There have been hundreds of comments like the following from supporters of Senator Obama.
Obama's pastor made comments that are inexcusable, but he is also a respected figure who has done a lot of good for his community.
Comments that seemingly support Obama, and even in some ways support Reverend Wright, but at the same time seek to distance themselves from the hard truth of Reverend Wright's words.
Reverend Wright's remarks were not only excusable, they were true. And I blame every one of the people who say they are inexcusable, who called for Obama to denounce him for the damage this has done to Obama.
We all should have jumped to Obama's defense and to Rev Wright's defense. Instead people ran from him like he was some sort of pariah.
There are racial problems in this country. When my son has to overhear co-workers talk about "lynching that n*gger" and not kick somebody’s ass because he doesn’t want to lose the only halfway decent job he has found in years, that tells me there is a problem with racism in this country. When I mention here on Kos that you will hear a lot of Native Americans on reservations talk about the white power structure the way Reverend Wright did and in response I get told:
"...and others of us try to seek improvement and change outside of firewater and casinos."
that tells me there is a problem with racism in this country. When one of the Democratic candidates for president has no problem appealing to the worst of some white folks’ instincts by inserting race into the campaign in order to gain votes against a Black man, then there is a problem with racism in this country. And when the supporters of that Black man cannot rally to his support when the first so called controversial statements regarding race in this country are associated with him, that tells me there is a problem with racism in this country and there is a problem with courage amongst many of his supporters.
How many of you have read Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham jail lately? He talks about this very thing. Obama has enough of a tightrope to walk in regard to race without his white supporters running and hiding at the sight of an angry Black man in Obama's life. It is shameful the way so many of his supporters behaved when someone associated with Obama made white people uncomfortable.
Read it and weep for this country if the behavior of many of Obama's supporters these past few days is the best we can do in regard to confronting racism in this country.
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. (emphasis mine)
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.