This (below) is a great article from Truthdig, and I am thrilled that the author (David Sirota) had the courage to write this piece. But first, my thoughts on this topic…
Exactly what is Jeremiah Wright’s sin?
Simply put, his greatest sin is saying the truth about race in this nation in a setting outside of his own home, where it could be captured and manipulated.
I don’t question that Wright’s approach in itself can be offensive, but it seems that is all that conservatives can grab on to. Let’s examine what is underneath Wright’s comments.
Wright is guilty of:
- saying “God Damn” America.
Funny, but I say worse about President Bush on a daily basis, and I do bemoan the state of our nation. For this comment, Wright is accused of being a “black separatist”. It amazes me how people can condemn the comments of neo-Nazis and the KKK but defend their right to engage in free speech, then blast Wright for doing the same. How is it that we can support the rights of people like John Hagee, Rod Parsley, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham to speak out, but shout down Jeremiah Wright when he does the same?
There is a double standard at work here that I find extremely distasteful.
- saying that our chickens “came home to roost” on 9/11.
How the truth hurts. The overwhelming majority of people in this nation don’t get that people in the Middle East resent American intrusion and have resented it since the founding of Israel. The United States and its allies had a choice after the second world war… create just an Israeli state, or create an Israeli and a Palestinian state; they chose the former. And thus follows decades of strife. During the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union treated the Middle East as a political playground where the bullies could duke it out, at the expense of the populations, who had to endure dictatorships because those governments had the backing of one side or another.
The collapse of the Soviet Union changed the dynamic. Free from the political agenda of the Cold War, people began to rally around religion and nationalism, from Eastern Europe all the way through the Middle East. The governments of the region saw the end of the Cold War as a chance to assert their own independence and try to become more powerful players, whether locally or on a bigger regional stage. Iran and Iraq are excellent examples of this. In Iraq specifically, we supported Saddam’s evolution as a petty tyrant, and only turned against him when we no longer had any use for him. Don’t think for a second that the gassing of his own people in any way motivated our government to invade. That simply isn’t the case. The United States has tolerated worse in its allies. We turn a blind eye to abuses committed in former Soviet republics because we get access to military bases. We turn a blind eye to horrible abuses in Africa because we simply aren’t interested… there aren’t enough natural resources in some of these places to necessitate our caring about the people. And when there are resources to fight over, we will support almost any government that allows us access, such as Saudi Arabia, where we ignore abuses of human rights there (as well an an anti-Democratic government) in order to have access to oil.. Then there is Israel… the nation that can do nearly anything it wants to the Palestinians, and gets away with it. We note our “special” relationship with Israel as though the nation were beyond any legal or moral accountability; kind of like how we feel about ourselves.
What happened on September 11, 2001 is inexcusable. It is tragic. It was a set of evil acts committed by evil men. But we are fooling ourselves if we think only the terrorists are to blame. Yes, they are to blame for the symptoms, but not the problem. We helped contribute to a situation that would inevitably come back to haunt us, and it did. The “blowback” is real. That is not a Republican issue nor a Democratic one. It is an American problem that evolved over decades, and our inability to free ourselves from Cold War thinking has only made us slower to recognize the resentment that other people feel towards our nation. This was a point that Dennis Kucinich tried to drive home in his campaign. The United States needs to sit down with friend and foe alike to create a better world. We have to acknowledge grievances against us and overcome the arrogance that never allows this nation to apologize when it is wrong. We must in essence realize that we may be more privileged than many other people around the world, but that does not make us inherently better than them. The days of expecting the world to kiss our ass because we saved freedom in World War Two are past; the future requires us to be a member of community, no better or worse than the next member. Failing to understand this will mean our fall as an empire as the European Union, Russia and China all pass us in terms of real influence. We may retain the military might, but that is worthless without the moral standing to use it.
- saying that our government is controlled by rich, white people.
Well, duh. Look at Congress and its membership. Look at the distribution of wealth in this nation. This is a point I won’t comment on in great detail only because it angers me. As a nation, we brought people to this land in the holds of slave ships… we committed inexcusable abuses upon these people for many years… when blacks finally were granted their freedom they were systematically discriminated against until 1964. Even since then, the discrimination hasn’t gone away. And we in White America expect blacks to thank us? Racism is insidious. It is a part of our culture. And the longer we stay in denial about it, the more the truth will hurt when it is spoken by people like Jeremiah Wright.
Barack Obama said something in an interview yesterday that really resonated with me. Paraphrased, he told a reporter that if you take ten of the worst things said by any person and present them, they will be ugly. They will be something that even the speaker is not proud of. We all have those moments. As someone who resolves conflicts, I know full well that what people say is only a vessel for the real issue. One has to take the time to look beneath the statement to find its value. And so it is with Jeremiah Wright. His statements were loud, obnoxious, and insulting to most people. I get that. But there is truth to what he said, and it’s time we woke up to that truth.
