I’m sitting here with CNN on in the background and part of Obama’s speech is running through my head. It reminds me of something else and was bugging me so much that I went downstairs and grabbed the book off the shelf. First, from Obama’s speech:
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
This is not the perfect answer to the political controversy, but it’s the honest response to the real issue underneath all of this. We have a complicated relationship with race, whites and minorities alike. Heck, I’ve heard folks I love or members of the Indian-American community use awful stereotypes and prejudice about race. That’s the reality, and if we just shoved away everyone who said something that wasn’t right, we’d never move anywhere.
All of this reminds me of something from Al Franken’s book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. He wrote:
If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they’ll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America. That we “blame America first.” That we’re suspicious of patriotism and always think our country’s in the wrong. …
They don’t get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world.
That’s why we liberals want America to do the right thing. We know America is the hope of the world, and we love it and want it to do well. We also want it to do good.
When liberals look back on history, we see things we’re very proud of. And we also see some things, which may have seemed like good ideas at the time, but turned out to be mistakes. And some things we did, well, they were just bad. That doesn’t keep us from loving our country — it’s part of loving our country. It’s called honesty. What do you think is more important to a loving relationship: honesty or lies?
A bit glib, but the core point is right on, and is part of what makes the Obama candidacy more appealing to me than the Clinton campaign. On the issues, they’re nearly identical. I think that Obama is willing to take the chances to be honest with people about what needs to be done. I don’t believe that about Clinton. When has she taken a political chance in her career?
Regardless, good speech. Looking forward to seeing the early parts of the speech rather than just reading it all.
Update: An interesting point by Atrios:
For various reasons I’ve been rather uninterested in getting into the weeds of the Wright issue, though obviously it’s the case that we’ve had decades of prominent and popular white conservative preachers blasting the evils of America and no one has much cared.
Aside from disparate treatment of left and right and black and white in our mainstream discourse, there’s also a difference in the basic narrative provided. The narrative from the Right - and its representatives in the conservative religious community - is of an America which was once the garden of Eden, until its tragic fall at the hands of (feminists, liberals, civil rights movement, whatever), and they wish to bring the country back to its former state. Thus they can hate the America that is while dreaming of the perfect America that was. Thus there’s no conflict between their unquestioned patriotism and their hatred of the country, as their patriotism is for the True America that was, not its current corrupted incarnation
While the mirror image rhetoric from the Left is about a country which was flawed, often tragically so, but which has the capacity for improvement. Be disgusted with the country as it was and is, while hoping for an evolution to a better country.
That’s an interesting point.
Update 2: If it wasn’t clear (I can’t imagine how it would be), when I read the Franken quote, I interpret “conservative” as people who like O’Reilly and Sean Hannity and liberals as anyone who doesn’t think a flag pin defines someone’s patriotism. I’m sure I don’t agree on policy, party, or lots of things with everyone that falls into the latter bucket. Not sure that will make anyone happier, but I don’t think it’s an ideological test, more about how you approach the country.
