Today Barack Obama zeroed in on equal opportunity bigotry — and why everyone should strive to not only elevate the political discourse, but to be honest about the base instincts, words and deeds that divide, not unite.
He delivered this message at the house of worship where Dr. Martin Luther King preached, Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. It was a pointed statement to black parishioners in the pews — people well-aware of racial politics being played in this political cycle — but who are also are part of a faith community that has long had a blind spot toward other oppressed groups. He did not hold back:
For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.These words are so necessary, but you can best believe he is the only candidate delivering speeches in honor of Dr. King who is willing to say it directly to members of the black community. This topic has always been a perceived as a third rail topic for the other leading Dem candidates, Clinton or Edwards — they are, like many whites, particularly if they see themselves as allies, dread being seen as pointing out the evils and hypocrisy of such bigotry in the black faith community, even as wrong and tragic as it is on its face.And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.
Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.
I am of two minds of this — I am grateful that Barack Obama, whose campaign has needed to atone for the triangulation strategy of courting blacks by tossing gays under the bus with the appearance of homophobic “ex-gay” advocate Donnie McClurkin at a gospel concert. He has made public statements distancing himself from this flap and reiterated support for LGBT equality (sans full marriage equality, of course, something none of the top tier have supported).
However, I am disheartened by the burden Obama has been saddled with, as a person of color, to be the sole party delivering today’s message. Addressing bigotry in any community that has suffered oppression at the hands of the majority can, and must be done, particularly in a year where we have both a woman and a black man with a credible chance of winning the nomination and making it to the White House.
That we cannot discuss the matter of homophobia or anti-Semitism in the black community bluntly is everyone’s problem. This burden and legacy of fomenting bigotry out of fear and ignorance is borne by all of us. If no one takes responsibility, we all fail. And we’re failing — look at how easily gender bias and racial overtones have surfaced over and over in the campaign so far. It’s almost reflexive to “go there,” the toxicity and effectiveness of stirring those sentiments has been part of the political process by both parties for so long that they are addicted to it.
In fact, I’m sure that the GOP is concerned about the prospect of how far it can go in attacking Obama if he is the nominee, in terms of hitting the third rail too overtly. Similarly, I have no doubt, for instance, if Clinton is the nominee, that while they may wonder how far they can go in dropping the misogyny card. However, the fact that she is a reviled Clinton only adds to her problems in the general election. If anyone can unite the GOP’s tattered and frustrated voters, she can.
I have no doubt the baiting will continue, but it doesn’t mean that we cannot keep pointing bias out when it raises its ugly head in any community. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Obama:
So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others – all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face – war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.***Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.
Clinton, btw, picked up the endorsement of another pastor in the political black-go-to crowd today, Reverend Dr. Calvin Butts of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church.
In endorsing Clinton, Butts read a long statement emphasizing his strong relationship with Clinton and his high regard for her experience. (”I, too, join countless Americans in a collective desire for change, and I do so with a vital recognition that change and experience are not mutually exclusive,” Butts said.)Related:…Earlier, in a speech from the altar, Butts seemed to echo a key Clinton criticism of her opponent, that Obama’s talent for inspirational speech was not enough to qualify him for president. (”You don’t just say, ‘save the hospital,’” Butts said. “You’ve got to work with senators and assembly persons, Chairs of Ways and Means. You’ve got to put this thing together in such a way because we live in the United States of America. One brother said that if you don’t understand that, then maybe you need to live somewhere else.”).
* SC: Black minister serves up a civil equality challenge to Obama
* Yes, this Kerry Swift Boater has no problem ‘going there’ [on Obama]
* Time to trot out the black surrogates for dirty work
* Filing the edges off of racism
* Andrew Cuomo: ‘You Can’t Shuck And Jive’ at a press conf
* Deb Price on the Obama/McClurkin debacle
* How to blow your campaign, Obama-style
* McClurkin hangs tough at Obama concert
21 Responses to “Obama addresses homophobia, anti-Semitism and xenophobia in MLK Ebenezer Baptist Church speech”
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This topic has always been a perceived as a third rail topic for the other leading Dem candidates, Clinton or Edwards — they are, like many whites, particularly if they see themselves as allies, dread being seen as pointing out the evils and hypocrisy of such bigotry in the black faith community, even as wrong and tragic as it is on its face.
