Jun 05 2008
KPFK Fund Drive Day 2 – Senator Obama Makes History
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GUEST: Michael Eric Dyson, Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University, author of several books including April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Death and How It Changed America
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has announced that she will suspend her presidential campaign on Saturday and endorse Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee. Obama has been pressured by the Clinton camp to offer her the Vice Presidential Candidate position. In gathering enough delegates voting for him, Obama has made history in the United States in becoming the first black presidential candidate with a major party. The New York Times today reported on international reaction to the story: “[Obama’s] triumph in the primaries, many said, signaled the defeat of racism, and if Senator Obama became president, his election would presage a departure from what outsiders have broadly depicted as the go-it-alone belligerence of the Bush era.” Despite the exuberance abroad, some members of the black faith community are disturbed by Obama’s recent resignation from the Trinity United Church of Christ, following several controversies involving the statements made by church pastors. Reverend Barbara Reynolds told the Washington Post, “If a politician wants to move up in government, they can come to church and jump and shout, but it is not okay to go to church where they are speaking truth to power and talking about racism, sexism and capitalism.”
Today we spend the hour examining Barack Obama and his relation to the black church, as well as Obama’s foreign policy credentials. We’ll hear first from influential author and speaker Michael Eric Dyson, a frequent guest on Uprising, when he talked about his new book on Martin Luther King, and Obama’s candidacy in Oakland, California.
Michael Eric Dyson has been named by Ebony as one of the hundred most influential black Americans. He is the author of sixteen books, including Holler if You Hear Me, Is Bill Cosby Right? and I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr. He is currently University Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University. His latest book is called April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Death and How It Changed America.
2 Responses to “KPFK Fund Drive Day 2 – Senator Obama Makes History”
Quickly before I listen to the segment (on headphones so the boss won’t catch me) “…some members of the black faith community are disturbed by Obama’s recent resignation from the Trinity United Church of Christ, following several controversies involving the statements made by church pastors.” Some white people are alarmed too… at least this one.
I’m with Rev. Reynolds’ quote, only posed as a shocked question: “If a politician wants to move up in government, they can come to church and jump and shout, but it is not okay to go to church where they are speaking truth to power and talking about racism, sexism and capitalism”?! This is precisely the crisis of integrity that has turned me off to every single Democrat and Republikaan for the last two decades. I used to see that as a mere preference, but after losing my home to Countrywide through no fault of my own, being declined from non-finance related jobs because of my credit score and witnessing the craptasm of gore (not Al, yaknow, “yucky stuff”) that has been the Bush junta, I see this as a matter of my personal survival. I cannot support a candidate who is openly against my interests as a human being. If only Canada hadn’t turned me down… there’s always Mexico.
I needed that Dysonian interpolation. If ‘Bama be winkin’ at us, I may hold my nose and cast my lesser-evil vote in he hope that MED has this one correct. Because, while for the middling & upper classes, the vote is an “event”, the very lives of poor people and working people depend on making the right choice in November.