Quotes of the day - Mark Steyn - Obama racial speech

It makes no difference to white folks when a black pastor inflicts kook genocide theories on his congregation: The victims are those in his audience who make the mistake of believing him. The Reverend Wright has a hugely popular church with over 8,000 members, and Senator Obama assures us that his pastor does good work by “reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDs.” But maybe he wouldn’t have to quite so much “reaching out” to do and maybe there wouldn’t be quite so many black Americans “suffering from HIV/AIDs” if the likes of Wright weren’t peddling lunatic conspiracy theories to his own community.

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Nonetheless, last week, Barack Obama told America: “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.”

What is the plain meaning of that sentence? That the paranoid racist ravings of Jeremiah Wright are now part of the established cultural discourse in African-American life and thus must command our respect?

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Let us take the senator at his word when he says he chanced not to be present on AIDs Conspiracy Sunday, or God Damn America Sunday, or U.S. of KKKA Sunday, or the Post-9/11 America-Had-It-Coming Memorial Service. A conventional pol would have said he was shocked, shocked to discover Afrocentric black liberation theology going on at his church. But Obama did something far more audacious: Instead of distancing himself from his pastor, he attempted to close the gap between Wright and the rest of the country, arguing, in effect, that the guy is not just his crazy uncle but America’s, too.

Mark Steyn - 3-22-08