How exactly could Clinton or Edwards point “out the evils and hypocrisy of such bigotry in the black faith” when they are both members of an oppressive class? The structurally constructed hierarchy of oppression would backfire on both of them. And not necessary from the black faith community but from whites, including, especially including white Republican men who would immediately jump up and down and holler “we could have never done that” and “how dare they shame black folks like that!” No horse in this race could possibly go there, and to be honest, since the black faith community is not a monolith, I’m quite sure there are blacks (if not saying it out loud are murmuring under their breaths) exclaiming that Obama has some nerve.
I admire and respect the fact that you’re not pitting Obama and Clinton against one another, as “good dog” and “bad dog.” It’s interesting to read about a specific intervention that one candidate made without the usual, accompanying accusations that the other candidates are not following suit.
I’m also glad that other black leaders like Dr. Calvin Butts are voicing their reasons for supporting Hillary Clinton. I agree with Butts that “experienced change” is not necessarily a contradiction in terms.
In any case, this whole post struck me as a particularly great one in terms of “fair and balanced” reporting. Whoever wins in the end, I hope supporters of both candidates can see the aftermath as clearly as Pam sees the present tense.
Excellent post.
Wow. Thank you so much for what Foucault said. Amazing and thoughtful post.
In times like these, I really miss Steve Gilliard’s voice.
That should be a sufficiently tart reply to the significance of Calvin Butt’s significance in black voting matters. In any event, I found Butt’s reply to be intensely cynical and hostile, in his repetition of Hilary Clinton’s memes. So Barack is too “foreign”, is he? Gotta go to a foreign place to be appreciated, hah?
Now, listen y’all, I know most people only have a very vague knowledge of internal black politics, but given the recent birthday of a certain somebody, I wish to push this little historical gem: MLK got his start, his street cred, by smacking older fools like Calvin Butts (and to an extent, his own father) around in a generational conflict on how to increase black civil rights in the late 50s. Calvin Butts was doing the same thing as the black leaders of MLK Sr’s generation. Nibble away at increasing civil rights, and keep all of the flock under their thumbs as well. White pols like Bill Hartsfield and Ellis Arnall worked through discreet relationships with the black clergy with the usual promises to not be so harsh on black people while simultaneously coopting some of the racists on the other side and playing a class game with resolute racists who won’t play along. A huge part of what Martin Luther King Jr was about, was *democratizing* civil rights to the masses. That people can decide as a collective what they really wanted to do, rather than depend on the local minister’s pull with the white power structure. More than that, demand open faced legal structures that included black people just as another people.
Calvin Butts just made me furious, in that he trivializes in the way white people usually do, community/inclusive activity, and what Martin Luther King Jr actually *did*. Delegitimizing bottoms up political movements is not cool, becuase that’s how most of our *best* laws were formed–with people out in the open, making past reality untenable. “Making speeches” is typical of how I percieve many white people views of MLK, and it’s just the updated version of “articulate”. And Calvin Butts is repeating what some white woman’s attitude about how…”articulate” Obama is, and making sure that people ignore the actions of Obama, except to note that he’s an empty suit. Which isn’t true. As far as I make out. Clinton is a “centrist” actor with a liberal tone, and Obama is the “progressive” actor with the centrist tone. As much as I don’t like how he does not emphasize the hard parts of what he’s for, he *not* a puff in the wind!
The only thing I have to add is that while we should call out bias in any circle, we need to remember to do it in EVERY circle, or it just becomes another form of bias. It’s something that has to be done right or not at all.
Ha! Great post, Pam, but I have to admit that when Meredith said, “Thank you for what Foucault said,” I scanned up the post, wondering to myself, “Did she quote Michel Foucault?”
Alright, alright … I’ll shaddup.
But I guess one thing I would like to add is that I hope there will be a day when I don’t feel compelled (okay, overjoyed) to support a candidate because they embody my race and gender. As a white girl, I sometimes wonder (okay, I wonder a lot) if that explains my unquestioning support for Hillary. I am happy when she wins, devastated when she loses, unclear on her fundamental differences from Obama … and often insensitive to what surely must be the same feelings that other people have when their own candidates win and lose.
I feel badly when I see photo-shopped images of Obama wearing jungle attire. I thought Rush Limbaugh’s song about him was stupid and mean. The recent insinuations about what he was doing in the “hood” when Hillary and Bill were out helping black people are kind of hilarious in light of the fact that we have a former coke-head and ongoing alcoholic running the White House at this very moment.
