Society: February 2007 Archives

I recently read an article about Barack Obama that got me incensed. All I could think was "Player Hater!" After calming down and looking over a post + comments on the Barbershop Notebooks, I came across a great comment by "Afrikabelle."

Comment on "Barack Obama - Professional Bulls***er?" Article:

"Here, Obama stands, with the potential to single-handedly brush the 450-year old chip off the African-American shoulder, destroying whatever venom lives in little Black boy psyches, whispering to them that their kind could never be president. And yet, all the talented tenth men and women want to do is to hop on big media and use Obama as an excuse to hear their own selves sound intelligent."

(Via The Barbershop Notebooks.)

Politics in a well functioning democracy is about the art of the possible, the art of compromise. Al Sharpton has as much chance of becoming president as Ralph Nader. Yet that’s what all too many black folk expect in the first black president. My father-in-law (a man who had to drive around with a gun in the South) said something to me about Bush I won’t soon forget, “He [Bush II] forgets that he’s president of all the people.” Not everyone in this country is a card carrying pro-Lifer or communist. In fact, no one is “red” or “blue.” I’m pro life, pro gay rights/marriage, pro business/entreprenurship, pro worker rights, pro affirmative action/civil rights, and pro environment. What does that make me? Your typical voter.

A recent report by two Villanova professors came out that claimed 85% of Catholic dioceses had problems with embezzlement in the last 5 years, 11% of them had cases involving sums exceeding $500,000. Wow!

It goes to show the problems with unearned trust and blind submission that the Catholic Church faces today. Despite the claims of the hierarchy, the institution hasn't proven to be the sanctified Bride of Christ it is supposed to be. Rather, it has proven to be a very human institutions with all the typical foibles humanity encompasses. From sex abuse to embezzlement, the Church will have to come to terms with a laity no longer naive enough nor passive enough to blindly submit to any cleric, perhaps even the Pope, no matter how close to Christ that cleric is supposed to be.

The Roman Catholic Church will have to learn that secrecy is the mother of lies and deceit.

"For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth [emphasis mine] comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God." (John 3:20-21)

I'm sad to say that Joe Biden not only stepped on his tongue, but he spilled some of his racial beans as well. I won't comment on the offensive nature of his remarks since others have already done such a good job. I will say that Biden's remarks are much like those of Michael Richards or Isaiah Washington in that they come from a deep reservoir of cultural sentiment (or should I say resentment?) towards black and/or gay folk. It doesn't matter what his intentions were. In fact, I have no doubt that Biden's intentions were generally benign, but that matters little when he opened his mouth merely to find a place for his political foot.

UPDATE: My man got on to speak on the O'Reilly Factor.