JFK made nice speeches about civil rights, but knew that he needed the support of racist Southern Democrats in the U.S. Senate, so he was relatively inert during the turmoil of the Civil Rights movement.
He also understood that Blacks were inalienably Democratic, and therefore would remain in his column despite his flirtations with white racist demogogues like James Eastland, Orville Faubus, William Fulbright and Sam Ervin.
Likewise, Sen. Obama has generated some soaring rhetoric about unity and racial reconciliation, but he understands as a prosperous biracial man that his bona fides with the resentful Black underclass are not secure enough to permit him to repudiate Black racist demogogues and economic hypocrites like his Chicago pastor.
Just in case Obama wavers, ideological enforcers like the Washington Post's Colbert King are at the ready with columns like the one below.
Why Obama Stands With His Church
By Colbert King
All they wanted to do was pray with the rest of the congregation. But that was asking too much.
To be sure, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, two leaders in Philadelphia's black community, enjoyed great success in bringing African Americans into the Christian fold. But the steady growth in black membership at St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church distressed the white congregation that owned the church.
At first, black Christians were moved to seats along the wall. That still allowed for too much mingling. So one Sunday morning as Allen, Jones and the other black worshipers knelt to pray, white church elders tapped Jones and Allen on the shoulders and told them to take their praying upstairs to a recently built balcony.
Rather than submit to such humiliation, Jones, Allen and the rest of the black worshipers walked out. The two men formed their own congregations.
Jones gained permission from the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania to establish America's first black parish, St. Thomas African Episcopal Church. He eventually became the Episcopal Church's first African American priest.
Allen formed a Methodist congregation that eventually became today's multimillion-member African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.
The walkout in the City of Brotherly Love occurred in 1787 -- a year that marks the beginning of America's independent black church, a theological movement born out of racism.
This history comes to mind as I listen to conservative commentators, chief among them MSNBC's Pat Buchanan, brand as "racist" the slogan adopted by Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago: "Unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian."
Trinity is Barack Obama's church and the place where the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. -- a gift to all who would bring down Obama -- served as pastor until his recent retirement.
Buchanan and his ilk look at Trinity's slogan with horror. They label the church's theological values "Afro-centric" and "racially exclusive." Trinity is beyond the pale of Christianity, at least their version of it. Psst: Trinity has plenty of company, coast to coast.
Many black congregations, from storefronts to mega-churches, are in sync with the Trinity slogan. They, too, see no need to apologize for their African roots. Nor are they ashamed of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
But hey, what's with this newfound concern about African Americans worshiping among themselves in their own way? More important, who forced that separation?
As sociologist Kenneth Clark noted in his book "Dark Ghetto," ministers and lay leaders of white Christian churches historically were unwilling to incorporate large numbers of blacks into their houses of Christ. That's still the case today with some churches.
Truth is, folks like Buchanan don't really care that America's Christian congregations don't look like salt and pepper on Sunday mornings. The reality of blacks and whites worshiping apart doesn't disturb them. If anything, Buchanan thinks African Americans are ingrates -- that we should be satisfied with our station in life.
"America has been the best country on earth for black folks," Buchanan wrote in his column, " PJB: A Brief for Whitey," posted on his Web site yesterday.
"It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known," he wrote.
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Sorry You Feel That Way, White Interloper and Bloodsucking Jew
Here are excerpts from Bill Levinson's Jan. 4 post on Israpundit about Barack Obama's stubborn loyalty to Jew-baiting race hustler Al Sharpton.
Obama Campaign Responds to Bigotry Complaint with Patronizing Insult
by Bill Levinson
Imagine the following interchange between an African-American voter and a candidate who has appeared with the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan:
If our readers think such an interchange is highly unlikely, we will now share the Barack Obama campaign’s official response to our complaints about Mr. Obama’s ongoing promotion of the prominent racist and anti-Semite Al Sharpton.
We began with the premise of a candidate associating with and openly promoting a Ku Klux Klan leader who has at least indirectly incited a lynching, and the firebombing of a Negro church in which people were killed.
