Barack's nutty spiritual mentor

I really don't think Obama buys into this racialist garbage, but I can't understand why he chose to make Wright his mentor.

Randian tone notwithstanding, check your premises.

"We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. . . . We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. . . . We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. . . . We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!"

What's racist about any of those statements? Sounds like the truth to me.

And if I were God, I'd be sick of this too.

Follow the links, folks. And spend a little time googling the guy. It's not good.

But whose the "we" there? Not me. Not most of the people I know would claim to believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. Most people who do claim that are publicly ridiculed. (That's why they're trying to peg the label to Ron Paul, to discredit him.) And there's a whole lot of people in the USA that believe in God. I can't possibly believe that there are more than that who still believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. I'm not talking about subconscious prejudice, but a belief in what he said.

To me, that one statement sounds like a very false statement and designed to incite anger of perceived racism. But, maybe every white person he knows has told him they believe this. I don't know. But I've met very few and would consider that a false statement, whether it could be classified a racist itself, I don't know, but it sure isn't contributing to the healing of any racial divides, just widening them up more.

And if he holds that view, or Obama does, I would say it is a very inaccurate view of "we" folk. Consequently, it is not the route to healing this divide that Rod was mentioning, and his point.

The problem I see is with the so called "contract" members sign. I found this extremely disturbing. I just tried to find it and include a link but the churches site is "mysteriously" unavailable. Coincidence?? I'm thinking no..

Sean Hannity had him on the show and read parts of it to Mr. Wright who completely defended it. The thing is, if you changed everywhere the contract said "black" with "white", and Obama was white, the ACLU, NAACP and every other organization known to man would be in an uproar. He is most definately getting a free pass. I'm suprised, Rob, that this contract wasn't included as part of this piece.

This church is most definately Anti-white. And they are quite unapologetic about it too.

Racism works both ways. Rod, I was going to contribute to your recent
Black, brown and Dallas article but decided not to get my blood pressure up. But briefely I will share something here... My husband and I ran a very successful business in Virginia for 6 years. We moved there to start it and ended up moving it back to the Cleveland area almost 7 years ago. Why did we move from Virginia?? Racism. It is alive and well and not just the anti-black version. I had more customers than I can count ask if I had black salespeople bcs "they don't buy from whites". I've had black people tell me to get my white-ass off their porch. I've had young, successful, black salespeople quit bcs their family didn't support them working for a whites. You think I'm kidding??? After we had our first baby I decided I wasn't going to raise her around that crap and left. Maybe I got more upclose than most bcs we were very close to our employees. But I saw enough to know it was ugly. Most of my "white" neighbors had to put their kids in private schools for the same reasons.

So, with that being said. I am mortified that a candidate that is just as close to being elected as Hillary belongs to a church that preaches this ugliness is scary. Period. More needs to be done to expose this for what it is. Hate.

Yep...go ahead and say it, Rod. Obama belongs to an anti-semitic church. Obama belongs to a black-supremecist church. Obama belongs to a hate-based church. You know that is what you mean with all this innuendo and snarky "read the links" kind of approach.

OK...I accept your premise. Obama is not qualified for office because of what his minister says, even though he has said he does not agree with it.

Oh, ds0490, please take to your bed. I'll send the butler around shortly with a soothing cup of chamomile. Honestly, you are reacting hysterically. Grow up. I have said here all along that I hope Obama wins the Democratic nomination. I voted for Obama when my newspaper's editorial board decided on whom to endorse in the Democratic primary. But look, these are legitimate questions to ask of Obama. Any other candidate would and should receive the same scrutiny. As I said, I don't really believe Obama holds the same racist views as his pastor, but I would like to know why Obama chose to affiliate so closely to a church that preaches these things, and why he chose as his spiritual father a pastor who is unapologetically racialist.

You can have a hissy-fit if you want, but that's not answering the question. If you think that lots of voters won't have those questions come the fall election, you're dreaming. Please try to understand that Obama is a politician, not the Messiah, and has to answer these questions. Maybe he has a good answer to these questions, but "I don't agree with my pastor" is inadequate, especially inasmuch as his pastor puts racialism at the center of his theology.

Rod: "You can have a hissy-fit if you want, but that's not answering the question. If you think that lots of voters won't have those questions come the fall election, you're dreaming. Please try to understand that Obama is a politician, not the Messiah, and has to answer these questions."

