I wasn't expecting to be surprised by that speech. I expected it to be good, of course. Obama is a gorgeous orator, and he tends to perform best when the stakes are highest. But I wasn't terribly impressed with his delivery today. He did not soar, nor adopt the confident preacher's cadence he uses to involve and feed off an audience. Rather, it was the content of the speech that surprised. It was not inspiring, not really. Parts of it could have been cut, like the reading from his book.Indeed, Obama could have given another speech. Shorter, to start. More focused on hope than on pain. More talk of tomorrow and less emphasis on the past. More dismissive of Wright and less insistent on the legitimacy of Wright's experience, and the ubiquity of his thinking. He didn't have to dwell on the black community's frustration and the white community's bigotry. But this speech was something I didn't expect: Honest. It was honest about Obama's affection for Wright, even as it repudiated Wright's comments. It was honest about the tragic history of race in America, even as it expressed faith in a redemptive future. It was honest about the resentment peddlers and racial charlatans who try and recast the increasing rarity of the American Dream as the consequence of ethnic competition rather than gross power imbalances. It was honest in its recognition that racial memory influences contemporary thought, honest in admitting that there's anger in this country, and it's justified, and that there's fear in this country, and it's real. OBAMA SPEECH THREAD.
I wasn't expecting to be surprised by that speech. I expected it to be good, of course. Obama is a gorgeous orator, and he tends to perform best when the stakes are highest. But I wasn't terribly impressed with his delivery today. He did not soar, nor adopt the confident preacher's cadence he uses to involve and feed off an audience. Rather, it was the content of the speech that surprised. It was not inspiring, not really. Parts of it could have been cut, like the reading from his book.Indeed, Obama could have given another speech. Shorter, to start. More focused on hope than on pain. More talk of tomorrow and less emphasis on the past. More dismissive of Wright and less insistent on the legitimacy of Wright's experience, and the ubiquity of his thinking. He didn't have to dwell on the black community's frustration and the white community's bigotry. But this speech was something I didn't expect: Honest. It was honest about Obama's affection for Wright, even as it repudiated Wright's comments. It was honest about the tragic history of race in America, even as it expressed faith in a redemptive future. It was honest about the resentment peddlers and racial charlatans who try and recast the increasing rarity of the American Dream as the consequence of ethnic competition rather than gross power imbalances. It was honest in its recognition that racial memory influences contemporary thought, honest in admitting that there's anger in this country, and it's justified, and that there's fear in this country, and it's real. 
