October surprise: video from 2007 shows Obama engaging in racism

Click here to watch the video from the Daily Caller. (H/T ECM)

Here’s an excerpt from the accompanying article:

In a video obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama tells an audience of black ministers, including the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, that the U.S. government shortchanged Hurricane Katrina victims because of racism.

[…]The racially charged and at times angry speech undermines Obama’s carefully-crafted image as a leader eager to build bridges between ethnic groups. For nearly 40 minutes, using an accent he almost never adopts in public, Obama describes a racist, zero-sum society, in which the white majority profits by exploiting black America. The mostly black audience shouts in agreement. The effect is closer to an Al Sharpton rally than a conventional campaign event.

[…]Obama begins his address with “a special shout out” to Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago pastor who nearly derailed Obama’s campaign months later when his sermons attacking Israel and America and accusing the U.S. government of “inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color” became public. To the audience at Hampton, Obama describes Wright as, “my pastor, the guy who puts up with me, counsels me, listens to my wife complain about me. He’s a friend and a great leader. Not just in Chicago, but all across the country.”

[…]As the speech continues, Obama makes repeated and all-but-explicit appeals to racial solidarity, referring to “our” people and “our neighborhoods,” as distinct from the white majority. At one point, he suggests that black people were excluded from rebuilding contracts after the storm: “We should have had our young people trained to rebuild the homes down in the Gulf. We don’t need Halliburton doing it. We can have the people who were displaced doing that work. Our God is big enough to do that.”

This theme — that black Americans suffer while others profit — is a national problem, Obama continues: “We need additional federal public transportation dollars flowing to the highest need communities. We don’t need to build more highways out in the suburbs,” where, the implication is, the rich white people live. Instead, Obama says, federal money should flow to “our neighborhoods”: “We should be investing in minority-owned businesses, in our neighborhoods, so people don’t have to travel from miles away.”

[…]In the prepared version distributed to reporters, Obama’s speech ends this way:

“America is going to survive. We won’t forget where we came from. We won’t forget what happened 19 months ago, 15 years ago, thousands of years ago.”

That’s not what he actually said. Before the audience at Hampton, Obama ends his speech this way:

“America will survive. Just like black folks will survive. We won’t forget where we came from. We won’t forget what happened 19 months ago, or 15 years ago, or 300 years ago.”

Three hundred years ago. It’s a reference the audience understood.

I’m a person of color myself. I actually have darker skin than Obama. On the way home from work today, before I knew about this video, I found myself reflecting on what advice I would give to people like me who want to advance in the world – to be successful. My advice would be this – don’t make anything out of your skin color. Don’t define yourself by it. Don’t associate with people just because they have the same skin color as you. Don’t blame people of a different skin color for your problems. Don’t let the past hold you back from making the right choices today.

Obama isn’t doing people like me any favors by encouraging us to hate people of a different skin color and blame people of a different skin color. That just holds us back. I personally find it shocking that people of color would vote for someone who attacks their employers, who forces them into failing public schools, who gives money to abortion providers who perform abortions against people of color more than on whites, who forces them into dependence on government handouts, and so on. It’s wrong.

8 thoughts on “October surprise: video from 2007 shows Obama engaging in racism”

  1. Hey WK,

    I was getting ready to send you a link to this and you, of course, already have it up!

    Unbelievable.

    You wrote:

    My advice would be this – don’t make anything out of your skin color. Don’t define yourself by it. Don’t associate with people just because they have the same skin color as you. Don’t blame people of a different skin color for your problems. Don’t let the past hold you back from making the right choices today.

    Very well said!

    I hope you are well!

    Godspeed

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  2. Well said WK. Well said. It’s disappointing that people find their identity in their skin color and/or sexual preference because they are setting themselves up for disappointment, heartache, and bitterness since placing your identity in skin color and/or sexual preference doesn’t satisfy, it only confuses the person.

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  3. This video was covered on fox news in 2007 and in 2008 and Obama only echoed most of the words as george bush jr did…so why is this news in 2012? Is it because Hannity had nothing else to put on his show so he had to dig up some historical video?

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  4. I should have waited – hulu has The Daily Show – S18:E3 where this very story is featured – it’s funny listening to the fox news correspondents as they show the clips from 2007 & 2008 and what they’re saying now in 2012 – a great quote from one of the people on hannity’s show: “I know this video hasn’t bee covered because I covered it before…” – what!?!

    You need to stop watching fox news and watch comedy central Wintery – at least you’ll get your news filled with jokes!

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      1. I only watched a short bit of it and I agree that Obama lost – he was no where near the Obama that made McCain look like a fool…

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  5. Jerry, what is it about trillion dollar deficits, huge taxes, government funded abortions and government promoted homosexuality that you find so appealing?

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