A LESS PERFECT UNION, PART TWO
and a most obfuscating
explanation.
Now. Where were
we?
Oh, that's right. Just about to get to the good stuff...
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap.
Note the leap in logic here. The first part sort-of gets right what Geraldine Ferraro said. But the second part is nothing at all like what she actually said. Or like what the people who defended her actually said. Or like what anyone who's ever been critical of his campaign and all the uncritical fawning over it has ever said.
Mr. Stirring Orator, meet Mr. Straw Man.
On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
First, a note about style: that second use of views breaks both the rhythm and the grammar of the not-only/but construct, but the greatness and goodness line is beautiful, and that final, trailing clause is too. Syntax, rhythm, parallel structure are all lovely and effective.
Now to substance: this is a good start. Too bad it never really goes anywhere.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy.
That is true. But watch how, for much of the rest of this speech, he proceeds to equivocate.
For some, nagging questions remain.
Would it be indelicate to point out that questions can only remain when they have not been clearly (or at least adequately) answered?
It would?
Good.
Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course.
Funny thing, that.
Because just a few days before this speech, Senator Obama declared, I did not hear such incendiary language myself, personally. Either in conversations with him or when I was in the pew, he always preached the gospel... If I had heard them repeated, I would have quit. He also told CNN that he didn't know about all these statements, that he only knew about one or two, and that if he'd thought that was the tenor or tone on an ongoing basis, then he wouldn't feel comfortable [at the church.]
So, in other words... Here in this great and open and fiercely honest speech, he's admitting that he lied -- or at least heavily distorted -- the facts of what he claimed just a few days earlier. But, you know, when we're all listening to the pretty words, I suppose it would be indelicate to point that out. Much less to be bothered by it.
Oh, and another thing -- occasionally fierce? Please. Those are weasel words at their best. Anyone out there really think there were -- or still are -- some days when the Reverend Wright slinks down from his bully pulpit and says, you know, I don't feel so bad about the US of KKKA today? Anyone think he has quiet moments here or there when he decides that maybe the American government didn't invent AIDS to destroy the black man?
When you consider that these sermons are a matter of public record, that the Rev. Wright was apparently known for these sorts of tirades, and that several news outlets, including Rolling Stone magazine, knew about these profanity-laced harangues from the Reverend's pulpit a long time ago, you can arrive at only two conclusions:
1) Senator Obama lied about what he knew, then reversed field in this speech, and no one really called him on it. Or...
2) Senator Obama, who's known the Rev. Wright for twenty years as his pastor and spiritual advisor, only ever, in all that time, happened to hear an occasional fierce comment that sounded nothing like those YouTube clips we've all seen a couple of kajillion times now.
Could he really have been that lucky -- or that much in the dark -- for twenty years? If so, then I'm not convinced his judgment, upon which he has based a large part of his campaign for the presidency, is really all that good or keen. (He seems to have known about the Rev. Wright's sermons they way President Bush knew about Osama bin Laden's plans to attack the U.S.: in brief, at a distance, without worrying all that much about them.) If not, then he lied to cover his ass, reversed field, did not get called on it, and has proven himself (yet again) just another typical politician -- albeit one who continues to pretend that he is (way) above and (far) better than all of these petty things.
Which brings me 'round again to what I have been saying all along these past two years: the guy's a phony. He is not what he pretends to be. He is not what everyone wants to believe he is. And that would be alright with me, at least, if we could all admit that we're just fucking ignoring it. That the media and his fawning, sometimes fainting supporters have decided to believe in the construct of Obama, in the fiction, rather than the reality, of the man in his campaign, and that they're willing to give it a shot because, well, what have we got to lose? But this relentless, regrettable pageant that Obama is something new and better and different -- led by a campaign team that, if they believe it, are as naive and foolish as Donald Rumsfeld in his battle plans for Iraq, and that, if they don't believe it, are as duplicitous and hypocritical as Hillary Clinton or even George Bush on their worst days -- is here exposed, in glorious black and white, for everyone to see. And, apparently, ignore.
And it's that, more than anything else, that drives me nuts about this campaign, and that drives me, over and over again, to write posts like this.
Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.
Just read those last eight paragraphs over again. Because they apply just as well to this sentence.
Go ahead. I'll wait -- and sigh -- 'til you're done.
Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely...
Even though, you know, a couple of days ago I said that I didn't. Even though, you know, I dis-invited him last year from my announcement speech because I knew he could get kind of rough in the sermons and I'd decided that it was best for him not to be out there in public.
See the pattern here?
He knew it. He didn't know. He knew it.
He told the truth. He lied. He told the truth, while pretending he hadn't lied.
If I didn't know any better, I'd swear I was writing about Bill Clinton. Monica Lewinsky, meet Jeremiah Wright.
