Deconstructing the Problems with GWB

My first problem is that in 7 years we were unable to kill or capture Bin Laden. The U.S.A. has no excuse for that (except for gross incompetence along with no focus on the goal). 

Prior to going to Iraq many so called conservatives argued with me that we had already finished the job in Afghanistan (in 2003!), so we should now go to Iraq. It was impossible to reason with these people. Of course I did not “like” Saddam Hussein – but there was no connection between him and 9/11. Hussein was a secularist – and provided many more rights for women than were allowed in Islamist regimes. His Vice President was a Christians. 

Aside from that, Iraq (like Yugoslavia) was an artificial country with many delicate balances that could easily fall apart. It was unclear to me how “everything changed” after 9/11 to the extent that GHWB’s book written 5 years earlier fully explaining why invading Iraq would be a mistake. 

Apparently, neocons convinced dummy GWB that we would be greeted as liberators – and a thriving democracy would develop. Nobody bothered to explain that Iraq had no history of democracy and it could end up being dominated by the only other country in the world with a majority Shiite Muslim population (Iran) which has a bigger population and would likely have a much stronger army after we invaded. The Neocons had an answer: Chalabi. Chalabi was going to be a combination George Washington and Charles DeGaul.

The war was expected to cost nothing. Oil funds would be used to reconstruct Iraq. By the way, the plan was to get rid of all Baath party officials in all government employment (sorry about that Police, Army, Roads, Water, Sewer Electricity and Garbage).

So, America invaded – and spent perhaps $1,000,000,000,000 in the process (in 2004 I was ridiculed for suggesting that it might costs more than $200,000,000,000).

Many historical functions that were performed by the military was channeled to private contractors – creating a huge conflict as to policy.

By the way, prior to the Iraq war Iraq actually had a lot of Christians – guess where most of them are now? Either: (1) dead or (2) refugees.   Guess what else? Many of their churches (some 1000 years old) have been blown up. Earlier this year a bishop was kidnapped a murdered. GWB cared very little about these issues.

After a few years of grave stupidity, the Bush administration figured out that many people joined the Baath party to simply get along with the government (I guess they did not know that Saddam also killed many people from that party). The Baath party, for a party in the Arab world, was hardly a radical party.

Even today, Iraq does not have the electrical plants, water, sewage and garbage collection that it once did.

So, was this really worth the $1,000,000,000,000. The government simply could have gotten rid of Saddam with the right behind the scenes move (a la Allende in Chile) had it wanted an ally in Iraq. Saddam had made plenty of enemies – the promise of lifted trade sanctions, special forces help, and $100,000,000,000 in aid would have convinced a handful of generals to do what we screwed up.

Today, Iraq now has more sharia law – less rights for women and it largely bans alcohol. Not exactly a success story.

Oh yeah, Bin Laden does not matter (as per GWB in 2004). If Bin Laden does not matter, why not just let every criminal out of prison?

Aside from all of the poor Iraq decisions, the administration’s decision to label people traitors and to demonize any and all who questioned the administration was another breath of fresh air.

GWB had no control whatsoever over spending – largely because of Iraq, but also because of the Medicare prescription drug bill – which is largely simply a hand out to big pharma. Why again does the VA and various Medicaid programs try to negotiate with drug companies, but these policies will not? Also, the rules and coverage issues change so much from year to year, how can someone actually make an informed choice?

Also on medical care, why is it that people who never have worked, criminals and illegal immigrants are covered for medical conditions in this country – but someone who is middle class and loses a job – so has to chose between paying a child’s college tuition or medical care – if they have a heart attack – they lose all of the money they have saved up – while the homeless criminal pays nothing for the same care?

All Americans should have entitlement to Medicaid (not just the poor, criminals or aliens). The program should not be an ideal program ever – but it should ensure that serious problems don’t get worse and people do not die unnecessarily.

The private market then can actually provide valuable medical coverage (something better than the bottom Medicaid). As it is now, many programs are actually no better than Medicaid.

