Obama: Bush Ignoring Blacks' "Quiet Riot"
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.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 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.
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It boils down to the WRONG people are controlling the black community. People who would rather lay around all day and steal lunch and supper rather than waking up and going to work.
I tend to agree. The report says Obama was just telling people what they need to hear. WRONG, he was telling them what they want to hear. People are tired of this sense of entitlement shown by many blacks in America. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are leading these self entitled people. It is evident by the reaction to Michael Richards and Don Imus.
Richards is obviously not funny, but he called "1" man a ni&&er in a "private" club in Hollywood California and blacks in New York and around the nation felt "ENTITLED" to an apology.
Don Imus called a group of 25 young women from New York nappy headed hoes and blacks around the nation felt "ENTITLED" to an apology.
If person #1 insults person #2, why does person #3 feel entitled to an apology?
Posted by bellaL at 01:36 PM : Jun 06, 2007
I'm not opposed to apprenticeship programs, I am anti union though. Thing with public education is that our schools are being forced to teach "DOWN" to those students who don't want to be there because of this "No Child Left Behind". Thing is, if an employer says you must meet certain requirements in order to qualify for a specific job, a person has a choice meet the requirements or not. Regardless of what you think of the public school system, if the employer thinks a high school diploma is important, you need to have one in order to work for him/her.
Obama's views are reckless, as reckless as AL Sharpton's and Farrakhan's