In many ways, I am the typical white person that Barack spoke of. He and I are close in age and grew up in the same America. I know the constant feeling of racism that I experienced in the 1970s, because I was guilty of it. I wasn’t brought up to appreciate diversity; that was a learned trait. I was once mugged by two black kids and saw that as justification for disliking all blacks in my neighborhood. I spouted racial epithets as a young teen from some false sense of superiority that I had acquired through comments that echoed from the whole family structure. Comments like, “I’m not racist, but…” or “Niggers aren’t just black people; there are white niggers too” or “Those people…” This is not something I am proud of. I have to continually confront myself when dealing with others, asking myself if I am treating them for who they are, or for what they look like. It is a daily struggle, but one I am glad to fight. There are people I grew up with still living back in that city, some even in the same houses, who continually spout the same things that we said in the 1970s.
At least I am better than that.
Is Wright Right About Racism?
Posted on Mar 27, 2008
By David SirotaSince the 1960s, bigotry has undergone an aesthetic makeover. Today, the most pernicious racists do not wear pointy hoods, scream epithets and anonymously burn crosses from behind masks. They don starched suits, recite sententious bromides and stage political lynchings before television cameras. For proof, behold the mob stalking Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
Wright has long delivered fiery (and occasionally outrageous) sermons, to little fanfare. Now, though, a gang of thugs is inflicting a guilt-by-association blow to Obama by excoriating his spiritual adviser for three specific declarations.
Sean Hannity, Fox News’ own George Wallace, turned a fire hose on Wright for his church’s focus. “[The church] is all about the black community,” Hannity thundered, claiming that means Wright supports “a black-separatist agenda.”
Pat Buchanan billy-clubbed Wright for saying, “God damn America.” The MSNBC commentator, who avoided the draft, implied that Wright, a former Marine, lacks sufficient loyalty to country. Out of context, Wright’s exclamation was admittedly offensive. But remember: It punctuated a speech about segregation. Buchanan, nonetheless, unleashed, deriding “black hustlers” and insisting descendants of those “brought from Africa in slave ships” owe whites a thank you. “Where is the gratitude?” he asked.
Fox’s Charles Krauthammer berated Wright for saying the 9/11 attacks were “chickens coming home to roost.” Krauthammer labeled the pronouncement “vitriolic divisiveness” despite our government acknowledging the concept of “blowback”—or retaliation—that Wright was referencing. The CIA knows that when it supports foreign dictatorships, there can be blowback from radicals. While blowback is often immoral and undeserved, its existence is undisputed. Yet, Krauthammer alleged that Wright takes “satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents.”
In promoting the Wright “controversy,” most media outlets joined this mob and embraced “colorblind racism,” says Duke University’s Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of “Racism Without Racists.”
It is polite pinstriped prejudice shrouding bigotry in feigned outrage against extremism—the operative word being feigned. After all, John McCain solicited the endorsement of John Hagee, the pastor who called the Catholic Church “the Great Whore.” Similarly, according to Mother Jones magazine, Hillary Clinton belongs to the “Fellowship,” a secretive group “dedicated to ‘spiritual war’ on behalf of Christ.” She is also friendly with Billy Graham, the minister caught on tape spewing anti-Semitism. But while Wright’s supposed “extremism” blankets the news, McCain and Clinton’s relationships with real extremists receive scant attention.
Why is it “controversial” for one pastor to address the black community, racism and blowback, but OK for another pastor to slander an entire religion? Why is it news that one candidate knows a sometimes-impolitic clergyman, but not news that his opponent associates with an anti-Semite? Does the double standard prove the dominant culture despises a black man confronting taboos but accepts whites spewing hate? Does the very reaction to Wright show he’s right about racism?
Clinton seems to think so. Her aides have been describing as their political “firewall” the states they believe Obama will lose. That’s campaign-speak for “race wall”—one built with bricks like Pennsylvania and Indiana. These aren’t the near purely white states where racial politics is often muted (and Obama won). They are the slightly diverse states where racial politics simmers and where the black vote is too small to offset a motivated racist vote. This race wall is now being fortified.
ABC News reports that Clinton’s campaign is “pushing the Wright story” ahead of the Pennsylvania and Indiana primaries. The crass tactic is designed to motivate the racist vote by reminding whites of Obama’s connection to the African-American community. Put another way, Clinton’s message has become simply: Obama Is black.
Wright probably expected this brouhaha. He says our government is “controlled by rich white people” and our culture afflicted by racism. Though these statements are also deemed distasteful by the Establishment, they are truisms. You can see their veracity in the collected portraits of white millionaires commonly called the congressional photo directory. Or, just turn on your television and watch the mob continue stoking the Wright “controversy.”
David Sirota is a best-selling author whose newest book, “The Uprising,” will be released in June. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network, both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota.
