In what has now been dubbed "the amongst them. While directly speaking about race, together, we can move beyond some of our old racial Obama remarkably managed to retain his post-racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are stance. As Darsey observes, "Obama's 'race to continue on the path of a more perfect union" p. Implicit in his appeal American narrative" p.
Fraser was the suggestion that voters also "move beyond" the adds that, "while to many academics and liberals the Wright controversy and elect Barack Obama president issues Obama raised were not ground-breaking, the Obama. These were Even though Obama has been cast by others and often questions he imagined still remained in the minds casts himself as a post-racial candidate who transcends of skeptical Americans even after the release of his race, he acknowledges racial divides.
Such a strategy cast the rhetor as open and why he acknowledges race issues are important to schol- honest, as someone who seriously considered tough ars of race during the post-racial Obama presidency questions and answered them plainly.
In other words, because Obama's discourse paradigmatically represents Obama b did not avoid or ignore the concerns conversations about race and racism in our society, In of voters; he directly addressed them: "1 supposed the the following section, we posit specific ways that the politically safe thing to do would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the wood- The Western Journal of Black Studies.
But Obama would not do that; instead, is a man who served his country as a United States he would stay and answer the tough questions. Obama Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of b explained. Did I know serves the community by doing God's work here on him to be an occasionallyfiercecritic of American Earth—by housing the homeless, ministering to the domestic and foreign policy?
Of course. Did I ever needy, providing day care services and scholarships hear him make remarks that could be considered and prison ministries, and reaching out to those controversial while I sat in church? Absolutely—just as I'm sure many of you have Obama answered the question—why associate myself heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with Reverend Wright —by presenting comparable with which you strongly disagree, p.
Obama Wright within the Obama family, the black community, appeared to fully disclose his knowledge of Wright and the American family. By placing Wright within by bluntly responding to the doubts against himself. Perhaps this is why the next part of his speech typical American. This strategy is characteristically was devoted to elaborate and detailed responses.
Obama b swered, Obama presented himself up to tbat point as explained, "As imperfect as he may be, he has been someone who frankly replies to tough questions, so his like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated listeners were more likely to trust and believe his longer my wedding, and baptized my children" p. Obama and more in-depth responses. Put simply, his straight- expounded in greater detail his familial relationship to forward responses to the previous questions boosted his Wright: "I can no more disown him than I can disown ethos.
Now imagining what his inquisitors would like to the black community. Obama could not disown Wright who was part Why not join another church" p.
Obama b of the Obama family and an important member of the began his response by building identification with his larger the black community. Obama b took the inquisitors: "I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend next step and rhetorically identified his family, his Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run pastor, and the black community within the larger in an endless loop on the television sets and YouTube, American public: "These people are a part of me.
Because his audience was also "part of America," is no doubt that I would react in much the same way" p. Obama could no less disown Wright as he could disown 3. This statement presented the concems of his skeptics any American. The third identification strategy Obama utilized in his speech associated Wright with not just a group Once identification with his audience had been of people, but with an important period of time in U.
Wright's connection with the American Civil attempted to transfer positive credibility to Wright. Rights Movement helped Obama b explain the Obama explained that judging Wright based on the mindset of a generation who "came of age in the late media representations of him was a mistake, especially '50s and early '60s, a time when segregation was still because Wright "is a man who helped introduce me to the law ofthe land and opportunity was systematically my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our constricted" p.
Wright was not the only black man obligations to love one another, to care for the sick and to feel angry abtiut injustices such as racism. In fact. Obama b those blacks who did make it, questions of race and rac- further explained that Wright ism continue to define their worldview in fundamental The Western Journal of Black Studies, Vol.
For the men and women of Reverend Wright's ing revisionist versions of race talk that hegemonically generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and maintain the status quo.
In other of his African influences. He began his racial geneal- words, Wright was just one of many black people who ogy by describing himself as "the son of a black man still felt angry about the violent racism they endured from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas" Obama, in the s and 60s; therefore, the American public b, p. He did not identify his father as an African should not single him out and scapegoat him for merely man neither did he geographically situate Kenya in identifying with what so many others had felt.
By describing his father as a black man. Furthermore, Perfect Union" appropriately addressed the biggest when he described his wife as a "black American" rhetorical crisis of his campaign by promoting iden- instead of an African American, he removed her from tification with and among his audiences.
