If At First You Don’t Succeed
Posted on April 30, 2008 at 11:07 amSteve Gill declares that Barack Obama was lucky that his pastor Jeremiah Wright continued to defend himself and make controversial statement because it gave Obama the opportunity to get his Sister Souljah moment right:
In 1992 hip-hop artist and political activist Sister Souljah was asked during a Washington Post interview about the riots in Los Angeles that occurred in the wake of the acquittal of police officers who had beaten black motorist Rodney King following a high speed chase. Souljah noted that “black people kill black people every day; why not have a week and kill white people.”
A few weeks later, Presidential candidate Bill Clinton was speaking at a Rainbow Coalition conference hosted by Jesse Jackson and used a portion of his speech to attack Souljah’s comments. Although Jackson and other black leaders criticized Clinton for his position, the repudiation of the racist statement by Souljah allowed Clinton to demonstrate to moderate voters, both black and white, that he was not going to pander to Jackson and the extremist elements in the black community.
Obama has essentially accomplished the same thing with his denunciation of Wright. And this time he did not have to throw his grandmother under the bus to do it. Wright is not likely to disappear from the debate over race in the months ahead, but by taking full advantage of his “do-over” Obama will now be able to stop the bleeding and close the deal for the Democratic Party nomination.
