Louis Farrakhan and Senator Obama

poetsheart · August 5, 2008, 11:47pm

^^^^^Case in point:rolleyes:^^^^^^

By the way, McCain’s adopted daughter is not black. She is an South East Asian from Bangladesh. If they’re anything like East Asian Indians, or Pakistanis, I’m sure most Denizens of Bangladesh would be thoroughly insulted by being mistaken for black. Their often very dark skin not withstanding, persons from that part of the world are actually considered to be members of the Caucasian race:eek:. Now, had the child been from Nigeria, or even Somalia, you could accurately say she was black.

Drosselmeier · August 6, 2008, 5:23am

Well, the fact is, bz, you have been responding to my posts, indeed you’ve responded several times now, despite your claims to be short of time. Were you truly not responding to them, you would have said nothing at all regarding them, including your reponse that you have no time to respond. But, of course, you’ve read them, disagreed with them, and then responded with these false claims.

Drosselmeier · August 6, 2008, 5:24am

This, of course, will not do. I have not seen this evidence and I have read everything I could get. Since you have made the claims against Wright here, and been challenged to support them (I challenge ANYone, ANYONE at all to present this evidence because I wish to see it), you have a logical responsibilty to support your contention. You have a burden to prove your view and it is clear to me you cannot do it. I do not respect this. It lacks integrity.

If you cannot support your claims, honor demands that you retract them.

Drosselmeier · August 6, 2008, 5:25am

*“[Falwell] retreated from massive resistance and founded the Lynchburg Christian Academy, an institution described by the Lynchburg News in 1966 as “a private school for white students.” It was one among many so-called “seg academies” created in the South to avoid integrated public schools.”

“Jerry Falwell once called 'The Metropolitan Community Church ‘a vile and Satanic system’ that will ‘one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven.’ Members of these churches, Falwell added, are ‘brute beasts.’ Falwell initially denied his statements, offering Jerry Sloan, an MCC minister and gay rights activist $5,000 to prove that he had made them. When Sloan produced a videotape containing footage of Falwell’s denunciations, the reverend refused to pay. Only after Sloan sued did Falwell cough up the money.”

“‘If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God’s word and had desired to do the Lord’s will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made,’ Falwell boomed from above his congregation in Lynchburg. ‘[schools should not be integrated]. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.’”

Falwell’s jeremiad continued: “The true Negro does not want integration… He realizes his potential is far better among his own race.” Falwell went on to announce that integration “will destroy our race eventually. In one northern city,” he warned, “a pastor friend of mine tells me that a couple of opposite race live next door to his church as man and wife.”

As pressure from the civil rights movement built during the early 1960s, and President Lyndon Johnson introduced sweeping civil rights legislation, Falwell grew increasingly conspiratorial. He enlisted with J. Edgar Hoover to distribute FBI manufactured propaganda against the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and publicly denounced the 1964 Civil Rights Act as “civil wrongs.”*
[Agent</a> of Intolerance](<a href=“http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070528/blumenthal]Agent”>http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070528/blumenthal)

Now, McCain knew of Jerry Falwell for at least a decade, and condemned him as an 'Agent of Intolerance". Falwell espoused true racism and gay hatred, unlike Wright. McCain knew of the man’s views. Yet he in recent times compromised his alleged principles to cultivate a friendship with Falwell. He retracted his statement about Falwell, and even agreed to support the anti-gay marriage bill that caused him to condemn Falwell in the first place. Obama likely heard Wright’s comments in context during those “twenty years”, concluding, as any reasonable person would, that no bigotry existed in them. But clearly Falwell condemns gays as abominable to God and everyone knows he did, including McCain. You must speculate whether Obama gives truck to racism, since no evidence exists to support that Wright is a racist. You need not speculate at all with McCain. He embraced Falwell as a friend though Falwell’s hate was unabashed. Reason tells us we have a much bigger moral problem with McCain than we do with Obama.

parent2noles · August 6, 2008, 5:29am

So being “black” is technical? I guess I was silly and merely thought it had to do with skin color. :eek:

Here’s a graphic from a source you can trust: [Baby</a> on Board](<a href=“http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=bbd23d59-2190-4065-8a09-44e8b0be7ba2]Baby”>http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=bbd23d59-2190-4065-8a09-44e8b0be7ba2)

parent2noles · August 6, 2008, 5:42am

Is Farrakhan a racist, Dross?

parent2noles · August 6, 2008, 7:03am

*This, of course, will not do. I have not seen this evidence and I have read everything I could get. Since you have made the claims against Wright here, and been challenged to support them (I challenge ANYone, ANYONE at all to present this evidence because I wish to see it), you have a logical responsibilty to support your contention. You have a burden to prove your view and it is clear to me you cannot do it. I do not respect this. It lacks integrity.

