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 When Obama gives his stadium acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, it will be the night of the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. You can count on breathless reporters waxing dreamy about Dr. King’s vision fulfilled that historic night. However, not all African Americans agree. “Barack Obama is directly contrary to many positions and beliefs of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” says black author William Owens, Jr. “Obama is trying to make African Americans believe he is the reality of the Dream come true, but he’s not. It’s a nightmare.” A recent Gallup poll reveals 91 percent of African Americans intend to vote for Obama. Nevertheless, there are dissenting voices trying to reach their community with a warning about the candidate. Dr. Alveda King, daughter of MLK’s younger brother, the late slain civil rights activist Rev. A.D. King, says, “Senator Obama’s answer to the ills of society, of higher government spending, weaker national defense, continued tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, and support of gay marriage, are diametrically opposed to everything African Americans truly believe and an anathema to the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” “It is high time for Black America, White America and all America to stop making their ethnicity such a big deal that we become zealous for our color over being zealous for what is right and what is truth,” says Owens. Mr. Owens, founder of Black Americans for Real Change (BARC), makes it known, “I will not remain silent out of fear of repercussions because it is politically incorrect for Blacks to challenge Blacks.” He says one aspect of Obama’s candidacy is “intimidation because many people are afraid to scrutinize Obama and speak out because of the race Issue.” Owens believes Obama is manipulative of African Americans because “in reality he is not a Black American. His heritage is Muslim -- not African American” and calls Obama a pretender and panderer. He points out that the candidate’s record “does not remotely parallel the values, traditions and struggles of Black America.” Having studied both MLK and Obama, Owens felt compelled to write a book to challenge African Americans “to look deeper at Barack Obama the man, his voting record, and his position on the important issues facing our country.” He urges them not to “put your race before your principles,” the truth, your family and your own country. His book, “Obama: Why Black America Should Have Doubts” has one chapter comparing the policies of the two men who are poles apart on many issues. Every American should read this eye-opening book. Owens says, “it is obvious Obama is trying to solidify the Black vote”, but he reiterates that any candidate needs to be closely examined. With Obama’s voiced support and voting record for partial-birth abortion and every other pro-abortion bill, Alveda King takes issue with the senator over this topic. From firsthand experience she had before she was “born again” in 1983, King knows the problems a woman can suffer because of abortion. She is now a leader in both the pro-life and civil rights movements. “We can talk about poverty; we can talk about the war; we can talk about teen pregnancy; we can talk about incarceration. However, if we’re not allowed to live, we’ll never encounter those issues.” Although Blacks make up only 14 percent of the population, 40 percent of the abortions in the country are preformed on Black women, thus creating a virtual genocide of African Americans. King recalls her Uncle Martin saying, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” For Alveda King, abortion is a civil rights issue. “Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother,” she explains. “The mother decides his or her fate.”
“In the shadow of the famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech by my uncle in 1963, as Barack Obama makes his speech in 2008, how can the Dream survive if we murder the children?” asks Dr. King concerning the unborn. "Life was very precious to my uncle and life today is precious.”
“Our best interests as Black Americans,” Owens says, “…lie in a new direction that reflects our core beliefs and values, not merely a resemblance of someone we look like.”
Again quoting her uncle, King says, “‘there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.’” She passionately adds, “This is not the time to be silent; this is not the time to give Barack Obama a free pass! There is too much at stake.”
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.?
by: Patrick Buchanan
Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.
This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere have done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60's on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude??
Barack talks about new 'ladders of opportunity' for blacks.
Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for 'deserving' white kids.?
Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago. McCain campaign chief: Obama 'played the race card'
7/31/08
John McCain's campaign manager is accusing Barack Obama of unfairly using the issue of race, a significant accusation in a campaign featuring the first African-American major party nominee.
"Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck," said Rick Davis, in a statement issued from the McCain campaign. "It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."
Yesterday in Missouri, Obama predicted McCain and the GOP would use racially tinged attacks against him.
"What they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
An Obama spokesman denied that the line about "dollar bills" was related to the Democrat's race and the campaign said today that they don't believe McCain is using the race issue. Obama aides didn't directly respond to the accusation that their candidate was doing the same.
"This is a race about big challenges—a slumping economy, a broken foreign policy, and an energy crisis for everyone but the oil companies," said press secretary Bill Burton. "Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue, but he does believe they’re using the same old low-road politics to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign, and those are the issues he’ll continue to talk about."
McCain's campaign has stepped up their attacks Obama since his overseas trip and began airing an ad yesterday comparing the Illinois senator to a vacuous pop star. But for months, both McCain and his campaign have been careful to avoid anything that approaches an assault based on race. McCain has rebuked outside parties, including the North Carolina GOP and an Ohio talk show host, whose attacks cited Obama's controversial pastor and his middle name.
Now with the contest entering a new, more negative phase — one largely brought on by McCain — the Republican campaign is clearly seeking to preemptively rebut any attempt by Obama to attribute race to their attacks. Davis, in effect, is laying down a marker.
But by flatly accusing Obama of having "played the race card," Davis ensures that the issue, already looming over the historic campaign, will now take a front-and-center position in a contest that is increasingly being fought more over character than issues.
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