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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Acceptable Blackness vs. Unforgivable Blackness

Barack Obama vs. Jack Johnson

Tha Artstorian Reports…Special To W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio

Almost 100 years ago on Dec. 26, 1908, the great boxer Jack Johnson shocked and shook up the world or at least decent White folks’ sensibilities by becoming the first African American Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World…Johnson defeated ‘The Great White Hope’ Tommy Burns by knocking him out in the land down under (Australia) to earn his crown as Pugilist Number One…Almost 100 years later (Nov. 4, 2008), Barack Obama is looking to become the ‘Undisputed Heavyweight Champ of the Free World’ that is the President of the U.S.A….He is looking to defeat ‘The Great White Old Man’ or ‘Farce’ in Sen. John McCain…

Both subjects are interesting studies in compare and contrast…

Both Barack & Jack have and had reputations for being very ambitious and driven fellows…They have both proven in their times to be relentless and persistent in the pursuits of their desired goals…

Both men are often compared to some of the great men of honor and distinction of the Ages…Jack Johnson often identified himself with the military genius and leader Napoleon Bonaparte in that they were both confidant and brilliant men who were at times underrated by adversaries and yet willed themselves to victory against all odds and comers…Barack Obama is often compared with the restless, energetic, idealistic and charismatic late political leader RFK because they both were willing “to dream things that never were and ask why not”…During their times, both Barack and RFK ran their political campaigns in focusing on and in support of those left behind in America’s Global Conquest of late: the middle class and the poor…As a matter of fact the Obama campaign has been successful in connecting the Kennedy legacy and brand with Obama, getting endorsements from key Kennedy family members including the ailing patriarch and brother of RFK, the popular Sen. Ted Kennedy, and his niece Caroline, the daughter of the late Pres. John Kennedy (Caroline also serves on Obama’s VP Selection Committee)…

Barack & Jack at one point made their homes and names in that tee totaling town known as Chicago, the place where personalities go to become legends…

Both men needed extra protection from huge crowds of White folks for different reasons…Obama’s White crowds mostly cheered him and wanted to hug him while Johnson’s White crowd mostly jeered him and wanted to lynch him…

Obama worked in state and national legislatures to pass laws to protect people’s liberties and freedoms while people in state and national legislatures passed laws to take Johnson’s liberties and freedoms (see The Mann Act)…

Obama, like Johnson before him, have found working class Whites hard to win over…However, Johnson enjoyed and Barack currently enjoys huge support and popularity from the Black community…

They are both revered for their intellectual prowess among friend and foe alike…Both are authors with very readable works and Jack Johnson was even an inventor with patents...What makes Jack’s accomplishments even more unique is the fact that he only had 5 years of formal education whereas Obama has degrees from Harvard and Columbia respectively…

When Barack won primaries and caucuses, the crowd erupted in joy…When Jack Johnson won fights, crowds erupted into riots…

Barack Obama is seen and heard on t.v. and the internet 24/7…Johnson’s fight films were banned 24/7 in many states throughout the union…

Many people desire and want Barack Obama as the next President…Many people desired and wanted Jack Johnson behind bars…

In their respective times both men have proven to be hot magnets for White women for all the right and wrong reasons…Some White women hated Obama for running against a White woman…Some White women loved Johnson for “supporting” White women…
Barack was had by a White woman and was raised by one (his maternal grandmother)…Johnson had many White women whom were truly receptive to his interest and taken by his natural gifts and charm…

Some Black Church Folks saw Jack Johnson as a traitor to his race…Some Black Church Folks see Obama as a traitor to his faith…

For More Comparisons Of Barack To Historical Black Figures Check Out The Following On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio:

Barack Hussein Obama Ain't No Adam Clayton Powell Jr.!!!
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2007/05/barack-hussein-obama-aint-no-adam.html

Tha Artstorian Ponders:Is Barack Obama The Sam Cooke of American Politics???
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/02/tha-artstorian-pondersis-barack-obama.html

More Related Coverage On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio:

Why Obama Did The Wright Thing And How Rev. Wright’s Selfless Sacrifice Saved The Obama Presidency…

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-obama-did-wright-thing-and-how-rev.html

The Hypocrisy Of The Media…Min. Farrakhan Was A Guest Of Honor For Key Pa. Hillary Supporter!!!

