Obama Should Not be Judged by His Pastor’s Opinions

If you are eloquent and powerful you may be able to match Barack Obama’s inspirational oratory unless you are a thorough redneck. If you are then I am sure you are going to side with Hillary Clinton as she continues to pound away at what Obama’s ill advised pastor had to say.

On the other hand, while you are free to choose where you worship and who shepherds your flock I for one am the first to admit that there are things said from the pulpit that I disagree with. However, that does not mean that I have any intention of leaving my church. I agree with the vast majority that is preached, especially the parts directly from the Bible and I love the fellowship of the other people who attend. I believe that same to be true Obama. He is a man who is neither black nor white and he was born at a time when race, ethnicity, or national origin should have nothing to do with his qualifications to be president.

You may ask why Obama stayed in the church, or why didn’t he speak up, when he heard the anger in the Pastor’s voice. The answer, I think, is that he did. He is speaking up in running for president. Offering a different approach than his pastor to the injuries of race and class is what his campaign is all about. So, while it is obvious that this church and this pastor has played an important role in Barack Obama’s life as a black American one cannot forget that he is the son of a white mother who was raised by white grandparents. I believe that Barack seeks an understanding of his black roots through this church and wants to understand the injuries that others of those roots have suffered.

I myself, met a young black woman this last week, which is unusual in southwest Missouri. She was from Florida and taking part in a Urban Solutions. I found her courage and determination to make something of her life a real inspiration. This woman was not looking to blame others for her past errors but wanted to be able to return to the inner city to mentor confused and misguided youths from making the same mistakes that she did. If only white America could get past their own fears of diversity I believe that life would improve dramatically for all of us. This is just one thing, that as a white American, I think Obama has to offer us.

That, to me, is clearly why the church was so important to Obama that even now he views his pastor as the uncle with whom he might disagree but never disown.

But if the church taught him about the pain and injuries of race, made clear what it was like to grow up on the wrong side of every line dividing privilege and access from poverty and denial, what it, and its minister, did not teach him was how to deal with those injuries. His minister’s response has been as all the awful excerpts reveal, tinged with bitterness, anger and resentment. His minister has embraced the very victimization and demonization that Barack Obama, in his speech and in his campaign at its best, has denounced.

The case for Obama, and ultimately he has to be the one to make it, is that there is a different answer to the injuries of race than the one his pastor offered to their congregation The answer is not to denounce America, but to embrace it, not to embrace victimization, but to denounce it.

Obama doesn’t want to denounce his pastor, his uncle, but in a way, he already has, both by running for president and by the way he has run. He just needs to say that loud and clear, and not because whites want him too, but because his failure to do so obscures a strength of his campaign for which he deserves credit.

[tags]Obama, race, presidential campaign, Barack Obamal, Hillary Clinton, Obama’s speech, Urban Solutions, [/tags]