I just saw Bill Moyers' lengthy interview PBS interview with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - Barack Obama's former paster, who has been the center of considerable controversy for his "God damn America" and other inflammatory statements.
I urge everyone to see it, because the sound bites that the media have presented, up until now, have taken Wright's comments seriously out of context.
Let's look at his "God damn America" sermon, as one example. Now, I think America is the most free country in the history of the world. Despite its many flaws, I feel happy and lucky to be living in the nation that Thomas Jefferson helped create. So those three words, taken on their own, were and are highly offensive to me.
But Rev. Wright did not say those just those three words in his sermon. He started that part of his sermon with a list of nations whose abuse of power, whose attempts to act like God, made them "fail". He mentioned Germany, Japan, Russia, and England (actually, the British Empire).
Then he got to America. He spoke of our massacre of Indians, our enslavement and auctioning of blacks, our enforcement of their poverty, poor education, second-class citizenship even after they were finally freed during the Civil War. And clearly, when you see that entire part of his speech, Rev. Wright is damning not America but those things that America did. And who would disagree with that? Who would say that there is not a crucial difference between America's finest ideals - "all men are created equal," as said in the Declaration of Independence - and the scourge of slavery and racism? Who would say that slavery and racism should not be damned?
Now, I might have put the phrasing a little differently were I making such a speech. I would have said slavery and racism are perversions of America, distortions of what is said in the Declaration of Independence, and God damn those destructive perversions of the beautiful American dream.
But that is nonetheless what Rev. Wright meant. That's clear when we see the whole passage and not just a clip.
The media, as a whole, have once again in this campaign done Americans a disservice by presenting small pieces of sermons out of context. Kudos for Bill Moyers and the Public Broadcasting Service for doing the right thing. As Jefferson the author of our Declaration of Independence foresaw, the free, open flow of information eventually brings out the truth.
PS added on Sunday (April 27) evening: I saw Rev. Wright's speech given to the NAACP in Detroit. I found it sage, inspiring, and highly entertaining.
6 comments:
I think the context helps a bit, but the vitriolic nature of the statements show them to be indefensible in any context for mainstream Americans. In my opinion, they're not all that offensive at all, even taken out of context.
God damn America! So what? I hate America. So what? America is the most evil and destructive country on the face of the earth! And.....?
People are entitled to their feelings. If those feelings come from a man who served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, saw violence abroad committed by Americans against Vietnamese and violence at home in Selma, Alabama against his own people, I EXPECT him to feel that way.
The environment of that era turned a lot of people radical. There are a lot of people who are being turned radical today. Wright's feelings come from a bitter disappointment in our government that comes from a history of genocide, slavery, internment, segregation, corporate wars, and poverty. His outlet for those feelings has been the pulpit. Some people choose the bar or the basketball court.
I'm never one to wear my flag so close to my heart that I can't empathize with someone else's anger or frustration. The key is to help people channel those feelings into something constructive, rather than destructive. Taking Obama at his word, he never heard the worst of Wright's anger. Now that he knows, he's denounced the sentiment, but like a good Christian he's stuck by the man as his brother's keeper.
The problem is, the storyline that Obama's opposition wants us all to believe is one of anti-Americanism. They want us to believe that Obama's not a patriot. It's nonsense. The man could be a multi-millionaire in some corporate law firm now, sipping champagne and taking month long vacations with his beautiful wife and kids. He misses them like crazy now, while he's out on the road defending himself against BS, eating garbage, sleeping on buses and planes, and sacrificing his personal life to serve the American people. If that's not patriotic, I don't know what is.
Wright is going to be a thorn in his side, but I still have no problem with what he said. It's his First Amendment right, and it's an honest emotion. That's more than what we get from most people in this day and age.
I think some of things our country has done have absolutely been un-Christian.
The aftermath of slavery still haunts our American community. As a white woman, I was raised by parents who educated us about MLK and showed us the separate drinking fountains, counters, etc. when we were little -- explaining how wrong this was. I think we forget how recent this all is in our history. When I hear people of Rev Wright's generation speak of overcoming the fear of hangings and imprisonment or harm to their families -- to fight for justice -- it brings tears to my eyes. I feel like I feel the guilt of a nation who has never made amends.
This ongoing saga of Rev Wright and how awful he is and how Barack must be an awful unAmerican because of his relationship with him -- it is becoming clearer that this focus has such racial overtones.
1) The few sentences looped over and over and not in context.
2) Only once on Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC program did I hear anyone raise the comparison of ALL the many, many white preachers associated with the Clintons and especially John McCain. Andrea (thrown off and deciding to completely ignore what she just heard) pivoted quickly back to the "Rev Wright problem." Check out the following comments and tell America why we focus on the black preacher and never a mention of some crazy white preachers in the pockets of white, male Republicans.
hmmm?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdYzGzvXO0U
About to watch the 11pm replay of the Wright speech from the NAACP in Detroit on CNN. By all accounts it was inspiring.
I just saw Rev. Wright's Detroit speech, and put a PS about it at the end of my post - I found it sage, inspiring, and entertaining.
Thanks for your earlier comment.
And, thanks, as well, anon.
Clean up for Rev Wright? That's what's going on here, isn't it? No matter what you say I believe (along with many others) that saying "God Damn America" from a pulpit in a supposedly Christian church is absolutely devilish and anti-Christian. Wright's "church" is a cult of black racists that are so far away from being "imitators of Christ" that they might as well be Muslim. Give me a break all of you who were silly enough to buy into Obama's "charisma" and not really look at the fact that Obama is a left-wing liberal opportunist who if nominated will take the party down. Don't kid yourself - the Republicans will chew him up and spit him out if he runs against McCain. http://politicalview.ireporter.tv
Well, Tim, you're obviously entitled to believe and say and write whatever you please. But I find it sad that you find it necessary to belittle those with whom you disagree, by calling them "silly". Even petty insults like that usually indicate your argument doesn't have much merit to present on its own, without the insult.
As for me, I'm thoroughly comfortable with and don't consider it "devilish" at all to damn perversions of the American ideal, carried out in the name of America, such as slavery and racism. In fact, the strongest possible condemnations of those un-American activites are called for.
Finally, as for the general election - come back here and tell me what you think in November after McCain has given his concession speech.
Post a Comment