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/05/hypocrisy-of-mediamin-farrakhan-was.html

Why Is Benedict Right & Wright Wrong?
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-is-benedict-right-and-wright-wrong.html

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio Special: Black Liberation Theology 101:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2008/03/23/Tha-Artivist-PresentsWE-ALL-BE-Radio

The Rev. Wright Controversy Told Through Video Media:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/03/rev-wright-controversy-told-through.html

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio Special: Barack Obama & The Hip Hop Effect On American Politics:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2008/02/10/Tha-Artivist-PresentsWE-ALL-BE-Radio

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio Special~Eyewitness To The Crucifixion: The Last Days Of MLK:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2008/04/07/Tha-Artivist-PresentsWE-ALL-BE-News-Radio-1

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Get Your Barack
Obama "A Legacy Of Hope" T-Shirt Today!!!

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/04/barack-obama-legacy-of-hope-t-shirts.html

Friday, November 14, 2008

Reminder: Obama Isn't Black Jesus...

The Messiah Myth

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Since Barack Obama's victory celebration in Grant Park, the chattering class has been atwitter wondering what, exactly, his election will mean for African Americans. On Meet the Press, Tom Brokaw asked about the "impact ... on the black community and in those neighborhoods where there are dysfunctional families." To many pundits, both black and white, Obama's election to the White House signals the end of black America's unchallenged status as sore losers and complaint-mongers. "African Americans have just entered the no-excuses zone," Jonetta Rose Barras wrote in the Washington Post. Obama "won't tolerate ... the long-standing narrative of victimhood that has defined black America to itself and to the mainstream for more than a century." The writer John McWhorter, in New York magazine, went so far as to suggest that Obama will finally end the bullying of the black nerd: "Whenever a black nerd gets teased for thinking he's white, all he has to say is four words: 'Is Barack Obama white?'"

That's terrible advice for a kid. But it's in line with those who think of Obama as a messiah who can give black people some manners, a God-child descending from the heavens to teacheth benighted African Americans the virtues of books and proper English and the evils of Pacman Jones and blaming the white man. It pains me to deliver this sobering news to those who think Obama will wave his hand and erase whole ghettos: Barack Obama is a black President, not black Jesus.

In fact, the very idea that Obama should transform African Americans into the black Waltons is flawed. It rests on the notion that the black community, more than other communities, is characterized by a bunch of hapless layabouts who spend their days ticking off reparations demands and shaking their fist at the white man. The truth is that the dominant conversation in the black community today is not about racism or victimization but about self-improvement. In a 2007 Pew survey of black America, Bill Cosby was rated second among public figures believed to have the best influence on African Americans; Oprah, not exactly a doyenne of black complaint, ranked first. That same year, a study of young people by the University of Chicago found that while black kids consumed more rap videos than their white counterparts, about 60% of them thought the portrayals of black women were offensive.

Obama has made a particular point of invoking the individual will of African Americans, but anyone who has spent time in a black church or barbershop--or just watched the crowds when Obama puts forth the message--can tell you that it isn't exactly a tough sell. When Jesse Jackson claimed that Obama was "talking down to black people," there was no real rush among blacks to defend Jackson. That's because, in terms of their outlook, their belief in hard work and family, African Americans aren't any different from white Americans. (See pictures of Barack Obama's family tree.)

The belief in Obama as a force for moral reform rests on another shaky pillar--the idea that people should get their values from what they see on television. This goes for entertainers and Presidents. Obama can't do the work of the family. It's not his job to buy your kid a belt or teach him to box. His job is to monitor this nation's nuclear arsenal, not your daughter's iPod.

In this post--civil rights age, with the media hungry for a single black narrative, there is a strong desire to have one voice speak to--and for--us all. But that impulse is wrong, whether it's focused on Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Barack Obama. It's wrong because it distorts and flattens the very complexities and contradictions that ultimately make black people human. In 2006, this magazine reported on a University of Minnesota study that found, not surprisingly, that blacks were more likely than whites to see racism in the world. But the same study also found that blacks were more likely than whites to blame the lack of black progress on individual factors like hard work.

The truth is that the people create the conditions for the leader, not the other way around. Obama isn't bringing moral values to the black community; he's responding to the community's own innate, quasi-conservative embrace of those values. Thus the question of what Obama has to teach black people is exactly backward. The real question is what black people, through Barack Obama, have to show America and the world.