Those who say our medical care would get worse are simply wrong and negative. Those who think our taxes would have to go up are also wrong (why do we already spend more on government provided health care per capita than most rich countries who provide national health insurance).   A good model might be looked upon as Germany’s health care. In Germany about 1/3 costs are private; 2/3 are government (in the U.S. it is 50% each). Nobody would purchase coverage that gives nothing more than what the “free” plan would provide. So competition, would provide something better then the basic – the same reason many people send children to private schools.

Anyway, Bush did nothing to correct this problem. Instead, he and conservatives studied it as a freemarket issue.

Heathcare is incredibly regulated. For example, it is very hard to become a doctor, or set up a medical facility. Even if someone in the medical profession (such as a nurse) invented some wonderful new procedure that person could not perform that procedure. The Drug industry is a mess – doctors prescribe drugs sometimes because they are afraid (especially because they do not want to prescribe pain meds) so instead they prescribe drugs like Vioxx (drug companies make big money – but people die).

One of the reasons countries with socialized medicine obtain results comparable to America is because doctors tend not to prescribe expensive (often unnecessary) meds – instead they give cheap opiate based pain meds (many countries sell them over the counter).

Also, there is a public effort to keep people healthy (at a good weight, not smoking or drinking to excess).

I would love it if someone could by-pass medical school and take a few exams to become a general practitioner (or family medicine doctor) – it would also be nice if people could decide what medicines that they need. Such ideas would actually be compatible with a free market. Total market regulation is not.

GWB did nothing to try to keep our manufacturing base. While some people blame unions and others blame companies, the blame is largely with the U.S. government. Our governmental policies were responsible for medical costs being more than double the rate of inflation from 1980 to 2000. Guess what happened?   That destroyed the U.S. owned auto manufacturers. The unions and companies had no way of knowing that things would go so out of whack – but they did.

Foreign companies – which do not have huge retiree numbers and also started building cars here mostly after the 1980s – have done fine in America. It is not the “lazy worker” or even evil “unions” – these costs are out of hand. Sadly they are about to destroy a critical industry.

People too easily forget that we only won WWII because we had so many auto plants that could easily be converted to tank, plane and bomb production.

Also on trade, GWB pushed for cheap food from places (especially China and Mexico). Our government for nearly 100 years has done a pretty good job with inspection our food production – it cannot do this in either China or Mexico. 

Pretty soon we are going to be unable to even feed ourselves. Check out how much food in now foreign made – 10 years ago it was unheard of.

How strict do you suppose the chemical use is in those countries? What kind of hygienic conditions exist in Chinese food plants.

Money Came First for Bush

Instead of trying to cut back political correctness or racial quotas, Bush spent all his chits on the war – so he did little to try to change these policies.

In fact, Bush pushed for more immigration. Invariably, this leads to the “quota” issue since for whatever reason “Hispanics” irrespective of racial or cultural background, benefit from preferential treatment. (I was competing for a grad school spot with someone from Costa Rica who was a millionaire, was a non-citizen, whose sister had blond hair and blue eyes, had worse grades and test scores than I did – I was not admitted to that program – he received a full scholarship). Some would say it is “bitter” to complain about such things – I submit it is wrong to cower and accept such unfair and wrong policies.

Bush was apparently too stupid to understand that if you increase the numbers of a so called group “Hispanics” – and they only vote about 30 to 40 percent for your party, you have less of a chance to win future elections.

As far as the goal of simply fair and equal treatment for everyone – that will never happen in my lifetime. Things are way too screwed up and so many government and university jobs are predicated on those policies, they never will go away.

By the way, you are a racist for questioning these policies.

George, thanks again for your wise stewardship.

Take my word for it; there never was a “white conspiracy.”

Let us examine the “white conspiracy” theories. When did this exactly occur? Certainly it was not occurring during WWII or WWI (where millions of “whites” died). Did it really exist in America? The Klan used to protest against Catholics as well as blacks and Jews – so 2/3 of the groups they opposed were also “white.”

Certainly, petty discrimination by so called “whites” against blacks occurred (like in the American South or in South Africa). However, this policy was never designed to kill or commit genocide.

Grouping “whites” together is racist. “We” whites do not have a singular history. Indeed, some of us “whites” like Barack Obama had black slaves.   Certainly, Germans had a negative history in the 20^th century.