... — just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
That's clever. By which I mean, cloying. By which I mean, disingenuous.
Of course we've all heard remarks from our pastors, priests, or rabbis with which we've strongly disagreed. But hearing that we ought to come to church every Sunday or that homosexuality is a sin according to the church or that this wine really does turn into the blood of Jesus Christ just before you drink it is not quite the same as hearing that God should damn America, that Hiroshima is somehow a moral equivalent of 9/11, that AIDS was invented by the United States government to systematically eliminate blacks, or that this country may as well be called the US of KKKA.
To suggest otherwise is folly. And Senator Obama knows it.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial.
That's right.
They were stupid and senseless and, quite frankly, nuttier than a pound of cashews. And it would have been nice to hear you say that. Instead, we get...
They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice.
... that they were just a little attempt to speak out against perceived injustice. Which is also what happens, I suppose, when a bunch of white idiots burn a cross on a black family's lawn. Is that, too, just some community leaders' efforts to speak out against perceived injustice?
Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
That last clause strikes me as odd -- like a bit of pandering to the white right, or at least the white middle, by making sure to demonize radical Islam -- especially in the midst of a speech allegedly about tolerance and unity. But apart from that, this is a strong and stirring passage, one that rightly dismisses -- even as it does not quite condemn -- the Rev. Wright's comments.
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems — two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Now comes the pivot: let's not worry about the Rev. Wright's wrongs; let's pay attention to all of these problems we have and see how we can solve them.
It is, of course, difficult to argue with that sentiment. Yes, by all means, let's dispense with the distractions and get down to the details of solving our many problems. And yet, this is the Senator's own distraction. Followed by his own misstatements about it. And we have to sort it out, if only to see what it says about him, his judgment, and, yes, (by God,) his character.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?
Fair questions all. Too bad he doesn't really answer them.
And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and YouTube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
That sounds just like what abused wives have been known to say about their abusive husbands. (Oh, yes, I know he beat me with a baseball bat, and I know he said some terribly idiotic things about AIDS and the U.S. Government, but he's really a good man...)
Think I'm exaggerating? Well, maybe I am. Just a bit. But think about the analogy, and then read this next paragraph:
But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth — by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
See what I mean?
Yes. I imagine you do.
Even if you don't agree with it.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
Is there anything more tiresome -- or more insufferably egotistical -- than a man quoting himself, from his own navel-gazing, insufferably egotistical book?
“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note — hope! — I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories — of survival, and freedom, and hope — became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish — and with which we could start to rebuild.”
Well, yes. That passage right there.
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety — the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
That's a great paragraph. Full of great writing and vivid language. The last sentence is especially striking, both rhythmically and rhetorically. I admire the hell out of the craft, even as I resist the too-easy, too-convenient-by-half Romanticization of the church and the experiences within it. As if believing that AIDS were a genocidal construct of the United States government is just another bit of bawdy humor, just one more inescapable bit of the bitter biases that make up the black experience in America.
If you ask me, that's awfully close to an insult to every American black with sense and intelligence enough to rightly and immediately dismiss the pandering, paranoid claptrap that Rev. Wright was spewing.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright.
No, it doesn't. Not at all.
As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children.
Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect.
And here's where my head almost explodes.
Do you buy this? Really?
Does anyone, save for the most blind and ardent supporters of Senator Obama, really believe this? Do you really believe that this guy could say these things from the pulpit, over and over and over again, be known for this sort of silliness and prejudice and rank hatred, even sell examples of it on church-peddled DVDs, hold these feelings near and dear enough to shout them from his spiritually forked tongue across his morally compromised pulpit, and yet never once, in twenty years, let slip even the slightest hint of inkling of them in private conversations with a man who was, depending on the metaphor, like a son or brother or nephew to him? Really?
Wow.
If you do -- maybe, just for one last try, you should read and think about this.
He contains within him the contradictions — the good and the bad — of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
Interesting. Both that he should reduce all that hatred and ignorance to the simple category of contradictions, and also that he should paint the entire community with so broad a (half-brush). When you see him throwing so many good and moral and rational members of the black community under the bus like this, it will, I suppose, be much less of a shock when he tosses his own grandmother under there at the end of the next paragraph.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.
Well, yes. You can.
I'm not necessarily saying that you should have. But you could have.
I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother — ...
Here we go.
...a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
Watch out for those bus wheels, grandma. Good thing for you it's already pretty crowded under here.
I honestly don't know what I find more offensive here: the complete selling out of his grandmother, who'd raised and nurtured and cared for him her whole life, just to score some political points and try to save face for that unapologetic racist of a Reverend, or the idiotic equation of his grandmother and all that she did for him throughout his life with the Rev. Wright and his obviously suspect spiritual counsel.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
I suppose he wants to seem progressive and principled. But he just seems ungrateful.
