At Harvard, Obama Dived Into Diversity Fight

[jaxx]

At Harvard, Obama Dived Into Diversity Fight
In this video, not previously available online but licensed by BuzzFeed from a Boston television station, the future president speaks at a 1990 campus protest organized to demand tenure for minority and female law professors.
Andrew Kaczynski BuzzFeed Staff
Posted Mar 7, 2012 11:34am EST


It was perhaps Barack Obama's most intense immersion in the charged campus racial politics of the late 1980s and early 1990s: As President of the Harvard Law Review in the spring of his final year there, 1990, he aligned himself with Professor Derrick Bell's dramatic protest for diversity on the faculty of Harvard Law School.

Obama Protesting at Harvard in 1990

Uploaded by Akaczynski1 on Mar 6, 2012

<..> It was a situation in which clear lines had been drawn, and Obama sided with Bell. In a speech before the law school's Harkness Commons — and sounding very much like his future presidential self — he described Bell as "the Rosa Parks of legal education."

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/...m=buzzfeed

Standing up for people is what President Obama is about. I like this, it shows that he isn't a newcomer to this, but it is what motivates him.

[jaxx]

It seems clusterfox is hawking this as what Breitbart had in the vault.....PBO hugged a man, Derrick Bell. Now, what is wrong with that? This is a growing made up controversy via the wingers/fox, it's all over twitter. Plus this isn't the first time the video has been shown....PBS showed it on tv in 2008, and it's no big deal, nothing hidden.....and the wingers are creating another conspiracy. Fuck 'em.

Politico: Viral Breitbart Obama Video Was Aired On PBS In 2008
Posted in Liberaland by Alan • March 7, 2012, 9:17 PMET •

Breitbart’s final legacy is intended to show that President Obama hung out with “radicals” and had racial views that favored blacks over whites. Disputed is whether parts of a previously aired video was purposely edited to help Obama.

On the eve of the groundbreaking 2008 presidential election, the Boston-based documentary program “Frontline” broadcast a program on Obama titled, “The Choice,” which featured a version of the same video: Obama introducing Derrick Bell [pictured], Harvard’s first African American tenured law professor, at a rally in solidarity with Bell and support of affirmative action in the law school’s admissions process. The video was part of an extended broadcast tracing Obama’s path from childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia to his election as the nation’s first black president…

http://www.alan.com/2012/03/07/politico-...eraland%29

[jaxx]

Coming up on Lawrence....discussion of this video and faux going nuts about it.

[There Is No Spoon]

Much ado about absolutely nothing but Obama showing how a future President acts.

Faux is pedaling this as controversial?

Man, are they ever desperate.

[jaxx]

Do they have any idea of how many people presidents have hugged throughout the years? Dumb asses trying to keep Breitbart's 'legacy' alive.

[SeattleGirl]

For any of you who have a Twitter account, there is a hilarious hashtag over there: #breitbarthastape, and people are posting some pretty funny stuff.

One of my faves was "Obama shot the sheriff but he didn't shoot the deputy".

[jaxx]

I saw that one and will check out the hashtag. Rarely a dull moment on twitter.

[jaxx]

Obama squeezed the Charmin.

Funny stuff at the #breitbarthastape. Thanks for the heads up SG!

[sandnsea]

I read that NPR reported this in 2008 and that it's been up in their site all along. I remember reading about him speaking during campus rallies. I don't know why this would be seen as controversial. Derrick Bell has a phenomenal resume, very very accomplished man. I think the video shows the President being exactly who he has always been, likely to garner more support from the left which is always a good thing in election years.