[Orion27]

I happened to read the speach Obama gave in Selma this weekend. And my impression was it took a black man to give the Democrat party back it's soul. Obama I think realizes, blacks in this country are a most conservative lot. Hard working, chuch going and patriotic. The pain of segregation and the ghosts of slavery burned deep.
He lectured them like no white person could. And my hope is he can find his way to speak a conservative vision to white voters alike. I'm not hopefull, but if he is as smart as his Harvard degree says he is, I hope he continues to borrow the themes from Jack Kennedy, and move his party away from pimps such as the current generation of the Kennedy's and Clintons. From the speach:

"That brings me to one other point, about the Joshua generation, and that is this -- that it's not enough just to ask what the government can do for us-- it's important for us to ask what we can do for ourselves....

.....but I'll tell you what -- even as I fight on behalf of more education funding, more equity, I have to also say that , if parents don't turn off the television set when the child comes home from school and make sure they sit down and do their homework and go talk to the teachers and find out how they're doing, and if we don't start instilling a sense in our young children that there is nothing to be ashamed about in educational achievement, I don't know who taught them that reading and writing and conjugating your verbs was something white.....

....We have too many children in poverty in this country and everybody should be ashamed, but don't tell me it doesn't have a little to do with the fact that we got too many daddies not acting like daddies. Don’t think that fatherhood ends at conception. I know something about that because my father wasn't around when I was young and I struggled....

....Sometimes it's easy to just point at somebody else and say it's their fault, but oppression has a way of creeping into it. Reverend, it has a way of stunting yourself. You start telling yourself, Bishop, I can't do something. I can't read. I can't go to college. I can't start a business. I can't run for Congress. I can't run for the presidency. People start telling you-- you can't do something, after a while, you start believing it and part of what the civil rights movement was about was recognizing that we have to transform ourselves in order to transform the world. Mahatma Gandhi, great hero of Dr. King and the person who helped create the nonviolent movement around the world; he once said that you can't change the world if you haven't changed...

[OAW]

The really interesting thing to me is just how common place such comments are. These sentiments are quite common and widespread in the African-American community. It's only white conservatives who latch onto them as if they are something new and novel. Having said that, the man speaks the truth. It will be interesting to see how many choose to listen.

OAW

[Orion27]

Originally Posted by OAW 

The really interesting thing to me is just how common place such comments are. These sentiments are quite common and widespread in the African-American community. It's only white conservatives who latch onto them as if they are something new and novel. Having said that, the man speaks the truth. It will be interesting to see how many choose to listen.

OAW

Oh yeah quite common. We see it all over the media every day. Oh yeah everyday on BET, everyday in the music.
Obama could be a shft in the Paradigm and you want to make it like some conservative band wagon. Well Obama's gonna need some honky votes to get elected. OAW you need to get your head out of your ass and grab an opportunity while you can.

[Orion27]

Originally Posted by OAW 

The really interesting thing to me is just how common place such comments are. These sentiments are quite common and widespread in the African-American community. It's only white conservatives who latch onto them as if they are something new and novel. Having said that, the man speaks the truth. It will be interesting to see how many choose to listen.

OAW

And tell me your not insulted by Hillary Clinton? Or that Bill Clinton is some black role model
Quite frankly I'm tired of all the condescension.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by OAW 

The really interesting thing to me is just how common place such comments are. These sentiments are quite common and widespread in the African-American community.

If they were really common and widespread, there would be no need to express such sentiments, because the problem would have disappeared.

[Jawbone54]

Bill Cosby has been talking this was (except much stronger) for quite a few years now.

[macintologist]

Why is race even an issue? People should be judged on their inward self, not their exterior appearance.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Orion27 

Oh yeah quite common. We see it all over the media every day. Oh yeah everyday on BET, everyday in the music.
Obama could be a shft in the Paradigm and you want to make it like some conservative band wagon. Well Obama's gonna need some honky votes to get elected. OAW you need to get your head out of your ass and grab an opportunity while you can.

The mass media is not controlled by African-Americans in the slightest. BET? BET? Oh please! The music? Why would you expect to see such serious and politically oriented comments like this in entertainment venues? BET!??

Instead of looking at BET where all you are going to see is Comedy Central re-runs and and hip hop videos filled with ass shaking video vixens, why not instead listen to News and Notes on NPR, Sharp Talk with Al Sharpton or Our World with Black Enterprise on TV One?