[to be continued...]
Oh, that's right. Just about to get to the good stuff...
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap.
Note the leap in logic here. The first part sort-of gets right what Geraldine Ferraro said. But the second part is nothing at all like what she actually said. Or like what the people who defended her actually said. Or like what anyone who's ever been critical of his campaign and all the uncritical fawning over it has ever said.
Mr. Stirring Orator, meet Mr. Straw Man.
On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
First, a note about style: that second use of views breaks both the rhythm and the grammar of the not-only/but construct, but the greatness and goodness line is beautiful, and that final, trailing clause is too. Syntax, rhythm, parallel structure are all lovely and effective.
Now to substance: this is a good start. Too bad it never really goes anywhere.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy.
That is true. But watch how, for much of the rest of this speech, he proceeds to equivocate.
For some, nagging questions remain.
Would it be indelicate to point out that questions can only remain when they have not been clearly (or at least adequately) answered?
It would?
Good.
Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course.
Funny thing, that.
Because just a few days before this speech, Senator Obama declared, I did not hear such incendiary language myself, personally. Either in conversations with him or when I was in the pew, he always preached the gospel... If I had heard them repeated, I would have quit. He also told CNN that he didn't know about all these statements, that he only knew about one or two, and that if he'd thought that was the tenor or tone on an ongoing basis, then he wouldn't feel comfortable [at the church.]
So, in other words... Here in this great and open and fiercely honest speech, he's admitting that he lied -- or at least heavily distorted -- the facts of what he claimed just a few days earlier. But, you know, when we're all listening to the pretty words, I suppose it would be indelicate to point that out. Much less to be bothered by it.
Oh, and another thing -- occasionally fierce? Please. Those are weasel words at their best. Anyone out there really think there were -- or still are -- some days when the Reverend Wright slinks down from his bully pulpit and says, you know, I don't feel so bad about the US of KKKA today? Anyone think he has quiet moments here or there when he decides that maybe the American government didn't invent AIDS to destroy the black man?
When you consider that these sermons are a matter of public record, that the Rev. Wright was apparently known for these sorts of tirades, and that several news outlets, including Rolling Stone magazine, knew about these profanity-laced harangues from the Reverend's pulpit a long time ago, you can arrive at only two conclusions:
1) Senator Obama lied about what he knew, then reversed field in this speech, and no one really called him on it. Or...
2) Senator Obama, who's known the Rev. Wright for twenty years as his pastor and spiritual advisor, only ever, in all that time, happened to hear an occasional fierce comment that sounded nothing like those YouTube clips we've all seen a couple of kajillion times now.
Could he really have been that lucky -- or that much in the dark -- for twenty years? If so, then I'm not convinced his judgment, upon which he has based a large part of his campaign for the presidency, is really all that good or keen. (He seems to have known about the Rev. Wright's sermons they way President Bush knew about Osama bin Laden's plans to attack the U.S.: in brief, at a distance, without worrying all that much about them.) If not, then he lied to cover his ass, reversed field, did not get called on it, and has proven himself (yet again) just another typical politician -- albeit one who continues to pretend that he is (way) above and (far) better than all of these petty things.
Which brings me 'round again to what I have been saying all along these past two years: the guy's a phony. He is not what he pretends to be. He is not what everyone wants to believe he is. And that would be alright with me, at least, if we could all admit that we're just fucking ignoring it. That the media and his fawning, sometimes fainting supporters have decided to believe in the construct of Obama, in the fiction, rather than the reality, of the man in his campaign, and that they're willing to give it a shot because, well, what have we got to lose? But this relentless, regrettable pageant that Obama is something new and better and different -- led by a campaign team that, if they believe it, are as naive and foolish as Donald Rumsfeld in his battle plans for Iraq, and that, if they don't believe it, are as duplicitous and hypocritical as Hillary Clinton or even George Bush on their worst days -- is here exposed, in glorious black and white, for everyone to see. And, apparently, ignore.
And it's that, more than anything else, that drives me nuts about this campaign, and that drives me, over and over again, to write posts like this.
Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.
Just read those last eight paragraphs over again. Because they apply just as well to this sentence.
Go ahead. I'll wait -- and sigh -- 'til you're done.
Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely...
Even though, you know, a couple of days ago I said that I didn't. Even though, you know, I dis-invited him last year from my announcement speech because I knew he could get kind of rough in the sermons and I'd decided that it was best for him not to be out there in public.
See the pattern here?
He knew it. He didn't know. He knew it.
He told the truth. He lied. He told the truth, while pretending he hadn't lied.
If I didn't know any better, I'd swear I was writing about Bill Clinton. Monica Lewinsky, meet Jeremiah Wright.
... — just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
That's clever. By which I mean, cloying. By which I mean, disingenuous.