I have yet to ever hear anyone who is Jewish blame “all whites” for Nazism. Indeed, usually there is not even a universal condemnation of all Germans because some Germans dissented from such policies (Schindler, Bonhoeffer).

All children are taught this revisionist history. It does not matter what someone’s actual history is – it does not matter who held slaves. Few care about racial incidents where “whites” are victimized be it Reginald Denny or the Duke Lacrosse players. All that is needed as a defense is “black rage” – like that used by Colin Ferguson.

In my lifetime, it has definitely gotten worse. 20 years ago, it was possible to challenge people who make blanket false assertions. Today, political correctness has a stranglehold in both academia and the government. Thus, most colleges have no white male moderate to conservative professors in any liberal arts fields.

Does history matter?

After World War II, when East Germany was created, the Stalinist East German propaganda machine created the fiction that the Nazis were all West Germans. While it may have been true that some of those who were enemies of the German Third Reich became powerful in East Germany – but it was simply factually untrue to claim that the Nazi’s were from the West.

The Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the world have constantly pressed for the historical wrongs that happened to blacks in America. A particular figure that they frequently cite is 300 years of discrimination. Of course, some slaves did not even get to America until the early 19^th Century – so by that very fact the years are cut in half.

So, what of Obama’s connection to slavery? It is true that he had multiple slaveholding ancestors – unlike me. It is also true that his mother was of mostly English heritage. While I do have some very remote English heritage (albeit of people who most recently religious minorities) it is not nearly the degree of Obama’s English heritage.

So, comparing myself with Obama, his ancestors for hundreds of years deprived my ancestors of life, liberty and property. Also, his ancestors were involved in the attempt to wipe out Ireland’s primary religion. 

The English domination of Ireland existed more than 800 years (compare again to the years of slavery). In various times, in multiple centuries, the English either directly or indirectly attempted to kill and starve the Irish. The Irish themselves were enslaved by the English and sent to the Caribbean (particularly Barbados) and the New World.

During both the 17^th Century and the 19^th Century significant percentages of Irish were killed due to English policy. 

Observers at the time considered the treatment of Irish worse than black slaves or American Indians. 

For petty offenses, for decades Irish were deported to Australia – a trip much further than West Africa to the Americas.

All over Ireland, there are mass graves.

Today, none of this matters in America. All whites are the same (if you believe the history books in our schools). 

The sickness of political correctness has stolen our history. America’s history is full of the Irish experience. There are significantly more Irish Americans than there are people in Ireland (this is yet another huge factual reality). In one West African country today – Nigeria – there are more than 5 times more black Africans than in the U.S.

In rough numbers, there are similar numbers of Irish Americans and descendents of black Slaves (of course, some people have both heritages). Though children for years, and years and years are taught about the unfairness of slavery – this part of our history is ignored.

Do you think any professor in a public university is permitted to say such facts? Think again. In our public universities, professors cannot even question the wisdom of racial quotas and political correctness.

What does diversity mean?

To some extent, there is a little bit diversity in “black America” as a result of recent immigration from Africa and earlier immigration from the Caribbean. Those of primary black Ancestry are really not as “diverse” as many other ethnic and racial groups.

For example, most black Americans have primarily heritage from sub-Saharan Western Africa (from places known today such as Angola, Nigeria or Liberia). Also, because of slavery itself, many of these different groupings lost importance over time (like many “white” people whose ancestors came to the U.S. over 100 years ago who can sometimes be of part English, German, Dutch, Swedish and Scots heritage – which can kind of negate an “individual heritage”).

Many so called white people still DO retain heritage related to their ethnicity. This is especially true with groups such as the Irish, Greeks, Italians and Polish – but it is by no means exclusive to these groups.

So, picking 10 random “white” people is likely to get you maybe 2 Irish Catholics, 2 Germans (perhaps one Protestant, one Catholic), a mixed English/Scotsman, one full Italian and one half Italian, half French, someone Pole, a Greek and a Swede. In many cases these groups are quite different – they speak totally different languages – have different religions and very different histories.

