Obama's Speech on Race & The True Meaning of Hope

To:-- Candidate Obama

Re:-- Obama's Speech on Racial Divides in America.


Dear Senator Obama,

Your speech on overcoming this country’s pathological racial divide was superb. A friend of mine compared it to Pericles’ Funeral Oration and I think it was of that hue and calibre.

I have long been disgusted at how both major parties have respectively cultivated and sought to exploit white and black resentments under coded labels like “Silent Majority” and “Rainbow Coalition”. Both parties sought to create an indentured political base and by doing so they tore this country apart with useless hates and false issues.

This was not what people like James Zwerg got himself beat up for. It is not what we are about. It was a long time overdue that a politician stood up and cleared the filth from the air by speaking plainly, frankly and sincerely. Thank you.

I want to take this opportunity to call to your attention something that might be of rhetorical use to you in your campaign.

I was less than impressed four years ago when you and Edwards were peddling “Hope is on the way.” People who are hungry need bread, not hope. However, your speech yesterday suddenly resonated off Pope Benedict’s second encyclical, Spe Salvi (Hope Saves) in which he asserted that hope (faith) is a social construct to bridge social alienation.

Benedict began the encyclical with a discussion of slavery in which he contrasted Spartacus with an emancipated slave girl from present day Africa. From the divide between slave and free, he went on to talk about economic exploitation and the divide between rich and poor. By “construct” he meant habits of mind and conduct that overcame these gaps with compassion on the personal level and co-responsibility on the political. You seemed to be saying something similar.

Although Benedict’s writings do not readily lend themselves to quick-reads on the campaign trail, the encyclical can be found at the URL given below.1 I am attaching a relatively short summary I posted last month on one of my blogs. My post was not written with this election in mind, but it quotes relevant passages and can serve to indicate whether the encyclical itself warrants being looked at by someone on your staff.

There will be those who will try to denigrate what you said by mislabelling it as just more black rhetoric. While the ideas you expressed yesterday were most clearly yours arising from your personal experience, I do not think it at all insignificant that they echo the ideas of a man from across the ocean whose biographical background is as far removed from yours as can be imagined.

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Sincerely,