As I listened to Senator Obama give his speech, I identified with most of what he was saying and thought he gave one of the most important speeches in modern American History.
As I flipped from channel to channel and looked at the blogs to see the reactions from other people, I began to think. What should be the next step?
Well, in order for this to end, Senator Obama needs to turn that speech into policy. He needs to sieze this opportunity now and turn this all around to his, and all of our, advantage.
More....
In his speech he said these words :
For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
This is so true, and yet leaves us hanging. What is the answer to this problem? Simply 'understanding it' will not solve America's problems. Although it may bring about the necessary frame of mind to bring us together more as a Nation.
And Senator Obama hits another strong point here:
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; 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. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Yes, resentment builds over time. Working class, poor and a lot of middle class whites do not have any connections in industry or advantage in getting a job or attending a school. Resentment does build over time.
He goes on:
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from 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.
So what is the solution? The solution is a policy that will bring these two American factions together. Something to work towards that will benefit both factions and all Americans.
I read a diary awhile back called 'Obama, Go There', written by faithfull. In it he/she(sorry) outlines the need for Senator Obama to go to the Appalachian counties that are suffering with extreme poverty.
The key to an Obama victory in the primary and the GE now lies nowhere else but in the misty mountains of Appalachia.
Faithfull makes a strong case for an Appalachian strategy and outlines the specifics of the region.
Here are some things I've learned about Appalachia.
Over twenty million people live in Appalachia, an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom, covering mostly mountainous, often isolated areas from the border of Mississippi and Alabama in the south to Pennsylvania and New York in the north. Appalachia also includes parts of the states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, and the entire state of West Virginia.
Poverty in this region has been a problem for many years but was not brought to the attention of the rest of the United States until 1964 when US President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a speech from a sagging front porch in a poor Appalachian mining town.
In Appalachia, severe poverty and desolation is paired with the necessity for careful, cultural sensitivity. Many Appalachian people fear that the birth of a new modernized Appalachia will lead to a death of their traditional values and heritage. Because of the isolation of the region, Appalachian people have been unable to catch up to the modernization that lowlanders have achieved. In the 1960s, many people in Appalachia had a standard of living comparable to third world countries. The film series "West Virginia", produced during the term of Governor Gaston Caperton makes the point that at least on some level images of poverty were contrived.[citation needed] Lyndon B. Johnson was the first president to bring attention to the growing problem of poverty in Appalachia. Standing on the front porch of a family suffering from a problem that had been so long ignored, he declared his "War on Poverty". The Appalachian Regional Development Act (1964), which created the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), stated that Appalachia was a shambles:
The Appalachian region of the United States, while abundant in natural resources and rich in potential, lags behind the rest of the nation... its people have not shared properly in the nation’s prosperity. Since the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) in 1965, the region has seen dramatic progress. New roads, schools, health care facilities, water and sewer systems, and other improvements have brought a better life to many Appalachian residents.
In 1960, 219 counties in the 13-state Appalachian Region were considered economically distressed. Now that list has been cut in half, to 108 counties, but these are "hard-core" pockets of poverty, seemingly oblivious to all efforts at improving their lot. [1]
Nevertheless, after 40 years poverty remains undefeated in Appalachia. Martin County, Kentucky, the site of Johnson’s 1964 speech, is currently ranked as "distressed" by the ARC. (Distressed is the worst ranking.) The per capita income in Martin County is $10,650, and 37% of its residents live below the poverty line.
This is just one large area that has the type of people that should be joining with Senator Obama to make America a better, more united, more perfect Union.
If Senator Obama wants to not only win these primaries and the general election, but to change America and the World. He needs to bring these worlds together.
And I'm not just talking about Appalachia, but the urban and rural poor of all races along with the suburban middle class. He needs to re-write the affirmative action clause to include the forgotten poor white family. He needs to outline how the goals of those white families are the same as the black, latino and asian families. He needs to turn his words into policy and take this time of scandal and turn it into an opportunity.