Al Sharpton played at least an indirect role in fomenting the 1991 Crown Heights pogrom in which a mob yelling “Kill the Jews” did so: a rabbinical student named Yankel Rosenbaum. Sharpton personally called the Jews “diamond merchants” with the blood of innocent children on their hands....
In 1995, a mob from Al Sharpton’s National Action Network – the same organization that Barack Obama endorsed last April – paraded around a Jewish-owned store, Freddy’s Fashion Mart, in Harlem. This mob, under Sharpton’s personal supervision, chanted epithets like “bloodsucking Jew” and “cracker,” to which Sharpton personally added “white interloper.”
Like a Ku Klux Klansman who threatens to burn a Black-owned church or business in the “wrong” neighborhood, one of Sharpton’s people threatened to burn Freddy’s Fashion Mart. Another later put this threat into effect, just like a Kluxer who throws a firebomb into a Black-owned store or church, with the loss of seven innocent lives.
In 1988, Sharpton played a central role in the racist Tawana Brawley scandal, which did immense damage to the reputations of innocent people while costing Dutchess County something like half a million dollars.
We encourage our readers in New York to (ask) the people of Dutchess County, and especially Wappinger Falls, just how much damage Obama’s friend did to their community twenty years ago. Remember, many people now of voting age had not even been born at the time.
This April, Barack Obama appeared at a meeting of the National Action Network–the very same hate organization that shouted slogans like “bloodsucking Jew” and “cracker” at Freddy’s Fashion Mart–where he endorsed this ... organization and its proprietor.
Sen. Barack Obama: “Reverend Sharpton is a voice for the voiceless, and a voice for the dispossessed. What National Action Network has done is so important to change America, and it must be changed from the bottom up.” In November, Obama made at least one more public appearance with (Sharpton), at the Apollo Theater.
We have, in response to numerous unsolicited e-mails from the Obama campaign, called (866) 675-2008 to complain about Mr. Obama’s open promotion of a vicious professional bigot who has built his career by promoting hatred of white people, and especially of Jews. Today, we received an official reply that we can construe only as a patronizing brush-off, if not a deliberate insult:
The operative statement appears to be, “people can disagree without being disagreeable.” In other words, “We’re sorry you feel that way about our candidate’s public and ongoing promotion of a racist and anti-Semitic hate monger, but we don’t care because we own the Jewish vote anyway.”
It is therefore vital for us to spread the word as widely as possible that Barack Obama has so little respect for common decency that he consorts openly with the (equivalent) of the Ku Klux Klan and the Stormfront White Nationalist Community.
It is ... clear that Obama feels that he can be everything to everybody, and that he does not have to take a principled stand on anything....
Perhaps Obama (can) understand the following: (1) You can’t appear at a tribute to Michael Vick today and at an SPCA meeting tomorrow, and expect the SPCA people to believe that you are really against dog fighting and other forms of animal abuse. (2) You can’t appear at the Ku Klux Klan today and the NAACP tomorrow, and expect African-Americans to believe that you support civil rights. (3) You can’t appear arm in arm with Al Sharpton today and at AIPAC tomorrow, and expect Jewish voters to think you have anything but total contempt for them as well as for common decency.
Obama Campaign Responds to Bigotry Complaint with Patronizing Insult
by Bill Levinson
Imagine the following interchange between an African-American voter and a candidate who has appeared with the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan:
Voter: “It is impossible for me to support someone who promotes and endorses an individual who has called my people the N word, and who has at least indirectly incited a lynching and the firebombing of a Negro church. You should apologize and distance yourself from that Klan leader.”
Candidate: “I’m sorry you feel that way” (or “I’m sorry you’re a Negro.”)
If our readers think such an interchange is highly unlikely, we will now share the Barack Obama campaign’s official response to our complaints about Mr. Obama’s ongoing promotion of the prominent racist and anti-Semite Al Sharpton.
