Would I be surprised that Senator Barack Obama sought out extreme fringes while in college or at any university among his fellow African-Americans. Absolutely not. And just how many conservative voices would he have heard within the same African-American community? That is, how Thomas Sowell pretends to portray himself. The Weathermen are only going to do damage to our chances at being a material success in middle class jobs? The Black Panthers are only going to make it harder for us to travel up the ladder of success in the world of politics? Louis Farakhan will only make us seem less credible? Hip hop artists will scare off the whites we need to make it into mainstream America? Amazingly enough; the counter-balance to Sowell's own stridency, Leonard Pitts, jr. has never made that particular argument. Neither has long time comedian Bill Cosby. What they have said Bill Cosby for example told his fellow African-Americans the unwelcome truth of the need for more personal responsibility in order to truly get ahead in life. Leonard Pitts has shown us education among other things that challenge kids in African-American communities that it is possible to grasp at tools and opportunities to get ahead in life. Until Rev. Jeremiah Wright blew up in Obama's face, he was an unknown subject to African-American journalists, actor/comedians who saw a problem and wished to address it. At no time did they blame the Weathermen, Black Panthers, Louis Farakhan, etc. for the poverty, drug problems, single-parent households, high crimes rates and lack of a good education among the inner city African-Americans. They did say that if their fellow African-Americans wanted something better for themselves, that they should work to get it. That whites can't be blamed for everything. If that is the thinking of Rev. Wright, a pastor who does indeed want to blame whites for everything. Then I could perfectly understand some real anger here that one man in one church in one corner of Chicago could possibly hold back true race relations healing by telling his congregation that they are all victims of the white power structure and the mostly white federal government.
Telling them in a single inflammatory speech a conspiracy theory about HIV/Aids. The federal government invented it to decimate his fellow African-Americans. A little truth to be interjected here, the spread of AIDS was first by gays in America. No one can really say how AIDS got to this country but we all know that there was a Typhoid Mary who willfully spread it to as many gay partners as he could find. AIDS in Africa has been heterosexually transmitted. At the time AIDS was making its lethal rounds, just how fast was the federal government prepared to respond to the epidemic? It did not. Why, because people with solid religious backgrounds wanted God to teach a lesson to those damned gays out in the world that there is a price to be paid for opposing the will of God by the lifestyle they preferred. By federal inaction, AIDS made rampant inroads into many areas of society. As it was passed along through drug use as well as sex, afflicting much harm among the impoverished, and causing special suffering to the children born of AIDS afflicted parents. Maybe the federal government did not create AIDS but on the basis of "moral values" neither was it willing to come to the aid of those who suffered. Unfortunately, this is something that Sowell could never care to publicly discuss as it might lend some credibility to Rev. Wright's insistence on God Damn America. So how would I know of the failure of the federal government to act decisively when AIDS was not as entrenched a disease in the 1980s as it is today? Because I read and watch the news. I saw plenty of bigoted letters to the editors of various publications cheering on the AIDS epidemic. There are some things that you can blame on people who held opinions rather similar to Obama's white grandmother, when it came to those different from themselves. We don't need to show them human compassion as long as the "sin" is the color of the skin, the disability, the disease, being gay, etc. Sorry Sowell, but I have to disagree. It can take the radical (old left) fringe to awaken people to the realities of what most of us won't see in our lifetimes. To begin a discussion with a possible solution that without them, would never be put on the table. Can I approve of Louis Farakhan? I do not. Or Jesse Jackson and his "hymie town" statement? I do not. Can I feel that hip hop artists going to the beat of calling their women "bitches and hos" elevates anything in the African-American community? I do not. But can it make possible for a Bill Cosby or a Leonard Pitts and ultimately a Barack Obama to say that we do not need to walk down that same rut on that same road for all time? Yes indeed. Sowell was highly dismissive of Obama's speech because of course Rev. Wright must continue to be a club up-side the head of a man who would be Commander in Chief. Not about the man and the issues, but rather because of whom he has associated with.