But even when you go further into “white” history – you can find groups that were eager and successful colonists (the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French and Dutch in particular) along with groups who were constantly under siege (like Sorbs, Estonians and the Rusyns). Many groups never had any “new world” immigration in large numbers until the 20^th century (like Albanians, Russian, Italians, etc.).

Picking 10 random black people will likely cause about 8 people being pretty similar in background (originally from the South [or still residing in the South], of primarily West African Ancestry mixed with perhaps ¼  ancestry from the British Isles or France. Perhaps one will have little to no European heritage (for example Gullah people like Clarence Thomas who actually retain African languages) perhaps one will be either originally from Haiti or Jamaica.

Anyway, “white people” (which at this point has been a point of such historical distortion and misuse that I would like it to be relegated to where “colored” has been sent) have very “diverse” histories – in many cases where they did not cross paths with black slavery or discrimination.

Of course, the strange new racial term “Asian” which could conceivably cover people who are white Caucasians (since that region is actually in Asia) to all Jews, all Asiatic Indians, Koreans and Syrians – is even more “diverse” – though in raw numbers all “Asian groups” remain for now a relatively small combined minority.

I even suspect that at somepoint Obama himself might say that "I only got elected because I was not really black (biracial and NOT West African)."

I have heard some of the most bizarre excuses for the Jeremiah Wright association (all whites did this, and did that and created AIDS to kill blacks) -- yet it was really fine for most Americans that Obama slammed both his grandmother and Geraldine Ferraro -- for doing something that a "person of color" would have no problem doing.

Few if any blacks have any concept that the petty unfair treatment that they sufferred (along with probably thousands of murders) really does not amount to much compared to what happened to Irish (and off and on again 800 year campaign where millions were starved and those who lived in conditions unfit for animals let alone slaves).

Personally, for my ancestors who sufferred -- who amount to about 50% of my heritage (the other 50% did not fare that much better in Ireland -- but they at least did not suffer to extent they did in Mayo) -- cry out to the constant slanders, blanket statements and lies told by Obama. 

Top 10 things that might end racism in America

1.)    Make efforts to deport anyone who has more than two slaveholding ancestors from America (that way some other country would have to deal with both Obama and McLame).

2.)    All crimes where victim and perpetrator were of different races would be presumed to be hate crimes (but would be potentially something that could be rebutted). Jesse Jackson would have a fit with this.

3.)    Actually teach the truth of what happened to the Irish from 1600 to 1900 (the mass genocides, slavery, deportations to Australia on Prison ships would be highlighted).

4.)    Compare and contrast what the Americans did to those of Japanese ancestry (who had to live in camps with their family and were clothed, fed and received medical treatment) with what happened to American POWs in Japanese hands (give particular attention to the medical and biological/chemical experimentation on live victims).

5.)    Let everyone who says that “you white people” did things to them be subjected to a choice of living as a typical Ukranian in the 1930s, an Irishman in the 1840s or an Armenian in the 1910s for a couple of months.

6.)    Let everyone who makes racial comments about "typical white people" be forced to learn about the multitude of cultures that exist in Europe and West Asia.

7.)    When people talk about the hardships of “Hispanics” let us remind people that Hispanics participated more in the slavetrade than any other European Group  (on this note instead accomodating Spanish speaking of Mexicansof pushing American Indian Mexicans [who constitute the vast majority of Mexican illegal aliens] to learn tribal languages.

8.)    Put a non-white person in “make-up” and drop them off in the middle of Down Town Washington, DC or Detroit and see what might happen/

9.)     Let someone explain to people in Sudan or Rwanda how the atrocities that happened there were the fault of the “whites.”

10.) Explain exactly how “the white man” was able to create nuclear weapons, germ war-fair in WWI, and has at its disposal all sorts of biological agents – but when they tried to kill “people of color” with AIDS, they failed miserably.

The majority values that exist in America are pathetic. No matter what your family history is, no matter how much money you have, no matter whether or not you are an American citizen or not, you are cursed with second class treatment in this country. Due to nothing more than skin color (“whiteness”) people suffer discrimination. It matters not that Italians, Russians or Estonians were not involved in the black slave trade – and did not really even live in America prior to the civil war.

