A Season Of Race Baiting?

Will the Race Card Continue to Trump Issues?

By LisaBcloseAuthor: LisaB Name: Lisa B
Email: susanunpc@gmail.com
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About: See Authors Posts (12) on June 6, 2008 at 10:42 AM

In the end, the Democratic primary seemed to revolve around race, race-baiting and labeling. Anyone not for Barack Obama is a racist and anyone for anyone else is a racist. Entire groups of people were labeled and discussed and dissected as to the virulence of their supposed racism.

Of course, by the time West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico voted, there were several valid questions about BO’s church, his attendance there for 20 years and the juvenile, unintelligent rantings by various “leaders” Obama claimed as “spiritual advisors.” No matter though. These people who voted for someone else must have been racist. Nothing else explains it. It’s not as if these voters were insulted and ignored. Oh wait, they were - oh snap. Well, they should have understood their limitations and understood that despite what their lying eyes and ears were telling them, Obama really cares about them and their issues. Heh.

Well, the primaries are done and now the presumptive Democratic nominee will face the RNC machine. This should be interesting for many reasons, but will the BO campaign try to slap down the race card in this match-up? How will the campaign play it? Will it be through surrogates, Michelle, bloggers, print or tv? Or some other way?

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Juan Williams has an op-ed piece suggesting the Obama campaign put away the race card. Williams talks about Wright, Pfleger, that “amazing” speech when Obama said he could not “disown” Wright and what Obama now needs to do. Williams actually says perhaps OBAMA should give another speech and:

admit to sins of using race for political expediency – by knowingly buying into divisive, mean messages being delivered from the pulpit.

Williams calls Obama out, gently, for use of the race card. But is anyone listening? Somehow, given Obama’s resume, I think the card is still in play. What else has he got, after all?

To deal with this controversy effectively, Mr. Obama needs to give another speech. This time he has to admit to sins of using race for political expediency – by knowingly buying into divisive, mean messages being delivered from the pulpit. He has to say that, as a biracial young man with no community roots, attaching himself to Rev. Wright and the Trinity congregation was a shortcut to move up the ladder in the Chicago political scene. He has to call race-baiting what it is, whether it comes from a pulpit or calls itself progressive politics. And he has to challenge his supporters, especially his black base, to be honest about real problems at the heart of today’s racial divide – including out-of-wedlock births, crime, drugs and a culture that devalues education while glorifying the gangster life.

Mr. Obama also has to raise the bar for how political criticism is handled in his camp. Step one is to acknowledge that not every critic is a racist. His very liberal record and his limited experience, like his association with Rev. Wright, is a fact, not the work of white racists. Just as he calls for the GOP not to engage in the politics of fear over terrorism, Mr. Obama needs to declare that he will refrain from playing the racial victim, because he understands such tactics will paralyze political debate and damage race relations.

Found online at:

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/06/06/will-the-race-card-continue-to-trump-issues/#comment-323068

Juan Williams’ Article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121270934203350365.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries