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Comparing the Obama & Cosby Speeches
When I first saw the reporting on the Obama Father's Day Speech, I immediately thought of the speech given by Bill Cosby several years ago which ostensibly tried to make the same or at least similar points.
Cosby came in for much criticism, most of it from segments of the African-American (A-A) and Progressive communities. Obama's speech has almost been greeted with silence by both those communities; I, for one, have not seen a single negative commentary anywhere.
I just finished reading the full transcripts of both speeches.
Having done so, I am not at all surprised by the reactions they provoked, except for this: Barack Obama delivered one of the greatest American socio-political discourses that this cynical, son-of-a-bitch has ever read in his life.
Its Content far transcended race; its Form was nearly Poetic, and certainly inspirational. It cut like a dagger through party lines. It could have been delivered at Hagee's church (minus the African-American specificity) and drawn as many shouts and claps of approbation as the largely A-A church in Chicago that had the honor of being its presentation site.
Short of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, I have never read a politico-social document (speech) like this in my life.
(Mr. Cosby's speech is best left uncommented upon.)
Maybe someone out in TPM-land knows the answer to this question: Who wrote this speech?
MyBlog: http://ProteanPerspectives.blogspot.com
[Note: I maintain a Blog on Obama's Official Campaign Website, even though I am non-partisan, where I will post this in a few moments.]
Comments (11)
IMO There isn't much comparison between the two speeches (Cosby/Obama) except they both advocated more engagement from AA fathers.
I was blown away that Obama had the courage to make the speech. I just kept thinking "This guy's running for president?" Every time I think he's done doing startling but positive things and getting ready to settle into a normal campaign, he surprises me again.
I have gone from being an Edwards supporter who viewed Obama as an acceptable second choice to a fully impressed supporter. And I keep being surprised.
I know he does a lot of work on the speeches himself, but I also know he has writers he works with. I'd love to know who wrote this one also.
June 16, 2008 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Has anyone gone to his website to see if it's posted? If you contact his campaign, no doubt they'd tell you who 'authored' this speech.
June 17, 2008 12:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone know how the media did covering the speech? CBS Evening News had zilch on it Monday night.
June 17, 2008 12:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
No negative comments about Obama's speech?
You haven't been in the Black Blogosphere, because I've been debating his speech on five of them.
Check out:
Prometheus 6
Jack and Jill Politics
Oliver Willis
Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Field Negro
Booker Rising
Nothing but debates on them.
I happen to believe Obama's speech was distorted. I've read all of his speech.
June 17, 2008 1:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone who uses the term "A-A" apparently doesn't know enough about us black folks to discuss our lives with any degree of understanding.
June 17, 2008 7:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
During the primaries, every time I brought up the progress of the 90's - the lowered black crime and poverty, the increase in home ownership, the increased investment of the middle class and participation at all levels of government, even blacks on the shuttle - I was either called racist or reminded that more police on the street meant more blacks in prison. (And I noted time and again that I was against the war on drugs and 3 strikes, but at the same time substance abuse causes huge problems in the community, and invariably the joblessness and the violence hurts women more than men - not just rape, but violence, and unlike crime in the streets, you can't lock out home violence by closing the door). When I noted how much better off blacks were today than 40 years ago, the only thing people could tell me was that it was no good until blacks had it as good as whites.
I noted that historically blacks had done very well with literacy when they felt that personal progress translated to pride and tangible benefits, that while not equal, they had gained a toehold on the easier life in places scattered around the country and that slipped away, especially in the 1970's with the shrinking of unions and dismantling of other social structures. I noted that historically there was some overlap of racist issues vs. anti-immigrant issues when blacks were moving from the country to the city and from the south to the north - not just that they were black but that they were new kids taking "someone else's job".
During the primaries, there was a huge split between "second" and "third" wave feminists - apparently old school women were outdated and their worldview was passé and even racist. Yet what's so passé about taking care of one's kids? When Robin Morgan gave her first "Goodbye To All That", much of it was about children of the revolution, or more specifically boys of the revolution, seeing the girls as part of the prize, more like chattle than partners. Now we have emancipation, which means the freedom to raise kids alone with no resources and relying on the extended family to take the place of the immediate family. We call that entrenched poverty and struggling around the world, but it's "freedom" and "empowerment" and "self-determinism" in the US. And to speak against that freedom makes you old and outdated and mean-hearted.
Why didn't Obama make this speech 5 months ago on the way to South Carolina? Why not post-Super Tuesday when his luck was up and his opponents were down? Why not a month ago going into Pennsylvania and West Virginia and Ohio when Hillary was finding the right tenor for white voices in Appalachia and he was still struggling under the shadow of Rev. Wright? I kept asking where the TUCC speeches were on responsibility, and all I found was one on wearing a jimmy hat. Oh well, summertime and the living is easy...
June 17, 2008 7:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
You'd answered your own question before asking it. Obama was sitting on the lead and wasn't going to rock the boat with something like this important but risky speech. Frankly, I admire his self discipline.
June 17, 2008 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
And that's one thing we know is that Obama's not risky - penny ante kind of guy. Now that the primaries are over guess he doesn't need that 92% block of black voters. Wonder what he'll have to say Nov. 5.
June 17, 2008 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Two things are true.
First, he's running for office and while doing that he's not going to make a rod for his own back by voluntarily giving a speech which will cost him votes. And good for him, and us.
Second, nothing in Sunday's speech/sermon contradicted anything he's led us to believe were his views. Indeed it seemed unsurprising coming from the author of Dreams from my Father.
So there's no reason it should cause you to fear that on Nov 5 (if he and we are lucky enough to be celebrating his election) he'll abruptly confront us with a new model Barak Obama with a disappointing new set up priorities. .Could happen ,of course.But Sunday's sermon isn't evidence either way.
June 17, 2008 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Goldspinner,
1. I was not discussing the lives of "black folks," I was discussing a speech.
2. I pointed out that I felt the speech transcended race, without minimizing the statistics cited for African-Americans.
3. I use the term A-A because I feel only two groups in US society are referred to by solely their skin color or their religion: "Blacks" and "Jews." Inherent therein is a predujice against both groups.
4. And, though I was not discussing the lives of "black folks," Obama was, what was it about my piece that so disturbed you?
FB
June 17, 2008 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
We sure as hell don't call ourselves "AAs". Only ignorant, condescending non-African-Americans seem to prefer the term. Damn. Do I have to explain the significance of the whole "Black is Beautiful" movement back in the sixties and seventies to you to have you understand why the term pisses me off? Do I have to start quoting Stanley Fish and James Brown for you to get what should be fairly obvious? Your supposedly benign choice of abbreviation is a not-so-nice little "post-racial" way of labeling an entire people as little more than objects by implying that our ancestry is inconsequential and erasable.
What do you call members of other ethnic groups? NAs? HAs? WP? Why is it acceptable for YOU to call us what we don't even call ourselves? Don't you dare 'call us out of our names' because you're too lazy to spell! "Transcending race"...why is it so important for non-minority Obama supporters to downplay the obvious? Perhaps you consider blackness a disability to be marginalized. "AA"...it's funny how cultural genocide often begins with eliminating a peoples's ability to define their own identity via language on their own terms. You may consider yourself an enlightened progressive but your choice of terminology makes plain that your relationships with African-Americans are superficial, at best.
You reference DR. COSBY and made the smug remark "Mr. Cosby's speech is best left uncommented upon" to illustrate why Obama's not like the rest of us in the black community who've been saying the same thing for years. Can't have the good senator too closely associated with us more militant Negroes who might derail your beloved campaign, aspirations, can we?
June 17, 2008 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
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