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Obama: Why Black America Should Have Doubts

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Disclaimer: I'm not a socialist and therefore have strong negative opinions regarding Mr Obama. That being said, I found this book to be very interesting. This book challenges the reader to do no less than what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr dreamed and look beyond the skin color of the candidate and evaluate their character. The author makes a strong argument that many of Mr Obama's expressed beliefs are incompatible with not only Black America but America at large.

My hat is off to the author, William Owens, Jr.

Mr. Owens spoke at an event held locally. Although I did not have the opportunity to hear his presentation in its entirety, I understood the gist and was intrigued by the title of the book.

I read the book and found it very insightful. The book challenges readers to perform a side-by-side comparison of their Christian values and the values that Barack Obama espouses. Those values that Obama touts are in direct opposition to the strengthening of not only the African-American family but to the American family in general ranging from school choice to taxes to self-discipline. Mr. Owens implores the readers not to leave their values outside the voting booth.

Often, there is a comparison between Barack Obama and Dr. King. Before the lines are drawn, read Chapter 3: Dr. Martin Luther King & Barack Obama Side-by-Side. The chapter is very interesting and, again, forces readers to take an inventory of Dr. King's philosphies vs. Obama's.

Purchase this book not only for yourself, but as a gift. The book is not only applicable to African-Americans but every American regardless if s/he is voting for Obama, McCain, or still undecided.

William Owens compares and contrasts the numerous differences between Barack Obama and Martin Luther King, and comes to the conclusion that true Christians should not vote based upon skin color, but should vote based upon alignment with one's beliefs.

Chapter One: Exactly What Does Barack Obama Believe? The author asks and answers whether Obama has a true connection with the Black Community ... and concludes that he is a panderer and pretender.

Chapter Two: Preserving Our Foundation. Owens examines three key elements: (1) personal courage (to stand for truth), (2) unshakable faith in God (versus a false King), and (3) the ability to create and sustain a close knit family

Chapter Three: Dr. Martin Luther King and Barack Obama side by side. Just because Obama is black he does not get a pass on abortion, gay marriage, higher taxes, dependence on and faith in Big Government.

Chapter Four: Hope and Change - It's Already Ours! Owens implores Black America to seek truth, not color and to seek your own destiny, rather than waiting for "crumbs of bread" from the Government. "God has doors He will open for you that no man can close" (p. 88).

Chapter Five: America from a Black Family's Perspective. Father, mother, son, and both daughters provide their perspectives.

Chapter Six: The Protection of Human Freedom. Key focus upon the Bill of Rights.

Chapter Seven: The Black American Pastor & Barack Obama. Encourages Pastors to judge Obama against Christian standards.

This is a candid assessment of Barack Obama based upon his Christian beliefs. I believe that William Owens is the bravest man I have ever met, because he courageously published despite the fact that many in "Black America" will unjustly accost him. This is a terrific book for a Christian assessment of politicians in America.



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Minister Owens, although admittedly a self-styled and uneducated black Minister of the gospels, is nevertheless passionate about his views. In the run up to the 2008 election he made the centerpiece of his case (before the fact) against Obama in this mostly polemical book, which has been re-circulated on the news stands in national airports. His premonition and anticipation was that Obama would surely betray the conservative causes that the author and others of his ilk (such as Sarah Palin, other black conservatives, and the conservative shock jocks) have embraced (i.e., mostly the guns, god, anti-abortion an anti-gay, agenda). Thus for this author, opposing Obama was an easy call that resulted in this scatter shot of conservative polemics aimed at derailing the Obama run for the presidency. That it failed did not prevent the publishers from re-issuing the book in its major outlets.

The good news is that if you "buy into the author's version of the black conservative agenda," (which I personally do not) you are likely to find a kindred soul in Minister Owens' well articulated views. The bad news is that the polemic, as detailed as it is (and it does have a few high points), is merely a parroting of "the white conservative agenda's talking points" and thus fails to address the very issue the author set out to isolate and expose: Obama's rejection of the very black community that, due to their disproportionate support of him, were in large measure responsible for his election victory. Thus altogether this comes off as an unconvincing, shallow parroting of the ultra right-wing white conservative agenda's talking points, completely without any independent black inputs or analysis, and worse, issued before the election.

