Derrick Ashong: Courageous Obama poses challenge to America

[babylonsister]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/19/commentary.ashong/index.html

Commentary: Courageous Obama poses challenge to America

By Derrick Ashong

Editor's Note: Derrick Ashong is a musician, activist and entrepreneur. He recently became a You Tube "phenom" after posting a passionate defense of Barack Obama. Ashong identifies himself as an independent.



Derrick Ashong says Barack Obama spoke with "candor and compassion" about race relations in America.

snip//

Black America has yet to come to grips with its responsibility to tackle head on the problems that plague our communities. White America has yet to acknowledge the fact that here in the "home of the free," true liberty has evaded many for far too long.

Too often these conversations are ended before they've truly begun, due to the ignorance, intransigence or simple unwillingness of people to acknowledge the validity of what the other side has to say.

Who can honestly argue that black America is not today contributing mightily to its own social, cultural and economic decline?

Who can honestly argue that white America has not been willfully blind and too often complicit in the injustices that continue to be visited upon people born with darker hue or stranger accent?

Who will have both the courage and the commitment to the promise of universal justice and equity that undergirds our country, to call upon the nation to move beyond the divisive rhetoric of racial "one-upmanship" and to embrace the challenge of fulfilling that promise?

Apparently a junior senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama.

For days pundits have pondered whether Sen. Obama could weather the controversy over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's racially polarizing comments. The question at this juncture is not whether the candidate will rise to the occasion, but rather, whether America will.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

1. Great commentary, and here's the YouTube link of Derrick:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9fWES11P0c

[babylonsister]

3. Thanks! I was just going to go look for that. nt

[Scurrilous]

2. K & R

:thumbsup:

[PerfectSage]

4. I find the whole Wright controvery to be ridiculous.

I understand why Wright would say those hurtful things. But, I'm not at all outraged by them. This whole incident smells like a media feeding frenzy to character assasinate Obama. Like the Dean Scream??????????? Find some choice soundbites and replay them over and over.

What really cracks me up is the outrage over "hate" and "racism" thrown at Wright. Sounds like projection to me.

Gobama!
Go Dean's 50 State Strategy!
Go Grassroots!

[babylonsister]

5. I agree with you; the r/w is trying so desperately to smear Obama

with anything because they know he'd present a real challenge to McCain. I hope Obama can endure their slime.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

6. Kick.