Yep...and so should Huckabee. I'm really curious why you have not taken Huckabee to task here for hiding his sermons. Obama has stated that he disagrees with his minister on these points, yet still finds value in associating with him.

Huckabee has not renounced any position he took while he was in the pulpit as a preacher. Of course, unlike Obama's pastor, Huckabee is hiding his old sermons.

So while we know what Obama's pastor believes and preaches, we really don't know what Huckabee believes and preached when he was a pastor.

Huckabee isn't the Messiah here, Rod. He should have to answer these questions.

Rod
"I don't agree with my pastor" is inadequate, especially inasmuch as his pastor puts racialism at the center of his theology.

Amen to that. Interesting that when racism is reversed, whites don't want to see it or shrug their shoulders with a "so what" attitude. Right is right and wrong is wrong no matter how someone wants to spin it. I raise my kids to accept responsibility for their own life and not point fingers. Pointing the finger at the white man for injustice's that happened way before I was born isn't solving any problems for the black community. Any community as a whole will never solve its problems by having a blame everyone, self-defeating, I am the victim attitude.

I have a problem that a candidate that is "for the People" chooses a spiritual mentor that is clearly a racist. You can put whip cream on crap, it's still crap.

Like it or not, the church you attend is a reflection of you. Of who your are, of who you strive to be. Who is the real Obama?? There are a thousand othe churches he could have joined in Chicago. Enough said.

Yeah, the pastor's connection to Farrakhan is very disturbing.
Oh, we're not talking about Huckabee at the moment, 'kay?
I like Obama to a certain extent. However, he's pro abortion, and voted against English as the national language, so no way would I vote for him.

We are all judged by the company we keep. Obama hasn't had the usual scrutiny, but it's coming.

I belonged to an email list for Traditionalist Catholics for awhile. I'm not exactly a traddie myself but there were some interesting discussions and since I share some Traditionalist views, I considered it worth participating. That is until the ugly strain of anti-semitism that exists in Traddie circles reared its head there. I felt obliged to protest and when it was clear that the moderator was supportive of these views and dismissive of my complaints, I asked to be removed from the list.

I expect no less from any political candidate that I support. I would hope that liberals would feel the same way. It seems not.

Good Grief THe Huckabee Sermons thing

First lets be clear. THe secular media is horrible at reporting religious things. THe Huckabee campaign will be sidelined in the most critical month over nonsense.

Second it is not even clear these things exist. In fact I suspect they do not in large numbers. After a while they just take up space and as much as Huckabee likes to talk I suspect they just hit the trash can

Third watching him speak for the longest time I suspect he operates off limited notes and not a prepared text

Finally if Huckabee is hiding something it is not what you might think. ON the Baptist and Evangelical blogs there is constant gossip how "conservative' he is in a Southern Baptist way. Even though to a outsider the difference between a Aouthern Baptist moderate and a conservative might not jump out at you. However Huckabee strikes me as someone that is perhaps not as "fundy" as many of his collegues and why would he open that can of worms up

jh,

You allude to something I should have thought of earlier: The clamoring over Huckabee's sermons is another instance of the media showing its unfamiliarity with non-mainline American religion. Anyone who's been to the typical Southern Baptist church knows that, unlike Episcopalians, Methodists, et al, a good Baptist preacher never, ever reads a sermon. It's all extemporaneous, baby, and when the preacher's really on, it's impromptu.

And I may not like his politics, but I bet Huckabee's better than merely good when it comes to preaching.

Richard

I think that is the case. One think that struck me right away as a former Southern Baptist was that I don't think he was actually Dr. Huckabee. Now he got the Honorary Doctorites but ti appears he cut his post grad seminary training will short. Like left after a year.

Now even in small towns The Baptist Church usually wants their guy to have a Doctorate. However Hucakbee rose to be PResident of the Arkansas Baptist Convention without all this. WHich shows me he must really preach a good sermon and he has masterful political skills.

SiliconValley:

I noticed the same thing. Our priest (Orthodox, not Catholic) was getting a newsletter from an extreme Catholic group, with connections to Catholic apologist Robert Sungenis, who besides being an author of several books, is a confirmed geocentrist (which raised questions in my mind about him).

