An article on today's front page of the San Francisco Chronicle brought Barack Obama’s race into question. The article says that some African Americans say that Sen. Obama is not a true African American because he is not a descendant of slaves. Sen. Obama’s father was from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas.
Are we really going to make this a question? Is this really on the front page of the SF Chronicle? Oh, ok here we go…
The people who say that Sen. Obama “is not black” because he “did not have the same experiences” of inequality and discrimination as other African Americans are not thinking clearly. When someone is discriminated against because of their race they aren’t asked if their ancestors were slaves. As Obama pointed out, when he walked down “the streets of Chicago, visited a barber shop or tried to hail a cab, everyone knew he was black.”
Al Sharpton’s comments in this story are dancing (the cha-cha) on the line of discriminatory (isn’t he against all people being discriminated against?), “just because you are our color doesn’t make you our kind.” Give me a break.
Sharpton and other African American leaders were upset that Obama made his announcement at the state capitol of Illinois and not at the “State of the Black Union” event that fell on the same day. The comment by one of the African American leaders, “he speaks to white folks and holds us at arm’s length” is ridiculous. Sharpton says he is not one of them, yet he is upset he didn't make his announcement at their convention? WOW!
Speaking in a historic place like the state capitol of Illinois simply does not distance Obama from African Americans. The man who ended slavery, Abraham Lincoln, served as an Illinois state representative in that building, it is where he gave is famous “house divided” speech, offices in that building served as Lincoln’s presidential headquarters in 1860, and it was also the scene of Lincoln’s final laying-in-state after his assassination in 1865.
Are we really going to make this a question? Is this really on the front page of the SF Chronicle? Oh, ok here we go…
The people who say that Sen. Obama “is not black” because he “did not have the same experiences” of inequality and discrimination as other African Americans are not thinking clearly. When someone is discriminated against because of their race they aren’t asked if their ancestors were slaves. As Obama pointed out, when he walked down “the streets of Chicago, visited a barber shop or tried to hail a cab, everyone knew he was black.”
Al Sharpton’s comments in this story are dancing (the cha-cha) on the line of discriminatory (isn’t he against all people being discriminated against?), “just because you are our color doesn’t make you our kind.” Give me a break.
Sharpton and other African American leaders were upset that Obama made his announcement at the state capitol of Illinois and not at the “State of the Black Union” event that fell on the same day. The comment by one of the African American leaders, “he speaks to white folks and holds us at arm’s length” is ridiculous. Sharpton says he is not one of them, yet he is upset he didn't make his announcement at their convention? WOW!
Speaking in a historic place like the state capitol of Illinois simply does not distance Obama from African Americans. The man who ended slavery, Abraham Lincoln, served as an Illinois state representative in that building, it is where he gave is famous “house divided” speech, offices in that building served as Lincoln’s presidential headquarters in 1860, and it was also the scene of Lincoln’s final laying-in-state after his assassination in 1865.
We need to focus on our presidential candidates positions and beliefs, not where their parents were born.
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