On the other hand, if someone is of Spanish or Portuguese heritage – and even if they were involved with the slave trade (probably the Portuguese per person were the largest slave trade given the number of slaves transported to Brazil) – such a person is a “minority” who receives preferential treatment.

Slaves were held by few people. Slaves, though mistreated, but they were fed and thrived in America. That is, their numbers went up – unlike the Irish – even today Ireland has a smaller population than in 1840. 

A French Historian, who had observed the condition of slaves in America, Indians in America along with the Irish (before an gorta mor “The Famine”):

Gustave de Beaumont (b. February 6, 1802 in Beaumont-la-Chartre, France, d. March 30, 1865 in Paris, France) was a French magistrate, prison reformer, and travel companion to the famed philosopher and politician Alexis de Tocqueville. He visited Ireland in the mid-1830s. In his "Ireland: Social, Political and Religious", 1839 he writes about the state of the Irish. As an objective observer, neither English nor Irish, his observations are invaluable for an unbiased view of living conditions in Ireland at that time:
"I have seen the Indian in his forests, and the negro in his chains, and thought, as I contemplated their pitiable condition, that I saw the very extreme of human wretchedness; but I did not then know the condition of unfortunate Ireland. Like the Indian, the Irishman is poor and naked; but he lives in the midst of a society where luxury is eagerly sought, and where wealth is honoured. Like the Indian, he is destitute of the physical comforts which human industry and the commerce of nations procure; but he sees a part of his fellows enjoying the comforts to which he cannot aspire. In the midst of his greatest distress, the Indian preserves a certain independence, which has its dignity and its charms. Though indigent and famished, he is still free in his deserts, and the sense of this liberty alleviates many of his sufferings: the Irishman undergoes the same destitution without possessing the same liberty; he is subject to rules and restrictions of every sort: he is dying of hunger, and restrained by law; a sad condition, which unites all the vices of civilization to all those of savage life. Without doubt, the Irishman who is about to break his chains, and has faith in futurity, is not quite so much to be bewailed as the Indian or the slave. Still, at the present day, he has neither the liberty of the savage, nor the bread of servitude.

I will not undertake to describe all the circumstances and all the phases of Irish misery; from the condition of the small farmer, who starves himself that his children may have something to eat, down to the labourer, who, less miserable but more degraded, has recourse to mendicancy - from resigned indigence, which is silent in the midst of its sufferings, and sacrifices to that which revolts, and in its violence proceeds to crime.
Irish poverty has a special and exceptional character, which renders its definition difficult, because it can be compared with no other indigence. Irish misery forms a type by itself, of which neither the model nor the imitation can be found anywhere else.
In all countries, more or less, paupers may be discovered; but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland. To explain the social condition of such a country, it would be only necessary to recount its miseries and its sufferings; the history of the poor is the history of Ireland."

Who needs the elitist “conservatives” who have endorsed Obama?

Ultimately, these people chose culture ahead of political viewpoints.

Have you ever heard these people “talk” – do they sound like most Americans? No. Do they act or do things that most Americans do? No. They are book party, country club elitist who appreciate Harvard connections above the real world struggles of a place like Alaska – or even most counties of America.

How would I know this? Fortunately, or unfortunately, I grew up in one of the wealthiest places in America. I knew people like Christopher Buckley, Peggy Noonan and David Brooks. They believe that an obscure reference to literary figure from 200 years ago is more pertinent knowledge than knowing how to change oil in a car – which it is not.

I knew leftists like Barack Obama – and I knew kids from the ghetto. Obama was nothing like the ghetto kids. Actually, middle class kids often had more in common with ghetto kids than the elitists.

For these elitists, life is about cocktail presentations, country club functions and Woody Allen movies. Debating weird (and ultimately questionable) educational references is something these people love. 

Ask yourself this question: Are these elitists even like Henry Ford or Thomas Edison – no. Those people were practical can do people. 

These elitists know nothing about farming, construction, auto mechanics – and a whole host of everyday practical pieces of knowledge that make America function.

These people are frequently employed in areas where their value is questionable. Take for example liberal arts programs in universities. The internet has made much of their work no longer necessary – and their prejudiced and close-minded viewpoints are not good for much else.

