What Speech Were You Listening To?

The initial post for this blog on September 11, 2007 attempts to set the stage for the general approach that subsequent posts will take. To the point, while there are some facts and solid objects out there, they tend to be beheld through a wide variety of eyes, ears, noses, mouths, skin surfaces, experiences, beliefs, values and an array of other influences. Even more to the point, when we listen to or read someone's opinion on something, we usually learn a lot more about the opinionator than about the object of his or her attention.

Case in point: some readers read that last sentence, and thought, "Well, du-uh," and others thought, "Wow! I never realized that before. Cool!" Actually neither of these is completely true, since I'm not sure enough people read this to validate my use of the phrase "some readers."

Be all that as it may, Barack Obama spoke about race last Tuesday, and if you haven't listened to or read his speech, you can do so, respectively through the appropriate linked words in this sentence. Much has been written and spoken about the senator's speech over the past week, and my Catholic elementary school side feels a bit of guilt about adding to the cyber talk, but as I mature, I'm letting more and more of that guilt go, so here goes.

Most columnists and pundits that I've read or listened to have spoken as if the speech were a fact or a solid object--they seem to know what it means and what it is. I believe it's safe to say that Senator Obama, after lengthy preparation, vibrated his vocal cords in specific patterns, and his vibrations found our inner ears, which also vibrated, and we interpreted those vibrations according to a set of criteria that most of us don't understand ourselves. Okay, that's an oversimplification, and it ignores the transcript, but it's more-or-less true in its attempt to summarize the speaking-listening-interpreting process.

Disclaimer: I subscribe to and read the New York Times. Because lots of people think it's a prime example of "the liberal press," and lots of others think it has become too moderate--even conservative, it seems to be balanced in that it annoys people across the political spectrum. I'm going to limit my comments here to recent columns in the Times and one other source, not because the Times covers the whole spectrum (which is not my goal), but because they essentially prove that Barack Obama delivered not one, but many, many speeches on March 18.

William Kristol, whom some readers (there I go again, ever the optimist) may recall is a leading neo-conservative, architect of the Iraq War, and Chairman of the Project for the New American Century, commented on one of these March 18 speeches in his March 24 Times column. He delivered a Marc-Antony-riles-the-Plebians-against-Brutus-and-Cassius-while-seeming-to-praise-both-men type column, poking Obama with praise as "accomplished orator," "able politician," and "ambitious man," before "shuddering" at the prospect of a "heated national conversation about race," when what the country needs "are sober, results-oriented debates about economics, social mobility, education, family policy and the like — focused especially on how to help those who are struggling." As a reader, I assume that Mr. Kristol includes the Iraq debacle under "economics [how else we might spend our money], social mobility [who goes to war and who sends them], education [how, who, and to do what for whom], and family policy [especially with regard to the families of the 4,000 dead and over 20,000 maimed Americans, who served in Iraq]."

Contrast this with the speech that Maureen Dowd heard and commented on in her March 19 Times column. She begins by calling the speech she heard "[i]n many ways...momentous and edifying," but after pointing out her evidence for those adjectives, Dowd uses other modifiers--"naïve and willful," in reference to Obama's refusal at first to address the issues around Reverend Wright and Tony Rezko. She suggests that in the face of "ambivalence, ambiguity and complexity," the senator stepped down from the pedestal amid a talk on black and white, and recognized the gray area--a recognition that will, in her estimation, strengthen him as a candidate.

But strengthen him in whose hearts, eyes, and ears? While I haven't read their blogs and columns, I sense that those colorful characters featured in the Southern Poverty Law Center's Spring 2008 Intelligence Report might have heard or read a speech other than what Ms. Dowd or Mr. Kristol commented on, but as Mr. Kristol notes in his column, "Over the last several decades, we’ve done pretty well in overcoming racial barriers and prejudice. Problems remain." If I had more time, I'd spend it with those two sentences, as they come from a wealthy, powerful white guy. Suffice it to say that I'm sure the 888 active hate groups identified in the SPLC report would agree with him.

Finally, Times columnist Bob Herbert, in his March 25 Times column, calls the speech he heard "Powerful..." and suggested that it "should be required reading in classrooms across the country — and in as many other venues as possible." Herbert acknowledges that the speech was political, but also "legitmate and powerful," and that "it ought to resonate with fair-minded Americans, regardless of whether they support Mr. Obama for president," where it seems that "fair-minded" refers to Americans who heard the same speech as Mr. Herbert (as opposed to what Mr. Kristol heard, or even Ms. Dowd).

What speech did you hear or read?