You're not helping.

Two reactions to Obama's speech on race relations.

First, this:

Hillary Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro slammed Barack Obama on Thursday for comparing her, during a speech on race relations, with the preacher at the center of a political firestorm.

Ferraro, who was forced to quit Clinton's campaign last week after suggesting that Obama had an advantage because he is black, told a California newspaper her comments were quite different from the incendiary, racially charged sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Geraldine, for God's sake: Sit down and shut up. I know it must be very exciting for you to be back in the spotlight after a quarter-century away, and I'm sure you must be re-living a lot of those days through Mrs. Clinton. As I remember, you had trouble with your husband, too. Not the same kind of trouble, of course.

But let me address something: this isn't actually about you and it isn't about Obama's Rev. It's about Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, and about which of them will actually make the better president--for those of us whose chapter in history isn't already written.

And you're not helping any of us. You're not helping America, you're not helping Obama, and you're certainly not helping the woman you claim to support. All you are doing is showing that you don't know when to get the foot out of your mouth. In fact when you do, you just can't wait to shove it back in there...

"To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable," Ferraro told the Daily Breeze in an interview. "(Obama) gave a very good speech on race relations, but he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing hatred."

He didn't? Funny. I thought that's what this was:

(from Obama's speech)

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

Name-calling without context is...well, it's just name-calling without context.

And another thing:

"What (Wright) is doing is spewing that stuff out to young people and to younger people than Obama and putting it in their heads that its OK to say 'God damn America' and to beat up on white people," Ferraro told the Breeze. "You don't preach that from the pulpit."

Well...it is OK to say 'God damn America.' Its being OK is one of the symbols of our country--the land of the free, or so I've heard. Someone who was once in the running to be the proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency shouldn't have to be reminded of that.

And I admit I missed the part where Wright had told youths it was OK to beat up on white people. I kinda question whether he actually did, but if I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will send me along a relevant link.

On, and one last thing before I move on. I do think it's possible one reason that I, if not most Democrats, aren't as ruffled by the idea that Obama's Rev. said some dumb, angry things, is because I've never been under the thumb of a preacher.

And I don't judge them much, but when I do, it tends to be based upon what they do, rather than what they say. Speaking of what folks say: Is anyone saying that Rev. Wright didn't do any of the positive things Obama said he did? I tend to think not, because I tend to think I would've heard about it.

Also, like most Democrats, I believe in the separation of church and state. So I'm not really concerned about whether or not Senator Obama agrees with Wright's dumbest, angriest rhetoric (though I don't believe he does).

Unless you think he's going to pass laws changing the song to "God Damn America, land that I loathe," or legalizing the beating of white people by blacks...this should be a non-issue. Does anyone think he's going to do anything like that?

Then let's all grow up a bit and calm down, hmm?

Now to end on a more uplifting note, this item from (of all places) Middle East Online written by Brent Budowsky who, it says here:

was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and to Bill Alexander, then the chief deputy whip of the House.

Excerpts:

Almost as important as [Obama's] discussion of race was the grace he showed towards Geraldine Ferraro and the honesty he showed about the feelings of those who are white, who face forms of injustice themselves, to remedy forms of past discrimination that they themselves did not commit.

The great moral and political truth of America, as old as the battles between Jefferson and Hamilton, is the battle between those who seek to unite the disempowered and the disrespected, to achieve historic change, versus those who seek to divide them against each other, to defend a decadent status quo, to prevent historic change.

The great battles of history have been between the "uniters", who want to uplift the vast majority, versus the dividers, who want to preserve the power of the few by dividing the many against each other.

The cause of Martin Luther King is the cause of the steelworker and mill worker. The cause of Cesar Chavez is the cause of the woman denied the promotion and the soldier denied the body armor and health care. The cause of the pulpit of every denomination is the cause of the great truth that those who have should help those who have not -- not because it helps some rather than others, but because it helps the whole, which benefits us all.