This author would have us believe that, a priori, Obama "should not have been elected" because he did not embrace a "conservative enough agenda," which in the author's view is the only true black agenda. As a result, it is Minister Owens' view that those blacks who were in fact prepared to vote for Mr. Obama without scrutinizing his platform and promises closely, were doing so "only out of loyalty to their blackness," that is to say solely as a demonstration of black tribal solidarity. This perhaps is the weakest possible attack an opponent could make against Obama, because ultimately it is not an attack on Obama at all but an attack on those blacks that voted for him without listening to him carefully as he parsed and bob-and-weaved around the issue of concern to the Black community an ducked what he would do for the community that overwhelmingly supported his election.

Giving Minister Owens views the benefit of the doubt (admittedly a very large concession to make indeed), he apparently failed to notice either that blacks have, at least since the 1950s, supported the democratic candidates no matter what color they have been. But more importantly, that Obama has not only betrayed the black conservative agenda but he has also betrayed the black liberal agenda, and the black agenda as a whole!

Giving backhanded credit to Obama's skill as a politician where it is due, it must be admitted that as carefully as he wooed the black vote away from both Hillary Clinton and John McCain, (prominently showing up in Black churches, etc.) he did so without making them, his largest single voting bloc, a single well-defined promise: not a single one. According to Obama's political calculus, blacks, to the extent they had an agenda at all, was to be assumed under America's "poor agenda" more broadly and that was all blacks could expect from him. In fact to add insult to injury, since his election, Obama has been seen going to Indian Reservations making promises to improve their lot, as well as to Hispanic communities doing the same. But to the community that he has self-identified as his own tribe, blacks, he has repeatedly and skillfully given us the slip: no promises, only paternal advice.

To his black constituency Obama has made only two things crystal clear: (1) that as far as he is concerned, there is no black agenda (no matter the political persuasion), and (2) that in any case it is black men who are not living up to their family responsibilities, implying that they are the primary cause of the embarrassing social meltdown in America's inner cities. It cannot go unnoticed that this latter charge of course paradoxically would also include Obama himself.

Mr. Owens book of course is not the place to rehash Obama's peculiar and contradictory attitude towards the single bloc that supported him in overwhelming numbers, the black community, But suffice it to say that it does smack of the same old racist politics we have become accustom to from white democratic candidates: Waltz with the blacks during the campaign and then completely ignore their plight after the election. It is a proven formula and cycle that must be broken if blacks are ever to get the respect their votes deserve. Sadly Obama has done nothing to break this cycle. It is obvious that he is too scared of alienating his racist white voters by being seen kowtowing to the black constituency that got him elected.

As an Obama supporter, who fought in the trenches and contributed sweat and money to his campaign, I feel much more betrayed than does Minister Owens, a black conservative. Of course, the author may have been right in the fact that while Obama campaigned furiously in the black sector, playing the race card to the hilt to win away the black vote from Hillary Clinton, in truth, and rather curiously, he never made a single direct promise to them. Given the utterly embarrassing state of America's inner city black communities, it would not have been surprising that Obama would have put cleaning up and remaking urban American communities near the top of his agenda, But sadly, not only has he ignored Minister Owens black conservative agenda, more importantly, he has also ignored the black liberal agenda and has thumbed his nose at black men and the problems of the inner cities in general. That a black president could do this says something very scary about the American social and political system.

I don't know about Minister Owens, but based on Obama's "Chicago style slash-and-burn take no prisoners brand of politics," and the way he has thumbed his nose at black men, I will be one black man vigorously campaigning against democrats in both the mid-term election, and the against Obama in the next presidential election cycle. He can count on it. Two stars

I purchased this book and sorry I did. If I had known it was written by a relative of MLK, I wouldn't have bothered. The author implies don't trust Obama, I see no difference in him than MLK. MLK delivered us into a burning house and caused the loss of a whole generation of African Americans. Once MLK realized what he had done, it was too late. The political powers' agenda was accomplished, and they no longer needed MLK.

Obama may be just another MLK elected to keep us in a state of darkness and servitude while turning the other cheek. Once the job is done, they will no longer need Obama. Why does Obama compare himself to Kennedy, MLK, and Lincoln? What is the common denominator of all three men?