Should Obama have chosen better people to speak at his inauguration?

I have to admit that when I heard this part of Lowry's 'benediction', I was a little nonplussed. I rather think the audience was too, but the camera cut to Obama's face and he was kind of laughing, and the crowd did too, choosing to accept it as the Rev's humor coming through. It will be interesting to see how much focus the media puts on that part of his speech.............

I didn't watch the Tv today and so i missed this..I'm curious about how this speech will be handled and if its a part of the Change we keep hearing about..I personally never heard of The New President till just before election day...so I'm going to give him a year to see what he plans on doing for everyone's economic ways, The Wars, and The homeless.. I want First My Son Back home and all the Other Soldiers for good..I want to be able to make money again and i want to see No More Homeless.. All the Parties and Balls for this Inauguration I feel should have been very low in cost to prove that we all are having economic woes and He wants to help improve it..so i'm already seeing a bad start..

Lowry is a man stuck in another time and era. In the minds of people like him, race will always be in everything. even here on mylot, among younger people, brought up in modern times, there are a few who inject race in to everything, see racism everywhere, even going to bizzare leangths to make that case. One even claimed the term "kool-aid" was racist.

I didn't watch much of any of it, but the swearing in, where Obama stumbled and then on Yahoo news today, they blamed it on the man doing the swearing in... but i did hear the recap of the talk the Pastor from Dallas said and it was nice 4 things from the book of Daniel and they were pointed and all... and then ended it with "if my 14 year old son could talk to you, he'd want to talk to you about Star Trek" - (and the commentator said, "he meant Star Wars, but said Star Trek") and then ended it with "the force be with you". I was so disgusted that a preacher would use that phrase as an ending to a biblical and christian talk.. not "God be with you", not "God bless you", not, "my the Lord guide you"... but "the force be with you"... ANd then everyone is going to say "God is our force"... well, in a way, but at the same time that is not what people are going to say - they will keep the reference to Star Wars as that is where it came from and what it means. And is that all that his son would want to talk about with this historically great, new, black president of the United States? That's all he'd want to say? That's what this pastor is bragging on his son about? My mind can't wrap on that one! Oh well... guess we'll see! May God bless the USA!

This is a touchy topic as any topic about race is. And one thing I realize is that no matter how far we come as a society if we try to pit one against another or even act like we should be in each other's faces there will never be a time where an actual conversation will occur. It is a historical moment, but unlike some of the people being interviewed after the inaugration I disagreed. I, because I was raised in a more accepting and open society and household, knew one day we would have an African American President. I still think this was hastily done by having him in the office now, but we are here now. I also never doubt for one moment there will be a female President. These things should be taught in regular households by regular people who are understanding to the forward movements of our society. So when I heard Lowry say this in his shaky voice a part of me too cringed as well as laughed because he was making a point of unity, but at the same time I agree with you. It's like certain words and phrases that one ehtnicity has somehow okayed themselves to use with one another as a sign of respect or familiarity, but if another turns around and uses it is a sign of disrespect and prejudicial. To me, both ehtnicity's are wrong for using such a word/phrases. I think if we all realize the power of words and respect them we can come together and speak of such topics. Until then, it may be one against another. As for me, I am sure I have unintentionally said things without realizing it's offensive, but how can we learn from one another (past and present) if we feel like we can speak about it to anyone in fear of offense.

Much like what happens to people that do public speaking I think this was just a bit of humor that went awry. I don't believe the spirit of it was to offend anyone, but to be as inclusive as possible of the nation. Just like all us white folks aren't racist, there are brown folks that aren't here illegally....yellow people that aren't anti-american, and black people that are successful in their own right. If you are proud to be whatever-you-are then thankfully we live in a place where you can be. My wife is a black american, so she and I have been discussing the various events surrounding the inauguration of our new president. (She should have been a public figure---she has done very well keeping her cool no matter what I throw at her. All in the interest of healthy debate.) She has been able to enlighten me as to the certain nuances of certain things being said and the significance of certain phrases and activities. I suppose I am looking forward to when we can start dealing with Mr. President and the novelty of Mr. Black President has worn off.

"We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right." In a truely objective analysis, the above words, since they characterize whole races of people, could only be considered sterotypically bigotted. I would point out to the author of these words that white people lost several hundred thousands of lives "Embracing what is right" in a war that resulted in the abolition of slavery.

Although I have my reservations with Lowry, I think Obama could have chosen better people yesterday.

Uh, I think Pastor Lowry has dementia..That was just whack. The poem was really awful, lol, "And teachers say to students, take out your pencils, and let's start". Lol!

I don't know, it didn't really offend me. I thought he was comparing today to his younger years when what he said was not the case. I could be wrong but Itook it as meaning that in his time they asked that of people and now we have that because when you think about it, otherwise it would make no sense. I think you're right when you say that we are backwards whereas a blackman can get on television and say that they are proud to be black but a white man can't be proud of his race on television. But when you think about it, it's all because of our history and what a statement like that sounds like. The thing is people take some things too seriously nowadays and bend and twist every little thing that you say. It's just the times that we are in and I truely believe that in another 100 years, it won't matter if a white man gets on television and says that he's proud to be white because in 100 years there may be no trace of the race issue. Even though we now have a black leader, there is still a trace of the race issue, otherwise there wouldn't have been any worries about his safety due to his race. I was personally worried that there could be problems. Can you imagine what would happen to our country if something did happen? It would be horrible for everyone.

I don't think you're hypersensitive, or perhaps if you are then I am as well. It is a bit offensive. I agree with you on it sounding as if he thinks all white people are racist, and sadly it's not very surprising to me. It seems that so much effort went into and continues to go into equal rights, that it kind of got over-done at some point. It seems like now, the effort was so great that white people are now the ones that don't always have the equal opportunities. If someone were to set up a collage scholarship fund for white kids, there would be a serious uproar. Anyway, my opinion is that Obama should definately have been more careful about who had speak, or at least check out what they had intended on saying.

Resident Elect Brack Obama finally entered into white house clinching a lanslide victoy in last november. But Game is now starting........... I think He should appoint John Chambers as his Technical Advisor. Mr. Chambers CEO of Network giant CISCO syaytems is the perfect person for this post . Or Padmashree Warior CTO of Motorola Corporation is another competent for this post, who is not only Technically Excellence but also acccptable to Indian diaspora for her Indian Origin. But Obama should ignore the Jewish lobby or prefer the Arab bidders ........when time will come for real-politik.