Rice Praises Obama’s Race Speech
March 28, 2008
And, yes, I AM talking about Condoleeza Rice, the Secretary of State.
She did an interview this week with the Washington Times, from which this is excerpted (via the State Department website):
QUESTION: (Inaudible) Barack (inaudible) speech about race — did you listen to it?
SECRETARY RICE: I did and, you know, I think it was important that he gave it for a whole host of reasons. But look, I’m not going to talk about the politics. What I’m talking about is how — you asked me about Dr. King and race in America. And I’m telling you that there is a paradox for this country and a contradiction of this country and we still haven’t resolved it. But what I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn’t love and have faith in them, and that’s our legacy.
My grandmother and my great-grandmother, and my father, who endured terrible humiliations growing up — and my father in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and my mother’s family in Birmingham, Alabama– still loved this country. And I’ve often spoken of the Civil Rights Movement as the second founding of America, because finally we started to overcome this birth defect. But if anybody believes that black Americans love this country any less than white Americans do, they ought to go and talk to people who live under very tough circumstances, sometimes doing menial labor and doing tough jobs, and really all they want is the American dream. All they’re focused on is is their kid going to be well educated enough to go to college and have a better life than they had. And one of the things that attracted me to George W. Bush, one of the primary things, it was not actually foreign policy, it was No Child Left Behind. Because when he talked about the soft bigotry of low expectations, I know what that feels like.
And so to my mind, where our understanding of and conversation of race has got to go. And I mean now, race. Black Americans aren’t immigrants. We may call ourselves African Americans, but we’re not immigrants. We don’t mimic the immigrant story. Where this conversation has got to go is that black Americans and white Americans founded this country together and I think we’ve always wanted the same thing. And it’s been now a very hard and long struggle to begin to get to the place that we can all pursue the same thing.
I could not agree more. (Except for the praising Bush part, because I’m the resident liberal, and it’s our job to not agree with praise of him.)
Posted in Uncategorized
March 28th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Someone should do a story about how people like Obama and Tiger Woods who are not even 50% African American are forced into black culture because of the color of their skin.
March 29th, 2008 at 6:01 am
I don’t think “forced” is the right word. Obama and Tiger both embraced their black histories, BUT I do think the stories about someone being “black enough” are as retarded as it gets.
Also, there was an excellent diary at dKos (yeah, I know, enemy territory here and all) about how we still use the definitions of black for people who aren’t even a majority black in their genetic makeup, like this was still 1896 and it was Plessy v. Ferguson. We really do need to think over this whole idea of race in this century, because there are many more Obamas and Tiger Woodses out there, people who are a amalgam of races, and our antiquated ideas of race define them as something they aren’t.
March 30th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
That was a good Interview that Rice gave the only thing that I dis agree with was the praising of bush and also the birth defect thing.
I’m a black woman and I don’t think my being born black is a birth defect. I’m sorry she feels her skin is a birth defect.
March 31st, 2008 at 8:34 am
I don’t believe she’s referring to her race as a birth defect. I think she’s referring to racism as a “birth defect” of our nation. That it’s something that’s been there from the beginning.
April 13th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
“Someone should do a story about how people like Obama and Tiger Woods who are not even 50% African American are forced into black culture because of the color of their skin.”
You guys just love saying that. Not only is it irrelevant to this discussion, but it also does not make sense. Personally, I could care less about Tiger Woods. However Barack Obama is half African period…please. He said that he is a “black man of mixed heritage”. I love how you used the word…”forced”, take it from me, it is not that horrible being black =)…jerk.
If you knew anything then you would know that many, if not the majority of Americans are of mixed bloodlines at some point.
I found Condi Rice’s statements to be on point.