Coates is a contributor to TIME and the Atlantic

See pictures of Barack Obama's campaign behind the scenes.

See TIME's Pictures of the Week.

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/04/barack-obama-legacy-of-hope-t-shirts.html

Monday, August 04, 2008

Running While Black...

By BOB HERBERT
New York Times Op-Ed Columnist

Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.

Since then, Senator McCain has only upped the ante, smearing Mr. Obama every which way from sundown. On Wednesday, The Washington Post ran an extraordinary front-page article that began:

“For four days, Senator John McCain and his allies have accused Senator Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.”

Evidence? John McCain needs no evidence. His campaign is about trashing the opposition, Karl Rove-style. Not satisfied with calling his opponent’s patriotism into question, Mr. McCain added what amounted to a charge of treason, insisting that Senator Obama would actually prefer that the United States lose a war if that would mean that he — Senator Obama — would not have to lose an election.

Now, from the hapless but increasingly venomous McCain campaign, comes the slimy Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. The two highly sexualized women (both notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear) are shown briefly and incongruously at the beginning of a commercial critical of Mr. Obama.

The Republican National Committee targeted Harold Ford with a similarly disgusting ad in 2006 when Mr. Ford, then a congressman, was running a strong race for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee. The ad, which the committee described as a parody, showed a scantily clad woman whispering, “Harold, call me.”

Both ads were foul, poisonous and emanated from the upper reaches of the Republican Party. (What a surprise.) Both were designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women.

The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place.

Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this — the sole reason — is that he is black.

So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre.

Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”

The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received.

But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign — playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck.

Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain’s motivation.

Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades.

He’s obviously more than willing to continue that nauseating tradition.

For Comparisons Of Barack To Historical Black Figures Check Out The Following On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio:

Acceptable Blackness Vs. Unforgivable Blackness...
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/06/acceptable-blackness-vs-unforgivable.html

Barack Hussein Obama Ain't No Adam Clayton Powell Jr.!!!
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2007/05/barack-hussein-obama-aint-no-adam.html

Tha Artstorian Ponders:Is Barack Obama The Sam Cooke of American Politics???
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/02/tha-artstorian-pondersis-barack-obama.html

More Related Coverage On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio:

If Fox News Gave Cindy McCain The Michelle Obama Treatment…Thoughts Of An Outraged Negro…
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/07/if-fox-news-gave-cindy-mccain-michelle.html

Why Obama Did The Wright Thing And How Rev. Wright’s Selfless Sacrifice Saved The Obama Presidency…

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-obama-did-wright-thing-and-how-rev.html

The Hypocrisy Of The Media…Min. Farrakhan Was A Guest Of Honor For Key Pa. Hillary Supporter!!!

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/05/hypocrisy-of-mediamin-farrakhan-was.html

Why Is Benedict Right & Wright Wrong?
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-is-benedict-right-and-wright-wrong.html

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio Special: Black Liberation Theology 101:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2008/03/23/Tha-Artivist-PresentsWE-ALL-BE-Radio

The Rev. Wright Controversy Told Through Video Media:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/03/rev-wright-controversy-told-through.html

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/04/barack-obama-legacy-of-hope-t-shirts.htm

Friday, June 20, 2008

The Prince...Obama Style...

June 20, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The Two Obamas
By DAVID BROOKS Of The NY Times

God, Republicans are saps. They think that they’re running against some academic liberal who wouldn’t wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn’t proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they’re running against some naïve university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson.

But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes.

This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.

But he’s been giving us an education, for anybody who cares to pay attention. Just try to imagine Mister Rogers playing the agent Ari in “Entourage” and it all falls into place.

Back when he was in the Illinois State Senate, Dr. Barack could have taken positions on politically uncomfortable issues. But Fast Eddie Obama voted “present” nearly 130 times. From time to time, he threw his voting power under the truck.

Dr. Barack said he could no more disown the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than disown his own grandmother. Then the political costs of Rev. Wright escalated and Fast Eddie Obama threw Wright under the truck.

Dr. Barack could have been a workhorse senator. But primary candidates don’t do tough votes, so Fast Eddie Obama threw the workhorse duties under the truck.

Dr. Barack could have changed the way presidential campaigning works. John McCain offered to have a series of extended town-hall meetings around the country. But favored candidates don’t go in for unscripted free-range conversations. Fast Eddie Obama threw the new-politics mantra under the truck.