We began with the premise of a candidate associating with and openly promoting a Ku Klux Klan leader who has at least indirectly incited a lynching, and the firebombing of a Negro church in which people were killed.
Al Sharpton played at least an indirect role in fomenting the 1991 Crown Heights pogrom in which a mob yelling “Kill the Jews” did so: a rabbinical student named Yankel Rosenbaum. Sharpton personally called the Jews “diamond merchants” with the blood of innocent children on their hands....
In 1995, a mob from Al Sharpton’s National Action Network – the same organization that Barack Obama endorsed last April – paraded around a Jewish-owned store, Freddy’s Fashion Mart, in Harlem. This mob, under Sharpton’s personal supervision, chanted epithets like “bloodsucking Jew” and “cracker,” to which Sharpton personally added “white interloper.”
Like a Ku Klux Klansman who threatens to burn a Black-owned church or business in the “wrong” neighborhood, one of Sharpton’s people threatened to burn Freddy’s Fashion Mart. Another later put this threat into effect, just like a Kluxer who throws a firebomb into a Black-owned store or church, with the loss of seven innocent lives.
In 1988, Sharpton played a central role in the racist Tawana Brawley scandal, which did immense damage to the reputations of innocent people while costing Dutchess County something like half a million dollars.
We encourage our readers in New York to (ask) the people of Dutchess County, and especially Wappinger Falls, just how much damage Obama’s friend did to their community twenty years ago. Remember, many people now of voting age had not even been born at the time.
This April, Barack Obama appeared at a meeting of the National Action Network–the very same hate organization that shouted slogans like “bloodsucking Jew” and “cracker” at Freddy’s Fashion Mart–where he endorsed this ... organization and its proprietor.
Sen. Barack Obama: “Reverend Sharpton is a voice for the voiceless, and a voice for the dispossessed. What National Action Network has done is so important to change America, and it must be changed from the bottom up.” In November, Obama made at least one more public appearance with (Sharpton), at the Apollo Theater.
We have, in response to numerous unsolicited e-mails from the Obama campaign, called (866) 675-2008 to complain about Mr. Obama’s open promotion of a vicious professional bigot who has built his career by promoting hatred of white people, and especially of Jews. Today, we received an official reply that we can construe only as a patronizing brush-off, if not a deliberate insult:
Dear Friend,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about Senator Barack Obama and his candidacy for President. Senator Obama welcomes an open dialogue about America’s future, and hopes for the widest possible participation in a great nationwide discussion.
Hearing and exploring different positions and ways of thinking furthers this discussion. It challenges our reasoning, sharpens our analysis of issues, and leads to new solutions. We appreciate having the benefit of your perspective.
One of Senator Obama’s mentors was the late Senator Paul Simon, a man of great ability and integrity. He believed that people could disagree without being disagreeable, and Senator Obama has taken that guiding principle as his own.
Thank you again for contacting Senator Obama.
Sincerely,
Obama for America
The operative statement appears to be, “people can disagree without being disagreeable.” In other words, “We’re sorry you feel that way about our candidate’s public and ongoing promotion of a racist and anti-Semitic hate monger, but we don’t care because we own the Jewish vote anyway.”
It is therefore vital for us to spread the word as widely as possible that Barack Obama has so little respect for common decency that he consorts openly with the (equivalent) of the Ku Klux Klan and the Stormfront White Nationalist Community.
It is ... clear that Obama feels that he can be everything to everybody, and that he does not have to take a principled stand on anything....
Perhaps Obama (can) understand the following: (1) You can’t appear at a tribute to Michael Vick today and at an SPCA meeting tomorrow, and expect the SPCA people to believe that you are really against dog fighting and other forms of animal abuse. (2) You can’t appear at the Ku Klux Klan today and the NAACP tomorrow, and expect African-Americans to believe that you support civil rights. (3) You can’t appear arm in arm with Al Sharpton today and at AIPAC tomorrow, and expect Jewish voters to think you have anything but total contempt for them as well as for common decency.
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