A few months ago, the Obama campaign hosted a gospel event in South Carolina featuring a homophobic entertainer — Donnie McClurkin, a Grammy-winning singer, who claims to have been “cured” of homosexuality, and believes other gays can overcome their “curse” by way of prayer.
There were doubts, raised in some circles, about whether the campaign deliberately chose an anti-gay performer for the concert, as a way of scoring points with bigots and exploiting anti-gay animus that may exist in some African-American circles. There was ample evidence to the contrary, but plenty of observers believed Obama deliberately wanted to “throw gays under the bus.”
If there were lingering doubts about Obama’s character, I suspect many of them were put to rest yesterday.
Barack Obama on Sunday called for unity to overcome the country’s problems as he acknowledged that “none of our hands are clean” when it comes to healing divisions.
Heading into the most racially diverse contest yet in the presidential campaign, Obama took to the pulpit at Martin Luther King Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church on the eve of the federal holiday celebrating the civil rights hero’s birth 79 years ago. His speech was based on King’s quote that “Unity is the great need of the hour.”
“The divisions, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame the plight of ourselves on others, all of that distracts us from the common challenges we face: war and poverty; inequality and injustice,” Obama said. “We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing each other down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.”
To his credit, Obama wasn’t telling the congregation what they wanted to hear, but what needed to be said.
It took some courage to deliver this message.
“For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.
“And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.
“We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.
“Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.”
Pam Spaulding responded to the speech: “These words are so necessary, but you can best believe he is the only candidate delivering speeches in honor of Dr. King who is willing to say it directly to members of the black community. This topic has always been a perceived as a third rail topic for the other leading Dem candidates, Clinton or Edwards — they are, like many whites, particularly if they see themselves as allies, dread being seen as pointing out the evils and hypocrisy of such bigotry in the black faith community, even as wrong and tragic as it is on its face.”
Good for him.