The Plus Side Of "The Speech"

Barack Obama in his speech of 3/18/08 on the role of race in American society made some cogent points. Consider these:

1) But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's efforts to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country....As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive....

This was an unequivocal, decisive, powerful denunciation of statements of a supporter. It may be unparalleled in American politics, a far cry from the more typical "If any of my remarks have offended...."

2) Legalized discrimination — where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions or the police force or the fire department — meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between blacks and whites, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persist in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

Drawing a link both between historical discrimination (note the use of the past tense) and current discrepancies between wealth in the white and black communities is instructive.

3) The real culprits of the middle class squeeze — a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns — this too widens the racial divide and blocks the path to understanding.

Two good points here: identification of structural inequities in the American economy; and an understanding that the "resentments" (I would have preferred the unbiased "opinions") are "grounded in legitimate concerns.

4) (a)And in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense.
(b)Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition.

I joined these two because they are a welcome departure from the more disquieting aspects of the Obama campaign. Obama in (a) seems to understand that sometimes politics is not a win-win; choices have to be made, priorities set. And in (b), Obama has finally found himself able to deliver at least an implied criticism of Ronald Reagan.

5) ....they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country.... (including) 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.

Realistic, accurate, and measured statement.



6) This time we want to talk about how the lines in the emergency room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care, who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington....

Not a profound point, but one that bears repeating, and only Democrats will do so: emergency rooms are filled. And without universal health care, they will only get busier- and emergency rooom personnel and services do not come cheap, though Republicans (hell bent on convincing us that we have the greatest health care system in the world) seem to believe otherwise.