So, why do they hate Sarah Palin? I doubt she knows literary references. She might not know much about a cotillion. Yet, she knows how to put food on the table (hunting) and how to heat a house and provide fuel for a car (oil production). Elitists usually know little if nothing about practical issues. Ultimately, these issues are much more important to understand governing than knowledge about French literature or modern architecture.   Policies have important effects on food production, energy issues and the like – not whether Frank Lloyd Wright is a great architect.

I never liked having these people on “the side” of conservatives. In fact, I found myself at odds with these people more than I agreed with them. I never liked their condescending tone – especially because it was based on superficial “knowledge.”

More often than not, these people just “parrot” other elitists’ opinions. Hence, Christopher Buckley quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes comments about FDR. 

Most regular people understand that these vapid comments have no real intellectual value.

This quote is taken from a description of Obama's first year of college, when he self-consciously cultivated an identity of angry rebelliousness, a phase he grows out of. Here's the fuller quote:

"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints. ... But this strategy alone couldn't provide the distance I wanted … After all, there were thousands of so-called campus radicals, most of them white and tenured and happily tolerated. No, it remained necessary to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names."

We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

It is especially important that Obama discuss slavery since his relatives held black slaves – and were not black slaves. He is in a good position here to lecture us white people.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

I appreciate this acknowledgment concerning his wife also being a descendant of slaveowners. Shouldn’t someone maybe be giving a speech like this not have this baggage? Isn’t this a little bit like Adolf Eichmann’s children lecturing about the Holocaust.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

Yeah – I am sure that most pastors, priests and rabbis use the “n” word in a sermon – claim that the U.S. government created AIDS and fixated on “white” people.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

Ask yourself this question – would someone be able to finish high school without “getting” what Wright stands for? Basically, someone would have to be mentally retarded to not perceive what Wright sands for. By the way – it is great for you to expose your young daughters to this sick man.

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

I am sure David Duke is a nice guy too – Hitler liked his dogs. I appreciate that Obama mentions HIV/AIDS since Wright claims that the U.S. Government created that disease to kill people of color like Rock Hudson, Liberace and Waylon Flowers.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

I actually have been to black churches where there is no fixation on “whites” or the U.S. Government and they do not use the “n” word. Guess what – they really do not talk much about politics either. I have never seen any black preacher act the way Wright acts.

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

Yeah – great idea to encourage bigotry. Anyway, why don’t they go after Obama – his family actually held slaves – I guess that is because such hatred, while probably not positive, would have some basis in reality – kind of like Irish people who do not like English, or Jews who don’t like Germans. Why focus on “white people” – what did “white people” ever do to “black people.” Many "white people" have never been out of Europe.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

Wright is singularly the strongest influence on Obama – he is being pretty honest here.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

I suppose Obama would think that it would be racist for a white person to be afraid to go into a ghetto at night – but would he think that it would be racist for a 1960s black person to drive from New York to Alabama? Of course not, that is different – one type of person deserves to care about self-preservation – the other should be denied that fundamental right. By the way, didn’t Jesse Jackson say something just like Obama’s racist granny. Kudos to Obama for also exposing his grandmother as a racist – nice work.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

Great job! Now Geraldine Ferraro is a racist for stating a simple obvious point – Obama got where he was (being only a U.S. Senator for 3 ½ years and being a front-runner for President) because he was black. What percent of the black vote did Obama get again? What percent of the Democratic electorate is black in many states (sometimes as much as 50%). 

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

I agree, Wright should not be accountable for his actions – just like Michael Richards shouldn’t either – nor should Trent Lott – oops, I forgot “all people are equal, only some are more equal than others”

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

This particularly disgusts me. While my family was starving in the West of Ireland this jackass had relatives who had black slaves.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

So, are you going to accept some responsibility for this Mr. Obama? I certainly will not – my relatives were NOT slaveholders – neither were my wife’s – nor my child’s. In fact, many of them were not lucky enough to live in America during the 19^th Century.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

More than anything, leftists like Wright are responsible for the gap. The Irish were persecuted for 800 years, at varying times lost half of its population to murder and starvation, lost their native tongue – but guess what – they make a lot more money than the English today. You know why? Hard work and persistence. 