And then on Thursday, Fast Eddie Obama had his finest hour. Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue. He aspires to be to political reform what Bono is to fighting disease in Africa. He’s spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system.

But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now.

And Fast Eddie Obama didn’t just sell out the primary cause of his life. He did it with style. He did it with a video so risibly insincere that somewhere down in the shadow world, Lee Atwater is gaping and applauding. Obama blamed the (so far marginal) Republican 527s. He claimed that private donations are really public financing. He made a cut-throat political calculation seem like Mother Teresa’s final steps to sainthood.

The media and the activists won’t care (they were only interested in campaign-finance reform only when the Republicans had more money). Meanwhile, Obama’s money is forever. He’s got an army of small donors and a phalanx of big money bundlers, including, according to The Washington Post, Kenneth Griffin of the Citadel Investment Group; Kirk Wager, a Florida trial lawyer; James Crown, a director of General Dynamics; and Neil Bluhm, a hotel, office and casino developer.

I have to admit, I’m ambivalent watching all this. On the one hand, Obama did sell out the primary cause of his professional life, all for a tiny political advantage. If he’ll sell that out, what won’t he sell out? On the other hand, global affairs ain’t beanbag. If we’re going to have a president who is going to go toe to toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, maybe it is better that he should have a ruthlessly opportunist Fast Eddie Obama lurking inside.

All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I’d use to describe Barack Obama. He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics.

Barack Hussein Obama Ain't No Adam Clayton Powell Jr.!!!
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2007/05/barack-hussein-obama-aint-no-adam.html

Tha Artstorian Ponders:Is Barack Obama The Sam Cooke of American Politics???
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/02/tha-artstorian-pondersis-barack-obama.html

More Related Coverage On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio:

Why Obama Did The Wright Thing And How Rev. Wright’s Selfless Sacrifice Saved The Obama Presidency…

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-obama-did-wright-thing-and-how-rev.html

The Hypocrisy Of The Media…Min. Farrakhan Was A Guest Of Honor For Key Pa. Hillary Supporter!!!

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/05/hypocrisy-of-mediamin-farrakhan-was.html

Why Is Benedict Right & Wright Wrong?
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-is-benedict-right-and-wright-wrong.html

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio Special: Black Liberation Theology 101:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2008/03/23/Tha-Artivist-PresentsWE-ALL-BE-Radio

The Rev. Wright Controversy Told Through Video Media:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/03/rev-wright-controversy-told-through.html

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/04/barack-obama-legacy-of-hope-t-shirts.html

Friday, August 29, 2008

In Rarefied Air: Barack Obama's 2008 DNC Speech Delivers The Goods!!!

Watch And Listen To The Historic Speech Given On The 45th Anniversary Of MLK's "I Have A Dream" Speech @ The March On Washington

Obama Masters His Moment

Roger Simon Of Politico.com

DENVER — Barack Obama has a dream, a dream embodied in a speech, a speech he gave at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night to introduce himself to America.

Yes, introduce. Hard as it is to believe, most Americans are just getting to know him. And this is what they got to know Thursday night: He is a man who can master a moment.

He did a little inspiration, he did a little substance, he did a little attack, he did a little defense, he did a little everything except let his audience down.

Even when it sounded like he was going to lapse into old and tired political rhetoric — he talked about the struggles of ordinary, hardworking Americans — he gave it a new twist and managed to blunt the attacks of his opponent to boot.

“I don’t know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine, these are my heroes,” Obama said as the enormous crowd at Invesco Field roared. “Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as president of the United States.”

Obama’s speech soared many times, but it always came back to earth. And it usually came back to earth on John McCain’s head.

Obama mentioned McCain by name no fewer than 21 times, praising his service and patriotism, but attacking him not just on specifics, but on one, general point.

“McCain doesn’t get it,” Obama said. McCain is “grasping at the ideas of the past.”

Need a translation? Here’s one: McCain, who turns 72 on Friday, is old and out of it. His ideas are tired and he is tired, and this is no time in the history of America or the world for a tired president.

You can accuse Barack Obama of a lot of things — and no doubt McCain will do so next week at the Republican National Convention — but you can’t accuse Obama of being a cream puff. He is ready to get it on, high road, low road, or middle road, against the Republicans.

