Obama's Audacious Racism
Obama doesn't know the difference between
Wright and wrong
By Ralph R. Reiand
Words matter. That's what Barack Obama said in response to charges
by the Clinton campaign that his candidacy was based on just
"words," on just "one good speech," and
that he lacked the "experience" and "substance"
that would enable him to be an effective President.
Here's Senator Obama's response: "Don't tell
me words don't matter. 'I have a dream' – just words.
'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal' – just words. 'We have nothing to fear but fear
itself' – just words. Just speeches."
Good words. But words, as the Clinton campaign
pointed out without delay that Obama had lifted from a speech
that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick gave on the campaign
trial in 2006, responding to the charge that he too was long
on hot air and short on substance.
Here are Patrick's words from 2006: "Her
dismissive point, and I hear it a lot from her staff, is all
I have to offer is words. Just words. 'We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' –
just words. Just words. 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself'
– just words. 'Ask not what your country can do for you,
ask what you can do for your country' – just words. 'I
have a dream' – just words."
We can add to the litany. It's considered a breach
of ethics to plagiarize, wrong to steal even if it's just words
– just words.
In any case, Obama's point, still valid, was that
words matter. If, in fact, Obama seriously believes in the power
of words, in the influence on the community, for good or bad,
of speeches and teaching, one wonders why there is no evidence
that he said a thing, not even a peep, when Nation of Islam
leader Louis Farrakhan was honored last year with the Dr. Jeremiah
A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award.
Farrakhan received the award from the Trumpet
Newsmagazine at Obama's church, Chicago's Trinity United
Church of Christ, because he was said to "truly epitomize
greatness." Rev. Jeremiah Wright applauded Farrakhan for
his "depth of analysis when it comes to the racial ills
of this nation," praised Farrakhan's "integrity and
honesty," and described him as "an unforgettable force,
a catalyst for change and a religious leader who is sincere
about his faith and purpose."
From Farrakhan, regarding Jews: "I don't
like the way you leech on us. See a leech is somebody that sucks
your blood, takes from you and don't give you a damn thing."
Is that the "integrity" part of Farrakhan, or an example
of his "depth of analysis"?
And regarding the United States, from Farrakhan:
"A decree of death has been passed on America. The judgment
of God has been rendered and she must be destroyed."
Words matter, asserted Obama. Here's another string
of words from his church's 2007 prize winner. "Listen,
Jewish people don't have no hands that are free of the blood
of us." Additionally, "German Jews financed Hitler,"
Judaism is "a gutter religion," a "Synagogue
of Satan," and Jews have "wrapped their tentacles
around the U.S. government" and are "sending this
nation to hell."
In another innovative "depth of analysis,"
Farrakhan explains that "blue-eyed devil" whites were
created in a lab accident 6,600 years ago by a brown-eyed scientist.
Saying he was a passenger in an anti-white spaceship, Farrakhan
warns that to make things right, to put the last first, there's
already a city-sized mother ship hovering "over the heads
of us in North America" and soon there'll be death-dealing
offspring spaceships "over all the major cities of America,"
geared to zap only the blue-eyes.
Just words? Just one wild and crazy guy? Ten years
ago, an opinion survey by Paul Sniderman at Stanford and Thomas
Piazza at the University of California at Berkeley found that
46 percent of blacks in Chicago believed that the federal government
deliberately brought guns and drugs into the inner cities of
America to eradicate blacks. To advance the genocide, 28 percent
said that white physicians invented AIDS to destroy blacks.
And from "post-racial" Obama? Nothing
– barely a whisper about how Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah
Wright have overdosed on "bitter" and "cling"
to religion and their hostility and "antipathy to people
who aren't like them." That judgment, those condescending
words, were reserved for working class white guys in Altoona
who go rabbit hunting and belong to normal churches.
Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert
Morris University in Pittsburgh. E-mail him at: rrreiland@aol.com