Now let us remind Thomas Sowell that he could not become a fellow in the Hoover Institute without being a beneficiary of liberalism. He would not now gain national prominence across the country in republished editorials such as found in the Spokesman-Review if it hadn't been for the black radicals he delicately shudders at opening the door by brute force and showing white liberals why the Weathermen, et al could exist, the frustration that made them what they are. Whether we like it or not, radicals who are both bane and boon to this Democratic America have been the only people who makes conversations like this possible. Are we so "shocked" that we refuse to listen to a very real pain, a very real suffering that afflicts parts of our collected American experience? Or because we are shocked, that we will listen and work at curing the problems. Thomas Sowell couldn't have made it to where he is without the assistance of the people holding the latter point of view. After all, if they had "typically" supported KKK style thinking, he wouldn't be where he is now. So, a little reminder to Mr. Sowell, Rev. Wright isn't solely Senator Obama's problem because of the fact that Obama went to his church. Rev. Wright is our problem because he is a fellow American just like us. And we can't just run away and engage in an us v them without adding fuel to the flames that Rev. Wright initially stoked. Obama initiated the conversation of healing. Sowell, a fellow black, doesn't want to hear it. So what does Sowell have in common with Rev. Wright and Obama's white grandmother. Just read his republished editorial in either the 26 March of 2008 editorial section of the Spokesman-Review or at Creators.com. I have nothing in common with "that guy" over there. Even if I share racial similarities don't see me as "that guy" over there. I am not like him. Not an argument for discussions on race relationships.
Telling them in a single inflammatory speech a conspiracy theory about HIV/Aids. The federal government invented it to decimate his fellow African-Americans. A little truth to be interjected here, the spread of AIDS was first by gays in America. No one can really say how AIDS got to this country but we all know that there was a Typhoid Mary who willfully spread it to as many gay partners as he could find. AIDS in Africa has been heterosexually transmitted. At the time AIDS was making its lethal rounds, just how fast was the federal government prepared to respond to the epidemic? It did not. Why, because people with solid religious backgrounds wanted God to teach a lesson to those damned gays out in the world that there is a price to be paid for opposing the will of God by the lifestyle they preferred. By federal inaction, AIDS made rampant inroads into many areas of society. As it was passed along through drug use as well as sex, afflicting much harm among the impoverished, and causing special suffering to the children born of AIDS afflicted parents. Maybe the federal government did not create AIDS but on the basis of "moral values" neither was it willing to come to the aid of those who suffered. Unfortunately, this is something that Sowell could never care to publicly discuss as it might lend some credibility to Rev. Wright's insistence on God Damn America. So how would I know of the failure of the federal government to act decisively when AIDS was not as entrenched a disease in the 1980s as it is today? Because I read and watch the news. I saw plenty of bigoted letters to the editors of various publications cheering on the AIDS epidemic. There are some things that you can blame on people who held opinions rather similar to Obama's white grandmother, when it came to those different from themselves. We don't need to show them human compassion as long as the "sin" is the color of the skin, the disability, the disease, being gay, etc. Sorry Sowell, but I have to disagree. It can take the radical (old left) fringe to awaken people to the realities of what most of us won't see in our lifetimes. To begin a discussion with a possible solution that without them, would never be put on the table. Can I approve of Louis Farakhan? I do not. Or Jesse Jackson and his "hymie town" statement? I do not. Can I feel that hip hop artists going to the beat of calling their women "bitches and hos" elevates anything in the African-American community? I do not. But can it make possible for a Bill Cosby or a Leonard Pitts and ultimately a Barack Obama to say that we do not need to walk down that same rut on that same road for all time? Yes indeed. Sowell was highly dismissive of Obama's speech because of course Rev. Wright must continue to be a club up-side the head of a man who would be Commander in Chief. Not about the man and the issues, but rather because of whom he has associated with.
Now let us remind Thomas Sowell that he could not become a fellow in the Hoover Institute without being a beneficiary of liberalism. He would not now gain national prominence across the country in republished editorials such as found in the Spokesman-Review if it hadn't been for the black radicals he delicately shudders at opening the door by brute force and showing white liberals why the Weathermen, et al could exist, the frustration that made them what they are. Whether we like it or not, radicals who are both bane and boon to this Democratic America have been the only people who makes conversations like this possible. Are we so "shocked" that we refuse to listen to a very real pain, a very real suffering that afflicts parts of our collected American experience? Or because we are shocked, that we will listen and work at curing the problems. Thomas Sowell couldn't have made it to where he is without the assistance of the people holding the latter point of view. After all, if they had "typically" supported KKK style thinking, he wouldn't be where he is now. So, a little reminder to Mr. Sowell, Rev. Wright isn't solely Senator Obama's problem because of the fact that Obama went to his church. Rev. Wright is our problem because he is a fellow American just like us. And we can't just run away and engage in an us v them without adding fuel to the flames that Rev. Wright initially stoked. Obama initiated the conversation of healing. Sowell, a fellow black, doesn't want to hear it. So what does Sowell have in common with Rev. Wright and Obama's white grandmother. Just read his republished editorial in either the 26 March of 2008 editorial section of the Spokesman-Review or at Creators.com. I have nothing in common with "that guy" over there. Even if I share racial similarities don't see me as "that guy" over there. I am not like him. Not an argument for discussions on race relationships.
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