Letters to the Editor
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Black Church Experiences
When I lived in Washington I attended services at several different Black churches (and many more mixed churches). These were churches that my Black friends and colleagues (and several of my white friends and colleagues) found inspiring, uplifting, and that shared and practiced progressive/liberal theology in their communities. I'm not a church-going person and am not "religious" in any organized way, although I was raised as a Methodist.
Two of the churches I attended there were AME; one was a Black Baptist; the other was a "Christ Unity" church in SE.
From my limited knowledge prior to these experiences, I thought that AME Churches preached Black Liberation Theology (and would therefore probably not be very welcoming to me as a white interloper and D.C. "transient"). I pretty much guessed that Black Baptist was gonna be "fire and brimstone" and that the "Christ Unity" church (a local church) would probably be closer to community and civil rights activism. Again, because I am not a church-goer, I was quite ignorant about any church (except Methodism) particular beliefs/practices, except for what I had read.
These were the Reagan years that saw the outbreak and identification of AIDS, the War Against the Contras, The collapse of the former Soviet Union, major recession, the Iran-Contra Scandal, and the debauched divide and conquer tactics of women against men; Black vs. white; gay vs. everybody; unions vs. corporations, etc. They were tough political and economic times with a lot of enflamed feelings toward "others" about what was going on.
Yet, not once at any of the church services I attended did I ever hear a Black pastor utter "hate speech" -- even against President Reagan, or the whites who were dividing all of us from each other, or the gays, or Latinos, or anybody else. I heard messages of 1) hope; 2) encouragement to continue fighting the good fight; and 3) tolerance for those of different races, values and beliefs. (There was also a lot of high-spirited singing & moving, but I digress).
It just rubs me completely the wrong way that Rev. Jeremiah Wright isn't supposed to be held to the same standards we "liberals" hold Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and others; it also really troubles me that we become enraged when these same pastors who use "hate speech" are actively courted (and counseled) by the likes of George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Dick Cheney, and John McCain -- all of whom are PUBLIC OFFICIALS. And we decry the poisoning of public life with religion and religious intolerance (by people like this).
Yet, somehow, Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright are immune from our criticism. Why? Because Barack Obama got up and gave a stem-winding speech on race?
It isn't enough. And it still doesn't answer the question about why Sen. Obama spent 20 years in this man's company (10 of which have been as a PUBLIC OFFICIAL) and listened to/heard this "hate speech" without doing anything about it.
To me, this is a serious disconnect between what we, as liberals, say and what we do. We (including Sen. Obama) aren't "walking the talk" on this, as far as I can tell, and it doesn't make me feel at all good about supporting him, under any circumstances.
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Walker, you are truely a tragic demagogue
You're not a democrat, you're a demagogue. Your livid imagination is dark, your arguments ill reasoned, you think that your years, make you seem wise, and smugly well seasoned. You are mearly sickening, a reactionary crank to the core, your lies are base profanities, and your posts, dreadful bores.
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The Wright Videos Are Not Art
It is said that a thousand different people can look at a work of art and come away with a thousand different impressions.
Not the case here. The videos are all over the internet and were even on sale by Trinity UCC, so they must have been quite proud of them to put on price tags. The Rev. Wright's rantings are not nuanced, subtle, out-of-context or open to interpretation. They are the racist rants of a black David Duke. They are about as nuanced as a Hitler speech at the Reichstag.
Minds are not being changed here, that much is clear. There are either those who find great offense in Wright's statements and Obama's 20-year close association with him and his church, as I and millions of other American voters do, and there are those willing to whitewash it all as justified hatred from a black man who has suffered the indignities of Jim Crow.
Doesn't matter what you think. The horse is out of the barn. The videos are everywhere. And they will remain as testaments right up until Election Day and long after. If any of you think this is going away, you could not be more mistaken.
I'm not going to do battle with the equivocators and racial hate crowd anymore. No point. I'll let the videos speak for themselves. Those you can't debate, or argue with, or intimidate into silence by calling them racist. They are now a part of history visually recorded.
End of story. See you in November!
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Once again we will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
As a democrat I am completely discouraged by our party and candidates ability to shoot themselves in the foot. There is no way that Barack Obama will win a general election, but our party seems hell bent on having him be our nominee. I guess we better start getting used to the idea of President McCain...unless people wake up and realize what has happened here.
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@ljwalker53
I've been pondering the difference between Rev. Wright and the Falwell-Hagee-Robertson axis of evil for the better part of a week, and I think there are two differences.
First, this is Obama's personal minister. Other than some ceremonial spot on a Religious Values committee (or whatever) Wright doesn't speak for the campaign. Other than the sermons he in his own church, he doesn't give speeches of behalf of Obama the way the Big Three Right Wing Preacher Men (or B3RWPM) do for their guys. And sure, he advocates for Obama in his church (possibly in violation of FEC and IRS guidelines), but come on, Obama is going to win a straw poll 99-1 inside his own church anyway. In other words, Wright is not a political figure (though the things he says are very political), he's a religious figure as he pertains to Obama. We have no record of any of the B3RWPM (or NAMBLA) counting any Republican candidate among their membership. Plus, it's not like Obama has been trotting Wright out as a symbol of his faith, a faith that he has kept as personal as anyone in his position could.
Second, and most importantly, Obama has distanced himself from Wright's controversial remarks. When has McCain done that with Hagee? When has any Republican ever done that with one of the B3RWPM? Obama has, to use the already shark-jumped phrase of '08, "rejected AND denounced" these comments.
And while I wish he (Obama) had picked a different church 20 years ago, and while I wish he (Wright) had never said "God Damn America," I think there's enough of a difference between this and the McCain-Hagee thing that this truly doesn't affect my support.