Barack & Michelle Obama and Jeremiah Wright talk like they have it really bad here in the United States. During his Monday speech on race, he never smiled once. For some whiners and complainers, the glass will never be more than half full. But of all people, Obama should know better.
He’s a wealthy, well-educated American married to another wealthy, well-educated American. He enjoys constitutional protections unheard of in much of the rest of the world. In addition, Obama was recently in Kenya — campaigning for his cousin Raila Odinga who touched off recent violence there (pictured above) — where he still has many relatives. He’s seen the stark contrast and knows that when it comes to racial and ethnic hatred, few places in the world compare to black Africa.
By way of illustration, about six weeks ago, on January 30, the BBC filed this report on the election-aftermath in Kenya:
Professor David Habel Odongo, from the Luo ethnic group, married his wife, a Kikuyu lady, more than 20 years ago. All this time, they have lived in Dunga in western Kenya. But he tells the BBC’s Muliro Telewa why, in the inter-ethnic post-election violence, his family’s livelihood has been lost and his wife’s life threatened.
I was targeted because I am married to a Kikuyu. . .
hey just marched in and broke into all the rooms, took away all the bedding, the mattresses, the beds, the mosquito nettings - anything that they could lay their hands on.
The total cost of what has been destroyed is 13-15m Kenyan shillings ($180,000-210,000). . .
I have been married to my wife for over 20 years and I have lived in Dunga for all that time with my lady. We have grown up children - they are at high schools in Uganda.
Last night, I sent my wife away because after those people destroyed everything we had, they said they would come for her. . . .
So how about it, Mr. & Mrs. Whitehouse Wannabe? How about giving credit to the United States for making this country a safe haven from the kind of insanity going on in what you apparently view as your real homeland? And how about a smile every once in a while when the name “United States of America” crosses your lips? Don’t you owe her, her people and her Constitution a huge debt of gratitude? Why is it so hard for you to act like it?
Full text at the BBC.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Fantasia 03.22.08 at 12:55 am
Like Margot said in the Marxism-in-a-Clerical Collar post — the guy has no tolerance for whites who offend blacks once (i.e., Imus, last year: “There’s nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group.”) and absolute tolerance for Rev. Wrong, who, in carefully scripted sermons insulted whites again and again and again.
But hey, says BO, we need to view Rev. Wrong “in context.” We need to understand black culture.
Racial tolerance? Yeah, right. For BO, that is no more than fine-sounding words for mass consumption. It boils down to this: nothing Obama says means anything.
Hi 03.23.08 at 4:33 pm
Oh, everything Obama says means something all right. It means a lot to blacks who think it is time for “change.”