THE rACE speech and doing it again

i would just like to take ALL credit for bam bam's race speech ... didn't i just predict that in my march 13th blog! i am laughing out loud because i am, of course, joking .... however, i was a little bit right ... obama gave THE race speech in philly on march 18th and you can find the transcript on huffingtonpost.com ...

i aint goin into the speech's brilliance ... i'm not going to skewer the speech to try to pick it apart and find all its fault lines ... i just don't find that work as interesting as assessing the reactions to the speech.

one reaction has got my drawers all bunched up round my hips ... and that is this sentiment as expressed by joan walsh (link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/?last_story=/opinion/walsh/2008/03/19/iraq/) she writes and i quote: "It was an intriguing leap, but I didn't buy it. I don't think Obama's elderly grandmother, who still lives in Hawaii and is reportedly too frail to travel, who was a product of her time and place and yet did her best to raise her half-black grandson, deserved to be compared to Wright, a public figure who's built his career around a particularly divisive analysis of American racial politics. It is easily the most tin-eared thing I've ever heard Obama say."

first i have to say that roger simon of politico.com expressed the same 'doubt' as joanie on msnbc's hardball with chris matthews just last night ... roger just didn't think the comparison between jeremiah wright and the white grandma is fair ... hmmm

second thought that comes to mind is .... bitches, please ...

let's dissect joan's language ... "hawaii," "frail," "a product of her time and place," "yet did her best," "half-black grandson"..... WOW joan come on ... are you saying the grandma is excused because she was a product of her time? or because she did her best? is wright not a product of his time? are we not all a product of our time? and even more so a product of our environment and stuck to our context? and why did you use half-black and not half-white? is that to imply the extra challenge the charitable white grandmother had to face - almost as if he was half-wild? and what the fuck does hawaii have to do with anything? joan, you wrote it like her 'still' being on an island of perceived peace and tranquility means she is in fact THE island of peace and tranquility! what does hawaii have to with it? is it too pretty a place for a racist grandma to have a house?

joan uses these words for rev. wright: "a public figure," "built ... on divisive analysis," ... so because he is in public he is no longer doing his best nor is he a product of his time ... and rev. wright's divisive analysis is MORE divisive than the white grandma's fear of black men who pass her on the street, joan? huh joan? is it just more divisive FOR YOU? or are you deciding for america? who's divisiveness is more grounded in fact and research: rev. wright or white grandma?

joan walsh, roger simon and others ... you're doing it again ... you feel empathy for a racist white grandma you feel distrust for an angry black preacher ... you understand the white grandma don't you? you can't comprehend a preacher who spits american critique? you are a victim of the ignorance obama mentioned in his speech ... you are issuing a double standard ... you still don't get it, you still don't want to try to understand jeremiah wright but you are more than happy to justify the lil white grandma ...

it's funny cuz as a kid growing up in a multi-racial house ... i got more races in me than obama so ha ... it was always MORE hurtful to hear racism from a loved one than from a street corner or a TV ... it effected my psyche much deeper that my grandparents could fear black people and love me at the same time ... i didn't care about the david dukes, pat buchanans and the ronald reagans ... they didn't feed me and tuck me in at night ... when it comes from our family the intolerance feels more intolerable ... the dynamic goes like this: a little brown girl can't fathom how her grandparents can hate half of her heritage so it makes her hate people who hate her cuz if her grandparents can know this little brown girl and claim to love her but they can't love her other people then the little girl assumes that nothing will ever make her grandparents or other racists realize that black people are human too ... but that's a side note.

my main thrust is ... white people ... you doing it again

my less main and more sub-thrust is ... the race speech at least helps bring all this out ... all the emotional poison (see don miguel ruiz) and i guess i feel that i don't need to discuss the merits or demerits of the speech cuz i know what's true ... that speech is true ... it could've been truer ... and no presidential election, or for-profit TV show, or cheap blog, or political pundit, or ohio voter can erase the truth ... and even if it takes another 50 years or 100 years the truth will stand ... even if obama loses it all ... the truth will stand ... even if joan walsh never agrees with me ... the truth will stand ... and that truth is: both jeremiah wright and the lil white grandma are BOTH HUMAN and only God can judge them.

i wanna love you joan walsh ... my grandparents keep getting in my way ... one day i won't be doing the same shit ...... again.

let's hear that speech again!