By directly African influences as well Obama, b. He asking and answering the questions of concerned admitted that she "carries within her the blood of slaves voters, Obama painted himself as an open and honest and slave owners," but at no point in the speech were candidate who was unwilling to ignore or skirt past these slaves referred to as Africans Obama, b, p.
Obama also chose to 2. Obama emphasized Michelle Obama's mixed ances- identify Wright with the Obama family, the community, try in order to dilute her experiences as a black woman and the American people, effectively explaining why of African ancestry. By acknowledging the slave owner Obama could not completely extricate himself from ancestors in her blood line, Obama simultaneously ac- their relationship. Also, by associating Wright with the knowledged the unique aspects of the black American Civil Rights Movement, Obama argued that Wright was experience, celebrated the diversity of mixed black an- consubstantial with the numerous African Americans cestry, and distanced himself and his wife from African who remembered racist policies like segregation.
Obama used his personal history to create identification between Taken together, these identification strategies himself and his diverse audiences, but by understating helped Obama maintain his post-racial stance, appro- his and his family's African heritage, he ignored the priately address the concerns of the American people, horrors of the African slave trade and the beauty of the and ultimately transform the rhetorical situation from linguistic, spiritual, and cultural African Diaspora that a specific controversy about Wright to a larger discus- has contributed to diversity around the globe.
Identification, however, is a janus- Obama's second strategic failure of his post-racial faced rhetorical strategy. It is always accompanied perspective was his elision of African American rhe- by division Burke, The following section on torical religious traditions.
Obama chastised Wright Obama's strategic failures addresses how his identi- for expanding the racial lacuna without considering fication strategies held the potential to progressively whether there was some measure of truth to some alienate black audiences.
By refusing to cite anything spoken by Wright, audiences could not be sure which of Wright's inflammatory comments Obama condemned. Wright was certainly controversial, but his subject position Obama's post-racial stance ostensibly increased was rooted in a black liberation preaching tradition that identification among his non-Afriean American audi- condemns injustice in society and urges God's people to ences hut potentially failed to maintain commensurate resist it.
Obama ignored what Frank and McPhail identification among his black audiences by 1 deem- called a "spiritually inspired militancy" p.
Obama and their oppressors. He ironically cited the stories of b criticized Wright for describing our country as David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, and the Chris- "still irrevocably bound to a tragic past" p.
Obama maintained cuted by a power structure that discriminated against his post-racial stance by not mentioning how whites them because of their difference.
This religious history benefit from racism. Obama appreciated the Biblical physical characteristics—primarily their skin color.
Racism is a In addition to Obama's lack of recognition for privilege of those with power and access to resources. Marable praised Obama trol the institutions that maintain systematic privileges for "refusing to be defined or restricted by that history" for whites Asumah.
Obama b p. For instance, media personalities wielded their power at the expense Obama opened the speech with a reference to the U. Every individual harbors prejudices. Any promising a more perfect union of liberty and justice individual can discriminate against another, but racism for all American people Obama, b, p.
Obama is connected to power. Obama's grandmother's racial neglected to mention that all American people have not stereotypes cannot be equated with Wright's identifica- wholeheartedly embraced the Constitution as an anti- tion of how privileges continue to benefit those in power. Garrisonian abolitionists refused to His grandmother most likely harbored prejudices and abide by the Constitution because they believed it to be spoke out of ignorance.
Contemporary philosophers are still debating tematically been exploited by their government's racist whether or not the intent behind the Constitution will practices. Wright, Obama's fourth strategic failure was a prob- Obama continued to champion the decency, gener- lematic representation of black and white Americans' osity, greatness, and goodness of the American people experiences by equating their frustrations and reifying without acknowledging Americans' less charitable racial stereotypes.
Frank and McPhail note characteristics. If the country is indeed great and good, Obama's penchant for conflation in his DNC one must consider the unpaid labor and lives of those speech when he used whose were sacrificed for it to become that way. Obama the rhetorical strategy of conflating the experiences wanted to celebrate and identify with what is great about of white ethnics with persons of African descent, the United States of America without accounting for the and of denying the role of while power and privilege exploitation of American Indian.
African American, and on the demoralizing conditions that continue to immigrant populations who made it that way. His nods disproportionately affect the lives of black folk to "inferior education," "legalized discrimination," and in America. Specifically in his "race speech," when Obama equated Wilson continues, stating that "an economic black and white frustrations, he effectively likened downturn only amplifies the existing gaps between apples to apple pickers.
