With friends like Jeremiah Wright, who needs enemies.
The Democratic dogfight for the presidential nomination is a gift that keeps on giving. Without it, we would never witness the liberal mainstream media divided between the Obama and Clinton camps. Thus we see — with the rest of the nation for a change — things out in the open which would have been buried had it been otherwise. And so on Monday morning, all three cable news networks showed the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s National Press Club speech on “the black religious experience,” live and in its glorious entirety.
Listening to Wright’s unapologetic, egotistic, racist rantings, one is tempted to believe that he is working for the Clinton or McCain campaign, but I couldn’t shake the old saying that even the devil quotes scripture. If you have not had the chance to view it, I encourage you to stop right now and take the time to read or watch the entire speech. Nearly every word of his separatist manifesto is dripping with supercilious disdain, especially for those of “European heritage;” a term he uses repeatedly in a sardonic and derisive manner.
The main thrust of his talk centered around the differences between “European” and black Christian worship; particularly what he calls the “prophetic theology of the black church,” or black liberation theology. He explained that liberation theology was first propagated in Latin America and was adopted in the 1960’s by Dr. James Cone, whom he identifies as a good friend, citing his “inimitable and incomparable contributions he has made and continues to make in the field of theology.” What are these “incomparable contributions?” Here’s one from Cone’s book, A Black Theology of Liberation:
Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and
now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.
He continued by explaining the theories of Dr. William Augustus Jones; that the way we perceive God (theology) affects the way we see ourselves (anthropology) and therefore the way we order our lives (sociology). Ergo, “If I see God as male, if I see God as white male, if I see God as superior, as God over us and not Immanuel, which means ‘God with us,’ if I see God as mean, vengeful, authoritarian, sexist, or misogynist, then I see humans through that lens . . . And I order my society where I can worship God on Sunday morning wearing a black clergy robe and kill others on Sunday evening wearing a white Klan robe.”
Might this kind of thinking have colored Barack Obama’s views on rural whites who “cling” to religion and guns out of bitterness? Wright’s influence can also be perceived in another of Obama’s odd religious statements. Wright has said of 9/11, “You cannot do terrorism to others and have it not come back to you.” He purports that this view is based on the Bible’s Golden Rule; kind of like Obama’s quizzical citation of the Sermon on the Mount to justify the gay lifestyle.
But Biblical clarity doesn’t seem to matter to Wright, who said, “[T]he Christianity of the slaveholder is not the Christianity of the slave.” Now, this would have come as a great surprise to St. Paul, who said, “For you are all the children of God by faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3: 26-29)
Make no mistake about it, this speech has really painted Barack Obama into a corner. In it, Wright used the term “black church” no less than 25 times, making it very clear that should Obama wish to repudiate him, he must take on the entire black church; or at least the one he attended for 20 years. Indeed, Obama has said that, “I can no more disown [Wright] than I can disown the black community.”
So either Barack Obama subscribes to what he heard at Wright’s church for 20 years, or he is, like so many politicians, a religious fraud. But even should Obama go on to disavow every word Wright has ever spoken in public or private, he can not erase the fact that he is a member of a church that specifically espouses black liberation theology, as most helpfully described by Jeremiah Wright.
What will Barack Obama do? Rev. Wright himself gave us a clue on Monday when he said about Obama’s repudiation of him: "We both know that if Obama had not said what he said, he would never get elected."
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Read more articles by Lisa Fabrizio
I don't know very much about "black liberation theology," but from what I heard the Rev. Wright say in his press interview and on the UTUBE clips, he said very little that is different from *mainstream white liberal academic opinion." The US caused 9/11? Simply open the issue of the London Review of books the week after—you'll find many more extreme opinions therein–and from academics from top universities. America is racist to the core? Ever heard of Afro-American studies—which, I should add, are often taught by white folks? THe US created Aids to kill blacks? POke about a bit on JSTOR, the academic data base. You'll quickly find more outrageous assertions.
The scandal about the Rev. Wright is that he's being portrayed as a "black extremist." Nothing he is saying really differs from mainstream white academia.
Comment by Nathan Alexander | May 1, 2008
With their unrelenting torture of the American public during this presidential election, the media must love this Obama vs. Wright comedy. And while it has absolutely nothing to do with the candidates’ policies or positions, it has everything to do with emotional partisanship, backstabbing, racial tensions, etc. - it forms an ever renewable wellspring for endless stories and follow-ups – which sure must beat working for a living.
In recent years, the comedian Bill Cosby has carried out a black American to black American dialog concerning every subject from parental responsibilities to dropping the phony “hip-hop” accents and verbal expressions in favor of intelligible English. What America also needs, however, is a white Bill Cosby to initiate a white American to white American discussion of this “race” question. Within Rev. Wright’s various condemnations of America, this essay illustrates several important lessons white Americans should consider regarding black Americans - and, before she experienced the standard attack of white guilt, Fabrizio almost blurted out some unspoken, but needed to be spoken, truths.
First, black liberation theology is a symptom of a fundamental problem whites can’t openly acknowledge. Basically, the problem is blacks are a numerical minority in America and we can’t change that fact no matter how many “dialogs on race” we engage in. All black Americans realize from childhood they’re a numerical minority and even a legion of successful, billionaire Oprah types won’t convince them that being a minority in America doesn’t matter. As a consequence, black Americans are constantly afraid white Americans will turn on them someday, with fire and sword, and restore slavery or even carry out genocide.
