An Entirely Different Conversation on Race

From the Miami Herald:

TALLAHASSEE -- For a sign of Florida Republicans' all-out effort to attract black voters, look no farther than the glossy full-colored The Black Republican magazine that launches broadsides like these:

The KKK was the ''terrorist arm of the Democratic Party.'' Democrats, in addition to waging ''war on God,'' are still mired in sex and financial scandals.

That's all tucked in the back of the Sarasota-based National Black Republican Association's 60-page mag, the first half of which touts Republican Gov. Charlie Crist's civil rights record and the Republican Party of Florida's minority outreach efforts that the association has helped coordinate.

The strident comments and images -- replete with a Ku Klux Klan rally snapshot that notes ''every person in this photo was a Democrat'' -- has outraged Democrats and caught the Republican Party of Florida flat-footed as well.

...


But Democrats say the magazine omits the fact that many Southern Democrats joined the GOP after the 1960s civil rights movement.

'You could change the caption to say, `All of these people are now Republicans,' because the Democratic Party no longer suited their racist Southern strategy,'' said Dan Gelber, a Democratic state legislator from Miami Beach.

Compare.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright: "Different Does Not Mean Deficient"

The entire video interview with Bill Moyers as well as a complete transcript can be found here. As always, Moyers does a great job of cutting through the sensational in order to get to the truth. Jeremiah Wright, in my opinion, comes off as intelligent and sincere. After watching this interview, the media's treatment of him seems absurd.




Wright also addressed the NAACP this weekend:




Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Update—Comments following Monday's speech by Rev. Jeremiah Wright refueled the outrage:



The entire speech can be found here, here, and here. The follow-up question and answer session can be found here, here, and here.

Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama responded to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's latest appearance with this:



In all honesty, with the exception of blaming the US government for AIDS (an a few other comments) I've found most of what I've heard from Wright to be acceptable—even reasonable. I do, however, wonder why he's decided to fan the flames lately. In light of this, I can understand the need for Obama to distance himself from Wright. I just hope he hasn't taken it so far that this escalates into weeks or even months of public bickering. I suppose that this could end up being good for his campaign (in the long-run), but it certainly wouldn't be good for the rest of us.