May 2, 2008
Rev. Wright's Wrong Turn?
William Jelani Cobb, an associate professor of history at Spelman College, guest-posts on NewBlackMan about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
“If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Jeremiah Wright has just been awarded a construction contract,” writes Cobb. “And that’s the best case scenario — in light of his weekend blitz of media appearances there are many doubting that Wright’s intentions were benign. Assuming they were, the reverend’s appearance before the National Press Club highlighted his naive belief that he could redeem his reputation by talking to the same people responsible for distorting it.”
Last month in The Chronicle Review, Martin E. Marty offered a more sympathetic view of Wright.
Alex Kafka | Posted on Friday May 2, 2008 | PermalinkComments
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Wright is a racist, anti-semite, and a person fond of condemining the political system that enables him to lie in a public forum.
— Marty May 2, 11:13 AM #
Who distorted his “reputation”? Doesn’t Prof. Cobb know that it was Wright who said the government invented AIDS to cleanse the country of black people? Incidentally, that’s the same country that found a way to give Ivy League educations to Sen. Obama and his wife and to make Obama a serious candidate for the presidency.
When Wright called Obama a typical lying politician recently, he showed that he’s not only a pathetic parrot for irrational causes, he’s also as disloyal as Bill Clinton at his best.
— S. Britchky May 2, 11:21 AM #
To 1, Well, if Wright is a racist, then black racism is very different from white racism. I can’t imagine David Duke attending a predominantly black university as Wright attended a predominantly white one. Those racist churches in Idaho don’t have black members, althought Wright’s church has white members. White people (Martin Marty) who know Wright personally and who have attended his church have defended him. White racists don’t have black people who claim to be friends with them, defending them. I wish the white racism I encounted in the South had been like the racism of Wright. Four little girls wouldn’t have been blown to bits while attending church, if it had been the same.
To #2. I don’t believe the federal government invented AIDS to kill black people. But the Tuskegee experiments happened and that is a fact. That fact does not help to instill confidence in the goverment. Plus, the first person that I heard say that the government ACCIDENTLY created AIDS was a white man, on national tv. I can’t remember his name, but I’ve seen him on public tv since he made those statements. So, there is enough blame to go around for the spreading of that rumor.
— Ve May 2, 11:53 AM #
I think Rev. Wrong is doing and saying what a whole lot of blacks think and do. Think back to the OJ trial and verdict. Remember? Lots of people just don’t want to think a chunk of the population really believes this garbage, but there you have it. So what that o’bama will get 90%+ of the black vote? Hilary would have gotten the same. Keep voting for the donkey, guys, and you get the same old thing. It’s sad yet quite entertaining.
— Ralph Constance May 2, 12:33 PM #
Bottom line: too much anger on both sides. Rev. Wright just let it all out for everyone to see. No different than any other hate mongers, black or white. It is very unfortunate for Obama, who would make a very capable president. One does have to be careful whith whom one associates. I would assume that the ability to choose friends wisely and strategically is a critical skill for a would-be president. Although, I doubt that Bill and Hillary would have been affected by such an incident (“I don’t have any recollection of attending that church, and if I did-and I don’t remember it-I would have stood up courageously and denounced hate speech of all kinds”). I hate to dwell on the past, but weren’t the 1990’s entertaining? It seems like we’ve all been pissed-off since then.
— Joe May 2, 01:00 PM #
I don’t think people are judging McCain harshly for going out of his way to get the support of Hagee, who made negative comments about Catholics and who blamed Americans for Katrina. I don’t think if a church member of the late Falwell’s runs for president, the fact that he/she was a member would affect his candidacy, but perhaps it would. I’m focused on the issues. A vote for McCain is a vote for certain death. Fifty American deaths in Iraq in April and if McCain is elected, how long will Americans die under hostile conditions in Iraq? All you undecided voters out there, think about that.
— Ve May 2, 01:11 PM #
I think Wright is a wonderful orator but little more than that. His opinions are a bit off somewhere in certain regards, but as a pastor and elocutionist, he is very gifted. People should really get to know a little about black liberation theology before blasting him.
