http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5157337&mesg_id=5157337 for the full text. We watched Obama's speech over the Internet last night--all 38 minutes of it. Because there are going to be a million people out there addressing the content, let me tell you why listening to that speech has convinced me that although he is certainly a politician and certainly calculating his words in order to win, Obama is at the same time in a different league altogether than the politicians we've been getting used to for the past 10 years.After Edwards dropped out my partner got out Dreams of My Father and read it, figuring that since we were going to have to support Obama we may as well learn something about him. She reported that the book was interesting because it showed Obama thinking about race in an unusually nuanced and complex--and therefore actually useful--way, and that she was afraid that becoming a presidential candidate would force him to abandon that project and embrace the same crude, binaristic, distorted paradigms that shape the way the media and the political establishment talk about race. Last night, instead of performing the "Sister Souljah moment" that the media were clearly demanding from him, Obama did something completely different. He laid out for anyone who felt like taking the time to listen a new paradigm for dealing with racial issues in America, one that actually takes into account the enormous complexity of this country's racial and ethnic makeup, the failures of American history and democracy, and the links between racism and forms of economic injustice that I have long despaired of hearing any American politician, let alone a viable presidential candidate, address in any kind of useful way. Instead of just stringing together a bunch of sound bites that would defuse the manufactured political crisis du jour, Obama took his 38 minutes--an eternity in the world of broadcast news, though it's about ten minutes shorter than the average lecture in the average college classroom--and he actually taught people something.You know how we talk about not letting the other side control the terms of the debate? That's what that looks like.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
A GREAT take on the Obama speech...
This from Democratic Underground:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5157337&mesg_id=5157337 for the full text. We watched Obama's speech over the Internet last night--all 38 minutes of it. Because there are going to be a million people out there addressing the content, let me tell you why listening to that speech has convinced me that although he is certainly a politician and certainly calculating his words in order to win, Obama is at the same time in a different league altogether than the politicians we've been getting used to for the past 10 years.After Edwards dropped out my partner got out Dreams of My Father and read it, figuring that since we were going to have to support Obama we may as well learn something about him. She reported that the book was interesting because it showed Obama thinking about race in an unusually nuanced and complex--and therefore actually useful--way, and that she was afraid that becoming a presidential candidate would force him to abandon that project and embrace the same crude, binaristic, distorted paradigms that shape the way the media and the political establishment talk about race. Last night, instead of performing the "Sister Souljah moment" that the media were clearly demanding from him, Obama did something completely different. He laid out for anyone who felt like taking the time to listen a new paradigm for dealing with racial issues in America, one that actually takes into account the enormous complexity of this country's racial and ethnic makeup, the failures of American history and democracy, and the links between racism and forms of economic injustice that I have long despaired of hearing any American politician, let alone a viable presidential candidate, address in any kind of useful way. Instead of just stringing together a bunch of sound bites that would defuse the manufactured political crisis du jour, Obama took his 38 minutes--an eternity in the world of broadcast news, though it's about ten minutes shorter than the average lecture in the average college classroom--and he actually taught people something.You know how we talk about not letting the other side control the terms of the debate? That's what that looks like.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5157337&mesg_id=5157337 for the full text. We watched Obama's speech over the Internet last night--all 38 minutes of it. Because there are going to be a million people out there addressing the content, let me tell you why listening to that speech has convinced me that although he is certainly a politician and certainly calculating his words in order to win, Obama is at the same time in a different league altogether than the politicians we've been getting used to for the past 10 years.After Edwards dropped out my partner got out Dreams of My Father and read it, figuring that since we were going to have to support Obama we may as well learn something about him. She reported that the book was interesting because it showed Obama thinking about race in an unusually nuanced and complex--and therefore actually useful--way, and that she was afraid that becoming a presidential candidate would force him to abandon that project and embrace the same crude, binaristic, distorted paradigms that shape the way the media and the political establishment talk about race. Last night, instead of performing the "Sister Souljah moment" that the media were clearly demanding from him, Obama did something completely different. He laid out for anyone who felt like taking the time to listen a new paradigm for dealing with racial issues in America, one that actually takes into account the enormous complexity of this country's racial and ethnic makeup, the failures of American history and democracy, and the links between racism and forms of economic injustice that I have long despaired of hearing any American politician, let alone a viable presidential candidate, address in any kind of useful way. Instead of just stringing together a bunch of sound bites that would defuse the manufactured political crisis du jour, Obama took his 38 minutes--an eternity in the world of broadcast news, though it's about ten minutes shorter than the average lecture in the average college classroom--and he actually taught people something.You know how we talk about not letting the other side control the terms of the debate? That's what that looks like.
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