Gov. Sarah Palin, Community Activists Serve a Paramount Role in Our Society, Not Trivial as You have Asserted

As a member of the AfroSpear, I must continue to bring awareness to the damage Gov. Sarah Palin's comments about how less of an impact being a community activist is in molding one for higher office. She has insulted so many people, both past and present with her comments and I will continue to highlight the gravity of her comments. If there were no community activists, there would have been no Rosa Parks, Johnnie Carr, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, John Lewis, Barack Obama and countless other people of every ethnic background.

Last week during her acceptance speech, she managed to insult so many people on some many levels with these comments: I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening. I have yet to hear the mainstream media confront her on these comments.

Let me remind Mrs. Palin and Rudy Giuliani that community organizers have helped her to reach this extraordinary position in her career. Pioneering women fought for equal rights for women through grassroots efforts and community activism. Even President George H. W. Bush recognized the importance of community activists when he said in 1989 that "I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good." She has insulted the work of groups across this country such as the Wayne Hicks and his tireless work through the Cincinnati Business Incubator. She has insulted the work of the Hosea Feed the Hungry outfit in Atlanta. She has insulted the work of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference co-founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which is a network of community organizations and churches that proved to be a godsend in the fight for civil rights in the United States.

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Last week during her acceptance speech, she managed to insult so many people on some many levels with these comments: I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening. I have yet to hear the mainstream media confront her on these comments.

Let me remind Mrs. Palin and Rudy Giuliani that community organizers have helped her to reach this extraordinary position in her career. Pioneering women fought for equal rights for women through grassroots efforts and community activism. Even President George H. W. Bush recognized the importance of community activists when he said in 1989 that "I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good." She has insulted the work of groups across this country such as the Wayne Hicks and his tireless work through the Cincinnati Business Incubator. She has insulted the work of the Hosea Feed the Hungry outfit in Atlanta. She has insulted the work of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference co-founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which is a network of community organizations and churches that proved to be a godsend in the fight for civil rights in the United States.