On Mar 18, 6:48=A0pm, **Rowland Croucher**
<rccroucher@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> The following is a transcript of Sen. Barack Obama's speech, as provided
> by Obama's campaign, (in response to controversial comments by his
> ex-pastor).
>
> We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.
>
> Sen. Barack Obama has said the controversy over his ex-pastor's remarks
> has been "a distraction" to the campaign.
>
> Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across
> the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words,
> launched America's improbable experiment in democracy.
>
> Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an
> ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their
> declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted
> through the spring of 1787.
>
> The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately
> unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a
> question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a
> stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue
> for at least 20 more years, and to leave any final resolution to future
> generations.
>
> Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded
> within our Constitution -- a Constitution that had at its very core the
> ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised
> its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be
> perfected over time.
>
> And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from
> bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full
> rights and obligations as citizens of the United States.
>
> What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were
> willing to do their part -- through protests and struggle, on the
> streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience
> and always at great risk -- to narrow that gap between the promise of
> our ideals and the reality of their time.
>
> This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign
> -- to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a
> more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous
America.=
>
> I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I
> believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we
> solve them together -- unless we perfect our union by understanding that
> we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not
> look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all
> want to move in the same direction -- towards a better future for our
> children and our grandchildren.
>
> This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity
> of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
>
> I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I
> was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a
> Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white
> grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth
> while he was overseas.
>
> I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the
> world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries
> within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners -- an inheritance we pass
> on to our two precious daughters.
>
> I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every
> race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long
> as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my
> story even possible.
>
> It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it
> is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this
> nation is more than the sum of its parts -- that out of many, we are
> truly one.
>
> Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to
> the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this
> message of unity.
>
> Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial
> lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest
> populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate
> Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African-Americans and
> white Americans.
>
> This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At
> various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either
> "too black" or "not black enough."
>
> We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the
> South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the
> latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and
> black, but black and brown as well.
>
> And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the
> discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive
turn=
..
>
> On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my
> candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action, that it's based
> solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial
> reconciliation on the cheap.
>
> On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright,
> use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not
> only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the
> greatness and the goodness of our nation -- that rightly offend white
> and black alike.
>
> I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Rev.
> Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions
> remain.
>
> Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic
> and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that
> could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I
> strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely -- just
> as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or
> rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
>
> But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply
> controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak
> out against perceived injustice.
>
> Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country -- a
> view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong
> with America above all that we know is right with America, a view that
> sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions
> of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse
> and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
>
> As such, Rev. Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive,
> divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when
> we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems -- two
> wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care
> crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are
> neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that
> confront us all.
>
> Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals,
> there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are
> not enough. Why associate myself with Rev. Wright in the first place,
> they may ask? Why not join another church?
>
> And I confess that if all that I knew of Rev. Wright were the snippets
> of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and
> YouTube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the
> caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I
> would react in much the same way
>
> But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met
> more than 20 years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian
> faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another;
> to care for the sick and lift up the poor.
>
> He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine, who has studied and
> lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the
> country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the
> community by doing God's work here on Earth -- by housing the homeless,
> ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships
> and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from
HIV/AIDS.
>
> In my first book, "Dreams From My Father," I described the experience of
> my first service at Trinity:
>
> "People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a
> forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And
> in that single note -- hope! -- I heard something else; at the foot of
> that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined
> the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David
> and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den,
> Ezekiel's field of dry bones.
>
> "Those stories -- of survival, and freedom, and hope -- became our
> story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our
> tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a
> vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a
> larger world.
>
> "Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and
> more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave
> us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame
> about...memories that all people might study and cherish -- and with
> which we could start to rebuild."
>
> That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black
> churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its
> entirety -- the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the
> former gang-banger.
>
> Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous
> laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping,
> screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear.
>
> The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce
> intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes,
> the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black
> experience in America.
>
> And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Rev. 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.
>
> Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are
> simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the
> politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just
> hope that it fades into the woodwork.