If you cannot support your claims, honor demands that you retract them.*

Sorry, Dross. I am unwilling to re-post myriad media reports for you on this subject. You can ignore the significance of the existing reporting and you can also challenge the industry to be more accurate if you think they’re wrong.

I see this reporting as like a canary in a mineshaft. Sure, it could be inaccurate or one (such as yourself) could argue that technically it is wrong. Ordinarily, I’d agree with you and think about other things. However, since this reporting bears directly on the beliefs and thinking processes of perhaps our next president then I apply a very sensitive standard to those who’d seek control of the nuclear trigger.

However, fret not. As time passes these reports will either be strengthened or they will fade away. I’m satisfied to wait.

In addition, lest you imply the reporting imparts the wrong impression to those of us in the great unwashed, remember that the vast majority of media members are quite liberal and sympathetic to your candidate. I suggest these reports about Obama, Wright and Farrakhan had to pass their smell test first, which probably was no small feat.
:)

calmom · August 6, 2008, 7:11am

And this is why you want to vote for the guy who sings Bomb, bomb, bomb … bomb Iran ?

parent2noles · August 6, 2008, 7:17am

Believe it or not, there is still time to change my mind. ;)

I would want to vote for the arrogant and aggressive pilot who stayed in terrible captivity and underwent torture rather than exploit his family connections to go home. He’d obviously rather die for his country than see his example used by enemies to attack the United States.

I’m still amazed by this example.

calmom · August 6, 2008, 8:39am

Being “arrogant and aggressive” (and stubborn) is probably a very good quality to have as a POW, and possibly good for a pilot as well. From what I can learn, the young John McCain was also a little too daring and/or risk-taking – he lost 5 planes and while the last 2 were probably not his fault, the loss of the first 3 was probably due to poor flying and/or carelessness.

McCain is also a high-stakes, high rolling gambler, who favors craps (very much a game of chance) - see: [Candidates</a>’ Vices: Craps and Poker - TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1819898,00.html]Candidates”>http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1819898,00.html)

Obama, on the other hand is cautious, meticulous, careful. Or, to use some adjectives from the same article: risk-averse, methodical, cautious, self-absorbed.

The job of President is different. If we are talking about whose finger is on the button, I’d personally prefer Merkin Muffley to Buck Turgidson.

Drosselmeier · August 6, 2008, 1:53pm

If the media reports presenting “Wright’s racist public comments” are so plentiful, as you claim, then lets see you post one of them so that I may also read the racist public comments. It is a challenge to you to defend your honor, such as it is. [You</a> have claimed Wright has made racist public comments](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060422509-post28.html]You”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060422509-post28.html). I am now challenging you to support your claim with evidence. So far, you have failed. You are now claiming essentially that ‘everyone knows he is a racist. So you should just believe everyone’. This is without honor. You have made a claim, and have received a challenge to support it. Where is your support? I am even willing to agree that the possibility exists that you have support. But I have not yet seen it. Where has Wright publicly uttered anti-white racist comments? That is the challenge before you. If you cannot rise to meet it, then if you have honor, you must retract the claim.

Well, this is lemming behavior and you ought not engage in it. I would encourage you to verify your beliefs with actual facts, rather than depending upon vague notions from such “media luminaries" as Rush Limbaugh and Shawn Hannity. This is especially important because you now take part in perhaps slandering a man and his entire church. I do not agree with Wright on a great many things. I do not agree with his church. I think he, like everyone else, is flawed and has therefore made mistakes in his life. But I have not yet found even one piece of evidence to support that the man has made the anti-white racist statements you claim he has made. I am asking you to support your claims. Rather than act with honor here, you have so far dismissed the challenge as a way to escape your moral duty. It is unconscionable, to be frank about it.

This is no excuse to spread these reports, especially now that you have Googled them to death and found yourself in the immoral position of having spread lies.

