I could've told them there'd be days like this.
By Michael Kwiatkowski
Created May 13 2008 - 8:37am
MSNBC [1] re****ts.
Volunteering on Frank Jackson's campaign for mayor of Cleveland in 2005, I
was not surprised to hear a very unpleasant and vulgar word beginning with
the letter 'n' used two different times. Still irritated, to be sure, but
not surprised. Cleveland is a prime example of a town where racism still
flourishes. This is why Obama's tossing of his former pastor under the
proverbial bus did absolutely no good, and may have even hurt his campaign
in the long run. Obama cannot separate himself from his African roots no
matter how hard he tries, no matter how white and nonthreatening he tries
to
make himself to white people. Obama was never going to get the bigot vote.
Yet he thought he could simply by making a few speeches.
It saddens, but doesn't surprise me that some of his followers are shocked
to see racism alive and well on the campaign trail. No, their candidate
cannot work miracles, cannot simply talk his way past hatred or heal
racial
divides by dissing his own as angry old relics. But why are these folk
shocked? The other night I was having a political argument with my friend
and mentor about Jeremiah Wright. He thinks Wright is a racist because the
preacher believes AIDS may have been an invention of the white man to use
against Blacks. While I disagree, and don't think that is the case (no one
would be crazy enough to create a virus that destroys the human immune
system and think it wouldn't affect everyone instead of just one group), I
can see -- given our history of experimentation with contagions and upon
humans -- why Wright and others like him might not think it such a
far-fetched theory. And that appears to be the only thing my friend thinks
makes Wright a racist. Never mind that false preachers such as Hagee,
Falwell, and Robertson have actually blamed America for things such as
9/11,
Hurricane Katrina, and other major disasters -- all for imagined crimes of
immorality.
The point is that just because Barack Obama waves his oratorical magic
wand
and declares an end to racism in politics doesn't mean his s**** oil pitch
has worked, and no one should be expressing any surprise over this.
--
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an op****tunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are
at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
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