Because many readers will have moved on from the thread on Obama's pastor, they might miss this great post by Rebeccat, a white woman married to a black man. She's reacting to my criticism of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's Afrocentric pastor and spiritual mentor, who bases his teaching on what he calls "black liberation theology." I identified this as racialist, and said I had a problem with it. Here's Rebecca's reply:
I think that you've discovered one of those places where black folks and white folks completely part ways. What the Rev. Wright was saying is completely true - from a very afro-centric point of view. This country was founded with racism written into the constitution. My husband lost a job a couple of years ago because of a racist while all the whites looked the other way and waited until the damage was done to reprimand the man. My husband and I just had a conversation about whether the US is fundamentally a bigoted country and he pulled out these two facts as beginning and end.Part of it comes down to white people spending their time looking lovingly at what we do right. Black people say, "great - you got that right, but it doesn't do much to help me when such awful things can still happen to me and I have no recourse."
The fact of the matter is that black people view America differently than white people do. And it's not really a hateful thing so much as an explanation for the petty troubles and sometimes large injustices which they deal with at various points in their lives.
My husband told me in our conversation yesterday that he was able to move past being pushed out of that job by a racist because, "I just know that's the way it is. Hopefully things will keep getting better, but for today the reality is that a black man can lose his job and not be able to care for his kids for no reason than his race. And the people in power - all of whom are white - who are the system - looked the other way. Whatever their personal feeling about it is, the white power system aids and abets the racists within it. That's a racist system."
If he got up on a pulpit on Sunday and forcefully said pretty much the same thing, would you judge him to be a white hating bigot? With his white wife and kids who could pass for white and many white friends who break bread with us regularly?
I think that this issue is just more complicated than you realize, Rod. And it looks completely different from the other side. What you see as hateful rhetoric, sounds to a lot of black people an accurate description of their everyday struggles. Do you get to tell people that their struggles aren't real? Or that they can only talk about them in nice ways with 5 positive comments for every negative one like a fighting couple in therapy?
At its bottom I think that these divergent views owe as much to the fact that white people tend to grossly underestimate how affected black people are by the racism which they experience as it does to race baiting nonsense from the likes of jesse jackson. I have always been surprised with those african americans I have gotten to know well to find out how deeply and profoundly they are affected by racism. I have seen a full grown man in tears because a little girl ran to her mom with terror on her face when she saw him at the play ground. I have heard black women make choices about where she will or will not live based on whether the local school her children would attend had any history of racist graffiti or slurs. I have known women who would rather send children to sub-par schools then to one where they might be subjected to racist taunts. I know several black people who live in majority white areas who will drive into poorer majority black areas to shop because they just don't want to deal with the stress of going out in the middle of a bunch of white people.
If you were shaped by such experiences, then odds are that what Jeremiah Wright has to say probably wouldn't seem hateful - it would just seem like common sense. Now, that's not to say that he communicates it in particularly useful ways. Or that he isn't sometimes guilty of overplaying the point. But I think that simply equating what he's saying with a white pastor making similar comments about black people is inaccurate.
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"No GOP candidate, not even Dubya at his most evangelical, looked at Falwell, Robertson or Hagee in the same light, or were "linked" to the same degree."
Actually, you are wrong.
http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=159
In a Wall Street Journal story dated August 13, 2004, (Ted) Haggard told reporter Elizabeth Bernstein that he participates in "a weekly conference call...that's led by Tim Goeglein, the White House's liaison to the conservative community, and includes prominent religious leaders. 'We have direct access,'" Haggard told Bernstein. "I can call [Mr. Goeglein], he'll take my concern to the president and get back to me in 24 hours."
According to Haggard, "The weekly conference call with the White House" allows him to give the administration "the pulse of the evangelical world."
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7235393/the_crusaders/
It helps that Dominionists have a direct line to the White House: The Rev. Richard Land, top lobbyist for the 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention, enjoys a weekly conference call with top Bush advisers including Karl Rove. "We've got the Holy Spirit's wind at our backs!" Land declares in an arm-waving, red-faced speech. He takes particular aim at the threat posed by John Lennon, denouncing "Imagine" as a "secular anthem" that envisions a future of "clone plantations, child sacrifice, legalized polygamy and hard-core porn."
Now, Obama has stated publicly several times that he does not agree with his pastor's positions. President Bush, on the other hand, has assigned a staff member to conduct a weekly conference call with evangelical Christian leaders to coordinate policy and campaign efforts.