Their greatest sin? Well, much of what they have told us about fighting terror, Obama said, has been a fiction.

“For while Sen. McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face,” Obama said. “When John McCain said we could just ‘muddle through’ in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights.”

And then Obama really lowered the boom. “John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell,” Obama said, “but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.”

Obama sought to undo Thursday night what George Bush had done in 2004: convince voters that only a Republican administration could protect America from terrorism.

Wrong, said Obama. “Don’t tell me that Democrats won’t defend this country; don’t tell me that Democrats won’t keep us safe,” he thundered. “The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans — Democrats and Republicans — have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.”

Nor is Obama cowed by the current success of the surge in Iraq, upon which McCain has staked so much. “John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war,” Obama said. “That’s not the judgment we need. That won’t keep America safe. We need a president who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.”

The past, the past, the past. Old, old, old. Tired, tired, tired. That was Obama’s continuing line of attack as he stood on a vast stage in a vast football stadium looking young, vigorous and enthusiastic.

Enthusiasm is a concern for the Republicans this year. The most extraordinary sight in Denver Thursday afternoon was the line of people waiting to get into Invesco Field. It stretched not just for blocks, but for miles. People filled every inch of the sidewalks on main streets and side streets. They inched under viaducts and scampered across highway entrance ramps. They stood in line for hours to get into the stadium to wait in the hot sun for even more hours. All to see a man give a speech that they could have stayed home and watched on TV.

That’s enthusiasm. And, for John McCain, that’s going to be a challenge. McCain has another one: giving speeches is not his strongest point. And even though there will be debates and commercials and town hall meetings in the weeks ahead, presidential campaigns are still largely about giving speeches. They used to be done on stumps and now they are done on television, but they still have to be done.

And Barack Obama knows how to do them. All his speeches, however, can be summed up in one word. Those Americans who have not heard it before, will be hearing it a lot. It is his theme, his campaign, his promise.

“I believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming,” he said. “Because I’ve seen it. Because I’ve lived it.”

More Related Coverage On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio:

If Fox News Gave Cindy McCain The Michelle Obama Treatment…Thoughts Of An Outraged Negro…
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/07/if-fox-news-gave-cindy-mccain-michelle.html

Why Obama Did The Wright Thing And How Rev. Wright’s Selfless Sacrifice Saved The Obama Presidency…

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-obama-did-wright-thing-and-how-rev.html

The Hypocrisy Of The Media…Min. Farrakhan Was A Guest Of Honor For Key Pa. Hillary Supporter!!!

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/05/hypocrisy-of-mediamin-farrakhan-was.html

Why Is Benedict Right & Wright Wrong?
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-is-benedict-right-and-wright-wrong.html

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio Special: Black Liberation Theology 101:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2008/03/23/Tha-Artivist-PresentsWE-ALL-BE-Radio

The Rev. Wright Controversy Told Through Video Media:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/03/rev-wright-controversy-told-through.html

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/04/barack-obama-legacy-of-hope-t-shirts.htm

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Obama Says He Met With Half Brother While In China...

AP Photo
Mark Ndesandjo, the intensely private half-brother of President-elect Barack Obama, gives the thumbs up at a charity concert in Shenzhen, southern China, Friday, Jan. 16, 2009. The press release for the concert didn't reveal the long-kept secret of who Mark Ndesandjo really is, and nor did the posters and e-mails promoting the event in this southern Chinese boomtown where he wore a brown silk Chinese-style shirt while playing the piano to raise money for orphans.

By TINI TRAN, Associated Press
Wed Nov 18, 10:24 am ET

BEIJING – President Barack Obama said Wednesday that he met briefly with a half brother who lives in China and who recently wrote a semi-autobiographical novel about the abusive Kenyan father they share.

Obama, who spent three days in China during his first official tour of Asia, acknowledged the meeting in an interview with CNN. He offered no details. An aide said later that the meeting took place Monday night after Obama arrived in Beijing, the Chinese capital.

The White House had declined to say whether the president and Mark Ndesandjo would meet. And no White House official mentioned the visit until Obama did when asked about it.

"I don't know him well. I met him for the first time a couple of years ago," Obama told CNN. "He stopped by with his wife for about five minutes during the trip."

Describing the meeting as "overwhelming" and "intense," Ndesandjo told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday that he had long anticipated the chance to welcome his famous brother to China.

