is that all you can think of? "It will kill us in the GE"

how about the stain of slavery is still not gone in some neighborhoods, like the corridor of shame in South Carolina?

Take a cue from your candidate, don't try and use this issue for political gain. There's too much pain behind the anger.

I agree.  Obama needs to step down now, and wait until 2012 to take the reins from hillary.  He's unelectable at this point.

He's simply not ready for the job.  I can't believe he actually thought he could get through the vetting of a US prez election without this stuff coming out.

Yea seriously I'm a Clinton supporter but the degree of conservativeness and anti-leftist perspective of Clinton supporters at the moment is appalling me.

We should not be scared to speak our minds and/or bring up issues for fear of bullies. The diarist did not make any comments.  S/he merely put Cone's own words up there and let people drawn their own conclusion from them/about them.  CardBoard can come and bring it on.

I'm not saying diaries like this should be banned, but my goodness, this ignorance is astounding coming from Democrats.

To lack so little understanding and compassion for a race of people who were enslaved and segregated for this nation's history, and to use the angry voices in the black community to smear the first viable black candidate with the same brush, is a disgrace.

I've never seen this before.

So you knew about this?  About this doctrine?  You knew about it and kept silent?

You enabled these racists?  

That is despicable.

I never thought I'd see the day that progressives keep silent about gross racism in our midst.

That's an explanation--not a sufficient excuse.

" He is a biracial man who wanted to get ahead in Chicago politics. He needed the votes of those in those churches. Doesn't mean he had to agree with it. But it does mean, if he didnt go there, they would never have voted him in and we would never have the Obama we have today."

For a very long time in the deep south it was true that only a politician who agreed with racist bigotry against blacks could get elected, and attendance and membership in racist groups was mandatory to get the support of the southern white citizenry. They would use violence against anyone who resisted their demands.

This did not change until people bravely stood up against it, and made their disagreement with the bigotry loudly apparent. That is what it takes to defeat bigotry - standing up and confronting it.

Obama sat there quietly in TUCC and likely slightly nodded at the "controversial sermons" for 20 years, to keep people comfortable with his membership in this group. I wasn't there so I cannot say with 100% assurance, but most of us are familiar with the peer pressure exerted by a passionate, intense. and intimate group talking about an issue of great importance to them, and it doesn't seem possible for a family to sit in such a group in silent disagreement with the intensity of that type of process. If they did, it was an act of incredible, prolonged duplicity that in and of itself is frightening.

Obama has been accused in the past of a remarkable number of "Present" votes on important issues. The issue of hate speech and racism is, for me, much too important to accept that he voted "present" for 20 years in this church.

I was raised in a family that absolutely did not tolerate any racist talk - not by friends, neighbors, or family. If they were racist, they were not permitted in our home, and they were confronted swiftly, without hesitation. This is one issue where if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." That is how America has changed and improved it's attitudes toward civil rights over the past 40 years, only by people confronting and refusing to accept racism as a tolerable position. Confronting people, making boundaries and limits on their behavior, and confronting transgressions consistently helps change our society in the direction of justice and fairness. Silence is tacit approval.

Complicity in racism for political gains does not justify one's actions.

When people joined the Nazi party in Germany because of politics and then tried to divorce themselves from the beliefs of the Nazi party that didn't fly either.

And I know this has become a quaint saying but I firmly believe IF YOU CLAIM TO REPRESENT A HIGHER STANDARD AND GAIN POLITICAL BENEFITS FROM YOUR HIGHER STANDARD YOU SHOULD BE HELD TO THIS HIGHER STANDARD.

That is to say don't run on a campaign centered on change and then say "well everyone else was doing it"  I think that's more than fair

routerdude

"what is the connection between this book and the Obama campaign?

Obama is an outspoken adherent of BLT.  Of course, he was most likely politically posturing for the local AA population when he made the claim.

Regardless, its a very relevant question, considering that Obama wants to 'unite' us and 'heal' our racial wounds.

That's very smart of you.  It must hard to find the right words to defend racism.

However, I'm also one of those increasingly rare animals that think Barack Obama would make a great president (probably not as effective as Hillary, but that's another post).
I can certainly say that phrase sounds racist when taken out of context. However, once you glean a basic understanding of what black theology actually is, and that when talking about black and white, it's not talking about skin color, you realize it's a progressive view rather than a racist one.
The only part I have problems with is Cone's acceptance of violence as a means to an end.

Revolution and Violence. I would be remiss to close this discussion of James Cone without noting his views on revolution and violence. Cone defines liberation as the "emancipation of black people from white oppression by whatever means black people deem necessary."[42] This definition would seem to allow for the use of violence.

Cone does not advocate armed revolution against white society. But some violence, he says, seems unavoidable. He points out that "the Christian does not decide between violence and nonviolence, evil and good. He decides between the lesser and the greater evil. He must ponder whether revolutionary violence is less or more deplorable than the violence perpetuated by the system."[43] Injustice, slave labor, hunger, and exploitation are all violent forms that must be considered against the cost of revolutionary violence.

http://home.earthlink.net/~ronrhodes/Bla ckTheology.html

Come on! Reading is hard! It's MUCH easier to take the one paragraph and quote that to denigrate the guy.

It's made all that much easier since Newsmax has already done the requisite distorting!

"Maybe you should do some more reading, and come back when you have a better grip on the subject."

Maybe you should try to be a little more realistic, and not sound so naive.

There is no context where this phrase could be considered anything but horribly racist.