I have a reaction to Yesterday's Obama Speech at Selma.

I don't think I will publish it. I gave him the same courtesy he gave Bibi Netanyahu. I read the transcript and skipped the speech.

It was much of the same race bait that I expect from him. So.. I was not impressed, nothing new.. YAWN.

It occurred to me that he was 4 years old living in Hawaii when Selma went down. I was 20 and it mattered. He never lived the rejection and racism he now uses to manipulate people.

After he left Hawaii at age 6, he moved to Indonesia for 5 years. Not much of the struggle he talks about was there .. Then moving back to Hawaii he went to school until he graduated in 1979. Pretty safe upbringing. So everything he talks about, everything he emotes over is what he learned academically .. or from others. None of has ever been his experience. John Lewis was there... that's a different deal.

Theory and practice don't go hand in hand, my experience trumps anyone's second hand theory. So I didn't bother to make the time. He hasn't earned the right to make this speech.. he never has lived the life that Martin was walking in protest against.

HE WAS supposed to make a speech. Where I part company was the content of the speech. It ended up about gay rights, illegal immigrants and voting rights (which is the law, just not enforced) as he hijacked the civil rights struggle into politics of convenience and division. His NOT being there during the struggle or not having real world expericne today degrades any impact he could have made. If he were from the south, if it were John Lewis or Condi Rice who were there in the day, it would be worthy. If he walked the hard streets of Birmingham growing up, if he hadn't lived as he did, there might have been some credibility. Read the speech again and ask yourself.. did he earn the right? There were plenty of people still alive who DID earn the right. I guess when I read the part about the slaves who built the White House, NONE of his ancestors built the White House. Perhaps Michelle's did. That was the point.

http://time.com/373.../barack-obama-selma-speech-transcript/
Read the Full Text of Obama's Speech in Selma