"I think he came directly off the plane, changed some clothes and then came down and saw us," Ndesandjo said. "And he just gave me a big hug. And it was so intense. I'm still over the moon on it. I am over the moon. And my wife. She is his biggest fan and I think she is still recovering."

In the CNN interview, Obama said he hadn't read his brother's book, "Nairobi to Shenzhen," which features a protagonist who is the son of a Jewish mother and an abusive father from Kenya.

Ndesandjo has revealed in previous interviews that his father, Barack Obama Sr., beat him and his mother. The president also wrote about his father, who abandoned him as a child, in his best-selling memoir.

"It's no secret that my father was a troubled person," Obama said. "Anybody who has read my first book, 'Dreams from My Father,' knows that, you know, he had an alcoholism problem, that he didn't treat his families very well. Obviously it's a sad part of my history and my background but it's not something I spend a lot of time brooding over."

Ndesandjo said he bought tickets months ago to fly from the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, where he has lived since 2002, to Beijing, in hopes of reconnecting with his brother. The two last met in January when Ndesandjo attended Obama's inauguration as a family guest.

The three chatted on Monday, with Obama being introduced to Ndesandjo's wife, a native of Henan, China, whom he married a year ago, he said. He gave few details of what they discussed.

"All I can say is, we talked about family, and it was very powerful because when he came in through that door, and I saw him and I hugged him, and he hugged me and hugged my wife. It was like we were continuing a conversation that had started many years ago," he said.

The two men did not grow up together. Ndesandjo's mother, Ruth Nidesand, was Barack Obama Sr.'s third wife. Before arriving in Beijing on Monday, Obama had been in a townhall-style meeting with students in Shanghai, and joked that a family gathering at his house "looks like the United Nations."

President Obama's father had been a Kenyan exchange student who met his mother, Kansas native Stanley Ann Dunham, when they were in school in Hawaii. The two separated two years after he was born.

The senior Obama married Ndesandjo's mother after divorcing the president's mother. They returned to Kenya to live, where Mark and his brother, David, were born and raised.

Obama Sr. died in an automobile accident in 1982 at age 46.

Ndesandjo lives near Hong Kong and earns a living as a marketing consultant. For most of that time, he has maintained a low profile, with few people knowing of his connection to the U.S. president.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Obama Focuses On Turning Red States Blue...

Thursday 03 July 2008
by: Jennifer Loven, The Associated Press

Colorado Springs, Colorado - It will be a red-state Fourth of July for Barack Obama, who hopes to find votes as well as fireworks in places that blue-state Democrats often bypass in presidential elections.

During the long holiday weekend, Obama is making an All-American swing from picnics to parades in reliably Republican corners of the country, states such as North Dakota and Montana. Both have voted Republican for the White House by hefty margins for almost four decades. Neither state offers many electoral votes - three apiece - but appearances there give Obama the opportunity to argue that he can appeal to voters of all stripes.

"It may have been Woody Allen who said 90 percent of success is showing up," Obama told a small but enthusiastic crowd of donors at a fundraiser here. "If I didn't show up, I wouldn't get many votes around here. If I did show up, I might get something going."

Colorado, where Obama spent Wednesday, has unexpectedly tipped from a GOP stronghold into the battleground column this year. Ohio and Missouri, which went Republican in 2004, got Obama visits this week. A second trip to Missouri is scheduled for Saturday, another swing state.

Democrats have made gains in recent gubernatorial and congressional races in the states. Montana's governor and two U.S. senators are Democrats. North Dakota's governor is a Republican but the state's two senators are Democrats.

Obama noted this sort of evolution in parts of the West - particularly Colorado - to his supporters Wednesday night, saying that it had been a chief topic of his phone conversation with former President Clinton earlier this week. Clinton told him that he doubted he would have won Colorado in 1992 had independent candidate H. Ross Perot not been in the race and drawn a sizable percentage of voters, mostly away from Republican President George H.W. Bush.

"You've seen a seismic shift in attitudes here," Obama said.

As a result, the campaign is making a serious play for red states like Montana and North Dakota, building up an extensive ground operation, buying television time and sending the candidate in for a visit.

Obama's first two ads of the general election race are running in 18 states - seven of which have gone Republican in the last several elections, including Montana and North Dakota. His visits this week aren't his first to either state, either. Obama has been to North Dakota once and Montana three times, with more expected.

