CRISSA NELSON | editor-in-chief
Sen. Barack Obama made a speech last Tuesday urging Americans to look more deeply into the issues of race relations still prevalent in America today.
His speech came in response to controversy surrounding racially offensive comments made by Reverend Jeremiah Wright who recently retired from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where Obama and his family attend. While Obama admitted he disagreed with some of the comments Wright had made during his pastoral leadership, he said he could never repudiate the man. Wright allegedly accused America for bringing the September 11 attacks upon itself and said Sen. Hillary Clinton had an advantage over Obama because she is white.
Obama’s response not only addressed attacks he received for remaining a member of the church led by Wright but connected it to the larger issue of race in America, not fully addressed in his campaign until now. Obama admitted he had heard Wright make controversial remarks that he strongly disagrees with, and “were not only wrong but divisive—divisive at a time when we need unity.”
“But the truth is that isn’t all that I know of the man,” Obama continued. “...The fact is that th comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks refl ect 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,” he said. Obama delivered the speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the location of the next major primary election on April 22.
While some have seen this as a negative strike against the Obama campaign, others have responded with a positive view of the important issue of race this controversy allowed to be addressed. Former presidential candidate and Clinton cabinet official Bill Richardson officially endorsed Obama last Saturday saying his speech on race “kind of clinched it for me.” Richardson is an important supporter for Obama since, as the governor of New Mexico, he is a superdelegate.
When asked what she would have done, Hillary Clinton said she would have distanced herself long ago from a pastor who made these kind of controversial remarks.
In response to the same self-proposed question, Obama answered, “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. These people are a part of me and they are a part of America, this country that I love.”
