Although the American consciousness has a need for a Barack Obama, a post-racial, African-American politician of unsurpassed eloquence that promises unity, charity, and progress, I believe there is a better explanation: Obama is the marvel that critics get when viewing an abstract painting, a Freudian critic who sees sexual overtones in every bit of dialogue, and each literary critic claiming Shakespeare’s writings reveal that he shares the critic’s philosophical bent (e.g. Shakespeare was a closet Catholic, gay, a deconstructionist, a Marxist, etc.)
In other words, Barack Obama is as much the creation of our collective desire for a president who waxes eloquent yet seems down-to-earth, who proves that America is the land of opportunity, and who reaches out to all segments of the political aisle (even though nothing in Obama’s record proves that such rhetoric is reality.) If one wants to be even more abstract, one votes present time and again.
No matter how hard I’ve tried, I still cannot stomach to come to the conclusion that Obama’s deep friendship and loyalty to Jeremiah Wright is excusable. People run to point to George Bush speaking at Bob Jones University one time or to Jerry Falwell’s ludicrous comments, but can anyone imagine Bush, McCain, or a Romney trying to justifying a close adviser-advisee relationship with Falwell or even Pat Robertson in a position of being under the pastor’s authority?
That said, I will give kudos to Mark Goldblatt’s insightful piece which, while I ultimately disagree, sheds light on some of the cultural revelations that have come about concerning Black America:
Conservative commentators, with a few exceptions, have spent the last few days picking apart Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech on the problem of race in American history, politics, and culture. The consensus seems to be that even though the speech was well-crafted and included several memorable turns of phrase, Obama came up short on substance.
Their criticism tends to focus on two points: 1) Obama did not once and for all disassociate himself from Jeremiah Wright, his pastor of 20 years and spiritual mentor, whose incendiary, grotesquely paranoid statements about America necessitated the speech; and 2) The remedies favored by Obama to bind up the nation’s racial wounds and address lingering disparities amounted to a laundry list of big government same-old-same-olds. Read on…
