Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2008 > March > 18
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Flap allows Obama to show his special strength on race
Barack Obama’s latest speech might be seen as an effort to minimize the damage from one of those over-hyped campaign flaps, wherein a candidate is embarrassed by something a friend has said.
But the speech — a compilation of thoughts Sen. Obama has had for a long time — turned out to be a real contribution. It is a textured dissertation on race in America.
Texture — a recognition of complexity, of layers — is not something you see often on the campaign trail.
Sen. Obama found himself with an opportunity and the need to make a point he likes to make:
He has an exceptionally useful take on American life, in that he really “gets” both the black experience and the experience of struggling white people. He does so on the basis of his own unusual life, not book learning. He straddles and can cross the great American divide.
Unique among the politicians, he can explain black people to whites and white people to blacks. And he can get an audience for both efforts.
Going both ways allows him to be frank. He was right Tuesday in criticizing some black religious leaders for their excesses in racial rhetoric. He is probably the only presidential candidate who could have done that.
The speech he gave — characterized above all by heartfelt identification with the problems of black and white Americans — could have benefited from a little tolerance for American businesses, too. Corporations that are caught up in the international marketplace sometimes have to do things they’d rather not. Rather than admit that he knows this, he used them as a whipping boy, the bad guys against whom blacks and whites must unite.
That divisive populism is not true to his own message about the need to unite Americans, to lower the temperature of our politics.
Maybe he’s taking one division at a time. This is the week about racial division.
Obviously, Sen. Obama does not share the political views of the minister whose ugliest words — literally damning America — are the flap of the week.
Just as obviously, he has always known about that side of the minister, who, as he notes, has been a major figure in his life. Sen. Obama’s early attempts to minimize what he knew don’t ring true.
People will make of all that what they will. There’s enough to turn off some people who are predisposed to be turned off by any person of Sen. Obama’s views.
But the flap isn’t the important thing. Flaps happen. In the course of the epic battle between Sen. Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, both candidates have faced flaps. Both will have more and will deal with them imperfectly. In the general election, again, there will be more.
What’s important here is that this country still has racial issues to confront. Sen. Obama’s political success at one stage seemed to be leading some people to conclude that that isn’t true anymore. Now, though, his successes are actually highlighting those issues.
Also being highlighted is what the candidates bring to the effort of ameliorating them. He brings a lot.
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This is the new place to post suggestions for editorial page book club
(This is a column of mine from paper of Wednesday, 3-19. If you want more on the Editorial Page Book Club, click on the “Book Club” listing under “Categories” at the right of this space.)
Thank you to the readers who have suggested books for the Dayton Daily News Editorial Page Book Club.
Before proceeding, let us clarify: This is not “The Big Read.” That’s a whole other book-reading project. “Big Read” groups are already meeting to discuss this year’s book, “Funny in Farsi.”
For the Editorial Page Book Club, no book has been selected.
What’s happened so far is that I wrote a column inviting suggestions. Then, as suggestions were coming in, I got largely diverted to certain work we had to do on the March primary. Now it’s time to move ahead.
When we’ve selected a book, we’ll get together and talk at the Cox Ohio Media Center. Maybe we will try to get the author to participate in some way. (Sometimes that’s not possible.)
So far, there’s has been no great groundswell of support for any particular book. The floor is still open for new suggestions or comments on those suggestions already made.
We’re looking for a book that is about the kinds of issues that are discussed on this page and the one next to it. So it should probably be non-fiction, fairly current, easily available, a “good read” and of fairly broad interest. If it has some local angle, all the better.
Here (in no order) are some suggestions we’ve received, along with some comments offered by the suggestor:
• “Bowling Alone” by Robert Putnam. It should be read by all who are concerned with membership in churches, civic groups, service clubs, fraternal groups, etc.
• “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.
• Richard Florida’s new book titled, “Who’s Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life.”
• Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals,” which covers issues relating to the food industry in America — agribusiness’s corn industry, factory farms, etc. Very informative book, and one that overrides a political perspective and certainly impacts not only Ohio, but every state in the Union.
• “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman. Envision the world without humans. This book uses archeology, engineering, zoology, botany, and many other disciplines to conjecture what our planet would become and what our actions may have set into motion.
• “The Nine (Inside The Secret World of the Supreme Court)” by Jeffrey Toobin. Most of us know so little about the workings of our third branch of government and the various people, not just the justices, involved. I am about half way through the book and have found it fascinating.
• “China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power” by NPR reporter Rob Gifford.
• “Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment” by Anthony Lewis, a two-time Pulitzer winner. I have not yet read this book, but the author’s previous output has been eminently worth reading and highly readable. From the reviews, it sounds as if Mr. Lewis is taking a well balanced stand on the First Amendment.”
• “FairTax: Answering the Critics.” The FairTax seems to get a lot of attention in the newspaper, and the release is timely.
• “The Long Emergency” by James Howard Kunstler. A counterpoint to “The World Is Flat.” That’s the Thomas Friedman book that the club read last time.
• Awww, c’mon, guys, fiction is where the truth gets told. You know that! Start with “Atonement” or anything else by Ian McEwan. Perhaps “Saturday.”
• “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)” by David Cay Johnston.
• Arnold S. Relman, M.D.’s, book, “A Second Opinion: Rescuing America’s Health Care.” I think an examination of America’s Health Care System, and possible solutions, would be appropriate in an election year in which health care reform should be a critical issue.
• Robert Reich has a new book out titled “Supercapitalism,” which helps explain why people feel like they do not have a voice anymore and offers some action items, none of them easy, of course.
• “The Age of Turbulence” by Alan Greenspan. He’s the retired chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and a good author.
• “The Coldest Winter — America and the Korean War” by David Halberstam. Finally, here’s an excerpt from a press release the newspaper received. Might be worth thinking about:
• “Troublemaker: A Personal History of Education Reform since Sputnik” by Chester E. (Checker) Finn Jr. (The book) paints a vivid history of postwar education reform intertwined with the personal story of Checker as one of the foremost players in American education over the past 50 years. Of course, Checker’s story begins in Dayton and the Gem City is referenced throughout.
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