| Author |
Message |
    
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5680
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 05, 2007 - 05:32 pm: | 
|
Obama Warns of 'Quiet Riot' Among Blacks
June 5, 2007 - 4:24pm
Democratic Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, D-Il., speaks before a meeting of the Hampton University Ministers' Conference at the school in Hampton, Va., Tuesday, June 5, 2007. Obama said Tuesday that frustration and resentments are building explosively in black people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, who are still displaced 20 months after Hurricane Katrina, just as they did before the 1992 riots. "This administration was colorblind in its incompetence," Obama said at a conference of black clergy, "but the poverty and the hopelessness was there long before the hurricane. All the hurricane did was to pull the curtain back for all the world to see," Obama said. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
By BOB LEWIS
Associated Press Writer
HAMPTON, Va. (AP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Tuesday that the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse a "quiet riot" among blacks that threatens to erupt just as riots in Los Angeles did 15 years ago.
The first-term Illinois senator said that with black people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still displaced 20 months after Hurricane Katrina, frustration and resentments are building explosively as they did before the 1992 riots.
"This administration was colorblind in its incompetence," Obama said at a conference of black clergy, "but the poverty and the hopelessness was there long before the hurricane.
"All the hurricane did was to pull the curtain back for all the world to see," he said.
Obama's criticism of Bush prompted ovation after ovation from the nearly 8,000 people gathered in Hampton University's Convocation Center, particularly when he denounced the Iraq war and noted that he had opposed it from the outset.
Repeatedly, he referred to the riots that erupted in Los Angeles after a jury acquitted four police officers of assault charges in the 1991 beating of Rodney King, a black motorist, after a high speed chase. Fifty-five people died and 2,000 were injured in several days of riots in the city's black neighborhoods.
"Those 'quiet riots' that take place every day are born from the same place as the fires and the destruction and the police decked out in riot gear and the deaths," Obama said. "They happen when a sense of disconnect settles in and hope dissipates. Despair takes hold and young people all across this country look at the way the world is and believe that things are never going to get any better."
He argued that once a hurricane hits or a jury renders a not guilty verdict, "the frustration is there for all to see."
Obama, who is bidding to become the first black president, took the stage after a succession of ministers repeatedly brought the crowd to its feet, singing, praying and swaying to music.
Repeatedly, with evangelical zeal, he raised issues that roused the crowd: increasing the minimum wage and teacher pay, funding for public schools and college financial aid for the poor, ending predatory lending and expediting the reconstruction of New Orleans and the Mississippi coast.
He introduced his own pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago's Trinity United as "Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian." He credited Wright with introducing him to Christ, and peppered his speech with Scriptural references, at one point invoking the opening lines of the Lord's Prayer.
Obama noted that during the riots, a bullet pierced the abdomen of a pregnant woman and lodged in the elbow of her fetus. The baby was delivered by caesarian section, the bullet was removed and the child, Jessica Glennis Evers-Jones, has only a small scar on her arm to show for it.
Using the incident as a metaphor, Obama said society's problems are worsening because "in too many places across the country, we have not even bothered to take the bullet out."
"When we have more black men in prison than in college, then it's time to take the bullet out," he said.
Obama doesn't regularly focus on racial themes in his standard campaign speeches. He did speak out on black issues in Selma, Ala., in March, when he told a largely black audience that he was a product of the civil rights movement and lectured blacks for failing to vote in large numbers.
Several ministers at the conference said Obama's message and style plays well among black voters and with their spiritual leaders.
The Rev. Robert Abbott, pastor of the Holy Trinity Baptist Church in Amityville, N.Y., said Obama connects with black audiences because of the preacher's style he uses when addressing them.
"The way he sounds, it's like he can reach out and encourage people," Abbott said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=213&sid=1158721 |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 4865
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 05, 2007 - 08:39 pm: |
|
With this line of propaganda, Obama is ensuring the demise of his presidential aspirations. We don't need to be told of all the BS that's wrong with the current administration - it's on the news every single day of the week. We don't need to hear about the religious war in Iraq that our soldiers have no business being involved in. He doesn't need to regurgitate what happened during the LA riots or Hurricane Katrina or the Civil Rights Movement. We know about all of that.
We need to know WTF is he GONNA DO about any of this. What is his plan. What is he GONNA DO about homelessness, lack of health care, lack of jobs, inflation, and all the other shit that the common citizens have to deal with every single day of the week. What is he GONNA DO to stimulate the tired economy. Because if Obama doesn't start talking about his own intentions, instead of badmouthing the current administration, he's going to be left in the dust by the other candidates that have a clear vision of their goals and intentions, and who can communicate and elaborate on it without causing further discord. Black people have enough bullshit to worry about as it is. We need leadership, real leadership, not another chronic complainer.
|
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8744
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 05, 2007 - 10:17 pm: |
|
Obama seems to tailor his speeches for his audiences. But he does need to get his act together. Bill Clinton was in Chicago to attend Jesse Jackson's Operation Push convention, and he was charming the hell out of the crowds, posing for pictures, stirring up the crowd with his speech, prompting a lot of people to remark that it was going to be hard to choose between Hillary and Obama. |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 2082
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 - 09:44 am: |
|
He did give specifics. Unfortunately the media chose not to report that. THe full transcript of his remarks can be viewed on this blog: http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/06/sweet_blog_special_obama_warns.html
As for Mr. Clinton, no one can help Black folks continuing to be bamboozled by this man. |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4593
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 - 01:13 pm: |
|
We need to know WTF is he GONNA DO about any of this. What is his plan. What is he GONNA DO about homelessness, lack of health care, lack of jobs, inflation, and all the other shit etc.
(Bull--all he gotta do is mouth a bunch of platitudes and say the right thing to the millionaires--just like George W. Bush.
Did you know what he was going to do about anything before you voted for him? No.
Oh. I forgot. Obama's black. Well, he don't need you anyway. |
Crystal
Regular Poster
Username: Crystal
Post Number: 329
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 - 02:09 pm: |
|
Thanks for posting that Yvettep. Our mainstream media is insulting in the way they provide "information". |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8752
Registered: 01-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 - 03:25 pm: |
|
I doubt if multi-millionaire George Bush said the "right things to the millionaires". They loved him just the way he was. It would seem that the presidency was more or less offered to him. He really wasn't that ambitious except where avenging his father was concerned. |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4611
Registered: 03-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 07, 2007 - 11:30 am: |
|
doubt if multi-millionaire George Bush said the "right things to the millionaires". They loved him just the way he was. It would seem that the presidency was more or less offered to him. He really wasn't that ambitious except where avenging his father was concerned.
(Well you're wrong.) |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8775
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 07, 2007 - 01:38 pm: |
|
You don't know whether I am wrong, or not. You think you have the inside dope on everything. chrishayden, but you're more about "dope" than "inside". |
|
Email This Page