Friday, May 30, 2008

can we please discuss the real issue here?


i'm getting all political up in here. now, this isn't for or against anyone. i can't tell the difference between one washington insider from the next. so don't worry, i won't make you pick sides. i'm mad as hell at the mainstream media and i'm going to blog about it.

there's new youtube footage of a recent sermon at the trinity united church of christ, where the reverend michael louis pfleger vocalized, in a dramatised fashion, one of the seven pink elephants in the democratic primary race. a year ago, hillary declared herself the presumptive nominee in the 'white boys only' club of the presidential race. now the black kid has her clutching her handbag full pledged and super delegates that he's about to rightfully take his share of. he and his supporters worked damn hard to compete with her.


now, you may disagree with his exact statements. you can take offense to his tone. and if you don't agree with it, you don't have to go to his church or listen to his sermon or watch it on tv or online. there's one point you can't refute: he had every right to say what he said. and our constitution allows this, the very document these candidates are in the race to protect, supports the reverend's (all other reverends') right to preach to their congregation as they see fit. not as the media sees fit, not as other detractors see fit, but as their congregation does by their participation and presence in the pews.


good and bad come out of every campaign, local, state and national. we all have a process to participate in as we chose and various pulpits with which to do so. and a constitution that protects this process. i charge the media to acknowledge the central point that all individuals have freedom of speech as they have freedom of the press. just because we share associations does not put the words of others into our own mouths. it's time the press acknowledges in this campaign the origin of words in question and not the candidate most closely associated with the speaker of questionable statements.



today i'm just going to go off on the media and their awful reporting of the 'issues', namely picking on ministers of urban neighborhoods. oh, and just to put this out there, i haven't been to church, in like 5 years (which did happen to be a black baptist church in west philly, it was around the corner from where i lived and i was curious to see a black congregation in action). i qualify myself to be the opposite of religious. this is purely diatribe on the mainstream media completely missing the point and construing the current political climate.

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