In the Arena

More on Obama

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This comment, from KHT, deserves a post of its own:

I am a biracial woman, under 30, who identifies as black, just as Obama does. I am also a woman who was raised by her white mother and white grandmother in a white church. As an adult I have found myself in both white and black churches but rarely a mixed church. Obama’s statement about that segregation on Sunday morning could not ring any truer for me.
That said I am a woman who has witnessed first hand individuals who love ME but say the craziest things. White relatives and elders who insist, though I am an exception, most blacks must be criminals, “Why else would so many be in jail?” Black relatives and elders who insist that despite all the progress in the past century every hardship they face today is because all whites hate blacks, “Except for your mother dear.”
I will say it now and many more times in my life, a biracial person gets race relations because they live race relations.
Obama’s example of his grandmother is the example of all who love us and get it wrong once in a while.
Let me tell you: in the black community our elders, who we respect and honor, often are viewing the world through a lens of history our generation cannot fully appreciate. Wright is an elder in Obama’s community…
And as any of us who have gone to church on a regular basis know-with a minimum of 52 Sundays and 52 sermons, that preacher is bound to say something you disagree with!
The church is a place for discussion and communication, communication is not always standing in agreement with every word spoken. It is also about having some disagreement and healing. Obama could hear the things he heard and return to that church with a forgiving heart? Sounds like Wright did teach him a thing or two about being Christian…