I am totally going to get thrashed for what I’m about to say, I know it. But I am so frustrated this morning that I have to talk about it here. And so I walk in full well knowing what lies ahead in terms of response to this entry.
I don’t talk politics much. It is very, very hard for people to take off the lens of what they believe politically and truly analyze what is being said or done. I have never, ever declared here who I am voting for in the presidential election. And I will not share that information until after I have voted.
I live in Illinois, where I feel that saying anything negative about Obama will incur the wrath of God Almighty. I feel like I am not allowed to have a voice. That I am not allowed to wonder, or question, or disagree, without someone going on the impassioned defensive.
I want someone to say to me, “Interesting, why do you feel that why?” Not, YOU ARE WRONG!! WRONG WRONG WRONG!
The best way I can sum it up is what I just wrote in an e-mail to a friend about the Philly speech from yesterday:
One of the things that is killing me is that by questioning Obama’s speech, the automatic assumption has been that I didn’t read it.
I understand that Pastor Wright was a human being, and a sometimes angry one at that. I am a person who left a church I was baptized in AS AN ADULT because I cannot find a spiritual leader I agree with deep in my heart. So how Obama can raise his entire family in a church where the leader’s admitted residual anger is counter productive to the nation he is trying to build utterly confuses me.
It is okay to be angry, certainly. My grandparents still think “colored” people are suspect, and I love them very much. But leading a spiritual center is far different from just being my grandparents. If they headed up a church, I wouldn’t go there either.
That is what I feel Obama failed to address. Sure, you can love your Pastor and see him like a father. But why would you continue to attend a church where there obviously exists a hatred and anger that is counter to what you say you are trying to build for a nation?
It doesn’t matter what I write here, the answers will be the same across the board. It is right there in the speech! It wasn’t for me. I’m not saying it wasn’t a good speech, it was a great speech. But I am still left with questions. And so we agree to disagree…I hope…
ETA: From another conversation, replace “Racisim” with anything else and hopefully it helps distill my point:
If the issue was that we shouldn’t eat eggs or that no one should mow their lawn, it wouldn’t matter. If Obama said some people think we should mow our lawn and some people don’t, but I won’t follow the spiritual teachings of a person who believes we should be angry at people who come over and mow our lawn when we don’t want our lawn mowed because it is unproductive–well, then I would understand better.
We can talk about mowing the lawn all day long, but when you allow someone who feels differently from you about mowing your lawn to become your spiritual leader, that is troubling to me.
Posted by wafelenbak 