The assumption put forth in much of the mainstream media I have seen of late is that white Americans are offended by what The Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. said in his sermon. You know, the one they show clips from on the news – the one Barack Obama spoke about in his recent speech on race and politics in America.
Not only was I not offended by what Rev. Wright said in what I heard so far, and I haven’t heard much yet – but I agreed with what I heard him say. I understand his outrage as much as I am able to as a white American woman. And I was glad that Senator Obama did not apologize for him.
Is Rev. Wright anti-American because he criticizes American policies and says they cause many problems and are the legitimate reasons that some people hate us?
Then so am I.
However as I pointed out yesterday in A bit of a rant with the article “Advise and Dissent” by David Greenberg, good comes from dissent.
Dissent, opposition and protest is a right of being an American. And not speaking out is wrong and makes us complicit with evil.
Do we live in a racist society? Hell yes. Did our government do things in this world that have caused people in other places to hate our country? Yes of course it did. Do I think that it is okay for them to fly airplanes into our World Trade Center buildings in New York City? No, of course not. But then neither do I think it was okay for us to use that as a reason to attack Iraq!
Here are some excellent articles and essays related to Reverend Wright being targeted by far right radical conservatives and much of mainstream media:
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The White Preacher Double Standard: How Hagee, Parsley and the Rest Get Away with Everything
If the disparity in coverage isn’t racist, then what is it?
Read: The White Preacher Double Standard: How Hagee, Parsley and the Rest Get Away with Everything
by Cenk Uygur, co-host of The Young Turks ~ Huffington Post ~ March 19, 2008
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SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH BARACK OBAMA’S PASTOR
Is America Too Racist for a Black President?
Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has been attracting a lot of early attention. His pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., says while the Democrats are ready for more faith, America may not be ready for a black president.
and
SPIEGEL: That sounds different from what Obama wrote in his book. He wrote that faith should return to the center of both private and public life. Should he ever become president, what would that mean?
Wright: From what I know of Barack — from what he has written, from his speeches and from the life I know he has lived — faith in public life does not mean that God tells you to bomb another country or to go get Saddam Hussein. Faith in public life means that every child, regardless of their religious belief, should have health care. That every child should be able to go to school based on the intelligence they have not only the ability of their parents to pay. Because my faith saying I can bomb Iraq is the same as your faith saying you can take over a passenger plane and fly it into the World Trade Center.
Read: Is America Too Racist for a Black President?
An interview conducted by Marc Hujer ~ Spiegel Online, Germany ~ March 13, 2007
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Read these two excellent essays posted on the blog of Skeptical Brotha, “a black, 30 something political junkie residing somewhere in the Carolina’s.”
Demonizing Barack: The enduring racist double standard
and:
Obama’s Pastor Speaks Out
A letter from Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.to Jodi Kantor of The New York Times,written on March 11, 2007
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Quote from the article: McCain’s Church Hates America, Clinton’s Friends Do Too — But Let’s Get the Black Guy (Or Not?)
But fair is fair. So where are the clips of me in Falwell’s pulpit (back in the early 1980s before I dropped out of the evangelical movement) preaching to five thousand cheering white fundamentalists while I shouted; “God hates America for the murder of the unborn! We should be destroyed!”
When my late father — Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer — and I were the guests of Jerry Falwell at Liberty Baptist College, Falwell said to us quite casually and seriously, while speaking of the “homosexual problem,” that: “If I had a dog that did what they do I take it out and shoot it.” And when it came to saying God was damning America he and Pat Robertson sided with the 9/11 hijackers by saying the terrorist’s actions served America right and were God’s punishment. Yet John McCain went to Liberty Baptist College and spoke for Falwell, in order to “mend fences” with the Religious Right. He said he no longer believed that Falwell was “an agent of intolerance.” And Rudy Giuliani gladly accepted Robertson’s endorsement. So much for the Republican “mainstream.”
Fair is fair. So where are the clips — playing incessantly next to Hillary Clinton’s picture — of her antiwar friends and Bill Clinton’s fellow draft dodger members of the New Left, cursing and damning America during Vietnam War protests and since? The company that Bill and Hillary kept in the late 1960s through the 1970s was defined by damning America and sometimes by rooting for the North Vietnamese. Anti-American spewing also came from left wing white preachers. Read the fiery sermons of the late Episcopal bishop of New York Paul Moore, Jr. who raged against America.
Read: McCain’s Church Hates America, Clinton’s Friends Do Too — But Let’s Get the Black Guy (Or Not?)
by Frank Schaeffer ~ Huffington Post ~ March 18, 2008
Frank Schaeffer is author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It.
He is the son of religious right leader Francis Schaeffer.
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Also important, and more critical of Barack Obama:
Read If Obama can throw his pastor under the bus, what will he do to us?
by Rev Irene Monroe ~ The Bilerico Project ~ March 19, 2008
and Re: “If Obama can throw his pastor under the bus, what will he do to us?”
also by Rev Irene Monroe ~ The Bilerico Project ~ March 20, 2008
Also read the comments to her essays. Its a complex issue – as many are.
Gabi, thanks for all the links.
I like your blog.