Saturday, March 22, 2008

Chickens Come Home to Roost

I am angry.

Like everyone else in this country, I have heard Rev. Jeremiah Wright say "America's Chickens come home to roost" about 4 billion times. I've heard Barrack Obama talk about his white grandmother. I've watched the talking heads express disgust and shock and horror at all of it.

What I haven't seen is the context either was said in. Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post thoughtfully points out that when the chicken statement is heard in context and properly attributed, all of a sudden the disgust and shock and horror are missing. Replaced instead by a general feeling of "Can I get an Amen!" Don't believe me? Set aside 10 minutes of your life and watch the whole sermon that was hacked up and looped over and over.


Barrack Obama's speech following the media blitz of Rev Wright snippets was a powerful adult treatment of race relations likened by many, who have actually watched or listened to it in it's entirety, to speeches by Martin Luther King Jr.

I did not get to see it. You could have watched the news for 48hrs straight after the speech was given, and you wouldn't have seen it either. I was fortunate enough to read a large excerpt of it. It gave me chills. The speech is over 37 minutes long. The advice given by one pundit was sit down with your children and watch it with them. I couldn't agree more.


Context is everything. Sound bites are meaningless. Whenever you see 5 seconds of video looped over and over on CNN, Fox, etc, it should give you pause and cause you to wonder what is as Paul Harvey would say "the rest of the story"

This is not a political blog. In no way am I endorsing any candidate. (Vote Quimby) Every once in a while, the media perverts truth to such an extent people must speak out.


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