Black but Thumbs Down on Obama!

I May Be Black, Mr. Obama, But You’re No President for Me!
Rev. Lainie Dowell

If it were not for a number of conservative journalists who deal with facts and not spin, many of us would have no idea what the news media are not reporting about the social, financial, academic, religious and political events upon which we are called to make informed – indeed, crucial – decisions.

A recent article in To The Point News, “Barack Don’t Know Much About History Obama,” by Jack Kelly, is a perfect example. In his article, Kelly points out the numerous historical flaws contained in Sen. Barack Obama’s victory speech after the North Carolina primary.

Obama said that he trusted Americans “to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."Kelly points out that FDR never spoke to the head of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler; the head of fascist Italy, Benito Mussolini, or the head of militarist Japan, Hideki Tojo. The president’s only policy, Kelly points out, “was unconditional surrender.”

I have yet to hear most journalists or pundits remind Obama that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, even as their diplomats were on American soil to “talk peace.” As Pearl Harbor burned, our men and women died and America wept. But President Harry S. Truman took note and did not forget. He knew the meaning of "Peace through Strength."
I remember the blackouts, the black curtains, air raid sirens, lights turned down and out, curfews, food-and-clothing rationings, hushed sounds, bodies lying in state inside their parlors, black crepe hanging on the outside doors, women dressed in black and mourning, American flags, American pride, patriotism, and purpose! And I was a black child whose relatives knew no color barriers. We were taught to be the best human beings we could be, to help others, and that if all we had to eat was a hot dog, then to dress it up and be grateful.

Kelly says that Harry Truman continued FDR’s “don’t talk to your enemies” policy, and “when North Korea invaded South Korea in June, 1950…[his] response was not to call up North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung for a chat. It was to send troops.”Kelly reminds his readers that when FDR (and Churchill) did talk to Josef Stalin, Stalin was then a U.S. ally. But when the Soviet dictator’s “designs became unmistakably clear, President Truman sent military aid to Greece, ordered the Berlin airlift and the Marshall Plan, and sent troops to South Korea.”In one instance, Kelly acknowledges, Sen. Obama’s knowledge of history was correct. Yes, John F. Kennedy “held a summit meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in June, 1961.” Author Elie Abel (The Missiles of October), said of that meeting:

"There is reason to believe that Khrushchev took Kennedy's measure in June 1961 and decided this was a young man who would shrink from hard decisions…[Khrushchev] came to believe that Americans are 'too liberal to fight'."And James Reston of the liberal New York Times said:

“When Kennedy was rash enough to strike at Cuba but not bold enough to finish the job, Khrushchev decided he was dealing with an inexperienced young leader who could be intimidated and blackmailed."Kelly goes on to note that, “Kennedy then was vastly more experienced than Sen. Obama is now.” Unlike Kennedy, “Sen. Obama has no military and little work experience, and has been in Congress for less than four years.”Finally, Kelly compares “Obama's expressed desire to meet without preconditions with anti-American dictators such as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad” to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who met Hitler in Munich in 1938 to negotiate "peace in our time" – an act of appeasement that had dire, unspeakable consequences. One more thing: Kelly says that “in the year Mr. Obama was born, 1961, a R&B singer, Sam Cooke, came out with a hit song you still hear on Golden Oldies radio stations. The song started, "Don't know much about history...." – and then he suggests that this should be Obama’s campaign theme song.

I agree. And I thank God I was born when it was possible to appreciate the difference that age makes, contrary to today's standard that allows five-year-olds to think they can teach 95-year-olds how to see the present in context with the past.

In my younger years, I was privileged to have worked as a ticket cashier at the famous Royal Theater in Baltimore, MD, when the Rock and Roll era was ushering in new artists on the "chittlin' circuit." I saw, heard, and met many black and white personalities who came through that theater’s front door. Sam Cooke was one of them and I saw him perform “Don’t know much about history.”

This indeed should be Obama’s theme song! His ineligibility for the presidency has nothing to do with his race. It has to do not only with how little he knows about himself, but how little he knows about America and Americans. If voters want to retain their pride in America and all it stands for, then Obama should not be their man.

How can he (and Sen. Clinton) and Democrats in general aspire to an office for which they have so little respect, given the ways in which they have viciously and unjustly attacked President George W. Bush for all of the years he has occupied that office?

After closely following the anti-American diatribes of Obama’s minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, for decades, I believe that Obama has been groomed from childhood to be The Great Muslim Hope of taking over America. Why? Because of his own words and associations, and also because of his wife Michelle’s parroted refrain of her husband’s and Rev. Wright’s words and sentiments. In addition, Obama, in his elite arrogance, locks people out because he believes himself to be above people.

Democrats like Obama have consistently failed to enact legislation that would alleviate many of the ills this nation has encountered. And when Black people like me tell them as much, they shout them down and make those who pull back the covers out to be “bigots," "racists," "House-Negroes,” etc.

Well, my voice won’t be shouted down! I may be Black, Mr. Obama, but you’re no president for me!

May 17, 2008

Rev. Lainie Dowell was a civil rights advocate and community activist for over 40 years, the former secretary of NAACP in Howard County, MD, and a singer with the Suburban Mass Choir. The recipient of numerous awards, she has been the Ministerial Advocate for Christian Clergywomen over 20 years. She and her husband are the parents of four grown children and numerous grandchildren and godchildren.