It Isn't Obama's Race, But His Socialism and Defeatism That Are His Problems

By Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)

March 20, 2008

First Barack Obama tells us that he "didn't know" what Jeremiah Wright, his pastor at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ was preaching, in spite of attending his church for 20 years. Yesterday he tells us, in effect, that really he DID know what the Rev. Wright was preaching and it merely reflects "the complexities of race in this country that we have never worked through." Now he tells us a "legacy of defeat" that blacks in this country supposedly represent, also includes most of the rest of the population "segments of the white community, working and middle class" people with an "immigrant background", the jobless or those who have lost jobs and, of course, women. .

Who is the guilty party in this defeat litany and with most of the US population having a legacy of defeat? And, how did this country become the strongest and wealthiest nation in the entire world? According to Obama "the real culprit" is a "corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many."

What both Obama and Wright are really saying is that, by destroying or rigidly controlling or heavily taxing corporations, somehow more jobs are created and all other problems magically disappear. What history has shown, and is still showing, is that nations that use the "victim" argument to enlarge government and make government the primary employer and controller, which is of course socialism, end up with the exact opposite result than they expected.

In the past 100 years in the USA there have been two major movements, with opposite philosophies, debated to resolve the race problem. One was the Race Relations Movement which sought to end segregation laws in the South and race discrimination in throughout the country by using basically the Golden Rule, i.e. love and respect towards one's fellow man. The other effort was the Civil Rights Movement which used Marxism and class warfare to position the white population as the villains and the black population as the victims and which always requires more government to force people do what lawmakers believe they should do. .

In 1996, in Chapter 5 of my first book, I wrote about the "Founder of the Modern 'Victim' Movement" that dealt with the issue Obama and Wright have basically brought into the 2008 presidential campaign. Last year, the Rev. Wright had a lively discussion with Sean Hannity about "black liberation theology" which was really a modern version of one of two opposing philosophies of 19th and early 20th century American black leaders: W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. One movement was the Race Relations movement and the other was the Civil Rights movement.

W.E.B. Du Bois was born in 1868. His great grandfather was a white French physician and his great-grandmother was a third generation American, the granddaughter of a black man who was brought from Africa in the mid-1700s and given his freedom during the American Revolution. Du Bois never experienced slavery, he did well in school in the small Massachusetts community he lived in. As the only black student in the class, he delivered the graduation speech. He went to college and even was given a fellowship by former president Rutherford B. Hayes to continue his studies at Harvard to get his Ph.D. He had gotten the fellowship by sending a letter to Rutherford complaining that "discrimination because of my race" prevented him from getting "someone" to pay for graduate school studies.

Du Bois died in Accra, Ghana in 1963, having renounced his American citizenship and becoming a member of the Communist Party. In the early 1930's Du Bois praised Adolph Hitler for his "socialist methods in reducing unemployment" and in the 1940's he helped organize the Fifth Pan-African Congress. He was a supporter and mentor of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya. He helped lay the foundation of African Independence and the "Africa for Africans" Movement, which strove to drive the white man out of South Africa.

On the other hand Booker T. Washington was born in 1856 as a slave. At the age of nine Booker began working with his foster-father in a salt furnace and later in a coal mine. At the age of sixteen his determination to get an education took him to Hampton, Virginia, to the new Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute where he worked as a janitor for his school expenses. After graduating, he taught school for two years then returned to Hampton as an instructor. Booker T. Washington set his course in life as a conciliator, educator and nation-builder. He believed that the best interests of black people would be realized through education and hard work rather than political agitation and complaining.

Booker T. Washington, who actually KNEW something about life as a slave was harshly condemned and ridiculed by W.E.B. Du Bois, who spread his "victim" philosophy not only in America, but throughout the African continent. Martin Luther King used the "victim" argument in 1965 after the Rochester Race riots, which had started when a drunken black youth began fighting at a street dance and the black organizer of the event called the police. King said, "We must always make it clear that we are not responsible for violence. I would place the responsibility on the white power structure. New York and Rochester leaders have been lax about getting rid of conditions that bring violence." Jeremiah Wright has totally adopted this refusal to take ANY responsibility for violence and crimes committed by members of his race. In a recent "sermon" by the Rev. Wright he said:

"Fact number one: We've got more black men in prison than there are in college. "Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. "We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional killers. ... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. ... We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. ... We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means.

"And ... And ... And! God! Has got! To be sick! Of this s***!" (Click here to hear an audio clip of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright

Du Bois ridiculed and condemned Booker T. Washington, accusing him of "shifting the burden of the Negro problem to the Negro's shoulders" and urged other blacks to oppose Booker T. Washington.

Booker T. Washington urged black people to first get an education, and then seek to serve others, rather than fighting with them. He lived his own advice. In 1881 he became the head of a tiny Tuskegee College that consisted of two dilapidated, unequipped buildings and by the time of his death in 1915 had 100 well-equipped buildings with a teaching staff of 200 and a student body of over 1,500. He hired researcher and former slave George Washington Carver to teach at Tuskegee. When Carver died in 1943 he had, through his research, developed more than 300 uses for peanuts and had established the firm, scientific basis for soil conservation methods. While his name is rarely mentioned today, it was George Washington Carver who founded the environmental movement which has inspired millions around the world to take better care of Planet Earth.

On the other hand, the life choices of W.E.B. Du Bois included the organization of the Fifth Pan-African Congress, that founded the "Africa for Africans" movement which strove to drive the "white man out of Africa" which was the same philosophy that led Hitler to kill or drive the Jews out of Europe. When I was in South Africa on a mission for my church in 1991-92 the Pan-African Congress slogan "One Settler, One Bullet" was painted on walls all over Soweto and Johannesburg.

While Martin Luther King, verbally supported "non-violence" his philosophy was that of Du Bois - and that led to violent confrontations and riots during the 1960s. Like Du Bois and Rev. Wright he rejected the notion that blacks had any responsibility for themselves. King's view that blacks must "always make it clear that we are not responsible for violence" naturally led him to blame whites for the Rochester N.Y riots in 1965: "I would place the responsibility on the white power structure. New York and Rochester leaders have been lax about getting rid of conditions that bring violence." (Times-Union, August, 1964.)

It ought to be obvious by now that any person, black or white, male or female, will fail if they adopt a "legacy of defeat" in their youth, because they believe leaders like Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Rev. Jeremiah Wright who seem to keep telling them their only hope for success is for white people to change their minds about black people.

Only young blacks who REJECT the "defeat" legacy that Obama and Rev. Wright seem to want to nurture WILL succeed. And, there are now plenty of examples around of black people who have rejected the legacy of defeat. Colin Powell comes to mind. Condoleeza Rice comes to mind. George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington come to mind.

Even Barack Obama might come to mind some day if he would learn a bit more about the job he is applying for and stop using the legacy of defeat that has been kept alive in the Civil Rights Movement, I think primarily because it has been a great cash cow for Civil Rights Leaders, to make white people, especially white males, somehow responsible for their failures and unhappiness.