I wasn’t suggesting that James wasn’t a race hustler. But Blacks who pander to whites are no more useful than Blacks who pander to Blacks. I don’t think Booker is any more useful than James, with his voucher speak and other right leaning ideas that are useless to Black folk.

And Fenty…come on…

Ford to..

These guys fall into the “look at me White people I’m not like those other Negroes.”

One race hustler is just as bad as the next.

Before debating on this subject, you need to arm yourself with the facts surrounding the statements.

The statements were made to a group that was about to go out on the ground in Pennslyvania to register voters. They asked him what to expect and he told them the truth.

Unpatriotic?

Your perspective, ideology, values and beliefs make you comfortable being an Obama supporter.

I don’t have as much in common. I don’t have that level of comfort.
If I truly felt that Obama is a candidate who would in some way represent me, he would get my vote.

Honestly, I am undecided.

Are you asking me to put aside my perspective, ideology, values and beliefs in order to pass some fabricated test that will, in your eyes, if I do not vote for Obama, label me unpatriotic and racist?

I think that your premise, will become an argument for Obama’s election, but it is unfortunate.

It might even create a blacklash, among those who value freedom and do not appreciate being manipulated.

Fenty and Booker? The Newest race hustlers? Where did you get that from?

Fenty, well the jury was out on him as far as I was concerened, when he sat on City Council.

But Booker? Have you ever lived in Newark? Do you know the wholesale shennanigans that were used to intimidate government employees during the James administration and both times Booker ran against him? Do you know the fundemental brokeness that he has inherited in a city that is broke, where land has been sold to James cronies at such a steep discount with no due diligence that now the city is mired in a suit to try and recoup the losses.

I’d like to know how folks come to conclusions like that, when the real hustlers are the current mayors of Memphis and Detroit just to name a few.

Each of us is unique, our values and beliefs, shaped by our personal experiences and family history, environment, education, etc. The one thing we do share in common is a desire to communicate those beliefs, otherwise, we would not be here.

I am humbled, and grateful to JJP to have the opportunity to be part of a virtual community that enables me to meet and debate people with whom I would probably never encounter in my day to day life.

All that said. I would like to offer my thoughts on ‘Bittergate.’

“Truth” in politics can be a relative term. We can debate whether or not Obama is ‘elitist’ and whether his remarks are ‘true’ or not. But for me, those are not the issues.

I could go to a dinner party or a charity event and give my thoughts on why I think the JJP community supports Obama, but frankly, I would feel presumptuous and uncomfortable in doing so.

I could post here now, and state why I think the readers here are supporting Obama and I can only imagine what the response would be!
Many of the things I may say would in fact, be ‘true’, many of the reasons would be pure conjecture, based what I have read here, others would drawn from other sources, etc…you get my meaning? But I would be apprehensive to do so, because deep in my heart I know that it is wrong and unfair for me to tell people here that I know what is in their minds and hearts.
Heck, I can’t even say that about my own husband some of the time!

So, what ultimately bothers me about Obama’s comments is the lack of humility with which they were stated, as well as the fact that they were stated at all. Same thing about the “race speech.” He may have been right about some things, wrong about others and I can bet that we would disgaree on what was ‘true’ in that speech.

Frankly, I would have said, “That’s a really good question. I have some ideas about that, but at the end of the day, each person has their own story to tell, and their own set of reasons. I can only truly talk about myself, what I feel, what I believe to be right and wrong, what I propose, and how I will lead. I am confident in myself and my ideas, and I have confidence in the voters to make the right choice.”

So, enough about hearing about what Obama thinks he knows about ‘us’, because he will never get it completely right! I want to hear what he thinks about himself.

Also, for me, an apology and a little humility would go a long way.

It’s quotes like these that make me feel the way I do about Cosby.

“…”Cosby has denounced blacks who take refuge in self-pitying victimhood and seek to blame whites for problems in the black community”"

Please. Do you really believe that Wright’s family was more accepted because they were comfortable? Not. They were probably even more hated for their status at that time in history.

I’m sure he can attest to the very racism described. In fact, more so than a black that grew up amongst other blacks.

“Reasonable people can disagree with Obama’s policies and will not vote for him for reasons that, believe it or not, have nothing to do with race.”

And there will be unreasonable people who don’t care about his policies and won’t vote for him and it will have everything to do with race.

The existence of those who understand and don’t does not erase the existence of those who understand and won’t.

Progress?

Truth-tellers are always labeled arrogant.

Always.

Probably because there’s nothing humble about the truth.

It’s perceived as coming from “on high” and it always kicks you in the gut.

Thus was born the phrase, “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

Quiet as it’s kept, Obama is a messenger, not a messiah.

A vote for Obama should not be some sort of ‘racial test’ nor a national referendum on racism.

Reasonable people can disagree with Obama’s policies and will not vote for him for reasons that, believe it or not, have nothing to do with race.

The criticism of Obama is simply a variation of the “uppity negro” slur.

And shame on the Clintons for being crass hypocrites, for we now see that they have used the very same arguments before.

The Clintons are the worst in all of this, for they should know better. And we definitely have the right to expect better from them.

In his speech on race, Barack Obama tried to explain away his longtime minister’s denunciations of America by saying that for blacks of his generation, memories of “humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away.”

But an examination by Newsmax of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s background reveals that Obama’s characterization of his upbringing is mythology.

