Chicagoans: Obama 'right on target'
MANY APPROVE | Blacks, whites generally praise honesty, balance
Retirees Mellow Sam, 77, of the West Side, and Demosthenes Bratsolias, 67, of Evanston, were among those Tuesday applauding Sen. Barack Obama's speech on the racial divide.
(AP)
But Sam, a black retired radio broadcaster who lives in a senior citizens' building in East Garfield Park, and Bratsolias, a white retired state government employee and suburban homeowner, were approving from different perspectives.
"This is one of the best speeches I've heard during the whole presidential campaign, because the senator is sticking to his guns -- though not being divisive, and trying to bring this country together," said Sam, enjoying soul food at Edna's Restaurant, 3175 W. Madison.
"Most of us in the African-American community understand why Jeremiah Wright made those statements. He was speaking to the reality for a lot of African Americans," Sam added.
"Sen. Obama has been very respectful through this whole ordeal. Everything he said today was true to form. I feel he handled this issue as professionally as he could under the circumstances."
Bratsolias too, while awaiting comfort food at the Golden Olympic Diner in downtown Evanston, gushed over the presidential candidate's performance, saying, "The only way I can encapsule it is that it was 'the 'audacity of hope.'"
Bratsolias, whose family came here as Greek immigrants, identified with Obama's comments on the immigrant experience.
"His message is right on target. I don't understand racism. I went to school in the South. I experienced the segregated buses, drinking fountains. But I think there's been progress," he said.
"I think my concern with African Americans who get stuck on that is that they can't move forward. So I think Obama's message today was the perfect balance," Bratsolias added.
"He dealt with complex issues in a way that is easy for anyone to understand. We all can relate to things that have happened in our own family that we don't agree with, but we can't stop loving people that have meant something in our lives."
At several area college campuses, much younger minds both echoed and disagreed with the retirees.
"I thought he explained himself well," Loyola University senior Erica Fiero, 22, said at a graduation fair at the North Side campus.
"Making that comparison between his grandma and his pastor really brought home his message about unconditional love and his firsthand knowledge of these two worlds," the communications major said.
On the other side of town, Evan Oberlin, 19, a freshman at the University of Illinois Chicago on the Near West Side, gave Obama a failing grade for not vilifying Wright.
"I gave it an F," Oberlin said over coffee at the UIC Student Center East cafeteria. "I thought he would be condemning more."
But most of those interviewed, regardless of race, had generally positive responses to Obama's message.
"It's like having an elephant stinking up the room, and nobody wants to talk about it," Cherita Logan, 47, a health care advocate, said of America's race issue as she lunched at Roscoe's House of Chicken & Waffles in Bronzeville on the South Side.
The black woman praised Obama for taking on a topic often "swept under the rug."
On the Southwest Side, Mary Alexander, 83, also commended the speech, but the white woman, who was having dinner at Peaches and Pears restaurant, regretted the need for Obama to give it.
"He had to defend himself," Alexander said. "Who cares about his pastor? I've got a rabbi. I don't care what he says."