Obama will not appear at Tavis Smiley's SOTBU in New Orleans [View All]

[journalist3072]

Day before yesterday, I made a post here on DU, about Tavis Smiley's upcoming annual State of the Black Union, which will held in New Orleans this year. And I mentioned that Tavis said that so far, Sen. Hillary Clinton was the only presidential candidate to confirm their appearance.

He invited the 4 candidates who are still standing, and no one had confirmed but Sen. Clinton.

Here's my post from Tuesday:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4558558


Well, Tavis provided an update today. The Obama campaign sent a letter saying that Obama will not be there. Basically, Tavis said the tone of the letter was 'we're on a mission.' Translation: they are too busy campaigning, to be bothered to come to NOLA and address the issues facing those who are still trying to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

And apparently, the Obama campaign is lying and saying they offered for Michelle Obama to come in Barack's place.

Tavis said his organization NEVER received anything from the Obama campaign, offering Michelle Obama to appear instead.

And he said that even if they had received it, he would have rejected that offer. He wants to hear from the candidates, NOT their spouses. He said if Sen. Clinton had offered up Bill Clinton, he would have rejected. If McCain offered up Cindy, or Mike Huckabee offered up Janet, he would have rejected.

As Tavis said, when he sponsored both the Democratic and Republican debates last year, the spouses didn't stand up there and debate, in place of the candidates.

I think that we in Black America must ask ourselves some serious questions. Here we have Barak Obama, trying to become the first Black President of the United States. And as I mentioned in my post the other day, he's made a huge issue of his race in this campaign, from telling Tavis Smiley "there's no doubt in my mind that if we consolidate the Black vote, that would have a profound shift in the national polls." Then, there was the time he told a predominantly Black audience to make sure they bring Pookie and Ray Ray to the polls.

Yet, he can't find time to show up in New Orleans and address the issues surrounding that city, when it was African-Americans who were disproportionately affected by Hurricane Katrina.

And so we need to ask ourselves: does he really deserve our vote?

I'v said constantly that as an African-American, I've been extremely troubled by how many in my community have approached this election: basically voting off of emotion, and some false notion that we have to prove our racial pride by voting for the Black candidate.

And as I've constantly said, we have too many issues to address. This is no time to vote off of emotion. We have issues to address, such as the rebuilding of New Orleans.

Tavis Smiley has said he thinks it would be a grave mistake for Obama, McCain and Huckabee to not show up.

If you want to hear Tavis' commentary from today about this, go to:

http://blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/tjms/missed/index

Scroll down to the audio clips from the February 14 show, and click on where it says Listen to Tavis Smiley