>
> We can dismiss Rev. Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have
> dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements,
> as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
>
> But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore
> right now. We would be making the same mistake that Rev. Wright made in
> his offending sermons about America -- to simplify and stereotype and
> amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
>
> The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that
> have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race
> in this country that we've never really worked through -- a part of our
> union that we have yet to perfect.
>
> And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective
> corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges
> like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every
> American.
>
> Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this
> point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried.
> In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history
> of racial injustice in this country.
>
> But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that
> exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to
> inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under
> the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
>
> Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't
> fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the
> inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the
> pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
>
> Legalized discrimination -- where blacks were prevented, often through
> violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to
> African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access
> FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force,
> or fire departments -- meant that black families could not amass any
> meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations.
>
> That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and
> white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many
> of today's urban and rural communities.
>
> A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and
> frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family,
> contributed to the erosion of black families -- a problem that welfare
> policies for many years may have worsened.
>
> And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods --
> parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage
> pick-up and building code enforcement -- all helped create a cycle of
> violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
>
> This is the reality in which Rev. Wright and other African-Americans of
> his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early
> sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and
> opportunity was systematically constricted.
>
> What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination,
> but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able
> to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
>
> But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of
> the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it -- those who were
> ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination.
>
> That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations -- those young
> men and, increasingly, young women who we see standing on street corners
> or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future.
> Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism,
> continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways.
>
> For the men and women of Rev. 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 Rev. 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck
> in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and
> white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond
> our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single
> candidacy -- particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
>
> But I have asserted a firm conviction -- a conviction rooted in my faith
> in God and my faith in the American people -- that working together we
> can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have
> no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
>
> For the African-American community, that path means embracing the
> burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means
> continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of
> American life.
>
> But it also means binding our particular grievances -- for better health
> care, and better schools, and better jobs -- to the larger aspirations
> of all Americans, the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling,
> the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his
family=
..
>
> And it means taking full responsibility for own lives -- by demanding
> more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and
> reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges
> and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to
> despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their
> own destiny.
>
> Ironically, this quintessentially American -- and yes, conservative --
> notion of self-help found frequent expression in Rev. Wright's sermons.
> But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that
> embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society
> can change.
>
> The profound mistake of Rev. Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about
> racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static;
> as if no progress has been made; as if this country -- a country that
> has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest
> office in the land and build a coalition of white and black, Latino and
> Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a
> tragic past.
>
> But what we know -- what we have seen -- is that America can change.
> That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved
> gives us hope -- the audacity to hope -- for what we can and must
> achieve tomorrow.
>
> In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means
> acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not
> just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of
> discrimination -- and current incidents of discrimination, while less
> overt than in the past -- are real and must be addressed.
>
> Not just with words, but with deeds -- by investing in our schools and
> our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring
> fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation
> with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous
generations=
..
>
> It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to
> come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare
> and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help
> all of America prosper.
>
> In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less,
> than what all the world's great religions demand -- that we do unto
> others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper,
> Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that
> common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect
> that spirit as well.
>
> For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that
> breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as
> spectacle -- as we did in the O.J. trial -- or in the wake of tragedy,
> as we did in the aftermath of Katrina -- or as fodder for the nightly
news=
..
>
> We can play Rev. Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk
> about them from now until the election, and make the only question in
> this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow
> believe or sympathize with his most offensive words.
>
> We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that
> she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men
> will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his
> policies.
>
> We can do that.
>
> But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking
> about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another
> one. And nothing will change.
>
> That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come
> together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the
> crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and
> white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native
> American children.
>
> This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids
> can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's
> problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids,
> and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st Century economy. Not this
> time.
>
> This time we want to talk about how the lines in the emergency room are
> filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care,
> who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests
> in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
>
> This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a
> decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that
> once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk
> of life.
>
> This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not
> that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that
> the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than
> a profit.
>
> This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and
> creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under
> the same proud flag.
>
> We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never
> should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to
> talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their
> families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
>
> I would not be running for president if I didn't believe with all my
> heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this
> country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after
> generation has shown that it can always be perfected.