And yet, that said, I am still glad for opportunities that make my candidate look better, more straight-laced, whiter, nicer, more reliable, more electable. It’s a horrible thing to say, and I hope I can stop feeling that way. Posts like Pam’s make me think it is possible. But then I come across some sexist crap about Hillary and I am back at it, pitting race against gender in my mind.
Last ten comments, all lost. It is useless to comment here!
Invalid email, or something I’m doing wrong, blah blah blah blah. I cannot bother anymore.
Pam, I respect your perspective on this topic, but as a white woman who is very sympathetic to the gay rights movement, I would feel incredibly presumptuous and out of place telling a black church that their stand on gay rights is a failure to live up to the promises of the movement for black rights.
“What, white girl, you’re going to tell us our religion is wrong? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I agree with you that this is one movement for equality, and we can leave no one behind in the fight against oppression. But as a member of the privileged race, it cannot be my place to tell the oppressed how they are failing. We are all responsible for policing our own communities. I can be an ally, but I cannot lead this fight.
Shah8 was there for me when I didn’t have time to type.
A huge part of what Martin Luther King Jr was about, was *democratizing* civil rights to the masses. That people can decide as a collective what they really wanted to do, rather than depend on the local minister’s pull with the white power structure. More than that, demand open faced legal structures that included black people just as another people.
This is key. What MLK did was important not because of his electrifying speeches or his consistent Christian, nonviolent, self-sacrificing approach, although those things deserve the kudos he gets. What he accomplished by going down to the community level, by connecting Niebuhr’s philosophy to Selma seamstresses and telling little old black ladies in their church hats that Jesus wanted them to make community progress by choosing community priorities, was revolutionary.
His own father, per Taylor Branch’s wonderful bio of MLK Jr, questioned having the son in whom the existing ministers’ civil rights hierarchy had invested so much, go down to Selma. Could have had a bigger church and been highly placed in that hierarchy in ATL, but no.
It chaps my you-know-what when I hear the 50 cent tour of the civil rights movement that explains that MLK was the Kumbaya singing let’s all get along peaceful visionary and Malcolm was a revolutionary…we’re all standing on the shoulders of somebody.
Obama has also been a community organizer and has that same ability to tell folks what they need to know rather than what they want to hear, in a way that keeps them asking for more. I’m delighted that he used his shot at the pulpit today to ask for support in healing those divides, and I think it’s interesting that Calvin Butts went right out there for Hillary.
If MLK had lived to become conservative like his dad…well, what a different country this might be.
just to clarify a kludgey sentence (okay, more kludge than usual)…
When I was talking about “open faced legal structures that included black people just as another people”, I was trying to emphasis that the previous way of doing things worked very much as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell did. Everything was ad-hoc, and what was okay to do in one time would be bad a little while later. So progress was always impermenant because pols like Arnall eventually lost and Lester Maddox won (and if it had been 90 years earlier…) and tried to roll back. Explicit legal rights and open government structures that defeat closed room, good ole boy mechanisms to control the availability of civil rights for minorities. Black ministers back in the 1940s-50s were often timid and protective of their perogatives, and they often did not press for redress when they should have. Part of the shift young black people of the 1950s was attempting to get –especially on the local end– reliable government interaction for the black community as whole, without anyone to interpret rights for them.
Black ministers back in the 1940s-50s were often timid and protective of their perogatives, and they often did not press for redress when they should have. Part of the shift young black people of the 1950s was attempting to get –especially on the local end– reliable government interaction for the black community as whole, without anyone to interpret rights for them.
And this is exactly what has occurred in the LGBT rights movement over the past 20 years. We went from a movement which had a few interlocutors with the world of political power (Barney Frank and uhhh… Barney Frank) who got to set the agenda for all of us, to a localized and grassroots driven movement in which local or state orgs are pressing for specific items. Hmmm, maybe we’re making some progress although many days it feels like it’s all a re-run.
I think the very best book on that shift is David Halberstam’s story of the sit-in and SNCC branches of the CRM, called ‘The Children’.
#1: How exactly could Clinton or Edwards point “out the evils and hypocrisy of such bigotry in the black faith” when they are both members of an oppressive class? The structurally constructed hierarchy of oppression would backfire on both of them…. I’m quite sure there are blacks (if not saying it out loud are murmuring under their breaths) exclaiming that Obama has some nerve.
