Earlier in this longest presidential campaign ever, we had an address compared to John F. Kennedy's address to Protestant ministers in Houston in 1960 -- dispelling concerns among some voters about his core beliefs, analysts and historians said.Not that we've forgotten Mormon candidate Mitt Romney, but Barack Obama tried to do for race what Kennedy did for religion. From some of the reaction, it may have worked. But race relations are complicated in this country.
Teachers at WVHS have faculty meetings designed at understanding the racial stories of ourselves and our students. It is a work in progress. We have a signifcant achievment gap between black and white students. When many of these sometimes contradictory points are made, educated educators of all races get emotional, frustrated, defensive -- seemingly anything but hopeful.
But Obama was hopeful. About the chance for change to finally bring "A More Perfect Union." Not just his campaign's hope to change the negative news cycle, I think.
What will the impact be? Who knows? Race relations are complicated,but the pundits all have had instant analysis. Over 1 milllion people hit on the full speech at YouTube.com -- the start of the firestorm that had Jeremiah Wright comments heard 'round the world. It was the most watched video on the site.
Linked here is the full speech. Watch the rest of the speech and blog your comments.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23702758/
Time.com had various reactions to the Obama speech, they are linked here:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1723442,00.html
And Bloomberg.com compares the Obama speech to the JFK address:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aVd4NwHD8Tvo&refer=home
3 comments:
The Obama haters have been looking around for something to pin on the guy. Up to now, they haven’t found anything on him. To take what Rev. Wright had said and try to paint Senator Obama as a racist because of the comments is an act of desperation. The sad thing is that there will be a number of unintelligent people who can’t think for themselves who will take the bait.
As for the speech, I thought it was a great speech and it shows that Obama knows the complexities of race relations. My dad actually watched the speech and, though he voted for Hillary in the primaries, it completely won him over as a supporter for Obama.
I completely agree with Seaninator. The political correctness movement has people running scared when it comes to discussing race. Obama did a terrific job. Unfortunately, there will be more than a few Klukkers out there trying to pin Rev. Wright's comments on Obama, but I think the majority will listen to Obama. Race is a complex issue, and it will take a while to work it out.
yeah, watching this speech I was impressed by the speech writers' careful use of language to get just the right PR angle...it almost felt more like AP English than AP Gov
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