Barack Obama Picks Up Major Newspapers’ Endorsements!

Barack Obama Picks Up Major Newspapers’ Endorsements! Senator Obama has secured the endorsements of The Washington Post, The L. A. Times, The Commercial Appeal, The Tennessean, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Sun Tribune ,and many others. Senator Obama has secured the endorsements of at least 57 Major Newspapers so far. Editor and Publisher Magazine has kept a running tab of all of these endorsements! The Los Angeles Times, and The Chicago Sun Tribune had never endorsed a Democrat before! Let’s pray that all of these endorsements will help to make the case for Senator Obama’s attempt to secure The White House!

Senator Obama has also secured the endorsements of 65 Nobel Laureates! It is awesome that so many see the virtues of Senator Obama’s Message of Change! Senator Obama is starting to pick up even more momentum!

The Muzzling of Black Preachers is Bound to Fail!

This is Pastor Stephen F. Smith’s Letter to the Editor of The Commercial Appeal! He grew so tired of reading so many hate-filled comments by some of the readers of this paper about Senator Barack Obama, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Many of these people who commented also wanted to give African-Americans Churches a virtual instruction manual on how and what black preachers can preach about. In response to some of these seething comments, he submitted this letter to the daily newspaper in Memphis,Tennessee!

Muzzling of preachers bound to fail

There are so many self-righteous people who are commenting in nearly every media outlet available about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other black preachers who speak out against injustice in our land. The assault on this type of black preacher since then has been incredible.

This whole thing started as a way to lessen what was perceived as the unstoppable presidential campaign of Barack Obama, but has gotten ridiculous since then. A black preacher better not speak out against the systems that be, or he or she will be portrayed as being divisive and un-American.

I have the following questions to pose to those who have attacked the right of black preachers to speak out against injustice. Where were your good mainstream Christian churches when slavery was an institution? Some of your churches are old enough to have been in existence then. How were your churches silent then?

Should an oppressed people have the same mindset as the majority culture? Were the original black preachers in this land wrong for praying for the emancipation of all slaves, while the majority culture’s preachers were praying earnestly for a healthy new crop of slaves?

While American pulpits and choir stands have proclaimed that God is love for hundreds of years, systemic and institutional racism has prevailed in our nation and our churches.

While the slave owners studied the Holy Writ, they brutally assaulted many of the initial African-American slaves. Were there prayer meetings before lynchings? Were there revivals before slave auctions?

Why was the mainstream church silent for so long on such a horrible practice as slavery? The black church was basically all that people of color possessed.

Should Moses have repented for having asked Pharaoh to let his people go? Let’s see, black preachers should just preach about love, and not speak out against oppression and racism?

Many in the mainstream culture are straining at the gnat of Wright’s speeches while swallowing the whole camel of condescension and racism.

Stephen F. Smith

Pastor, Sure House Church, Inc. Collierville

Read This One Black America!

Read This One Black America! This awesome article is by Wendi C. Thomas of The Commercial Appeal, which is the daily newspaper in Memphis,Tennessee! Ms. Thomas should be commended for this piece!
Black People’s Reality Rebuffed by Columnist Wendi C. Thomas

The bad part about being black? It’s the discrimination, the prejudice, the bigotry that follows you, no matter how much money you make or education you attain. With white friends, I don’t usually talk about it. With black friends, I don’t have to.

But as an African-American Metro columnist at this newspaper, I feel I labor under a sense of obligation. Shackled to this privilege is a duty to attempt to explain to white readers what they don’t realize about being black, in the interest of shared understanding.

I would wager that much of black people’s frustration with white people — indeed, the fist-clenching frustration in any relationship — stems from not being understood or having our concerns marginalized.

I’m generalizing here, but often we bemoan “driving while black,” and white people say we must have been doing something wrong, otherwise the police wouldn’t have been following us.

We say we were followed in a store by a white salesperson; white people say we’re hypersensitive. We point out how few black executives are in the front offices and white colleagues say there weren’t any qualified black candidates.

To my white readers who “get it,” or at least concede that maybe there’s something to get, this is not for you.

This is for the thousands of white readers who have written and called me over the last four years, and the people who pollute the paper’s Web site, all insisting that racism today is a figment of black people’s imaginations. Let me tell you a short story.

When I was 8 or so, I was uninvited to a white Sunday school classmate’s birthday party. Her parents told mine it was because a relative didn’t like black people.

Until I left Memphis for college, I saw this white family at church every Sunday; sometimes her parents were leading the praise and worship service.

Read This Entire Article at Commercial Appeal.Com