Obama’s Race/Unity Speech Attacked by Pat Buchanan with Vile and Utterly Stupid Commentary

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Sat Mar-22-08 04:40 PM
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Obama’s Race/Unity Speech Attacked by Pat Buchanan with Vile and Utterly Stupid Commentary

The title of this post should come as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with Pat Buchanan. So why then is it worth discussing?

In my opinion it’s worth discussing because I believe that Pat Buchanan’s comments are typical of what we can expect from the Republican Party over the next few months, until Election Day (assuming Obama gets the Democratic nomination). With Obama’s charisma, eloquence, large following, and fundraising capabilities, and with our nation leaning so heavily Democratic, Republicans probably see racism as their best or only hope to retain the Presidency. So they will distort Obama’s speech to the extent that they can, to that purpose. It will be the same old scenario: Al Gore is a liar; the swift boating of John Kerry; and now the attempt to paint Barack Obama as an “angry black man” – by virtue of his association with a man whose views on the subject Obama has repudiated.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Pat Buchanan, which links to his vile and utterly stupid commentary. I don’t know how public those comments are. I received the e-mail because I’m on Buchanan’s mailing list by virtue of the fact that I subscribed (for free) to a newsletter which features such luminaries as Buchanan, Ann Coulter, and Robert Novak (I did so in order to keep updated on what these people are up to). Perhaps Buchanan is keeping these comments low profile for the moment and put them out as a trial balloon to see how well they fly.

Anyhow, it is my belief that comments such as these have the potential to do great harm to Obama’s candidacy, by stirring up latent racism in our country. Overt racists will not vote for Obama anyhow. But racism is not a black and white issue (no pun intended). There are shades of grey, and I am sure that there are many white people in our country who are perfectly happy not to be racist, until someone like Buchanan comes along and stirs up their fears.

So, to the extent that comments such as these become public, they must be challenged head-on. It is not possible to paint Barack Obama as “an angry black man” based on facts, simply because he isn’t – no more than Al Gore was a liar in 2000 or John Kerry was a traitor to his country in 2004.

Before I get into the substance of Buchanan’s distortions, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I do not feel any personal guilt over the tragic history of slavery in our country, since I had nothing to do with it. Nor does Barack Obama feel that anyone living today should feel personal guilt about that – and he has made that abundantly clear. So when Barack Obama speaks of the tragic legacy of slavery, and the need to address the effects of that legacy, that has nothing whatsoever to do with laying a guilt trip on anyone. Rather, it implies acknowledgement of our history, and the need to understand its tragic effects in order that we may take action today to ameliorate those effects for this and current generations. That being said, let’s consider Buchanan’s comments:

A brief synopsis of Buchanan’s commentary

Buchanan begins his commentary by wondering “How would Barack explain to his press groupies why he sat silent in a pew for 20 years as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered racist rants against white America…”

Then he says, “My hunch was right. Barack would turn the tables”.

Then, after some reasonably accurate characterizations of Obama’s speech, Buchanan comes to what he purports to be Obama’s conclusion:

And what deeds must we perform to heal ourselves and our country?

The "white community" must invest more money in black schools and communities, enforce civil rights laws, ensure fairness in the criminal justice system and provide this generation of blacks with "ladders of opportunity" that were "unavailable" to Barack's and the Rev. Wright's generations.

Then he asks “What is wrong with Barack’s prognosis and Barack’s cure?”

And then Buchanan goes into a long racist rant about what is wrong with Obama’s prognosis and cure, which he totally mischaracterized in the first place.

Buchanan’s mischaracterization of Obama’s explanation for attending Trinity Church

First let’s consider Buchanan’s introductory question: How would Obama explain why he continued to attend Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years? Buchanan says that Obama did this by “turning the tables”. That is a lie.

In the first place, Obama made it crystal clear that he repudiated many of Reverend Wright’s views. First he says: “Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely.” Then, specifically with respect to Wright’s recent speech which has garnered so much attention, Obama says that Wright’s words:

expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America.

Why then did Obama continue to attend Wright’s church? Obama answers that question directly, in a way that is difficult to misunderstand:

Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS…

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not.

So, that’s the answer to your big question of the year, Pat. That is not “turning the tables”, as you say. It is a straight forward answer.

Buchanan’s lie about Obama’s conclusions

As I noted above in my brief synopsis of Buchanan’s commentary, Buchanan claims that Obama concludes that the “white community” must invest more money in the black community. That is not what Obama said at all.

Yes, he talks of black grievances and he says that we should all try to understand them. But he also talks of white grievances, and he says that we should all try to understand them too. Buchanan mentions not a word about that.

Obama has lots of wonderful things to say about his country in his speech. But he also acknowledges that it could be better, and he speaks of what we all need to do in order to form “a more perfect union”. He says part of what that means for black Americans is:

binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans… the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who’s been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives…

Got that Pat? He does not speak of black demands of whites, as you say, but rather the need to recognize that we are in this together.

He then speaks of what forming “a more perfect union” means for white Americans, and he concludes that part of his discussion by saying:

It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

Summing up these points, Obama says:

I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

The bottom line is that he does not demand that white Americans prop up black Americans. Nowhere in his speech (or any other speech of his) does he do that. To the contrary, he speaks of investments in health, welfare, and education coming from all of us and going to all of us – irrespective of race. We are in this together.

