Obama Wants Change… But Change to What?

Valley Patriot Editorial

May, 2008

The nationwide exposure of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church rantings provides startling insight into the kind of challenges facing this country’s progress toward better race relations.   It was indeed an eye-opener for most Americans to learn about the lies, racial slurs and divisiveness being preached to some black congregations.

The Reverend Wright carries a message of hate toward white people, and self-pity to the black community – a formula that is guaranteed to produce irreconcilable differences and ever-widening divisions between the races.  His now famous exhortation, “God Damn America”, leaves no doubt about what he thinks about his country.Both Barack Obama and the Reverend Wright are eloquent public speakers with wide followings.  All the more reason to temper rhetoric with truth, honesty and good will toward fellow citizens.   It is clear that the Reverend Wright has been Obama’s mentor for at least 20 years.

Obama’s denial and rejection of the Reverend’s sentiments, and then of the Reverend himself, at this late date, rings hollow. Too little, too late. The Reverend Wright dismisses Senator Obama’s responses as “political calculations”.  Perhaps here, the good Reverend is not far off the mark.   How deep beneath the smooth and polished veneer of hope and change lie Obama’s true feelings? Like his pastor, does he harbor a deep grudge against America? Has he been shielding us from his very negative personal feelings about his country?  Obama’s earlier gaffe about working class people in Pennsylvania – they “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them…” – provides yet another window into his thinking.

As time passes during this election campaign, the real Barack Obama is beginning to emerge – as much through his words as through the company he has kept.His wife’s remark that now was the only time in her adult life she was proud of her country begs the question – How did she feel about her country during the rest of her adult life?  Michelle Obama’s senior thesis at Princeton, titled “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community”, provides insight into her thinking as she describes the students’ world from a racial perspective.   She “examined the effects of a Princeton education on Blacks.”  In her conclusion, Michelle Obama seems distressed to find that Black Princeton students tend toward increased integration into the mainstream of white society after their Princeton experience.

The tenor of her entire thesis supports separation rather than integration as a preferred pathway for the Black community.Senator and Mrs. Obama need to better explain their persistent calls for hope and change.  Change to what?

All pictures and material are  (C) copyright, Valley Patriot, Inc., 2008