Obama Pandering on Race

Listening to Obama's speech yesterday was just infuriating. Not because of what he said in the speech, but because of what he has said in the past.

Last year I posted about his racially charged comments implying that racists are Republicans.

Are some voters not going to vote for me because I’m African-American? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn’t vote for me because of my politics,” he said.

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Ever since then I have considered him a man who, at least in part, defines himself and everyone else by race, backed up by statements he made in his first book, that

he and a black friend would sometimes speak disparagingly “about white folks this or white folks that, and I would suddenly remember my mother's smile, and the words that I spoke would seem awkward and false.”

As a result, he concluded that “certain whites could be excluded from the general category of our distrust."

Frankly, I wasn't surprised that Obama was a patron of a church that was so focused on race. What infuriates me is for Obama to somehow imply--against his former statements and memoirs--that he is an authority on positive race relations and that he will bring unity. You don't unite by calling your opponents racists.