Buchanan embraces slavery

Think I’m exaggerating that Buchanan embraced slavery in his commentary? I’m not saying that he merely defended slavery. He actually embraced it, as a positive good for black people:

The Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. 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.

Oh. My. God. Since you mentioned it, Pat, let’s consider the slave ships that you claim brought so much benefit to the former free Africans:

Conditions aboard the slave ships were wretched. Men, women and children crammed into every available space, denied adequate room, food or breathing space. The stench was appalling – the atmosphere inhumane to say the least…

Here is a description of a slave ship that was intercepted at sea for violating prohibitions against the slave trade:

She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard 55. The slaves were all enclosed under grated hatchways between decks. The space was so low that they sat between each other's legs and were stowed so close together that there was no possibility of their lying down or at all changing their position by night or day… They were all branded like sheep… Over the hatchway stood a ferocious-looking fellow with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave driver of the ship, and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them and seemed eager to exercise it.

Pat, are you really that stupid? Do you think that those who kidnapped Africans out of their homes, who transported them on slave ships into slavery in this country, who held them in captivity for the rest of their lives, or who ripped families apart by separating husband from wife and parents from children, did all that to benefit those people?

Buchanan complains of lack of gratitude for what white Americans have done for blacks

After extolling the virtues of slavery, Buchanan says, “Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans.” He then goes on to list a bunch of things that we’ve done for black people, and concludes that particular rant by saying, “We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?”

Yes, our country has done a lot of good things for black Americans. And it has done a lot of bad things to them too. When you weigh in nearly a century of slavery (not counting the time prior to our declaration of independence) and another century of Jim Crowe, I rather doubt Buchanan’s statement that “No people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans”.

But that is not the point. Buchanan’s question, “Where is the gratitude?” is highly disingenuous, given the fact that Obama’s speech that he criticizes so severely was filled with gratitude towards our country and its people. In addition to the excerpts I noted above of Obama’s criticism of Wright’s criticisms of our country, his speech is filled with phrases such as “my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people” and “For as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.” And with regard to Obama’s view of white racism in this country:

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country -- a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land… is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know – what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation.

So there’s your gratitude Pat – which you conveniently totally omitted from your comments. But rather than argue about who has done more for black folks in this world, why not simply adopt Obama’s view of how we should relate to each other now:

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

You’re a Christian, aren’t you Pat? Isn’t that what the Christian religion asks of us?

Buchanan spews racial hatred

Buchanan saves his worst for last. The last few paragraphs are little more than a rant against what he sees as the failings of black people. He notes their high incarceration rates, illegitimacy rates, and drop-out rates from school. Then he asks rhetorically if white America should be blamed for all that.

Lastly, he claims that black crime against white victims represents black racism against whites and “an epidemic of black assaults on whites”.

Yes Pat, blacks are incarcerated at much higher rates than whites in this country, which for some reason incarcerates people at a higher rate than any other country in the world. And yes, blacks in this country also exhibit higher rates of those other things that you mention.

But there are a few things that you neglected to mention. First, the racial distribution of incarceration rates is not necessarily a great indicator of who actually commits crimes. Arrest rates, conviction rates, incarceration rates, and all other crime statistics are related to societal attitudes and prejudices as well as to the actual perpetration of crimes.

But let’s grant you that blacks probably commit crimes at higher rates than whites in this country. Are you aware of the strong relationship between poverty and crime? What about the relationship between poverty and school drop-out rate?

With regard to your purporting to show an “epidemic of black assaults on whites” and your assertion that black crime against whites indicates black racism, you’re just playing tricks with numbers. In support of that assertion you say (without documentation by the way) that “Black criminals choose white victims 45% of the time”. Well, since whites constitute a much larger proportion of our population than 45%, that means that black criminals tend to commit crimes against non-whites much more frequently than against whites in relationship to their frequency in the population. Where is the black racism in that?

Anyhow, what is the point of your rant against black people, other than to inflame racism in our country? And why did you ask whether white people are to blame for the failings you attribute to blacks, in a commentary the main purpose of which is to criticize Barack Obama. Clearly the implication is that Obama blames white people for black crime. He did no such thing, not even close, in the speech you criticize or any time else. Read the transcript of his speech, for God sake!!

Conclusion

We can expect much more of these vile racist attacks against Obama as we get closer to Election Day. Obama made a great speech in response to the attacks against him based on his association with Reverend Wright. It was very unfortunate in my opinion that he was required to do that. I don’t believe that a white candidate would be required to defend him or herself for anything that his pastor said or did. But such is the status of racism in our country today, that Obama was indeed required to explain himself for his pastor’s remarks, lest those remarks be attributed to Obama himself.

Still, the right wing is complaining that Obama’s great speech was not good enough. I can just see Tim Russert interviewing Obama on his show. He would ask Obama to repudiate Wright. Obama would say that he has already repudiated Wright’s remarks. Russert will tell him that that isn’t good enough. He will say that “the American people” will not feel comfortable with him unless he repudiates Wright himself, not just his remarks. He won’t let it go until Obama either repudiates Wright or puts Russert firmly in his place. Yet Russert would never even suggest that John McCain should repudiate George W. Bush, which would be a much more appropriate thing to do than asking Obama to repudiate Wright.

At some point Obama will need to confront jerks like Pat Buchanan and Tim Russert and somehow show them up for the whores that they are. He can’t do that alone. There are too many of them, and they have too much control over the message. He will need the help of the Democratic Party, which must unite behind him.