2. nothing in what i’ve heard from wright is advocating “against white people” – if you are going to make that claim, please back it up.

3. your comment, re “outlandish accusations like the US gov’t. creating a disease to kill black people” is wrong on several counts.

first, it is not outlandish to think that elements in within the us gov. might be motivated to do something like this. wright uses the example of the tuskegee experiments. which is on point.

the reason to reject the notion that hiv was created in a lab is the phylogenetic analyses of gene sequences. that wright may not be aware of this, however, is not outlandish.

4. i don’t know anything about farrakhan – but if you are going make such serious accusations, i’d like links (and not to sound bites) to back them up. in any event, the issue is not farrakhan – it is wright. your comments re mlk i don’t think are an accurate, but that is a topic for another day.

There is no comparison to MLK, Jr., and Wright here. MLK, Jr., responded in a civil way in his letter by stating facts about current-day issues facing the black community at that time. (As that goes, I have never objected to Wright’s advocacy on behalf of the African American community or noting truisms about it).

MLK, Jr., never made outlandish accusations like the US gov’t. creating a disease to kill black people. He advocated for black people, not against white people. That is a big difference here. MLK, Jr., would not have defended Louis Farrakhan since Farrakhan is antithetical to all King preached, namely non violence. Farrakhan advocates violence and even the eradication of an entire people. That is repugnant to King’s message and what he was about, and for Wright to defend such a person is troubling.

I think MLK, Jr., would have seen Wright’s words as perpetuating racial divisions and therefore counterproductive (as Obama has basically stated).

But as I’ve said, where Obama is concerned, my concern is not with the substance of anything Wright has said since they are his words and thoughts and not Obama’s. It is wrong for the media to be going at this from that angle, but it’s typical of the media, which has been abhorrent in their responsibility for over a decade now.

I see this from two perspectives:

1) The platform on which Obama has based his candidacy, and this situation challenges it;

2) the REALITY of it in terms of how it’ll effect the General Election.

Okay?

I see the media, the status quo, as the problem not Barack Obama.

that and the reluctance, nay refusal, to see the forest for the trees by way too many citizens…..

Obama isn’t being swift boated here. No one is lying about anything Obama has done or said.

Swiftboating is the vilification of a candidate with lies or false insinuations. There are plenty of false insinuations in this case.

And judging from your posts here, you fully accept, without reservations, the media’s standards for covering the elections. I do not.

I see the media, the status quo, as the problem not Barack Obama.

I think his mocking how white people clap, JFK, and LBJ was offensive and unbecoming a man of his stature and position and influence.

I think is implication that white people are his enemy, to this day, by stating that Farrakhan is not his enemy because he didn’t put him in chains is offensive and not at all helpful in ending racial division.

I think Christy has a good point when she says he is deliberately harming Obama, and to deliberately try to harm another’s aspirations is offensive.

It makes no sense to me that a man so concerned with racism would mock one president who was instrumental in getting civil rights legislation passed, sabotage the first black person to come so close to being elected president, and defend Louis Farrakhan except to conclude that he does not wish to close the racial divide. That is offensive.