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.

[mikealford3]

kelly, I agree with much of what you are saying. But as you point out the problems begin within the community. Chicago has public schools i'm fairly sure, so there are opportunities to learn. It boils down to the mother and father setting the example and making the kids study. Many if not most of the problems within the black community are internal problems. If a kid in a Chicago project has no hope, who's fault is it? It's the parents, and the community. You mention the problems, the gangs, the crime, all those things add up. If a kid wishes to belong to a group as a way to be a part of belonging, why does it have to be a violent group? I dare say the schools have athletic teams, bands, and other groups why can't the kids join them?

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.

[kelly5713]

It's obvious that many of the people posting have not sat down and learned about the societal issues going on in minority communities. Those men wearing hoods holding paper bags many be doing the only thing they can do in order to support their families because they have substandard educations that train them for nothing. They join gangs because the neighborhoods they live in are so dangerous that its their only option of protecting themselves and their families. They join because they feel so disconnected from society that they yearn for belonging. In Chicago projects are being torn down so that expensive condos can be built leaving many people without homes for their families. I never realized how dire the situation was until my job brought me into "ghetto" neighborhoods and into intense interaction with people who are from these neighborhoods. The sad thing is that the young children have dreams of becoming doctors and policemen and happy families. The adolescents believe that they can never accomplish any of this because they have no real education and the rest of society tells them they can't. Its not just the government who is turning a blind eye, its all of us.

[mikealford3]

spcbs,

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?

[slp1234]

As much as I hate to admit it, after what Al Sharpton, MSNBC & CBS did to Don Imus, I have given up on blacks, large butt sucking hypocritical corporations and the rest. Everyone is talking about "illegal imigrants" these days but I don't see these folks acting like the whining, woe-is-me, we hate the white man Al Sharptons of the world. Any culture willing to accept foul mouthed demeaning "musicians" and race bating spokesmen like Sharpton and Jackson deserves what they reaped. Blacks have made themselves unimportant to the future of this country and themselves, I'm sad to say.

[lestb35]

The only thing that can save the black community is the black community. They need to stop relying on the govt. to solve their problems and stop blaming whites and start relying on themselves. Hip-Hop music is nothing more than an expression of self-loathing hatred and racism. We've had two consecutive black Sectys of State;Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice (whom I believe is brilliant), a Supreme Court Justice; Clarence Thomas, a presidential frontrunner; Obama, and the queen of media;Oprah. Not to mention all the other famous and influential black people. How much can a group of people whine about inequality. At a certain point it just becomes redundant.

[jolsonbear]

Drive through the "hood" any day around 9am and ou will porch after porch of young black men holding brown bags, wearing their pants down aroung thier nutsack and listening to "music" (for a lack of a better term) with lyrics made up of words that start mostly with N, B, and MF. "Work" would actually put a damper on their lifestyle of making babies and gangbanging. Who cares if they riot anyway; they only make up 13% of the nations population and all they do anyway is kill each other and burn down their own nieghborhoods.

[mikealford3]

This speech by Mr. Obama is just proof that he will bend over, pucker up and kiss the @$$ of whatever group he happens to be talking to at the time.

[mikealford3]

I have radical views on public education. But maybe we can agree on this. We need apprenticeship programs available and they've been tied up by the labor unions.
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.

[bigdadpatrio]

Obama has finally proved exactly what he is by playing the "woe is me" race card. I am glad he finally has. It is the beginning of the end of his Presidential bid. I believe his comments make it appear that blacks (and I refuse to use the term "African Americans" because the vast majority have never been to Africa, nor were their parents from Africa......) are a race of entitlement, and because they feel they have been so unfairly treated they are going to riot, etc. etc. etc. I believe the mjority of blacks do not feel they are entitled, and that they are respectors of the law and civility. Obama's comments only set back race relations because his comments reinforce stereo-types that many racists believe. I refuse to believe that as I believe that the majority of blacks have the same goals and beliefs that most whites do, and that is that hard work and treating people the way you wish to be treated is the right thing to do, and will result in positive outcomes.

[xzavierbrown]

Mr. Obama knows there is an opportunity in stoking that racial card and he went for it. *political suicide as I see it*

Obama's views are reckless, as reckless as AL Sharpton's and Farrakhan's