— Nixon May 2, 02:35 PM #
Who really cares?
A person accuses the US of creating AIDS and the illegal drug epidemic to eliminate the black race, and the National Press Club treats him like a rock star.
However, if it was intelligent design that he professed, he would have never entered the hallowed halls of the self-serving.
— seth May 2, 04:35 PM #
Do I remember correctly that Rev. Wright was one of the clergy who “counseled” the Clintons about their marriage after Monicagate?
— Eulenspiegel May 2, 04:36 PM #
We’ve recently heard that some inner-city low-income black folks had so-called fertilizer put on their lawns and were renumerated for it with food coupons, etc. Now, we hear that the stuff could cause health problems, etc. Someone also mentioned the Tuskegee experiments. I personally don’t think AIDS was put here to kill any particular race or group, but, let’s at least say we can understand where some of this paranoia comes from. I’m not the first to say it, but sometimes when people are paranoid, someone is really out to get them. Genocide happens all over this planet; sometimes it’s less overt.
P.S. I am no fan of any racist, anti-Semite, or anyone who practices, or encourages hate.
— TT May 2, 07:59 PM #
I think that censorship of American minority voices—the ones conveying the accurate depiction of American history—is one of the most violent forms of racist oppression that minorities have had to endure. Reverend Wright is being villified by racists who refuse to accept the past and present repression of American (minorities) who have slaved on behalf of the “lovely white” for so many generations. Reverend Wright has followers of his words, all over this land. Get with it you saps. A lie cannot live forever, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said. The U.S. is a warmongering nation that spills baby blood and calls it “fighting for democracy”. The slave world won’t take this parlor game b.s. of yours anymore.
You don’t know hate, TT. Your words are hateful. Wright is more than an orator, Nixon. He has thousands of paying customers evey week. Who pays you, the state (you must be a whore for the state).
Not only Blacks can think, Joe. Other oppressed minorities (and working class whites who are conscious of their oppression) have come to the view of Wright, I think Wright is absolutely right. How naive to think that one or another president is better or worse than another. White government policies have committed genocide on American minorities for several hundred years. Wake up and read something.
God damn America and the fascists who have run it for generations. God damn stupid academics who wasted their time studying crap.
God damn everything about American that keeps us from having the promised democracy spelled out in our laws.
God damn you idiiots.
— Martin May 2, 08:31 PM #
Questions for the smart folks on the blog?
Who invited Wright and the Black Right Wing nuts to the Press Club?
Why did Rev Wright retire from the church?
— Mo May 2, 08:36 PM #
Pastor Wright has a long record of revelation and rewriting history from the black perspective. He’s probably right however that blacks tend to have their own way of thinking, speaking, reasoning, singing, rapping, learning, and getting religion. Unique food, hair styles, vulgarisms, and private use of the big N word for adoration. He tends to present dual personalities and sounds articulate on Moyers and imbecilic at the press club.
Like many religious zealots he uses scripture toward others ends, like talking black trash.
Just when I thought we were getting over this divide does he open it all up again. Obama can’t seem to figure it out; he’s simply too immature to be president. He would always be half Wright though!
— Edgar T. May 2, 09:41 PM #
Ve,
In relation to our earlier conversation — you say that you don’t care much about what white people think as long as they do not mean harm. I think you are missing an opportunity here to actually relate to poor whites and make them you allies. This is what Obama and dems are yet to do — to connect to low-income whites. It could be huge for black people, yet you are missing on it. And Wright did not help things easier — it was a selfish and stupid move on his part. I do not know if you have a subscription to the Chronicle Review, but the Apr 25 issue features an account of a somewhat similar Ocean Hill-Brownsville racial conflict among NY higher education professionals with a subtitle “How a school strike unleashed a civil war within American liberalism”. I think what happens now is very much resembling this 40-year old unfortunate history.