#10: I agree with you that this is one movement for equality, and we can leave no one behind in the fight against oppression. But as a member of the privileged race, it cannot be my place to tell the oppressed how they are failing. We are all responsible for policing our own communities. I can be an ally, but I cannot lead this fight.
Pols and people in the privileged class often speak to audiences and deliver messages they don’t want to hear — men about sexism, pro-choicers about “pro-life” positions, blue collar workers about jobs that aren’t coming back, or similar to the above situation, even white audiences about tolerance regarding homosexuality.
I’m not placing all of the burden of the problem on the white pols; as I’ve said many times on this blog and on mine, the black defensiveness (and charges of racism) that occurs in some quarters whenever there is criticism directed at it also shuts down the conversation, and thus the genesis of the third rail of race.
As we’ve seen, being tagged with the label of “racist” is so inflammatory in today’s society (even though all of us are steeped in the legacy of this country’s problems with race), that the avoidance of the topic has resulted in denial and aversion that you just don’t see in other hot button topics.
That you don’t see Clinton or Edwards addressing it reflects the above complexities that cannot easily be undone. My observation about Obama’s “burden” is that he alone bears it, but most folks will presume it is his alone to carry because it is too uncomfortable to contemplate diving into the toxic, emotionally charged topic.
Like her husband, Hillary has and will most likely continue to throw all progressives under the bus. I am not prepared to return to office the same duo who brought you welfare “reform” and NAFTA; who voted for war in Iraq and to pave the way for war in Iran. Therefore, on the Barney Frank half-a-loaf principle, I cannot fault Obama for failing to endorse marriage equality, or for having the Grammy award winning Gospel artist and messed-up self hating gay McClurkin perform at a campaign event.
Obama is an inspiring leader; HRC is an empty pantsuit stuffed with platitudes.
Ahahaha, writkat. Clearly my fingers were ahead of my brain. I really meant something more like, “I second what Foucault said, amazing post.” But, yeah, if Pam had quoted Foucault, that would have been even better.
From Pam: That you don’t see Clinton or Edwards addressing it reflects the above complexities that cannot easily be undone.
And if they were to suddenly address it now, it would be obviously disingenuous and clear pandering. They won’t touch race or gay issues with a ten foot pole at THIS stage of the game! I’m glad Obama DID, but I’d have been more pleased had he addressed it earlier on.
But at any rate Obama is certainly shaping up as someone I can very optimistically support in November.
And if Edwards gives up before the California primary Feb 5, Obama is the one I’ll vote for then, and feel good about it.
And let me reiterate: I would still feel good voting for Clinton in November. Just not as good as for Obama, because he is demonstrating, I think, that he can indeed deliver on the implicit promise of bringing all parties together for reasonable reconciliation of conflicts, as I suspected his background as a community organizer implied he could and would do. Clinton would be more refractory as a President, less inclined to support, or even at least recognize, grass-roots activism that isn’t on her DLC agenda.
But I think even she would come around if populist activism is strong enough.
As for the theme of “white folks shouldn’t be afraid to speak out against injustices committed by black folks,” well Pam, I am with some other commentators above: I just think I don’t have that standing. OTOH I also think that there is plenty of decency and intelligence among POCs. I always believe that out-groups have a more honest and smarter take on how our society actually works, and so I feel that until the larger society (aka “white” people) have cleaned up our act considerably, reform among the groups we tend to persecute is left to people within those groups. I wouldn’t presume to advise gay people how they should run their lives, or tell women how they should behave, either.
When I see bigotry in any form, in myself or others, I do go out on a limb and call whoever is doing it on it. I do so a lot less patiently and respectfully with white guys than others. But even within my own group I try to separate the person from the practice.
At any rate, until I am dealing with professional Republican politicians. Even they sometimes surprise with a moment of decency. (I am thinking here of the Texas Republican Congressman of Ms Austin, who got raped and held incommunicando in Iraq by Halliburton people, for instance–that Representative did do some serious advocacy for his constituent, the way they are supposed to do.
But though a pleasant surprise, this was still a surprise to me. And not that big a thing in the grand scheme, if this instance did not cause him to reevaluate his allegiences all across the board.
I swear I closed the block quote. Sigh.
Hot damn. Whether I vote for Obama or not, that man has an amazing way with words. Have NOT seen any of the other presidential candidates say their support for LGBT people so clearly. Just wow.
Every time I hear an Obama or Edwards speech, I squee a little bit at the idea of a president who can form complete sentences! *happy sigh*