Obama addresses homophobia, anti-semitism and xenophobia among Black Americans

Obama Addresses Homophobia, Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia Among Black Americans

In a speech today at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.served as pastor, Barack Obama talked about the existence of institutional racism, the sensationalizing of race "by the media" and the creeping of race as an issue into the presidential campaign.

But Obama's speech will likely be remembered for his calling on the black community to do its part to fight homophobia, anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

Obama says in the speech: "We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them," and "the scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community," and "for too long, some of us have seen the immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity."

And while Hillary Clinton, in her speech honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this afternoon at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, emphasized the importance of "doers of the word," Obama made a point to argue of King's instrumental role in enabling the civil rights movement, "he did it with words."

Here's Obama's speech, as prepared for delivery: http://www.observer.com/2008/obama-addresses-homophobia-anti-semitism-and-xenophobia-among-black-americans

Good on Obama for calling out homophobia. But he still needs to apologize for that stunt in SC.

Now it's Kucinich, Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Gravel, Paul, Biden, Sharkey.

There were plenty of things brought out that were most likely uncomfortable for many in the room.

That's just getting nitpicky. If he mentioned every group dissed by the black church, the speech would have been a hell of a lot longer. I would have preferred if he said LGBT but you know, I'm not going to bash him for being non-inclusive of T when many of our own so-called gay leaders don't even include T.

The sentiment was there, and it was a good one.

I don't think that's such a big deal , i could see HRC saying GLB people as well. But neither of them say anything about transsexuals. It pionts to me how similar they are.

But I honestly don't expect anything better from this bunch we've got now. Only DK believes in full equality for everyone, unfortunately.

it almost seems like Obama isn't really a homophobe at all. It's crazy! :crazy:

Double standards are funny things, huh?

What a decent man Barack Obama is. Perhaps he, in the final analysis, was too decent of a human being for this process.