— Mark de Goz May 2, 11:31 PM #
Dispossessed people of all sorts, find it hard to orient their thinking, many being overwhelmed with angers of various sorts and a struggle to survive on the fringes of societies that discriminate against them for hundreds of years. So to establish a responsible rhetoric and sustain it for decades in spite of huge injustices continued is a major undertaking and frankly beyond the ability of most dispossessed peoples. Wright is an example of the underground nature of such rhetorics—their lack of editing for general consumption because they are born and repeated in cultural cul-de-sacs.
Well educated people do not find anything in Wright’s statement shocking in the least. If you cut every one of his adjectives and adverbs in half, you get quite supportable truths in most cases (the AIDS thing is different and the anti-semitisms are different). Wright most closely resembles Newt Gringrich, who, with a rhetoric born and raised in ignorant parts of Georgia, came upon a national stage and immediately self destructed his wifes, his family, and his political self in an explosion of stubbornnesses built upon local statements that no one in Georgia had enough education to edit. These two men are nearly identical politically in this regard.
— Richard Tabor Greene May 3, 04:50 AM #
Mr. Wright is not only a racist but also has mental health problems. He thinks that he has direct pipeline to the Lord. Unfortunately, many histotically black colleges and universities have people like Mr. Right. Racism is not the monopoly of one race. I congratulate him for his boldness.
— kvc May 3, 01:58 PM #
I hear that the latest spin on the political talk shows is that the Clintons have bought off the Rev. Wrong for a rather hefty amount … hence the dog and pony show at the National Press Club. What these folks will stoop to! You know, it’s not necessarily true … but the mere fact that people can “think” this and accept it about the Clintons says it all.
— marci May 3, 10:34 PM #
Nice trick, I should put it into my arsenal. How smart! I will just say the dirtiest thing about anybody I don’t like and then claim that “the mere fact that such thought occured to me…”
— Mark de Goz May 3, 11:08 PM #
The Rev. Wright—charlatan, deranged narcissist, publicity-hungry buffoon, politico-religious racist agitator? Perhaps all and more?
Tony R.? Bill Ayers? Bernie Dohrn?
Obama certainly can pick ‘em!
It’s always a hoot (“Well educated people do not find anything . . .”) to read the stentorian gibberish of Richard Tabor Greene—and especially when he sets his mighty mouth to rubbishing politicians he doesn’t like—and even well-educated ones like Newt Gingrich. But in spite of his condescension toward Rev. Wright, Obama’s pastor and mentor seems to have been afforded ample opportunities to ascend to RTG’s Olympian intellectual heights.
— J A DeLater May 4, 11:30 AM #
Martin (11) , isn’t there a better country somewhere to which you could emigrate? We would all be better off if you carried your ignorant diatribe back to mother Africa.
— Jim May 5, 08:56 AM #
When Wright accompanied Farrakhan to Libya, Obama should have run for the hills from that church. And when they gave Farrakhan an award??And when the church allowed a Hamas official to publish an essay in the newsletter? Obama, what were you thinking? That your church was normal? That it didn’t ooze the stench of Jew-hating? That this would not affect you? Your judgment is flawed, suspect and immature, and perhaps damaged irrevocably.
I was wrong. You cannot be President.
— first marci May 5, 05:55 PM #
Marci and Jim are engaged in their racist rants again. Get a life…I thought this was a site for mainly well educated people or at least folks who are a bit more aware and sophisticated in their biases. LOL.
Martin, While I understand your frustrations, this approach- your inability to address your legigimate and historically correct frustrations constructively for white consumption is counterproductive- Though I don’t think some folks here would understand anyway…It is part denial, part ignorance, and a total misunderstanding of American History.
What Marci and Jim does not understand, is that Obama who is neither Black nor White has lived more as a small town white person and thus can relate to them much better than most Americans can – even their biases. Only in American will a mixed person be called Black. Racism? It’s the one drop rule theory of Jim Crows…We are engaged in a racist and racialized conversation and we don’t even know it nor do we acknowledge its prevalence…I am speechless.
I fear for those kids we are supposed to educate to create a better America.
— Mo May 6, 09:52 AM #