It's been decades since a leader of Obama's stature has delivered a speech on race and racial controversy with such candor and honesty and subtlety and passion. The man's thinking is right.
I urge you to watch the whole 37 minute version.
I will give him money, I will wear his shirts, I will work for his campaign, I will vote for him.
Amen. Good to see a critically thinking guy like you (not as likely as I to drink anyone's koolaid) find him as compelling as I do. I'm dreading all the denials coming out of the right saying that he's not being conciliatory enough, but this speech could end up being one of the most important of recent years. Even if it loses him the election, it may gain all of us much more.
BTW, I met you briefly with Ashley at a MG parade; hope to catch up with you again soon. Love your posts.
finally, i think i hear an honest, intelligent person talking instead of political posturing from a candidate. it's damn good.
and needed and long overdue.
The more I hear, the more I like. Obama all the way, baby. The man brings both character and reason to a public discourse (and a nation) sorely in need of them.
Amen, brother. Isn't it refreshing to listen to a speech that a) doesn't sound as if it were written by committee and b) offers a thoughtful and heartfelt analysis of ALL of the sides of a very complex issue instead of reducing it to a pithy-yet-meaningless soundbite? After all these years of blithering idiocy the possibility that we might be led by someone who is probably the most intelligent person in the room on a regular basis is refreshing.
I love this guy -- voted for him in the primary, caucused (sp?) for him, and actually contributed cash to his campaign -- I've NEVER done that before. It's nice to actually be backing a candidate for once, instead of opposing one. Obama '08.
Since I have no money, I've been agitating against Hillary supporters on the internets (and my mom on the phone), which is REAL WORK I TELLS YOU. None of them seem to understand when I tells them that the right-wingers of the world would dig up their dead mother to vote twice against Hillary in the general election, while against Obama many of them are like "meh, he's not that bad". And that'd be if I thought like they do that Hillary really did fart rainbows while riding unicorns to save poor kids from having their entrails eaten by Cheney.
I am personally upset these people have apparently never had to work with 'wingers. And of course I went from the frying pan (same cow orkers as Gregg) straight into the fire (the freakin' military-industrial complex). Fukk.
i've been crying since i read the text. still haven't seen it (damn this firewall!)... but it made me think of all the people in my life who spoke truth to power about white flight and giving in to baseless fear instead of working together to fix it. some of them are now deceased and it made me miss them and think of what they would have said, how they would have reacted to this.
people are talking, all across america, about race and divisiveness today. people are talking. and this is the beginning, this is where it starts.
i believe in him now.
btw, he wrote it himself.