Clueless In Cairo

[madoc62]

Folks,

President Obama just did his first Middle East trip since taking office. Along the way he stopped in Cairo and delivered a major speech while there.

Buried within that speech was this little gem:

"For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won

Comments

[qinshihuangdi]

It was violence that collected the slaves in Africa, and it was violence that set them free here. It was violence that implemented segregation and violence that was instrumental in making the end of it possible, although that part, along with so many others, gets dropped out of the narrative they teach in the schools. Frankly, there are far too many examples to iterate. Violence seems to be one of the currencies of human societies

[qinshihuangdi]

One thing that might explain things: It is possible that he, or his speach writer, is too young, too lacking in background, or too otherwise ignorant of history to know that there was any thing that effected the issue beyond Martin Luther King Jr. I mean, he was born in '61, and seems to have lived most of his early life abroad, which is hardly the best place to pick up US history by osmosis.

As for after that, I think unless you actually study history to fulfill your duties as a citizen, or because war is interesting, it is possible to get a non-history college education and become a lawyer without being aware that the Civil War was more serious then a police action. It is also possible to not be aware that police use violence and that police actions involve violence.

What part of being a community organizer and running for office involves having such knowledge as opposed to being able to give the impression of having it?