Thoughts on Obama's speech and some of those issues

I'm intentionally late to the game because I prefer to listen on current events before forming an opinion of my own. To that end, I waited a few days before reading the speech in order to allow both the chorus and the critics to have their say before I read it myself. This is what I think.

This speech was an excellent explanation of several issues that face America, and the most brutally honest speech given by a serious politician on the state of race in America. It is important even if Obama doesn't believe a lot of it, is a coward, a weak-willed politician, or whatever foible or flaw can be attributed to him. Not to give it undue weight, but with respect to the issue of race, it is like prophecy being spoken to mankind: the prophet, with all of his flaws, is just a man delivering the message (which is what really matters).

Despite my comments about Obama's pastor and the problems inherent with such an association, I don't think Obama can or should be condemned by this association. I stand by my statement that Wright rubs me as a toned down version of Matthew Hale, and that a white politician who associated with a man as openly bigoted toward blacks as Wright is to whites, would be crucified. That is just a matter of fact, though it shouldn't be because politics makes for strange bedfellows. One of the unfortunate truths of life in this sinful world is that those who hold the keys to power tend to be more aligned in their natures to Satan, than God. This should not surprise anyone in the church, as Jesus did not dispute Satan's ability to hand over the entire Earth to Him. Satan is called the "god of this age" for good reason.

I actually respect Obama's refusal to condemn the man because it shows that while he may have troubling associations, he is not a man who is strongly driven by the polls like so many other politicians. For that reason, maybe we can hope that what we see is more or less a picture of what we would get with a President Obama. If that be the case, then give me an Obama I largely disagree with over a "maverick" who I sometimes I agree strongly with (cutting spending and ending torture), but who takes positions just to be disagreeable sometimes, and a woman who is so openly pragmatic that Benito Mussolini would embrace her as a kindred spirit.

Blacks are upset, whites are upset. Both are manipulated by vested, bureaucratic interests ranging from the mainstream media that exploits any hint of racism to boost advertising revenues, to teachers' unions that have defeated every reform attempt on the public schools, and a law enforcement system that jealously protects its prerogatives. If both sides sat down with a heart to really achieve peace, they would quickly find out that both get the shaft, and get it pretty bloody hard, from the establishment. The reasons they don't tend to see it is a reflexive defensiveness and because the shafting manifests itself in very different, but equally severe, ways all too often.

Where Obama ran into trouble, however, was not facing up to the fact that black men have done a lot to give people like his grandmother cause for concern when they walk past them in public. The thug culture and the fact that young black men are well over represented among felons gives legitimate reason to be wary of dealing with working class black men in too many cases. It's lamentable that we have come to this, but to claim that this stereotype is without merit is just to ignore reality and irrationally cling to an ideal (near total nonjudgmentalism based on appearance) in defiance of demonstrable reality. The reality is that while this behavior in general toward black men is unacceptable, there is a distinct subset of black men who do give off through the way they dress and behave, the distinct impression that they are part of the thug culture, even though they aren't, and few people are going to be very comfortable with that.

Few of the problems with crime and injustice in America have to do with race. Racism is just something which brings them to the attention of the public. There are many problems with our legal system, not the least of which is that it is often brutally legalistic, complicated to the point that justice often cannot be served, and that the laws being enforced are often so arbitrary as to defy any sense of justice or law and order. If Obama wants to change this, he is going to have to do something groundbreaking for a politician: bring together a group of the best legal minds he can find, and have them do a design review similar to what engineers often have to do, of the entire legal system. If he were to pledge to do that, that alone would make his candidacy truly groundbreaking.

One of the pluses about having Obama as president would be that his presidency would go a long way toward giving ammunition to honest opponents of racism that can be used to shut down the professional race baiters like Jesse Jackson who have a vested interest in keeping the black community from thinking that anything has changed. It would require a hitherto unseen level of cognitive dissonance to argue that nothing of substance has changed, even if the change is imperfect, if a black man is President in a mostly white country.

Unfortunately, if Obama seriously meant what he said in this speech, there is a hurdle he must face on discussions of racism that he may not be able to overcome, and that's the racism of low expectations and deflection of criticism. Many in the black community do not welcome any criticism, no matter how accurate or needed it is. Bill Cosby's scathing commentary about the state of the black community, and the reactions that came from it bear witness to that. The racism of low expectation comes in through such openings as well-meaning people who excuse the disintegration of the black family in no small part because of the welfare state making traditional marriage optional, but don't insist that it is unequivocally the responsibility of millions of black men and women to overcome this and raise their children in a stable, married environment. I honestly wonder how many times Rev. Wright denounced the behavior that has lead to so many young blacks not having stable families.

Ultimately, I think this election will not bring about much that is positive for America. While Obama is willing to confront certain hard topics, his ideas are mostly the same old tired left-wing "solutions" that have failed time and again. However, if I had to vote one of the three leading candidates, I'd have to go with him because we've seen what 8 years of Clinton government and 8 years of Republican domination both look like, and sometimes it's better to give a new devil a try in the off chance that he really might be an improvement.