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Give Wright a fair chance, and you'll see he isn't crazy black man everyone thinks he is.
The Rev. Wright has a right to defend his reputation
By Ruben Navarrette
Article Launched: 04/30/2008 01:35:48 AM PDT
SAN DIEGO - Just who does the Rev. Jeremiah Wright think he is, anyway? And how dare he try to tell us who he isn't - especially when many of us have made up our minds about him and the political damage he has done to Barack Obama. How dare someone who has been so deftly caricatured by the media try to defend himself and show that there is more to him, his life and his ministry than fits into a video clip on YouTube. And, in the process, how dare the former pastor come across as witty, engaging, self-assured and even funny. Imagine someone refusing to conform to stereotype.
The nerve!
After several weeks of having others speak about him, Wright stepped up to the microphone to speak for himself. First, there was the interview with PBS's Bill Moyers. Then came his address to the NAACP in Detroit. And finally, there was Wright's speech to the National Press Club in Washington, where he took questions from reporters.
It was all too much, the pundits insisted. What was Wright trying to prove with his media tour? Surely he must understand that he is only hurting Barack Obama by keeping "pastorgate" front and center in the presidential campaign.
Few pundits stopped to consider that perhaps Wright wasn't so much trying to help Obama's campaign as he was trying to save his own reputation. And fewer commentators acknowledged that, like anyone, he is en led to fight for his name.
But then, the elite media almost always get Wright wrong.
And, when they do, it winds up telling us more about the pundits - and, in fact, the entire country - than it does about Wright. In the end, if we're paying attention, we learn less about black rage than white fear.
As I've said before, there are lots of white folks who have a guilty conscience about how black people have been treated since the early days of this country.
It's mostly a baby boomer hang-up. After all, theirs was the generation that helped secure civil rights for millions of Americans. But it's also the generation where many sat idly by and didn't march, didn't "sit in" at segregated lunch counters, didn't participate in Freedom Rides. And so, for many, there is guilt over not having done enough to correct a horrible injustice. And there is also the anticipation that, sooner or later, black people will retaliate against those who looked down on them and those who looked the other way.
That's not what the black church is about, Rev. Wright insisted to those who were willing to listen. Its goal isn't retaliation but reconciliation. It's not about tearing people apart but bringing them together. But for those who have never been in a black church and never been exposed to an African-American religious tradition that has long been, as Wright noted in his Washington speech, "invisible to the dominant culture in terms of its rich history, its incredible legacy and its multiple meanings," it is easy to fall prey to hysteria. Besides, Wright said, "black preaching is different from European and European-American preaching."
Looking for a silver lining in this controversy, Wright thinks that the mud thrown at him might serve to educate and "move the black religious tradition from the status of invisible to the status of invaluable, not just for some black people in this country, but for all the people in this country."
Reconciliation, Wright said, doesn't mean that one race tries to imitate another but that "we embrace our individual rich histories, all of them (and that) we retain who we are, as persons of different cultures, while acknowledging that those of other cultures are not superior or inferior to us." And, of course, it means that we have to "root out" hatred and prejudice and accept that we are all "prone to error and in need of forgiveness."
With all due respect to the caricature of this man that some in the media have so carefully constructed and will now do everything they can to protect, is that how radicals talk these days? Please.
Obama further distanced himself from Wright on Tuesday, saying that much of what the pastor had to say in his media tour, about government conspiracies to spread AIDS and the like, was outrageous.
He's right. Some of it was. But other parts were quite inspiring, and Obama and the rest of us shouldn't be afraid to acknowledge that.
RUBEN NAVARRETTE is a San Diego Union-Tribune columnist.
LINK: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_9103956
Last edited by some_user86; 04-30-2008 at 05:00 AM.
Give Wright a fair chance, and you'll see he isn't crazy black man everyone thinks he is.
People who say the US Governemnt was involved in spreading AIDS and in 9/11 are . . . well, a little out there . . .
Also, WTF is a Black Church? Churches aren't supposed to have colors . . .
Yes, this is true. Those are dumb statements.
But people aren't offended by those statements specifically. They are offended by Wright condemning our country, when if you look at the full transcript, he clearly states that we will be damned as long as we act supreme over god. Did not the Christian faith teach humans to be humble and meek? I thought I remembered my religion classes in 1st-8th grade clearly drilling this message home. It was a attention-grabbing way to say that America must be humble and not act as god's chosen children. His message is that there is no manifest destiny for this land above other lands, as we are all god's children.
That is a powerfully Christian (and humanist) sentiment at its core, and it's surprising to see so many conservatives jump out against it for cheap political theatrics. Then again, I think most conservatives aren't true Christians anyways.
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