Of course we've all heard remarks from our pastors, priests, or rabbis with which we've strongly disagreed. But hearing that we ought to come to church every Sunday or that homosexuality is a sin according to the church or that this wine really does turn into the blood of Jesus Christ just before you drink it is not quite the same as hearing that God should damn America, that Hiroshima is somehow a moral equivalent of 9/11, that AIDS was invented by the United States government to systematically eliminate blacks, or that this country may as well be called the US of KKKA.
To suggest otherwise is folly. And Senator Obama knows it.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial.
That's right.
They were stupid and senseless and, quite frankly, nuttier than a pound of cashews. And it would have been nice to hear you say that. Instead, we get...
They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice.
... that they were just a little attempt to speak out against perceived injustice. Which is also what happens, I suppose, when a bunch of white idiots burn a cross on a black family's lawn. Is that, too, just some community leaders' efforts to speak out against perceived injustice?
Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
That last clause strikes me as odd -- like a bit of pandering to the white right, or at least the white middle, by making sure to demonize radical Islam -- especially in the midst of a speech allegedly about tolerance and unity. But apart from that, this is a strong and stirring passage, one that rightly dismisses -- even as it does not quite condemn -- the Rev. Wright's comments.
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems — two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Now comes the pivot: let's not worry about the Rev. Wright's wrongs; let's pay attention to all of these problems we have and see how we can solve them.
It is, of course, difficult to argue with that sentiment. Yes, by all means, let's dispense with the distractions and get down to the details of solving our many problems. And yet, this is the Senator's own distraction. Followed by his own misstatements about it. And we have to sort it out, if only to see what it says about him, his judgment, and, yes, (by God,) his character.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?
Fair questions all. Too bad he doesn't really answer them.
And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and YouTube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
That sounds just like what abused wives have been known to say about their abusive husbands. (Oh, yes, I know he beat me with a baseball bat, and I know he said some terribly idiotic things about AIDS and the U.S. Government, but he's really a good man...)
Think I'm exaggerating? Well, maybe I am. Just a bit. But think about the analogy, and then read this next paragraph:
But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth — by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
See what I mean?
Yes. I imagine you do.
Even if you don't agree with it.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
Is there anything more tiresome -- or more insufferably egotistical -- than a man quoting himself, from his own navel-gazing, insufferably egotistical book?
“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note — hope! — I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories — of survival, and freedom, and hope — became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish — and with which we could start to rebuild.”
Well, yes. That passage right there.
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety — the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
That's a great paragraph. Full of great writing and vivid language. The last sentence is especially striking, both rhythmically and rhetorically. I admire the hell out of the craft, even as I resist the too-easy, too-convenient-by-half Romanticization of the church and the experiences within it. As if believing that AIDS were a genocidal construct of the United States government is just another bit of bawdy humor, just one more inescapable bit of the bitter biases that make up the black experience in America.
If you ask me, that's awfully close to an insult to every American black with sense and intelligence enough to rightly and immediately dismiss the pandering, paranoid claptrap that Rev. Wright was spewing.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright.
No, it doesn't. Not at all.
As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children.
Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect.
And here's where my head almost explodes.
Do you buy this? Really?
Does anyone, save for the most blind and ardent supporters of Senator Obama, really believe this? Do you really believe that this guy could say these things from the pulpit, over and over and over again, be known for this sort of silliness and prejudice and rank hatred, even sell examples of it on church-peddled DVDs, hold these feelings near and dear enough to shout them from his spiritually forked tongue across his morally compromised pulpit, and yet never once, in twenty years, let slip even the slightest hint of inkling of them in private conversations with a man who was, depending on the metaphor, like a son or brother or nephew to him? Really?
Wow.
If you do -- maybe, just for one last try, you should read and think about this.
He contains within him the contradictions — the good and the bad — of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
Interesting. Both that he should reduce all that hatred and ignorance to the simple category of contradictions, and also that he should paint the entire community with so broad a (half-brush). When you see him throwing so many good and moral and rational members of the black community under the bus like this, it will, I suppose, be much less of a shock when he tosses his own grandmother under there at the end of the next paragraph.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.
Well, yes. You can.
I'm not necessarily saying that you should have. But you could have.
I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother — ...
Here we go.
...a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
Watch out for those bus wheels, grandma. Good thing for you it's already pretty crowded under here.
I honestly don't know what I find more offensive here: the complete selling out of his grandmother, who'd raised and nurtured and cared for him her whole life, just to score some political points and try to save face for that unapologetic racist of a Reverend, or the idiotic equation of his grandmother and all that she did for him throughout his life with the Rev. Wright and his obviously suspect spiritual counsel.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
I suppose he wants to seem progressive and principled. But he just seems ungrateful.
[to be continued...]
Posted: Sat - March 29, 2008 at 03:37 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM