On the way home yesterday, I mistakenly flipped to the local conservative radio mouthpiece here in Atlanta, WSB (home of Kneel Boortz). Sean Hannity was running ads for a special Friday Night edition of "Hannity's America" featuring...."Why was Obama at the Million Man March, organized by Louis Farrakhan?"
It's easy to see where this is going--regardless of the intent of that march, this is continued guilt by association.
The Million Man March was led by the Nation of Islam, a rather unfortunate name if nothing else. The march was an effort to motivate historically-disadvantaged men to take personal responsibility, but you'd never know that by what the Far Wrong has to say about it.
Now, as then, the right wants to make it more about the man than the message. More about Farrakhan's infamous views than about the good he was trying to do. However, with Fox News as the megaphone, the message of hatred and misunderstanding and misrepresentation is gaining a much wider audience than it did then.
Some are suggesting Obama has lifted speech material from Farrakhan. Perhaps more troubling is the suggestion that Barack was involved in organizing the event with Farrakhan, per Biography.com:
In 1995, along with other prominent black leaders such as Al Sharpton and Barack Obama, Farrakhan helped lead the Million Man March on Washington.
A Chicago Reader article about the event puts Obama's position in better perspective:
"But what was lacking among march organizers was a positive agenda, a coherent agenda for change. Without this agenda a lot of this energy is going to dissipate. Just as holding hands and singing 'We shall overcome' is not going to do it, exhorting youth to have pride in their race, give up drugs and crime, is not going to do it if we can't find jobs and futures for the 50 percent of black youth who are unemployed, underemployed, and full of bitterness and rage.
"Exhortations are not enough, nor are the notions that we can create a black economy within America that is hermetically sealed from the rest of the economy and seriously tackle the major issues confronting us," Obama said.
Is it possible that Obama participated in order to help make the event--gasp!--more positive? To the Right, it doesn't matter--all that matters is that he and Farrakhan were involved in some event together.
Not surprising, but still disappointing.