Slate - "The Obama Paradox"

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2017/01/what_barack_obama_could_ve_learned_from_jeremiah_wright.html

Our first black president has an unyielding faith in the goodness of America. It got him elected. And it will cost him his legacy.

By Jamelle Bouie

"The myth of Barack Obama usually begins with his speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and for good reason—it was the speech that jump-started his political career, putting the then–state senator on the fast track to national office. But it wasn’t the speech that made him president. That speech was delivered at a moment of crisis. His former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was in the middle of a media firestorm over a sermon he had given in 2003 in the wake of the Iraq invasion. “No, no, no. Not God bless America,” thunders Wright in the now-infamous video. “God Damn America!”

Had this just been the case of a controversial preacher, Obama might have survived by ignoring it—treating it as a distraction from “the issues.” But Wright was more than controversial; he was black. And he was speaking in a black religious and political tradition that condemns America for its treatment of black and brown people, for the genocide of natives and the enslavement of Africans, for internment and displacement. In Wright’s eyes, America was sinful, and until it atoned for those sins, God would deny His blessings. Not God Bless America. God Damn America!

For Obama, who built his political appeal on his distance from this rhetoric—from the tenor and tone of traditional black politics—Wright’s sermon was a disaster in the making. To operate in the mainstream, to attain influence and power, black public figures have to navigate a narrow strait of acceptable behavior. They cannot indulge their anger or give way to their passions. And for Obama, who sought an office all but reserved for white men, he had to prove that he wasn’t an Al Sharpton or a Jesse Jackson, that he held no resentment or frustration with the country. And so on March 18, 2008, Obama delivered an address in Philadelphia now known as his “A More Perfect Union” speech. In it, he repudiated Wright’s anger without dismissing its sources, and along the way he demonstrated the qualities that have defined him as president: a sense of balance, a willingness to look to the better angels of his opponents, a belief that there is always common ground.

Now, on the eve of his farewell address, 10 days before the inauguration of Donald Trump, the most celebrated speech of Obama’s career hits the ears a little differently, as does the sermon that necessitated it. What the Jeremiah Wright of “God Damn America” lacked in admiration for the country, he made up for in clarity about its nature and its sins. He refused to look away from the dark corners of American history, or treat them as mere “zags” on the road to progress. He was clear-eyed about racism as a motive force in American life. He knew we cannot escape our history"

snip

Long, provocative, interesting.

[Arazi]

1. Glad you brought this here

It's a fascinating piece on race that deserves thoughtful discussion

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. thanks so much

very well put.