You owe it to yourself to watch it (below), or at least read it.
Excerpt:
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many 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.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
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My favorite quote was:
“But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. ”
(I just now realized you had it in text above)
DON’T FORGET THAT THE GUY NEXT TO YOU IS _____ fill in the blank.
Actually though, this is the COMPLETE portion:
“But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.”
That’s total BS, keeping race in mind IS to simplify, stereotype and amplify the negitive to the point that it distorts reality.
The problem here is what I like to call “Political dialogue”. The words you hear from politicians that don’t make sense, but still get people cheering.
The message in this speech is that when it comes to racism, HE IS ON TOP OF IT, and there’s NOBODY better.
That’s all most people will hear, and MOST people is all that matters.