Well. Obama is not my candidate. I do not like his position on a great many things. I also do not think America is worthy of his temperament and abilities. He is not the man to lead people who are so eager to see him fail. But there are implications to his campaign that are important to me. For example, I want to see how honorable can average Americans be when challenged to support their beliefs and finding those beliefs to be damnable and false.

Drosselmeier · August 6, 2008, 2:16pm

(Missed this post.)

Not in the way you desperately need him to be. We may call his beliefs “racism”, but any honest person would understand that his racism is to be distinguished from white racism. Farrakhan is bitter toward whites because of what very many whites have done to blacks, and also because of how the legacy of their behavior continues to harm blacks. His racism is not of the David Duke sort that stems from a belief in racial supremacy. He is responding to actual injustices against blacks.

What makes him interesting and what makes Wright’s behavior toward him understandable, is that he shares the interest of vast numbers of blacks in helping blacks overcome the injustice that causes his racism. Wright, Farrakhan, and many other blacks, focus on helping blacks in particular because they understand, vicerally, that blacks are most in need of the help. Many blacks, therefore, though not racists themselves, can identify with Farrakhan to such an extent that they can include him as they “circle the wagons” against the pressures that harm blacks.

I think Farrakhan’s anger is justified. I part ways with him because I think its amplitude is false. He has allowed his legitimate anger to become a principle that he now applies to all whites. It is unfair, and so I personally reject Farrakhan. I think Wright should have rejected him, but in view of the circumstances described above, I understand it and do not see the rationale in claiming Wright is a racist by association with Farrakhan. I do see the rationale in claiming Wright is undiscerning, and so deeply flawed by the pain of being black in America that it has blinded him to Farrakhan’s abominable unfairness to Jews and whites.

jym626 · August 6, 2008, 3:40pm

Halleluyah! We finally agree on something (and with no mention yet of civil war injustices to boot!! Yay! ;))

parent2noles · August 6, 2008, 7:21pm

Dross, it seems we’ll not agree to much, but please try and be civil. I’ll simply move on otherwise, regardless of your attempts to invoke honor into an anonymous Internet conversation. Thanks so much in advance. :)

First of all, it seems we need to clarify what racism is to (American) blacks and what it is to (American) whites. Snopes has a reasonable explanation for this divergence of views:
*As for the (subjective) issue of whether a church with an 8,600-member black congregation that espouses a “Black Value System” and urges commitment to the “Black Community,” the “Black Family,” and “the Black Work Ethic” is a church that is dutifully attending to the needs of its congregation, or one that is advocating a form of separatism or racism, Chicago Sun-Times journalist Monroe Anderson tackled that subject in a piece about TUCC back in March 2007:
If a white presidential candidate’s church had a similar statement and “you substitute the word white for black, there would be an outrage in this country,” [Sean] Hannity preached. “There would be cries of racism in this country.”

True and Catch-22. If a white church plainly and proudly pronounced its whiteness, Hannity, [Tucker] Carlson and company would be right. But if it was the Holy Trinity Polish Church on Chicago’s North Side, proclaiming its Polishness, who’d care? This is how African Americans find ourselves in a trick bag. We’re defined racially even when we’re acting like any other of this nation’s ethnic groups. Issues knee-jerkily become black and white when in reality they may be African American and Irish American. Or Serbian American and African American.

The New York Times also noted:
[The TUCC pastor] preached black liberation theology, which interprets the Bible as the story of the struggles of black people, who by virtue of their oppression are better able to understand Scripture than those who have suffered less. That message can sound different to white audiences, said Dwight Hopkins, a professor at University of Chicago Divinity School and a Trinity member. “Some white people hear it as racism in reverse,” Dr. Hopkins said, while blacks hear, "Yes, we are somebody, we’re also made in God’s image."*
Source: [snopes.com:</a> Barack Obama - Trinity United Church of Christ](<a href=“http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/church.asp]snopes.com:”>Politics Archives | Snopes.com)

Let’s then consider a few media pieces wherein mainstream media writers or other public figures think Reverend Wright’s public statements were inflammatory and racist:

<ol>
<li>*Obama’s Philadelphia oration was an exercise in contextualization. In one particularly egregious play on white guilt, Obama had the audacity to suggest that whites should be ashamed that they were ever surprised by Wright’s remarks: “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 of American life occurs on Sunday morning.”</li>
</ol>

That was then. On Tuesday, Obama declared that he himself was surprised at Wright’s outrages. But hadn’t Obama told us that surprise about Wright is a result of white ignorance of black churches brought on by America’s history of segregated services? How then to explain Obama’s own presumed ignorance? Surely he too was not sitting in those segregated white churches on those fateful Sundays when he conveniently missed all of Wright’s racist rants.

