Hecklers Accuse Obama of Ignoring Black Issues
ST PETERSBURG, Fla - A day after being accused by the McCain campaign of playing the race card, Barack Obama faced tough questions in Florida about his true commitment to the plight of African Americans and the implicit accusation that he hasn’t been black enough.
Delivering remarks on a new economic stimulus plan in Florida today, Obama was interrupted by a group of three young black men, who held up a sign reading “What About the Black Community, Obama?” and featuring the URL of Uhuru News - a left-wing pro-African organization. The chants of the three men and the subsequent attempts by the pro-Obama crowd to drown them out completely derailed the Illinois Senator, who was railing against special interests.
“Hold on a second, what’s happening?” he said — trying and failing to launch back into the speech as the audience began chanting “Yes We Can” to overpower the hecklers. “Excuse me young man, this is going to be a question and answer session, so you can ask a question later,” Obama told the most vocal of the protesters. “Just be courteous and you’ll have a chance to make your statement. Just relax.”
Calling the St Petersburg crowd “feisty,” Obama picked up where he left off; he later made good on his promise to give the man - Diop Olugbala, 31 - a chance to be heard.
“In the face of the numerous attacks that are made against the African community or the black community by the same US government that you aspire to lead” - such as subprime mortgages that target African Americans, the killing of Sean Bell in New York and the Jena 6 case, Olugbala said, “why is it that you have not had the ability to not one time speak to the interests and even speak on the behalf of the oppressed and exploited African community or Black community in this country?”
Obama seemed momentarily taken aback — as did the crowd, which began to boo. “Hold on a second, everybody. I want everybody to be respectful. That’s why we are having a town hall meeting. That’s democracy at work,” said Obama. “He asked a legitimate question so I want to give him an answer.”
To the heckler, he said “I think you are misinformed about when you say not one time. Every issue you’ve spoken about, I actually did speak out about.”
Obama proceeded to go through each of Olugbala’s examples, listing occasions when he’d vocally stood up for the rights of African American victims. But it didn’t seem to be what the heckler wanted to hear; Olubala stood with hands in his pockets, then began to shout back as Obama answered.
“Hold on, don’t start, you know shouting back, I’m just answering your question,” he said. “On each of these issues, I’ve spoken out. Now, I may not have spoken out the way you would have wanted me to speak out which is fine.”
“I was a civil rights lawyer. I have passed, I passed — hold on a second –I passed the first racial profiling legislation in Illinois. I passed some of the toughest death penalty reform legislation in Illinois. So, these are issues I’ve worked on for decades.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m always going to satisfy the way you guys want these issues framed. I understand that,” said Obama, “which gives you the option of voting for somebody else. It gives you the option of running for office yourself. Those are all options.”
“The only way were going to solve our problems in this country is if all of us come together - black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, young, old, disabled, gay, straight - That I think has got to be our agenda,” he said to applause.
Tags: barack obama, Florida, john mccain, protest, race card
Share
[...] Source: embeds.blogs.foxnews.com [...]
and Fox is ignoring Fact, truth and everything in between
Excellent response from Obama, Mccain would have just kicked them out.
makes it kind of hard when loser Obama keeps promising everyone everything. It will be interesting to see if he is going to choose the blacks or the whites because this is what he has caused since running his big fat mouth. He is the only one who is crying racism when things don’t go his way. Especially when McCain tells the truth about noboma.
Barack Heussin Nobama is a racist..he will support Whitey, because the Blacks are voting for him no matter what he says or does..
To “Comment by dem voting for McCain” -
That was a very intelligent response….what are you 12? “noboma” that’s clever dude. LOL! You seem a little hostile are you feeling threatened.
What response was that! Could not detect one because of the studdering. All I heard was: duh, duh, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh,……. Maybe he should of spoken in his native tongue, Ebonics”.
********************************************************************************
Comment by Ty
August 1st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Excellent response from Obama, Mccain would have just kicked them out.
Not true about McCain. I was at a town meeting when he encountered the same kind of situation. He was extremely patient and let the man speak. I was very impressed. Seems like lately Obama is now becoming white. ummmmmmmm
I am not an Obama or McCain supporter but this response was very good. He won’t be able to please everyone, but it sounds like he will protect the democracy of this country. BTW… Why do so many blacks feel like they are mistreated in this country? Have they been to any Indian reservations lately? They should see how Native Americans are treated. Then they might be grateful for what they have.
M.S., Your FOX bashing is totally ignorant. FOX is the only media outlet to report this news, about which many in my FLORIDA county are trying to obtain information. Our local newspapers are left-wing as are the National Obama Channel (NBC), All Barrack Channel (ABC) and Continuous Barrack Station (CBS), AP, NY Times, et al, and they all refuse to report on anything that puts Obama in a bad light. When McCain gets heckled it is the lead story for every media outlet, but they hide any instance that reflects negatively on Obama. Obama’s gaffes are infinite yet unreported by those media outlets, yet those same outlets fabricate negative stories on McCain.
This is a “Fair and Balanced” report, and we are all thankful FOX has continued to report the news without bias as their competitors continually do!
All Blacks in America know that Obama is going to favor them no matter how he flip flops during his speeches . Believe me it is not going to be like the White race supporting all. Blacks IF he would be elected would be his priority to favor and protect.
The post above said Black will vote for Obama no matter what he says,, this I believe to be true.
LIKE FOX NEWS FAIR AND BALANCED?????????????????????? SURE!
I feel Obama could have been a little more unserstanding with the gentlemans questions. Instead, his arrogance came through once atain. Basicaly he said, If you don’t like it vote for someone else, or run yourself!
Now I understand why Obama refused to do the town hall meetings with McCain. When put on the spot to answer REAL questions from REAL PEOPLE (not people and questions that the Obama campaign has set up), he simply can’t do it tactfully, and would probably hurt his own campaign by pissing off a lot of people.
Stop the eliquent speaches. Get rid of the teleprompter. Its time to answer real questions and concerns from real Americans, not pre-staged people and questions.
I know he is just waiting for the right depabe with McCain. The debate that is controled. The debate where the audiance is very carefully picked and chosen. Kinda like the debates on CNN.
Time to get real ! Obama, time for you to answer real questions from real people! What are you afraid of?
Rick
You should have thrown CNN and Jack Cafferty in there too. They are really bad. They are so afraid to say anything about Obama because they might be called a racist. The only racist here is Obama. He is real good at playing the race card.
Fox Inbed producers are the biggest bunch of losers and the screeners for this blog are even worse. If you actually post a comment with intelligence and substance with no profanity, it will never get posted. You have to post the same old democrat bash republican and republican bash democrat garbage. I guess they are taking a page out of rush limbaugh and Hanity’s playbook. Though they are good men their constant bashing gets tiring. Unfortunately you will not find intelligent dialogue on this amateuristic blog.