I don't doubt that at all. That is evidenced by his books alone. Sadly, I believe he may indeed have shared some of the views of the Reverend - read his books, especially 'Dreams from My Father.' Many of the passages that were clearly 'anti-white' (I won't call them racist since no discrimination was involved) were not included in the audio version.

However, it concerns in the sense of how those views and his identity crisis might translate into policy once in the white house. It may, or it may not. Clearly by reading his policies he believes in more taxes for black neighborhoods and predominantly black schools. He has changed those policies recently to reflect 'low income' instead of black. The fact remains that there is still a problem here in this country with education and crime of lower income folks. The question is why? What is the root of the cause and how can it be changed? I don't see pumping more tax dollars into more wasteful government programs as the best answer. I would like to know if any country has truly resolved this issue in a fair and just manner that extends beyond the issue of race. What is the root cause of 50% of black students not graduating? Is it 50% of low-income students or are low-income white students graduating? What is the reason there is such a high crime rate for young low-income blacks? Is the crime rate as high for low-income whites? Something is behind this still happening in 2008. It needs to be identified and fixed.

Having written that, we must acknowledge that while most of America would like to consider race a non-issue and most truly believe it is a non-issue these days, in the minds of most older blacks it is still and will always be a dominant issue. The anger and the memory will always be there and it is difficult to move beyond something that has affected your life.


>...or Obama has an identity crisis. He doesn't know what he is. So he joins an overly black centric church to prove he is black enough.
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>>I believe he did know. That was made pretty obvious by his waffling on it so many times. I think he used that church for political purposes all along and then it became clear that it was no longer a stepping stone but a hindrance to his campaign so he finally cut his ties publicly. I just think that he finally did what he should have done when the tirades were first made in church, stand up against the anti-american and racist comments.
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>>>>I watched the interviews with Reverend Wright (over the past couple of weeks) and I was dissappointed in what he had to say. I watched his entire sermon and I agree that some of the quotes publicized in the past were taken out of context, but in context they were still highly inflammatory and IMHO, very anti-american and racist. I don't doubt that Obama was even more dissappointed. I don't know if his full sermons are still available, but you could download them from the church's website (warning they are 1.5 hours long). I was surprised that Obama didn't fire off a response then as Reverend Wright inferred that Obama knew full well what he was preaching all those years and Obama took a political stance to separate himself from Wright. I think Obama did the right thing responding as he did right now. To some he may be throwing the Reverend under the bus, but in my view, he is taking a stance that he should have taken long ago.
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>>>If you think Obama didn't know about his reverends insanity, why did he disinvite him to his kickoff?