Obama’s newest attempt to save himself after Wright’s latest poisonous performance is now declared the new final word on the subject. Therefore, any future ads linking Obama and Wright are preemptively declared out of bounds, illegitimate, indeed “race-baiting” (a New York Times editorial, April 30).

On what grounds? This 20-year association with Wright calls into question everything about Obama: his truthfulness in his serially adjusted stories of what he knew and when he knew it; his judgment in choosing as his mentor, pastor and great friend a man he just now realizes is a purveyor of racial hatred; and the central premise of his campaign, that he is the bringer of a “new politics,” rising above the old Washington ways of expediency. It’s hard to think of an act more blatantly expedient than renouncing Wright when his show, once done from the press club instead of the pulpit, could no longer be “contextualized” as something whites could not understand and only Obama could explain in all its complexity.*
Source: [Charles</a> Krauthammer - The ‘Race’ Speech Revisited - washingtonpost.com](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/01/AR2008050102900.html]Charles”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/01/AR2008050102900.html)

<ol>
<li>*Let’s start with the news out of his speeches Sunday and Monday: Wright, Obama’s mentor and former pastor, is worse than we thought. He’s a bigot, at least by the standards usually reserved for white people such as former Harvard President Lawrence Summers or “The Bell Curve” author Charles Murray.</li>
</ol>

On Sunday in Detroit, he explained to 10,000 people at the Fight for Freedom Fund dinner of the NAACP – an organization adept at taking offense at far less racist comments from nonblacks – **that whites have an inherent “left-brain cognitive, object-oriented learning style. Logical and analytical,” while blacks “learn not from an object but from a subject. They are right-brain, subject-oriented in their learning style. That means creative and intuitive. The two worlds have different ways of learning.”

Blacks even have better rhythm, Wright explained.
**
CNN carried the speech live, and news anchor Soledad O’Brien reported from the scene that it was “a home run.”*
Source: [Looking</a> for Mr. Wright - Los Angeles Times](<a href=“http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldberg29apr29,0,5010765.column]Looking”>http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldberg29apr29,0,5010765.column)

<ol>
<li>*Barack Obama faced fresh controversy yesterday over the anti-Israel views propagated by his former pastor even as he was being welcomed to New York by Michael Bloomberg, the city’s Jewish Mayor.</li>
</ol>

The disclosure of articles published by the Rev Jeremiah Wright’s church newsletter threatened to overshadow his speech outlining his economic plans. The articles included a column by the Hamas leader, Mousa Abu Marzook, which asked: “Why should any Palestinian recognise the monstrous crimes carried out by Israel’s founders and continued by its deformed modern apartheid state?”

Mr Obama swiftly denounced the decision to reprint the article but faced further embarrassment over comments from Mr Wright, quoted in another church magazine, which referred to Italians as “garlic noses”.*
Source: [Rev</a> Jeremiah Wright lands Barack Obama in trouble again - Times Online](<a href=“http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3636128.ece]Rev”>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3636128.ece)

<ol>
<li>*On Tuesday, I pointed out the hypocrisy of Obama’s speech when it came to how it handled Ferraro’s comments. While not exactly exhibiting political sense, nothing of what Ferraro said came close to the volcanic demagoguery of Jeremiah Wright. Yet Obama chose to have his campaign go into hyperventilating outrage over Ferraro while excusing the racist and anti-American rhetoric of his pastor, spiritual mentor, and political adviser.</li>
</ol>

Obama may wish that he hadn’t chased Ferraro out of the Hillary Clinton campaign for another reason other than the obvious hypocrisy. She no longer has to worry about how her speech reflects on Hillary, and so Ferraro is much freer to speak her mind on this issue. Calling Wright a racist bigot may just be the opening stanza for Ferraro, who clearly is not in the mood for reconciliation.*
Source: [Hot</a> Air Blog Archive Geraldine Ferraro: Wright a “racist bigot”](<a href=“http://hotair.com/archives/2008/03/20/geraldine-ferraro-wright-a-racist-bigot/]Hot”>Geraldine Ferraro: Wright a "racist bigot" – HotAir)

