puntiglio.com

Last night I had an interesting conversation (if you can call about 5 sentences a conversation). The person with whom I had my brief discourse was quite fanatical in his expression, which was the primary reason I did not engage him further. However I believe I got the crux of his argument in those few short sentences. The printable part of the exchange went like this:

noahdavidsimon: oh and also all those TWITTER $%##@^%’s that have been cheering this &^*$% on. Let me spell it out for you. OBAMA=BIGOT!

Sorenj: I’d love to hear that substantiated…

noahdavidsimon: talk to Reverend Wright. Watch the tapes. 30 years of church with the guy and never spoke out. Proof! OBAMA=BIGOT (about 9 hours ago)

Sorenj: hmmm, I was expecting a bit more substance… but, thanks for answering. Have a good night…

noahdavidsimon: your cooked OBAMA! 30 years of a church run by a bigot. YOU NEVER SPOKE OUT. Here is your experience &^%$#@! (about 9 hours ago)

At that juncture I took my leave of the conversation, it was pretty clear to me it was going to result in a flame war, and not a rational one. A couple of other people did pick up the fight, however, and because of that I discovered a blog entry that absolutely blew me away (go Queen of Spain!!) . That is not, however, the point of this entry.

Here is what that little micro-confrontation forced me to do; reconcile my post from yesterday about “heavier doors” with Obama’s decades long lack of a spoken position on Rev. Wright. I think it goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway) that when Obama did speak out on the issue, it was nothing short of brilliant. Constructive, pro-active and solution oriented, his speech was the most meaningful and actionable missive on race that I can remember.  At no point would I think the type of guilt by association thinking at play here is remotely valid.  I also think that it is beyond ridiculous to say that Mr. Obama is a bigot.

However, there is still the previous couple of decades to consider. Was Mr. Obama, by virtue of doing and saying nothing, perpetuating and enabling the acts he now vehemently renounces? Is/was he in need of the same conversation that I had to have in the hallway with my friend? These questions led to a couple of hours of tossing, turning, and mulling.

It’s probably important to point out that I have a certain level of ignorance when it comes to this issue. It is entirely possible that Mr. Obama has renounced this type of speech from his pastor before now, and I simply am unaware. I would love to find out that is the case, so if you are reading this and know better than I… please let me know!

In the interim I think I will choose to acknowledge that, in my opinion, he had a responsibility to address this issue earlier and I wish he had done so. However, to his credit he did handle it as close to perfectly as possibly when the issue forced itself onto the scene. In doing so, it is quite possible that he positively altered the path of bigotry and race relations forever, which certainly would not have happened had he addressed it earlier without the exposure of a Presidential election.

Not a bad days work… whether it was a few years tardy or not.