Folks-Obama's religion...
You all need to stop and think about something. Black churches have been the key organizing center for the Black community since the days of slavery. In fact, in some locales during slavery, the slaves were prohibited to have their own churches, for fear that they would be used as places to meet and organize. Immediately after the end of the Civil War, when they were freed, one of the very first things that the newly freed slaves did was build their own churches.
The new Black churches were filled with people whose issues and life experiences were drastically different from the surrounding White communities. They had been made to feel different, and inferior, and had been abused in ways that no animal, let alone human should have been treated. They made their churches different, partly from need, and partly to establish their own communal identities. They did not want their churches to be just like White folks. They wanted their own churches.
In the days of the civil rights movement, (1950s, 1960s) Churches served as the organizing point for many of the efforts to obtain the rights promised in the Constitution. Churches were even bombed by White Supremecists, in an effort to derail or intimidate local civil rights pushes. During this time, some Black church leaders got a little tired of preaching "Turn the other cheek," when their parishoners were being abused and even killed. So, a degree of Afrocentrism, and militancy entered the Black church community. -And it is understandable that it did.-
Black leaders must honor this church based approach to civic organizing if they intend to lead any Black congressional district. The most vocal and powerful ministers are often the ones that adopt the most militant stances among the Black community. Black leaders must walk a line with these ministers, but it does not mean that they adopt the minister's views as a whole. Instead, they acknowledge that Black ministers have been, and continue to be extremely important in the Black community- and that if not for the efforts of Black ministers in the past, the leaders of today would not be able to exercise their civil rights on an equal basis with others in the U. S.
I think that you will find that Obama may profess a liking or admiration for a Black minister, but that Obama's own actions will be far different from that Black Minister.
Most politicians understand this dynamic, and if Black chuches are in their districts, they visit them on a regular basis. For any politician to be using this as an issue against Obama is playing the race card in a most foul manner.
AI