At a Fargo, N.D., children's museum on Thursday, Obama planned to hold a town-hall meeting with veterans to focus on patriotism, service to country and treatment of veterans.

Recalling his grandfather's enlistment after the Pearl Harbor attack, Obama said in prepared remarks, "When our troops go into battle, they serve no faction or party; they represent no race or region. They are simply Americans. They serve and fight and bleed together out of loyalty not just to a place on a map or a certain kind of people, but to a set of ideals that we have been striving for since the first shots rang out at Lexington and Concord."

For Friday's Independence Day holiday, a important symbol for Americans and politicians, the campaign chose Butte, Mont.

Obama is attending a Fourth of July parade and picnic there with his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters. Friday is his older daughter Malia's 10th birthday, so a private celebration also is planned in the town.

"The people of North Dakota and Montana are independent-minded voters," said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki. "We think we can not only compete, but we can win."

While Obama was tromping around on GOP turf, his Republican rival John McCain was nowhere near his base of support. McCain spent part of the week overseas, in Colombia and Mexico. He had no plans to campaign on the Fourth of July or all weekend, spending time at his home in Arizona instead.

The Obama camp sees Obama's huge-margin primary wins over former Democratic rival Hilllary Rodham Clinton in Montana and North Dakota - he drew more than 100,000 votes in Montana - as a starting advantage.

If nothing else, forcing McCain to compete for those states' electoral votes could be enough to alter the outcome this fall. Obama is able to spend as much as the record-shattering fundraiser can raise, while McCain is limited by public campaign financing to $85 million.

Still, for all the happy talk about turning these and other red states blue, it will be a very difficult battle for Obama.

Montana voted for President Bush over Al Gore by a 25 percentage-point margin in 2000 and 21 percentage points in 2004. North Dakota is even tougher, having gone for Bush by more than 27 points in both 2000 and 2004.

In Montana, the three top Democrats waited until after the state's primary on June 3 to endorse Obama, a sign they didn't want to be his most aggressive and out-front supporters in the conservative state. Gov. Brian Schweitzer has said Obama could be a tough sell for pro-gun Westerners in the state with the highest concentration of gun owners.

He did have one bit of good news for the Obama team: the perception that McCain is soft on the issue.

In North Dakota, the last Democratic candidate to carry the state was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Only two other Democrats, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, have won the state since 1900.

"Barack Obama is wrong for North Dakota. His values are wrong," Robert M. "Mike" Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in a conference call with reporters. "He's turned out to be an old-fashioned politician."

Even Obama alluded to his difficulties at the fundraiser, and pleaded for help.

"I'm going to have to be a better candidate," he said. "You are going to have to make sure that over the next four months that outside of your family and your work, this is your project."

Barack Hussein Obama Ain't No Adam Clayton Powell Jr.!!!
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Saturday, July 12, 2008

The Obama Laff Factory Continues...

Bernie Mac Makes Off-Color Joke At Obama Event

By ASHLEY M. HEHER, Associated Press

Comedian Bernie Mac endured some heckling and a campaign rebuke during a surprise appearance Friday night at a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Chicago, the 50-year-old star of "The Bernie Mac Show" joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language.

"My little nephew came to me and he said, 'Uncle, what's the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?'" Mac said. "I said, I don't know, but I said, 'Go upstairs and ask your mother if she'd make love to the mailman for $50,000.'"

As the joke continued, the punchline evoked an angry response from at least one person in the audience, who said it was offensive to women.

"It's not funny. Let's get Barack on," a man shouted from the crowd, which paid $2,300 each to support the Illinois senator.

About 15 minutes later, Obama tried to smooth things over with a joke of his own.

"We can't afford to be divided by race. We can't afford to be divided by region or by class and we can't afford to be divided by gender, which by the way, that means, Bernie, you've got to clean up your act next time," Obama said. "This is a family affair. By the way, I'm just messing with you, man."

The incident drew response from Obama's campaign, which criticized Mac for his choice of material.

"Sen. Obama told Bernie Mac that he doesn't condone these statements and believes what was said was inappropriate," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement after the event.

Mac, a Chicago native, said he's a longtime Obama supporter and called the presumptive Democratic nominee a "man's man" while offering him advice for the duration of the campaign trail.

