Texas – 2008 © When I first sat down to write this article, there were so many thoughts racing through my head, I did not know where to begin. There were so many emotions; I did not know which one to write about first. So much energy was swirling around Obama’s pastor’s comments, so much air time and talking heads trying to analyze and summarize 300 or so years of racism in the United States in one minute or five minutes. It has been truly amazing to watch. It proves a point though, that no matter how eloquent you are, easy on the eyes you are, educated you are, fresh, eager, optimistic or gifted you are, if you are a black person, you are, before the end of the day, going to be put in a defensive mode about something in your life that characterizes you as a black person. You are going to have to explain your blackness one way or the other. Let us just face the facts, a black person in the United States has not had a happy time all the time. There has been and still is prejudice in the United States. This fallout about Obama’s pastor had to come to a head as it had been a pot about to boil over for some time. Now that it has come forward, can we all just get back to the issues? Let me get to the guts of this article though,   A few months ago, if the election had been held, I would have voted for Hillary Clinton. I trusted her, loved the Clintons, thought they were the greatest and believed she was better qualified to be President of the United States than Barack Obama. Then I began to pay attention to the new kid on the block—Barack Obama—and was amazed at the excitement and energy in the face of white people—men and women when they spoke about him.  I began to pay more attention because when Jesse Jackson ran, this is not the excitement and energy I saw in the face of white people so I wanted to know more about this man—Barack Obama. I started listening to his speeches, watching his expressions during debates and reading everything I could get my hands on about him and I liked what I saw, read and heard. I then began to get caught up in the excitement and changed my mind about voting for Hillary and voted for Barack instead during our primary here in Texas.  Today I received an email gift from one of the officers in my group that made me sad. Here we are spending valuable air time discussing what Barack’s minister said about the United States, something that has nothing to do with the integrity, character or expertise of Barack Obama while a real measurement of character has been tucked away in the archives waiting to be released after the polls close.  Before I give you these two websites, let me say this: If we do not stop acting like we are watching a soap opera in regard to our public officials and start scrutinizing them in a profound and effective manner, we are going to continue to get the Bush family and friends type of leaders. Let us not lose a potentially excellent leader, one who is young enough, experienced enough and smart enough to do a much better job than we have had in the last eight (8) years and is ahead without having stepped on Hillary’s back in the process.    If the news media continues this senseless regurgitation of Obama’s minister’s old sermons, McCain is going to be President and perhaps that is the game plan. We need to stop being petty, short sighted and narrow-minded and stop putting black people in a box with flash cards telling us how we are suppose to act in our lives and being so surprised at the way we look, speak and act. We are people, originally taken from another country, brought here against our will and stripped of our language, culture and families.   Instead of being apologized to, we have been treated as though we owe everyone else an explanation and an apology. If we speak of anything black, we suddenly become the outcast in a situation. We are still the first to be fired, the last to be hired and a lot of our schools are still inferior and we still get the worst of anything and insufficient of everything. Yes, some of us are still extremely angry as no one has apologized to us yet. It was sometimes excruciating watching the talking heads and news commentators wanting to continue to fuel the flame of discontent after they had stoked the fire upon the urging of Hillary’s plea that she was being picked on more than Barack. While they were only retrieving splinters with Hillary, they reached in and pulled out a whole chicken with Obama’s name on it. So continue to be petty and when the smoke clears, we will still have high gas prices, increasing food prices, falling stock, falling dollar, lost homes, racism, still in Iraq and so forth and another Republican president will be staring back at us.  I admire Obama and whatever happens in this campaign, I know he and his family will personally be okay. He should be judged by his own merits and temperament. He should not have had to defend why he stayed at his own church.  Is he his minister’s keeper?  Only in America, could a black person be put in that position. I have never heard any other nationality ever having to defend why they stayed at their church after their pastor became unruly. Usually, the question is why did you not get rid of your pastor, not why did you not leave your church? Obama was literally asked why did he not leave the body of Christ. The church is the body of Christ and Jesus founded the church so Barack should never have been asked why did he not leave the church but he is in America and that is why there are many blacks still extremely angry because it appears only black people get to be embarrassed in an extremely unique way. Please click or cut and paste the links below to your browser and see for yourself what Hillary Clinton is made of and ask yourself one question, do you want her to be your president or would you rather vote for Barack Obama, someone with real courage, real vision, real morals and a real ability to gather us as one in America. Do you think she will be interested in obeying the Constitution if there is an issue near and dear to your heart? Do you think she would do anything to be president? Or do you think she would have jeopardized her chances like Barack and just laid all the cards on the table and denounced the message but not the messenger?  I will let you be the judge: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7007109937779036019 http://www.hillcap.org/pp_complaint_022504_njw.pdf harvellajones@yahoo.com © 2008