African Americans who are black and white America" p. Nearly twice as many struggling are not frustrated because they haphazardly African Americans lack health insurance compared to fell on hard times. Smith frustrated because many white Americans have ben- reports: "Over fifty years after Brown v. Board of Edu- efited from their misfortune.
A white American who cation, nearly half of our nation's African-American loses a job today is not equally frustrated as the African students, nearly 40 percent of Latino students and 11 American who has been discriminated against for years percent of white students attend high schools in which and was never able to work a job commensurate with graduation is not the norm" pp.
Additionally, her skills and education simply because ofthe color of Obama b limned injustice to "the reality in which her skin. An immigrant who is disappointed by the lack Reverend Wright and other African Americans of his of opportunities is not on equal footing with an African generation grew up In country prosperous.
He Tomarelli, , p. United for a Fair Economy sanitized the conditions in which many blacks live by reports that '"existing trends would not equalize black characterizing the problems as "injustice and inequal- and white median household wealth for more than half ity" instead of oppression, exploitation, and degrada- a millennium'" as cited in Roediger, b, p.
De- tion. Obama perpetuated a bias when spite lalk of economic parity. Palillo 20 K describes he depicted blacks as charismatic, emotional, bawdy, the white and black middle class as two separate and bitter, biased, and angry. Whites were not characterized unequal entities. They merely "have Since Obama was Despite his tendency to gloss the differences in advocating for equality, both blacks and whites should black and white lived experiences, Obama was not "have resentments.
He conceded: also seemed comfortable perpetuating the stereotype Legalized discrimination, where blacks were of black "economic dependency and laziness" as often prevented, often through violence, from owning portrayed in the welfare recipient Mendelberg, , p.
When explaining to his listeners how Trinity United American business owners, or black homeowners Church of Christ "embodied the black community in could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were its entirety," Obama 2 8b listed the "welfare mom" excluded from unions, or the police force, or the along side "the doctor" and the "former gang banger" fire department meant thai black families could not p. Hardly a passing mention, Obama b went amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future on to cite "welfare and affirmative action" as sources of generations.
Obama, 2 X 8b, p. Rac- McPhail's 2 X 5 prior observation of his DNC speech: ist depictions of black welfare recipients bave been that is, Obama's rhetoric "failled] to address in substan- perpetuated in this country from the individual to the tive [italics added] terms the material realities of African halls of congress as warrants for welfare reform Col- American trauma" p.
Some of those substantive lins, ; Gring-Pemble, , Despite acknowledging the direction of a white woman. The racial paranoia of the "complexities of race in this country that we've never black brute's "sexual retribution" for victimizing pure really worked through. Obama hold blacks responsible for racial progress. When he urged his audiences to move beyond race "in the same described Americans who were willing to "do their direction: towards a better future for our children and part.
We urge our audiences to the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience. Those who risked their Despite his attempts at unity and universality, lives for equality and justice during the Civil Rights and Obama's speech ultimately failed to build a more per- Black Power Movements were primarily young black fect racial union because of his over-identification with people.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story. I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas.
I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one. Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity.
Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough.
The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well. And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn. On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap.
On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they 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; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all. Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough.
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. And in that single note - hope! Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world.
Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor.
They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children.
Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
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. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork.
We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. He exemplifies the Constitution, his pastor, and his family, leaving everyone deeply impressed.
Barack Obama is shifting his tone to a more direct one. He says. The genuineness in his speech lasts to the end, making a constant residue in the remainder of the address.
So, in his talk, Barack Obama gives his supporters assurance and hope. He implemented them to talk deliberately on the issue of race others would hesitate to address. We can conclude from the analysis that he is a successful writer and knows his audience well. He employed various figures of speech and narrative techniques.
They helped him to deliver his key ideas to the people smoothly. He was elected the President of the United States of America shortly after. He addressed the issue of ethnic division in the United States. Barack Obama decided to give the speech as a response to controversial statements. His former pastor and election campaign supporter Jeremiah Wright made them not long before.
He also genuinely wanted to address the serious issue of racism. It was never reviewed so thoroughly previously. Explain the contextual background for that address. Do not forget to mention what exactly your analysis is going to research. He dictated a long draft to Favreau on March 15, who then revised the speech. Throughout the next two days, Barack Obama kept working on it.
The final draft was ready on March In his speech, Barack Obama expressed his thoughts about the many racial struggles the American people were going through. For the senator, the idea of a more perfect union symbolized the cross-ethnic solidarity. It represented compassion that would make people work together on the common issue. This paper was written and submitted to our database by a student to assist your with your own studies.
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