May 28, 2008

We encourage our readers to circulate the following in its entirety. Instead of speaking for (or about) the Obamas, we will let them and their church speak for themselves.

Earlier in my college career, there was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the Black community I was somehow obligated to this community and would use all of my present and future resources to benefit this community first and foremost. My experiences at Princeton have made me more aware of my “Blackness” than ever before.

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson [Obama], “Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” page 2

Michelle Obama, in her own words:

Elements of Black culture which make it unique from White culture such as its music, its language, the struggles and a “consciousness” shared by its people may be attributed to the injustices and oppression suffered by this race of people which are not comparable to the experiences of any other race of people through this country’s history. However, with the increasing integration of Blacks into the mainstream society, many “integrated Blacks” have lost touch with the Black culture in their attempts to become adjusted and comfortable in their new culture–the White culture. Some of these Blacks are no longer able to enjoy the qualities which make Black culture so unique or are unable to share their culture openly with other Blacks because they have become so far removed from these experiences and, in some instances, ashamed of them because of their integration.

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson [Obama], “Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” page 54

Barack Hussein Obama, in his own words:

It contradicted the morality my mother had taught me, a morality of subtle distinctions–between individuals of goodwill and those who wished me ill, between active malice and ignorance or indifference. I had a personal stake in that moral framework; I’d discovered that I couldn’t escape it if I tried. And yet perhaps it was a framework that blacks in this country could no longer afford; perhaps it weakened black resolve, encouraged confusion within the ranks. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.

If nationalism could deliver. As it turned out, questions of effectiveness, and not sentiment, caused most of my quarrels with Rafiq. [Rafiq al-Shabazz, a “self-professed [Black] nationalist”]

–Barack Obama, “Dreams From My Father,” pp. 199-200 (paperback edition)

Barack Hussein Obama, in his own words:

That was the problem with people like Joyce [a college classmate of Italian, African-American, Native American, and French ethnicity]. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounced real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. …The truth was that I understood [Joyce], her and all the other black kids who felt the way she did. In their mannerisms, their speech, their mixed-up hearts, I kept recognizing pieces of myself. And that’s exactly what scared me. Their confusion made me question my own racial credentials all over again. …To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

–Barack Obama, “Dreams From My Father,” pages 99-100

Barack and Michelle Obama’s church, in its own words

# A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.

http://www.tucc.org/about.htm