Dear Mr. Kurtz (don't worry conservative friends, I feel this way about Keating Economics, too)

October 15, 2008

Dear Mr. Kurtz,

Thank you for your article "Wright 101: Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Rev. Wright's anti-Americanism." (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTQ0YjhlOGVhYjQ0OWRhZjI2MmM4NTQ4NGM5Mjg0MzU=) I found it very helpful for my personal Election research.

I have read and re-read it, but I can't find an example of where Obama participated directly in any of these controversial programs. I may be missing something, but it seems that this is a sort of "six degrees of separation" loop to Barack Obama. These are the major points I gathered (and confirmed with other research) from your article.

William Ayers co-chairs a partner "collaborative" of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. >>
Deborah Leff, Patricia Albjerg Graham, and William Ayers and two others choose the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation in 1995), including Barack Obama as Chairman. >>
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge gave $200,000 to the Coalition for Improved Education in [Chicago’s] South Shore (CIESS) in 1996. >>
The Coalition for Improved Education in [Chicago’s] South Shore (CIESS) participates in some sort of a "network" with the South Shore African Village Collaborative. >>
The South Shore African Village Collaborative advocates a curriculum that teaches about African culture, one part of which is some "rites of passage ceremonies", one part of which is "puberty rites" >>
"Rites of passage" is specifically mentioned on the Annenberg proposal. >>
Controversial Jacob Carruthers spoke at a Coalition for Improved Education in [Chicago’s] South Shore teacher conference one time. >>
Carruthers and others in Carruthers’ Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations were invited by Jeremiah Wright to speak at the Trinity United Church of Christ - where Barack Obama attended church - one time. >>
Asa Hilliard - who died on a trip to Kemet Egypt with Jeremiah Wright and others, after which Wright delivered Hilliard’s eulogy - was also invited by the South Shore African Village Collaborative to speak one time.

My conclusion:
It appears that Obama participated in programs which granted money to other programs which partially sponsored Afrocentric activities that appear controversial. He has attended extremely controversial church services, but never preached these controversial topics himself.

Am I supposed to conclude from this connection that Barack Obama, as President of the United States, will infuse the American school system with Afrocentric Rites of Passage curriculum? That he believes that whites are supremacists?

A neighbor of ours who believes that blacks are genetically inferior to whites, citing as evidence their inability to become economically successful over the years, was invited to my father's funeral in 2006 and to our house for a reception afterwards. I knew this about my neighbor and wholeheartedly agreed with my mother to invite him anyway. Am I racist?

Should Jeremiah Wright, Asa Hilliard, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers, or Jacob Carruthers as President? Clearly not. Is there ANY EVIDENCE that Barack Obama thinks or leads like these folks? I don't think so. I haven't seen any, anyway.

Do you have any example of his direct participation in any of these extremist activities? I just don't understand how this connection makes Ayers and Obama the "radical political brothers" that people claim them to be. I see that Ayers is an unstable character who I would not want involved in my government, but I fail to see any evidence that Obama shares these views.

Thank you,
Anne