"People like rumors. They're going to say things like you was at the club with Lil' Kim, and you and Kanye West got into a fist fight," he said. "You can't get upset. You've got to keep hope alive."

Mac's appearance was Obama's first celebrity event of the evening. Later at a Lincoln Park nightclub, Obama spoke to a raucous crowd of music fans, who paid up to $500 per person to see a performance by Wilco lead singer Jeff Tweedy, and two other band members.

"Before these guys go, I want them to know that I had heard a rumor that they had suggested that I had nothing by them on my iPod," Obama said. "That is not true. I love Wilco."

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

With Obama The Job He's In And Not The Skin We're In Comes First...

For Obama, Job First

By Emanuel Cleaver II
Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The black D.C. cabdriver and I connected immediately when it became clear that he simply couldn't suppress his elation about the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. He told me that he had recently quashed some barbershop Obama-bashing arising from what some saw as Obama's failure to name enough blacks to his Cabinet. "I told these barbershop politicos," the cabbie said, "just wait until after he is sworn in, and then he will be free to do the black thing."

I winced and, rather clumsily, tried to explain that Obama will be the first black president, not the black president first. While it isn't my intention to hold up any critic of the president-elect to censure, I want to remind all those who strongly support the president-elect and wish desperately for him to succeed: If you like the honey, don't kick over the beehive.

Since Obama's historic Nov. 4 victory, there has been much discussion in the media suggesting that he faces a plate filled not only with issues related to the slumping economy and other urgent national challenges but also a hefty portion of the extravagant expectations of African Americans and other minority groups. Some, it seems, would rather put the new president into a pressure cooker instead of a melting pot.

I know something about what Obama faces. In 1991, I was elected Kansas City's first black mayor. I and more than 400 other African American mayors who served during the most diverse period in the political history of America's large cities experienced a similar, and understandable, unreasonableness from brothers and sisters who saw in our election an opportunity at last to get a slice of the American pie. Obama will fall short of fulfilling the considerable hopes and dreams of the minorities who supported him, just as we could not fulfill those of ours.

To be sure, he will do all he can. Just as the black mayors of the '90s appointed able blacks to positions that were previously beyond their reach, championed capital projects in often-ignored and ailing parts of their cities, and included minorities in municipal economic opportunities, President Obama will certainly be attentive to the unique needs of the nation's neglected. Clearly, the goal of the Obama administration will be to destroy, not supervise, any government impulse to favor one group of Americans over others.

But brothers and sisters of hue, we must be candid: Race relations in America are far from sublime. Despite Obama's election, there are still Americans who, like the ole Missouri mule, are awful backward about going forward. It would be absurd not to expect high-profile acts of racism to continue to occur, just as always. Obama's administration won't have the power to prevent them; no administration could. Yes, such situations will now be addressed by an Obama-appointed attorney general, but they also must continue to be dealt with by civil rights organizations and, frankly, by each of us. The duty of the many cannot become the responsibility of the one, even if the one is a black president.

Obama surely knows that he owes enormous gratitude to the huge numbers of black Americans who toiled in his campaign and came out to the polls to help to elect him. I think every African American supporter of Obama can safely assume that Obama will do everything within his power to create a level playing field for all Americans by ensuring that they have a government that is just and fair.

But it is important to note that Obama will not be the nation's highest-profile civil rights leader. He will be the leader of the free world.

We must keep that in mind. Barack Obama cannot both agitate and legislate from the Oval Office. A horse cannot pull while kicking, and Obama has much pulling on his agenda. He will need to pull the U.S. economy out of the tank, U.S. troops out of Iraq and health-care costs back down to earth.

At this moment, the people of color who love this great nation are a part of something thrilling and exalting. Most of us thought that we would never see a black president in our lifetimes. Our coming together this past November was a beginning; staying together through the tough times ahead will be progress; and working together to build bridges, not walls, will be the sign that we are creating a change all can depend on.

The writer, a Democrat, represents Missouri's 5th Congressional District.

Visit http://www.change.gov

W.E. A.L.L. B.E.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

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Friday, November 14, 2008

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Monday, August 04, 2008

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Friday, June 20, 2008

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Friday, August 29, 2008

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Saturday, November 21, 2009

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Saturday, July 05, 2008

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Saturday, July 12, 2008

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

With Obama The Job He's In And Not The Skin We're In Comes First...

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