Are these enough? There are more. ;)

And yes, Wright is a racist. Thanks for agreeing that Farrakhan is as well. I can understand the pain of the black community to the best of my ability and I am deeply sympathetic to that condition. However, while we may like to to think of Wright as a benign Archie Bunker (he’s not, Wright is much better educated and should know better) I cut him no slack as the primary mentor to Senator Obama, who may be our next president.

parent2noles · August 6, 2008, 7:39pm

Calmom, in protecting the nation American fighter pilots are extremely adept at knowing when to pull the trigger or when to just break off and go home.

I trust McCain to keep us safe. Obama is unknown and untrained. He might eventually reach the correct decision, but we may suffer many deaths while he dithers.

calmom · August 6, 2008, 8:13pm

More than 4,000 US Soldiers have died and more than 30,000 have been injured in an unnecessary war that McCain promoted and Obama opposed. Given the fact that McCain was an early and strong advocate for the war - and would readily admit that he alway supported it – I think we’ve already suffered far too many deaths as a result of his “experience” or “leadership”.

mezzomom · August 6, 2008, 9:28pm

P2N, I’m breaking my pledge to stay out of political discussions on CC to make one small point. I strongly suggest that if you have a sincere interest in any liberation theology (black or otherwise), you go to the source and do your own reading. I have yet to find a media source which is capable of understanding or explaining liberation theologies with any adequacy or accuracy. As with any theology, there is a complex vocabulary and a level of nuance that does not lend itself to explanation in any media. The explanations of black liberation theology have been particularly lacking; it has been systematically misinterpreted and demonized in most articles I’ve seen, and the emphasis invariably seems to be on BLACK liberation theology instead of a more accurate black LIBERATION theology. But of course, even the term “liberation” is scary to some people, despite the fact that these theologies developed, in part, as a response to Christian silence and inaction to the Holocaust.

For what it’s worth, I think Pastor Wright made some shocking and ridiculous statements over the years, and I find his reference to Italians far more offensive than his YouTubed-looping-clip statements. Do I think he is a racist? Maybe a little bit…probably as much as I, or anyone else, is. Do I think this is a reason to categorically reject Senator Obama? Absolutely not…he was not making the offensive statements. As for your assertion that he (Pastor Wright) was Senator Obama’s “primary mentor”…source, please? In my experience, one can have several mentors over a period of years, and to make the claim that Pastor Wright was Obama’s primary mentor seems to be your interpretation, rather than a characterization made by the Senator.

RugBurn · August 6, 2008, 9:55pm

And John McCain crashed not one, not two, not even three, but four planes, so obviously, his “fighter pilot” instincts are just top-notch :)

God help us if McCain treats America the same way he treats his planes, that’s all I can say.

system · August 6, 2008, 11:36pm

p2n,
Drosselmeier has asked you to produce an actual statement of Jeremiah Wright’s that is racist. Quoting others who say he is racist is not the same thing. I’m sure it would be possible to search online and find an equal number of people who say he is NOT racist.

I personally do not know if Reverend Wright has or has not made racist statements. As I know what it is like to stay in a church with a pastor who occasionally says things I do not agree with, I can understand Obama staying in a church that does so much good even if Wright did occasionally make a statement that was a bit overboard.

However, you are not answering the request that was made. Secondhand testimony is NOT the same as firsthand.

teriwtt · August 7, 2008, 12:12am

Thank you mezzomom. I’ll take it one step further. I received my master’s degree from a seminary in Hyde Park (where Obama lives) two years ago. One of my first Christian Theology classes was taught by a black professor who very eloquently lectured on black liberation theology (as well as other liberation theologies). I would say that, until I walk in the shoes of a black person who subscribes to this theology (which I never will), I will never completely understand the heritage and tradition of the hope this theology provides. As a matter of curiousity, I looked through my notes from that class, and it was obvious that the experience of Hope was the main message this professor wanted to instill in us. I’ve seen little, if any, evidence of this communicated through any mainstream media.

Louis Farrakhan and Senator Obama

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