Black Enterprise magazine. Even mainstays like Ebony and Essence magazine. The now defunct Emerge magazine or its "successor" Savoy magazine. Publications like this have discussed such things for years. Internet magazines like The Black Commentator - March 1, 2007 - Issue 219 . African-American churches, barbershops, and beauty salons have conversations like this taking place on a regular basis. Speaker after speaker at the Million Man March talked about this and what was that ... 1995? At the time that was the largest gathering of its type in US history, and there were nearly a million people out there on the Capital Mall so do you really think they were being drawn to a message that was unfamiliar to them? Do you really think that Bill Cosby would be getting the positive reception he's been receiving with the lectures/panel discussions he's been doing if this was really something new?

Engage in a little bit of common sense for a moment. Do you really think the message that Obama delivered would have been as well received if he was telling the audience something that they didn't already know and believe?

OAW

PS: If you are really basing your perceptions of the African-American community solely on the foolishness you see on BET and hear in a run-of-the-mill-promoted-by-the-white-corporate-power-structure hip hop track then no wonder you seem so utterly clueless about how the vast majority of real, everyday African-Americans think. You really ought to ask somebody.

[Orion27]

Originally Posted by OAW 

The mass media is not controlled by African-Americans in the slightest. BET? BET? Oh please! The music? Why would you expect to see such serious and politically oriented comments like this in entertainment venues? BET!??

Instead of looking at BET where all you are going to see is Comedy Central re-runs and and hip hop videos filled with ass shaking video vixens, why not instead listen to News and Notes on NPR, Sharp Talk with Al Sharpton or Our World with Black Enterprise on TV One?

Black Enterprise magazine. Even mainstays like Ebony and Essence magazine. The now defunct Emerge magazine or its "successor" Savoy magazine. Publications like this have discussed such things for years. Internet magazines like The Black Commentator - March 1, 2007 - Issue 219 . African-American churches, barbershops, and beauty salons have conversations like this taking place on a regular basis. Speaker after speaker at the Million Man March talked about this and what was that ... 1995? At the time that was the largest gathering of its type in US history, and there were nearly a million people out there on the Capital Mall so do you really think they were being drawn to a message that was unfamiliar to them? Do you really think that Bill Cosby would be getting the positive reception he's been receiving with the lectures/panel discussions he's been doing if this was really something new?

Engage in a little bit of common sense for a moment. Do you really think the message that Obama delivered would have been as well received if he was telling the audience something that they didn't already know and believe?

OAW

PS: If you are really basing your perceptions of the African-American community solely on the foolishness you see on BET and hear in a run-of-the-mill-promoted-by-the-white-corporate-power-structure hip hop track then no wonder you seem so utterly clueless about how the vast majority of real, everyday African-Americans think. You really ought to ask somebody.

In a way you are making my point. The Black community is more conservative than portrayed. You and I avail ourselves of sources of information and debate, I humbly submit,which is not mainstream. That being said, I think my point is valid not because the black audience neads to hear it,( which they do ) but the audience Obama needs to get elected needs to hear him say it. Though the speach may have been televised on CSPAN, no real main stream reporting was done on the speach. I also apologize to OAW for the rough opening of the this thread. I hope to see Obama grow during the campaign and I hope he strikes a more independent conservative note than the rest of his party. I hope he avoids the race baiters like Al Sharton and Jesse Jackson like the plague. He could be, I submit, a paradigm shift.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Orion27 

In a way you are making my point. The Black community is more conservative than portrayed. You and I avail ourselves of sources of information and debate, I humbly submit,which is not mainstream. That being said, I think my point is valid not because the black audience neads to hear it,( which they do ) but the audience Obama needs to get elected needs to hear him say it. Though the speach may have been televised on CSPAN, no real main stream reporting was done on the speach. I also apologize to OAW for the rough opening of the this thread. I hope to see Obama grow during the campaign and I hope he strikes a more independent conservative note than the rest of his party. I hope he avoids the race baiters like Al Sharton and Jesse Jackson like the plague. He could be, I submit, a paradigm shift.

I hear what you are saying. However, I would caution you not to confuse social conservatism with political conservatism. The African-American community is in many ways socially conservative. However, it is not politically conservative by any stretch of the imagination. Obama's record shows that he is clearly left of center. Having said that, he doesn't appear to be partisan for the sake of partisanship. So there are areas where he and those on the other side of the aisle will find common ground.

OAW