “a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years.”

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.

Obama said sermons delivered by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, “rightly offend white and black alike.” While Obama rejected what Wright said, he also embraced the man who inspired his Christian faith, officiated at his wedding, baptized his two daughters and has been his spiritual guide for nearly 20 years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Obama said he came to Wright’s church because he was inspired by Wright’s message of hope and his inspiration to rebuild the black community.

Obama said Wright’s comments have sparked a discussion that reflect complexities of race in the United States that its people have never really resolved.

We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country, But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Obama said anger over those injustices often find voice in black churches on Sunday mornings.

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.

Obama argued that the anger often distracts from solving real problems and bringing change. But he said it also exists in some segments of the white community that feels blacks are often given an unfair advantage through affirmative action.

If we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

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.â€?

Obama wrote the speech himself. These are his own words, not some speechwriter. Read the full text of his speech here.

It looks like we have a bit of a double standard for candidates religious connections. People are up in arms over the statements by Pastor Wright of Obama’s church, yet they find nothing wrong with McCain’s support for Pastor John Hagee.

Obama’s religious beliefs don’t concern me since, like most Democrats, he understands that religion is a personal matter and can separate his personal beliefs from his public policy. No Republican seems to be capable of doing the same.

Remember when Time magazine darkened the picture of O.J. Simpson on the cover to make him appear ‘menacing’? It looks like Hillary’s people are doing the same with Obama.

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