Sunday, August 3, 2008

Obama Watch-What About The Black Community


POINT
"My question is, in the face of the numerous attacks that are made against the African community, or the black community, by the same U.S. government that you aspire to lead sub-prime mortgages, police shootings of blacks, the Jena 6 case and Hurricane Katrina" "In the face of all these attacks that are clearly being made on the African community, why is it that you have not had the ability to not one time speak to the interests and even speak on behalf of the oppressed and exploited African community, or black community, in this country?"

COUNTERPOINT
"I think you are misinformed about what you say 'not one time."Every issue you have spoken about, I actually did speak out....I've been talking about talking about predatory lending for the last two years in the United States Senate and worked to pass legislation to prevent it when I was in the state legislature. And I have repeatedly said that many of the predatory loans that were made in the mortgage system did target African-American and Latino communities. I've said that repeatedly. No. 2: Jena 6. I was the first candidate to get out there and say this is wrong and there has been an injustice that's been done and we need to change it...When Shawn Bell got shot, I put out a statement immediately saying, this is a problem....On each of these issues, I have spoken out. Now, I may not have spoken out in the way you would have wanted me to speak out, which is fine....I have spoken out and I have spoken out forcefully....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 have worked on for decades."

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