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

The Irish had it worse – for many, many more years.

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.

Is this supposed to be an explanation for why Obama’s father left him? How does Obama have any connection to this other than as a casual observer?

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.

Keep feeling sorry for yourself, that’s the ticket. Why not study present day Sudan, Rwanda of the 1990s, Cambodia of the 1970s, Germany in 1945, Ukraine of the 1930s, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire from 1900 to 1920 and Ireland from 1600 to 1900?

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.

I had a great uncle murdered in a racial incident by blacks in the 1960s (when he was about 60 years old). Nobody brought me up to hate anyone or want to be racist – isn’t violence the worst form of racism?

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

Obama is lying here – and defaming blacks – better yet descendants of American slaves from West Africa (to which he has no connection).   Obama is being a bigot here. It would be like me (a non-Italian) claiming that all Italians are in the mob.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Obama is on to something here. But, should he be lecturing “us” on this point? Again, he is not a descendant of slaves or a product of Jim Crow America. Personally, I am beyond tired of people like Obama and Wright desecrating the memory of my ancestors who had real struggles – and had no black slaves.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

I suppose it is too much to ask for equal treatment and equal opportunity. After all, all of my family got goodies for being “white” – oops, I guess they did not. Yeah, but we did live down South – oops, I guess they did not. Yeah, but those who were here (who weren’t even American citizens yet) did fight for the Confederates – oops, that was the Union.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – 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. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

No – we “whites” deserve equal treatment – that is non-negotiable. We also deserve not to be blamed for slavery – the Obamas need to accept their family responsibility for this evil – and apologize for trying to link any white person and his family to slavery.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

Not much of a stalemate. Ask the Duke Lacrosse players about the “stalemate.” Ask about any government job, admissions to college – mandatory government contracting. One group has an advantage – but merely stating the truth is “racist.”

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

I don’t need a descendant of slaveowners to lecture me about how I need to work together with him – when he is insulting me for my skin color.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

Yes, Wright is quite the staid stogy conservative. He hardly ever uses the “n” word in his sermons. By the way, Wright has a lot more money than I have.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

Did it take Obama 20 years to figure this out? Is Obama retarded? It would take about a 2 minute discussion with Wright to know where he stands. He is not shy about his beliefs.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

I am trying to figure this out – is Obama claiming that any person with white skin needs to acknowledge the harm they have done to blacks? Didn’t Obama’s family have slaves – not mine.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

Also, we need to demand that our government stops inventing diseases like AIDS to kill “people of color.”

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But we are not allowed to. McCain is so lame that he was afraid of being called a racist for bringing this up. Obama is either profoundly stupid – or he is a radical bigot. I pick the latter.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

I would like my children to get treated the same as other children – no preferential treatment, no political correctness, no lecturing about the evils of white skin – no more excusing black on white crime.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

Here Obama is essentially saying that illegal immigration should be permitted – it is unreasonable to be concerned about the problems associated with that.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Obama couldn’t resist showing how whites are racist here.  Obama is the person who needs to lecture us about race – he is “The One.”

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

Look, I suppose this is a nice point – but I have had friends of all races and religions for more than 35 years (and I am not even 40 yet).

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Unfortunately, most Americans consider slavery and the treatment of black Americans historically unique. As part of this, all “white people” are taught “white guilt” by the media and by schools. The fact is that while blacks were mistreated in this country, many other ethnicities suffered more horrible fates during that same era (say from 1600 to 1980). Even slavery itself is hardly unique.

It is simply a fact that North Africans (who admittedly are not “black”) enslaved perhaps millions of Europeans. The Irish were common victims of this practice. 

In one well known example, in 1631 the entire Irish village of Baltimore was captured and sold into slavery by African Barbary Pirates.

America does not have lots of Irish people simply because the Irish wanted a “better life” like other immigrants, many came to escape systematic starvation and murder. Ireland is a unique country in that the vast majority of Irish people do not live in Ireland – that is not true of the French, Swedes, Japanese or Germans.

Here is a easily understood example, Germany has a population roughly 15 times that of Ireland – yet the number of German Americans and Irish Americans is roughly similar.