Described by Obama as his sounding board and mentor for more than two decades, Wright was born in Philadelphia in 1941. He lived in a racially mixed section called Germantown, which consisted of homes on broad tree-lined streets in northwest Philadelphia. The owners then were middle-class families.

For 62 years, Wright’s father, the Rev. Jeremiah Alvesta Wright, was pastor at Grace Baptist Church of Germantown. He was one of the first blacks to receive a degree from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

Wright’s mother, Mary Elizabeth Henderson Wright, was a schoolteacher. She was the first black to teach an academic subject at Roosevelt Junior High, the first to teach at Germantown High, and the first to teach at the Philadelphia High School for Girls. She became vice principal of Girls High in 1968.

Rather than attend the more racially mixed Germantown High School at 40 East High St., Wright traveled a few miles to the elite Central High School at 1700 West Olney Ave., graduating in 1959. Opened in 1838, Central High has a distinguished past and admits only highly-qualified applicants who are privileged to attend from all over the city. It is comparable to the Bronx High School of Science and Boston Latin School, both public schools known for academic excellence.

When Wright attended Central High, the student body was 90 percent white, according to students who attended around the same time. At least three-quarters of the students were Jewish. Former students of the period say racial tension did not exist.

Bill Cosby, who attended the school until transferring to Germantown High, has referred to Central as a “wonderful” school. In contrast to Wright, Cosby has denounced blacks who take refuge in self-pitying victimhood and seek to blame whites for problems in the black community.

“Central High was a marvelous academic environment,” says Tod Mammuth, who graduated in 1965 and is now a Philadelphia-area lawyer. “You had to have high academic credentials to be accepted and a high IQ score. Many later said it was more rigorous than college. We had no racial friction.”

In college, “I was so far advanced from the normal kids, it was almost unbelievable,” says H. Yale Gutnick, who graduated from Central High in 1960 and is a Pittsburgh lawyer. “In my freshman year, I didn’t have to do anything. I had already read most of what we had to read in English class, and I was equally advanced in the other academic areas.”

The 211th class yearbook described Wright as a respected member of the class.

“Always ready with a kind word, Jerry is one of the most congenial members of the 211,” the yearbook said. “His record in Central is a model for lower class [younger] members to emulate.”

Saying Wright can be compared to the school handbook’s description of “an educated man,” the description said Wright was “the epitome of what Central endeavors to imbue in its students.”

Next to a photo of Wright wearing black-rimmed glasses, the yearbook listed seven extra-curricular activities, including junior varsity football, band, school orchestra, and swing band.

In contrast to Wright’s comfortable upbringing, Morton A. Klein, who also attended Central High around the same time, lived in a poor, virtually all-black section called West Oak Lane.

“Four times a year, we would go to get big boxes of used clothing that was our wardrobe for the year. I never resented it. I was thrilled with my clothes,” says Klein, who was an economist in the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations and is now president of the Zionist Organization of America.

“We never went out to eat,” says Klein. “We had no car. We did not go to summer camp or take vacations. I had dozens of black friends. We played in the street every day. I remember my childhood as wonderful, and it certainly did not breed hatred of America. I loved America.”

In contrast, the man Obama describes as being like an uncle has blamed America and whites for starting the AIDS virus to kill off blacks, training professional killers, importing drugs, and creating a racist society to oppress blacks.

“The government gives them drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, not ‘God Bless America’ — God damn America,” Wright has said.

In a similar vein, Michelle Obama has said she is proud of America for the first time. Last week, Obama said Americans in small towns are “bitter” and cling in frustration to “guns, or religion, or antipathy to people who aren’t like them…”

In his speech on race, Obama sought to evoke sympathy for Wright. He described 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…”

Obama said this was “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….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.”

In retirement, Wright will continue a life of privilege that dates back to Central High. As a retirement gift, Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ is building him a million-dollar home abutting Odyssey Country Club and Golf Course in the nearly all-white Chicago suburb of Tinley Park. The home sits on land the pastor purchased in 2004 for $345,000. In December 2006, Wright sold the land to his church, which took out a $1.6 million mortgage on the property. In April 2007, the church applied for a building permit for the brick and stone structure.

Wright’s new home has 10,340 square feet of space, about four times the size of a typical suburban house. It includes four bedrooms, an elevator, an exercise room, and a four-car garage.

Rather than being a victim of oppression of blacks, as Obama has claimed, Wright is a symbol of the American dream. Rather than meriting sympathy, he exemplifies what my friend Fox News contributor Juan Williams describes as black leaders who orchestrate support for themselves by manipulating blacks into seeing themselves as victims, creating a black “culture of failure.”

Obama’s attempt to excuse Wright’s hate-America rhetoric by deceptively describing his personal history and his failure to condemn him as a bigot speak volumes about the candidate’s own character and fitness to lead the country.

You can get the fuck out of here trying to portray Italian, Catholic or Jewish areas of Philly as being welcoming to folks of our hue. Most of my mother’s paternal family lives in philly, and I know it quite while myself. Those areas in Philly are are no different than similar areas of Boston and New Jersey or remaining white enclaves of NYC and upstate New York. You would have a better welcome reception in the deep south. Then again, maybe you’ve done your ‘I’m not like them’ tour of the neighborhood.

Both of those guys are puppets for white folks interest. They are no better then the Barry’s or Kilpatrick’s…just playing for a different team.