Letters to the Editor
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geegee
papier mache patriotism is old and passe, take your OWN fear mongering, and fade away.
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re: my patriotism
my patriotism was born of the blood my parents spilled at pearl harbor. where was your patriotism born?
geeegee
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Knee-Jerk Patriotism Is a Problem; Obama's Relationship With Pastor Wright Is a Real Problem
Lots of people in our country are much too narrow-minded on issues of patriotism -- that's a given. I like to think I'm not one of those, but the Pastor Wright issue raises questions nevertheless -- questions that will be on the radar or under it for as long as Obama's candidacy lasts. A few examples:
1. What else is out there waiting for us? I find it hard to believe that over 20 years' affiliation with Wright and this church, there aren't other damaging disclosures coming; e.g., Obama was proven to be present at a "bad" sermon; proof that church activists were spreading the pastor's message (so to speak) in previous Obama campaigns; proof of financial funny business in those campaigns with the church's fingerprints; associations with other radicals either through the church or otherwise -- the list goes on.
2. If Obama becomes president, what will be the role of Wright (or Wright-thinking surrogates) in the White House? Chaplain to the president? Spiritual advisor to the president (following the example of some previous presidents)? Nothing at all? We don't know.
3. Most important, what does Obama himself really think? His speech artfully rejected the pastor's worst outbursts, but he he has stuck by the pastor as a man and also his congregation. Will a President Obama be giving us a diet of liberation theology, reparations, and the like? How much is he in tune with Wright's overall philosophy?
The problem for me is that the more I think about this, the more questions it raises. Some of them are really troubling. I honestly don't know what I'd be getting with an Obama presidency. And you can be sure that his enemies, who are legion (and resourceful) will be looking for dirt and asking these same questions and many more. I think it will be more than enough to defeat him in the general election. Democrats who don't see this are deluding themselves.
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@weeping for brunnhilde
Thanks for your kind words. I'm not given to despair much. Like I said in my post before, I know a lot of people with many brilliant ideas about how to make things better, who are also working hard to put their ideas into practice. They give me hope.
I've noticed that expressing profound emotion about politics is taboo in this country--unless it's kitschy patriotic emotion. That, I think, is part of the reason the reaction to Wright's sermon has been so intense. I will allow myself to acknowledge that my government's actions make me very sad and very angry sometimes.
Perhaps that's the reason I'm sympathetic to Wright's anger.
It just seems really funny (in a sad, disturbing kind of way) that so many people here on this comments board hear Wright's comments--out of context, of course--and take his anger and condemnation of the American government's policies, and translate it into anger and condemnation of all white people.
"American government" is not the same thing as "American people." And "American people" is not the same thing as "white people." I wish we could get clear on that.
And I just want to say this to whoever it was who asked why white people who are descended from immigrants who had nothing to do with slavery should care about black anger...
1.) Go back and listen to or read Obama's speech again. He talks specifically about people like that, where they're coming from, and why they should care about racism.
2.) I've got it both ways. I'm white. My father's side were Swedish immigrants in the 1940s. My mother's side were Puritans who emigrated in the 1600s. I'm descended from both slave owners and abolitionists. (My grandparents did all this research, bully for them.) You know what? It doesn't make a whit of difference. The advantages of being white still accrue to me. I grew up in a white town with a good school. Housing, job interviews, getting into colleges, doing well in school--all these things are affected by race, and all white people benefit from the power structure we've inherited from our white supremacist forbears. The fact is, no white American alive today is responsible for the sin of slavery. But every white American alive today is responsible for dealing with the societal mess created by slavery, Jim Crow, and discrimination in general. It is, dare I say, a patriotic duty.
White people like to think racism is dead, because it lets them off the hook.
If you think racism is dead, just listen to Pat Buchanan bitching about the ungrateful negroes:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
...We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?
Notice he makes no mention of the legitimate causes for anger on the part of the black community. I.e. disenfranchisement, economic discrimination, lynching, slavery, etc. I find it offensive that he lists "bringing them to salvation" as a positive for which blacks should be grateful--as if forced conversion, and robbing someone of his/her own language, religion, cultural traditions, was a kindly and caring thing to do to. The "untold trillions" might--just might--match up to the untold millions of hours of backbreaking unpaid labor done by African-Americans to build this country up. I'm talking about slavery, yes, but also post-slavery chain gangs (which built a staggering amount of the railway and road infrastructure), and the discrepancy in pay that persists to this day between white and black workers. I rather doubt it does, though.
From day 1 of the American republic, the power elite has been playing poor white folks against poor black folks, because it's such an effective way to blind them to their common economic interest! It's high time white folks stopped falling for that bullshit. It's not divisive to be angry at the government--they've already divided themselves from the rest of us! It is divisive to tell a whole segment of the population to just shut up already... and that, to my mind, is what the conservative reaction to Obama's speech and his association with Jeremiah Wright amounts to.