Irish oppression began to take its most serious stake in the years of Cromwell rule – from 1641 to 1653. One historian Sir William Petty, estimated that more than half of all Irish died during that 12 year span. 

Some historians claim that about 600,000 died – which would have constituted perhaps 1/3+ of the Irish. 

Another historian claims that Ireland’s population decreased from as much as about 2,000,000 people down to about 850,000 – roughly a loss of perhaps 60%.

Putting this in perspective, historians estimate that at most about 1/3 of all Jews were killed by the Germans during WWII.

Unfortunately, nobody seems to care about what happened under Cromwell. However, when “whites” are universally charged with oppression it is an insult to the memory of these people who suffered.

Of course, Irish were also taken into slavery during that era – slavery that happened in the Colonies and the Caribbean.

Here are some of the estimates of that horrible situation.

A common estimate is that in excess of 50,000 Irish were transported to Barbados and Virginia from 1652 until 1659 – this meant that perhaps as many as 10% or all Irish were shipped to slavery.

First, many Irish were forcibly sent to the poorest part of Ireland for farming – the province of Connaught. These people paid a heavy price – a price that repeated itself 200 years later. Perhaps 50% of my ancestors are from that part of Ireland – so the story of suffering needs to be remembered and told by me to honor my ancestors memory.

The writer Sean O’Callaghan wrote a detailed referenced book called “To Hell or Barbados: the ethnic cleansing of Ireland” – the records and stories are what they are – and they should not be ignored or dismissed.

Here are some of the noteworthy examples:

Almost from the earliest days of the settlement of Barbados, the (Irish) indentured servants were treated as little more than slaves.

When captured, the Irish were branded (like animals) with the initials of the ship that would take them across the ocean.

The Irish being put on slave ships was described as being given tattered rags to wear, being flogged with rods and being branded like sheep on their skin and flesh – this was observed by a Roman Catholic Italian Cardinal, Cardinal Rinuccini, when he was in Ireland.

The general assumption is that they were treated exactly the same as African Slaves since in many cases they were sent on the same ships as those who took slaves from Africa. Upon arrival to Barbados, Irish slaves were again branded with their owner’s initials in either the forearm (women) or buttocks (men). The Irish worked usually under the whip of mixed race slaves in Barbados.

Black historian and editor of Ebony Lerone Bennett magazine wrote the following of the Irish slave trade:

They came, these Christian demi-slaves, the same way blacks came…there were striking similarities between the Irish slave trade and the black slave trade.

Even to this day there are a few descendants of Irish slaves that live on Barbados called red legs – some still remain in Jamaica as well.

Certainly, the Irish slave trade involved fewer people – but how was it different? It really was not. Also, keep in mind that it involved a high percent of the total number of Irish people.

Whenever people say that “white people” exploited the “black people” it is no better than spitting in the face of these people who suffered.

In England as recently as 40 years ago it was commonplace for people to have signs in their shops that said “No Irish, no blacks, no dogs.”

Due to systematic murder and discrimination, the Irish have largely lost their native language. All people of significant Irish ancestry owe it to our ancestors to try to learn some Irish and pass it on to your children.

On behalf of my Irish ancestors, I am not looking for reparations – nor do I wish to subject the English living today to similar treatment. Nevertheless, any University professor who engages in the willful omission of this history by accusing all “white people” as being guilty of racism should be permanently unemployed.

Obama has chosen to ally himself to many people who push for a “white guilt” agenda – which is why he does not deserve to be elevated to President. Obama does not have the excuse of “ignorance” – he went to Harvard Law School.

Obama also believes he has the right to lecture us about the racism of his “white grandmother” and Geraldine Ferraro. There is no question that Obama believes “white people” and “black people” should be governed by different standards and rules. Unfortunately, most Americans agree – which is precisely why no white politician would have any shot at the presidency if they attended a radical church for 20 years where the preacher commonly would attack America (God Damn America) and would make up historical points like the U.S. government created AIDS to kill “people of color.”

To Obama and his cohorts history does not matter – so if Mars had two different types of people – white and black-- if those people came to America the “black people” would be entitled to preferential treatment and the “white people” would need to be lectured about “white guilt.”