>
> And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this
> possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation -- the
> young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have
> already made history in this election.
>
> There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today
> -- a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's
> birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
>
> There is a young, 23-year-old white woman named Ashley Baia who
> organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been
> working to organize a mostly African-American community since the
> beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable
> discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they
> were there.
>
> And Ashley said that when she was 9 years old, her mother got cancer.
> And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her
> health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley
> decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
>
> She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley
> convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat
> more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that
> was the cheapest way to eat.
>
> She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone
> at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that
> she could help the millions of other children in the country who want
> and need to help their parents, too.
>
> Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her
> along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who
> were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into
> the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her
> fight against injustice.
>
> Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks
> everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have
> different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And
> finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there
> quietly the entire time.
>
> And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific
> issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say
> education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of
> Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because
> of Ashley."
>
> "I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of
> recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not
> enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the
> jobless, or education to our children.
>
> But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as
> so many generations have come to realize over the course of the
> two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that
> document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
>
> March 19, 2008
>
> http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/18/obama.transcript/index.html
>
> ****
>
> Beliefnet's Washington Editor, David Kuo; Politics Editor, Dan Gilgoff
> and Beliefnet Editor in Chief and author of the new book FOUNDING FAITH:
> Providence, Politics and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America and
> other bloggers are weighing in on Senator Obama's "A More Perfect Union"
> speech today. =A0Please check out the Casting Stones blog for updates
> (www.beliefnet.com/castingstones).
>
> Here's a quick rundown of pre-speech posts and points of view:
>
> -- David Kuo: Obama's decision to stand by his church is good
> Spirituality "He didn't forego his spiritual home for political
> convenience. =A0Whether or not that is good politics is yet to be seen.
> That it is good spiritually should be applauded."
>
> -- =A0Steven Waldman: Obama can't be held responsible for all Wright's
> statements, but he needs to say where he agrees and disagrees.
>
> "Some stay because the Sunday school is terrific. More commonly, I hear
> people say something like, "I don't like the minister's sermons, but he
> was so wonderful when my father died." We should remember that the main
>
> purpose of a minister is spiritual. If he helps someone get closer to
> God, or find meaning, that matters tremendously."
>
> -- Dan Gilgoff (God-o-Meter): With Trinity UCC lashing out at the media
> this weekend, this controversy is sticking around for a while.
>
> "One of the main arguments Obama's surrogates have been making in the
> face of the Wright flare-up is that voters want to hear about issues
> like health care and the economy, not about the ravings of Obama's
> pastor. This weekend's ravings from the church are fuel to the fire,
> promising the story ain't going anywhere soon."
>
> -- Rod Dreher: Rev. Jeremiah Wright is no MLK: =A0"Martin Luther
King....
> was a true prophet, in the Old Testament sense,
>
> who did not damn America, but called her to be true to herself. It's
> easy to imagine King denouncing the grave sins of this country, because
> he did that. It's impossible to imagine him denouncing this country in
> the fanatical terms used by Jeremiah Wright. Had he done so, we would be
> living in a different country today, and a worse one.
>
> -- =A0Jim Wallis: This controversy is all about race, not religion.
>
> "There is a deep well of both frustration and anger in the African
> American community in the U.S. And those feelings are borne of the
> concrete experience of real oppression, discrimination, and blocked
> opportunities that most of America's white citizens take for granted....
>
> In 2008, to still not comprehend or seek to understand the reality of
> black frustration and anger is to be in a state of white denial which,
> very sadly, is where many white Americans are."
> --
>
> Shalom/Salaam/Pax! =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0
Rowland=
Croucher
>
> http://jmm.aaa.net.au/=A0
(20,000 articles 4000 humor)
>
> Blogs -http://rowlandsblogs.blogspot.com/
>
> Justice for Dawn Rowan -http://dawnrowansaga.blogspot.com/
>
> Funny Jokes and Pics -http://funnyjokesnpics.blogspot.com/
A great speech, but I really doubt
white Americans are ready for the truth.
Jim
Joh 15:25 - But this cometh to pass, that the word might be
fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a
cause.
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