I've been very busy, so I'm just seeing this. Thanks for all the kind comments. I just wanted to add a couple of things. I share the experience with my husband losing his job because it was particularly dramatic, profoundly affected our family and was such a clear-cut case of bigotry at work that anyone who saw how it went down would agree with my characterization of it. About 6 people in the company were either demoted or fired due to the way it was handled. It wasn't just my husband's POV. Heck, he just lost his job, again, a couple of weeks ago and race certainly had nothing to do with it (say an extra prayer for us if you think of it, BTW). And you'd have to know my husband but he's sooooo not a race baiter - although we do know some of those and laugh about them frequently.
On that topic, Dave Chappelle does a bit about times when he or others he knows have reacted to something which they thought was racially motivated only to realize later that they were being jerks. But it's hard to try and mind read and real racism happens often enough (usually in petty ways) that it gets to be wearing to try and figure out what is motivating people. And if you give up trying to figure it out you can either assume everyone is racist and be an idiot yourself or be caught off guard all the time.
Which brings me to the real point I want to make. I wasn't trying to say that people like Rev. Wright are necessarily entirely correct in his characterization of white America or the challenges faced by black Americans. I certainly don't think rhetoric like his is particularly helpful. And while my husband was declaring America to be a bigoted country, I was taking the opposing side. My point is simply that we need to have more compassion on people. Try to look at it from their point of view rather than bristling and taking offense. Life is hard in general. Being black in America can be harder still from time to time. Let's try to give each other the benefit of the doubt and figure out why they think the way they do before taking offense.
My husband used to come in to the house every so often and declare, "I hate white people!" He would then tell me about something which had happened to upset him. I would argue that this was one person and it was ridiculous to just say that you hate white people - what about me and other good white people. etc? He would get irritated and defensive and start pulling out a litany of all the ways white people had made the world worse. It didn't go well. After a while, I decided to listen rather than argue. when he said, "I hate white people" I would ask, "what happened?" He would tell me and I would say, "Yeah, sometimes white people can really be jerks. That sucks." End of conversation. I can't really remember the last time he came in and declared, "I hate white people." Sometimes people really need to be heard, even if their language is over the top and exaggerated.
I think Wright's Farrakhan issue is a problem. However, just railing on him for embracing black liberation theology without, you know, actually knowing what it is doesn't seem appropriate. I teach theology at a Methodist liberal arts college (I'm a moderate-to-conservative, crunchy con-ish Presbyterian), and I teach James Cone's "A Black Theology of Liberation" every couple of years (to a bunch of white Iowa kids). It is challenging, provocative, and at times infuriating -- but it is no more out of line than any other version of liberation theology.
The preferential option for the poor is biblical; if we can extend the idea to racial oppression, then black liberation theology has a leg to stand on. I'm not saying there aren't problems with it. There are problems with pretty much any theological position, though. But there's a case to be made for it.
I'm really astounded that as seriously as you take religion, you put "black liberation theology" in quotes as if it is some kind of exotic beast. It isn't like liberation theology is a new idea. Perhaps more experience with the genre would be appropriate before dismissing it as "racialist".
rebeccat,
Let me echo Michele McGuinty's sentiments: "It goes without saying that this treatment should not happen in America."
A revelation from the heart, for which I thank you.
Now, I only hope and pray that your (our) devout wish for an end to racism and prejudice against blacks could carry over into you accepting that homphobia and prejudice against gays should likewise become relics of the past.
Peace to you.
In response to watsy:
"I'm not saying that rebeccat's husband didn't get fired because of racism. However, white males get fired all of the time in the business world...It often has more to do with personality and fit than anything else."
Although, yes, there are plenty of black people who use race as an excuse or defense when they're at fault in a situation, I don't think you really get this situation. Even though there IS the possibility that her husband caused his own firing, you missed the part where she stated that his white peers just ignored the situation. That's where racism comes in. Black people are often the minority in the workplace and don't have the same network of buddies within the system to protect them from being terminated.
If the people I work with are racist, then I'm screwed if I'm wrongfully accused of something. Plus, black people carry the burden of having to disprove stereotypes, especially in more prestigious, traditionally all-white careers. For example, the laziness and intelligence stereotypes; black people may be viewed as less competent or more lazy than an equally lazy and incompetent white peer; that is exponentially increased when you factor in the racist buddy systems. On the same note, a black employee may be more closely supervised than a white employee; and I even have seen the sexist equivalent of that, also. When you're more closely observed, you're more likely to be reprimanded for you mistakes; that means that when racist tendencies intrude, an equally incompetent black employee will be more prone to termination than an incompetent white employee. It's the same way with law enforcement. You only suspect blacks and poor people, so while you might catch more criminals who are also black and poor, you're probably missing all the white criminals over in the more affluent area of the city.
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