At this point, you’re probably thinking that’s crazy; black Americans aren’t afraid of the white majority and the white majority would never band together in superior numbers to turn violently against black Americans. Sure, that’s a crazy statement if you’re white, but if you’re black, it may be a little paranoid but it’s certainly not crazy – and more importantly to black Americans, it could conceivably happen. The 20th century is rife with situations where the majority population slaughters a minority population.
The surviving Jews of Nazi Germany could thoroughly enlighten any skeptics toward that realistic concern (1945, 6 million dead). The ghosts of Armenians murdered by Turks could shout a loud Amen (1923, 2 million dead). Then there’s the Kurds under Saddam (1979-2003, 300,000), Bangladesh (1971, 1.5 million), the Philippines insurgency (1902, 200,000), Myanmar’s slaughter of minorities (starting 1948, 130,000), and so forth and so on. The violent murder and deliberate slaughter of minorities (racial, ethnic, religious, etc.) is one of the salient characteristics of the last century.
Of course those tragedies occurred at different times and in countries far removed from here, but if you’re still skeptical that blacks in America are afraid of the white majority, then carefully read the signs and portents. Constant references, within both the liberal and conservative media, to Jim Crow laws and the Klu Klux Klan can always bring on psychic cold sweats within black Americans. And, it doesn’t matter that most white Americans don’t know what a “Jim Crow” is or go bowling each Thursday with a couple of Klansman, because black Americans don’t know any Jim Crow’s either - but they all fear the injustice this Jim Crow-Klan code phrase stands for. And, they’re sub-consciously convinced of its enduring truth, notwithstanding the fact the present day Klu Klux Klan is a running joke among terrorist groups. The FBI has thoroughly infiltrated the Klan for years and carefully monitors any of those morons who appear to be growing a brain.
But for blacks, the Klan isn’t today’s tiny bunch of incompetents whose only skill is unreasoning hate. The Klan represents the ultimate boogeyman; the masked, hate-filled white man coming to kill me (you didn’t think white southerners adopting bed sheets as uniforms after the Civil War were ignorant of blacks’ secret fears, did you?). Shielded from justice by deliberate anonymity, there is no defense against this hooded devil and then there’s also the unsettling suspicion the white majority pretends to hate the Klan but secretly supports them. No happy thoughts for black Americans here. So, the first lesson to be learned is whites can never take this persecution fear from black Americans, only black Americans can do that and only with the passage of decades will it occur, although the fear will never be completely gone.
Growing up in Detroit’s inner-city ghetto, Rev. Wright types were as familiar as rusted out cars and discarded needles. I remember one such preacher in particular, Prophet Jones, with his gaudy Cadillac cars and his nubile female acolytes (google “Prophet Jones”, Detroit News archives). Within our inner city cultures, hustlers can pursue many occupations and there is no shame in being a religious hustler. And Rev. Wright is surely hustling the white media; in fact, he never stops hustling. What he actually believes regarding the emotional accusations he flings around like rice at a wedding, I don’t think even he knows anymore. It’s all a pose and it never stops being a pose, it just gets more refined year after year.
But look under the covers for reality. Rev. Wright, like Prophet Jones, is a multi-millionaire from his preaching and that’s no simple accident, nor a reward from a grateful god. And his congregation doesn’t resent that fact, far from it. Rev. Wright has beaten the system and his congregation is proud of him. So, the lesson here is that black Americans feel no moral obligation to be truthful with white Americans about their real concerns. There’s no profit in truth, but there can be considerable profit in playing a specific role – read all about that in the Rev. Wright’s next bestseller, due out soon.
Didn’t Rev. Wright realize that his inflammatory statements during the recent press conference would hurt the candidacy of his friend Obama? Yeah, he did. So what? That realization kind of puts all this black American “brothahs” and “sistahs” together nonsense in perspective, doesn’t it? Rev. Wright thoroughly used “brothah” Obama to advance his celebrity and his personal fortune, didn’t he? And, lets be honest, Obama didn’t spring fully-formed from Oprah’s forehead as an instant and authentic black presidential candidate either. He initially paid his dues to the black community which put him in government in the first place and gave him the springboard for an assault on the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
It’s somewhat ungrateful for Candidate Obama, at this point, to deny he voluntarily shouted out enthusiastic amens during Rev. Wright’s fiery sermons or to suggest he wasn’t also playing a role to advance his political career within the black community. But for Obama, what choice did he really have? He had to pay his dues in the black community to get where he is now. But now, having arrived, how does he explain to his white constituents that it was always just a pose, a traditional role he was expected to play? Black Americans understand exactly what he had to do to get where he’s at, but many white Americans are having trouble accepting the standard formula that governs political success for American blacks.
The final lesson is that if white Americans want to feel good about themselves by electing a black president, then they have to accept all the baggage that goes with that desire. It’s only going to get harder to hold on to the illusion that Obama is exactly like them, only a different skin shade. Historically, Obama did what he had to do to give white Americans a black candidate for the highest office; Rev. Wright did what he had to do to become a rich and well known black minister; and I think white Americans had better get used to accepting what they will have to accept if they want to boast about their first black president.
Comment by Pat Skurka | May 3, 2008