A Boston Tea Party ...(Savior Or)

I was impressed. I was optimistic. Now I am just confused. In the beginning it seemed Barack Obama was a different black candidate for President. He ran a campaign without raising old racial arguments. It was admirable and for that reason I was impressed. It was the Clinton’s who tried to make race an issue. This followed their mantra of anything to win. Obama beat the Clintons by offering a different path than the past. I figured since Obama and Clinton really didn’t differ much on the issues, if we were going to have a liberal President, it might as well be the guy with class. I thought if an Obama victory were to happen at least we would have put the race issue behind us. I was optimistic. Now, I am confused.

After the news of Mr. Obama’s reverend over the past week and his speech yesterday about said reverend I don’t see race relations getting any better anytime soon. I agree with Obama when he said, “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…This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up.” I also agree when he states, “Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch.”

In his speech Obama told us he is in a unique position to understand both sides of the racial divide because he has a black and a white parent. He said his family is made up of people of all colors. He even has a grandma who has made insensitive racial comments in front of him. Again, this seems perfectly plausible, but it is also where I start to get confused. It is now been shown on YouTube and being reported by media that Reverend James David Manning of the ATLAH Worldwide Church in Harlem on February 16, 2008 called Barack Obama the devil for having been born by a white mother. So is he a savior or the devil?

We have two Christian reverends, Wright and Manning, preaching disgusting themes. They are each fueling racial stereotypes against both white and black people and their congregations are standing up and cheering them. On several news shows over the past few days I have seen well educated black religious experts equivocate when asked if they believe the U.S. government intentionally gave AIDS to black men. I think it would certainly help race relations if this type of preaching were eliminated. It has been an eye opener for much of the American public.

We might do well to have Bill Cosby talk to some black reverends. Don’t hold your breath; however, he has already been labeled an Uncle Tom by many of them. Obama would stand a better chance to be President if he belonged to the church of Cosby than the Trinity United Church of Christ. He is neither a savior nor the devil. He is just a man. He is also another politician who made a bad choice. A choice that grows increasingly less impressive with each passing day. A choice that shed a bright light on one of the reasons why there need not be much optimism on the progress of race relations in this country regardless of who is President.