See: sungenisandthejews.com/

I noted the anti-Semitic tone in many of the articles in the newsletter, and suggested that it was not a good thing for the church to get or have in its library. I believe we no longer get it.

We will only be free of nutcase spiritual mentors for candidates when the country comes to its senses and elects an atheist.

Charles Cosimano: "We will only be free of nutcase spiritual mentors for candidates when the country comes to its senses and elects an atheist."

I for one would love to have a President who did not believe an invisible man was leading him through life.

"Swiftboating Obama."

At least they're not "chicken-hawking" him. :-)

Erin has a point: to claim that the world would be better off if an atheist were elected president depends on knowledge of what such a world would look like. But such a world does not actually exist. So, unless Charles believes that his mind has direct awareness of normative guidelines derived from knowledge of an ideal counterfactual world, what's the ground for the complaint? OF course, if Charles does have such awareness, that means that he has mental non-empirical knowledge of a community's proper end. But such an understanding fits more comfortably in metaphysically rich theistic worldview than it does an atheistic one.

I'm just quaking in my boots that Barack Obama hates white people ...

"Zionism has an element of “white racism.”

Well, I would have said "Jewish" rather than "white". If the Jews are an ethnic group, Zionism is racist. If, on the other hand, the Jews are a religious group, Zionism is theocratic. Stinks either way.

As for the rest of White's speech, I thought most of it was straightforward fact, except for "We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority". Who is "we"? Do most Americans really believe that sort of stuff? Bit far-fetched.

White pride or exclusivity has been (and continues to be) about maintaining the racial status quo of white people dominating every other group and keeping that position of power. Black pride or exclusivity is generally about improving the lot of people of color and challenging the racial status quo (which has generally disadvantaged them).

One's racism is bad; the other's racism is good. It's all about power in the end. Right?

Jeez, do you really think white people sit around constantly conniving at ways to dominate minorities? Hey guy, the English Department and the MLA Convention are not the real world.

As for "Zionism is racism," tell that to the Falashas, the black Jews of Ethiopia, who were welcomed as Jews to Israel.

Wright's rhetoric quoted in this story doesn't sound that much different than a lot of liberal academic rhetoric, nor is it that much different, as you point out, than some of Louis Farrakhan's. Or Al Sharpton's or Jesse Jackson's, really. He's far from the only one to complain that are more Black men in prison than in college. If you hang out around the University of Chicago, you hear stuff like this -- not just from the radical college students. It's not by any means all you hear. In that part of Chicago, you learn not to freak out at whatever wild ideas come out of your neighbor's mouth. It's all part of the environment. It's usually part of the 'Great Conversation.' You take the loony stuff with a grain of salt; and you don't stop talking to people just because of their rhetoric.
Maybe Obama's association with Wright is about street cred; maybe it's about good things Wright's church is accomplishing in the community, or even about real, live spirituality. Whatever you want to believe, Obama's obviously every bit as capable of sitting in a pew and filtering what he agrees with from what he disagrees with as all the Reagan-Democrat socially conservative Catholics in Chicago were when Cardinal Bernadin seemed to be emphasizing 'liberal' concerns in his application of the Gospels.
None of the above makes Wright's reverse-racist views right; but I don't think we have to worry that a president Obama would pander to Black racialists.

I'd go back to the original comment: check your premises. I don't know where the assumption came from that Obama would be some sort of race reconciler as President. Is it simply the Tiger Woods effect? A lot of people thought that Tiger, being a pleasant, successful, attractive person of mixed races, would automatically bring people together, regardless of what he thought about anything. They still try to get him to speak out on racial issues. But when the evidence of Obama's actions and writings contradicts that image of reconciler, you can either scratch your head and try to explain away the evidence, or go back and reconsider your assumptions.

Would that Obama were the man to "bring us together," but wishing won't make it so. Anyone that sensitive to all sides of the racial tension in this country wouldn't attend that church, so that suggests a tin ear for the problem. No, I don't think Obama hates white people, but is that all we ask, that our candidates not personally hate groups according to skin color? He seems to think it's okay to associate with people who do, and that's not the action of someone who wants to play peacemaker.

Black pride or exclusivity is generally about improving the lot of people of color and challenging the racial status quo (which has generally disadvantaged them).

And if Obama were just some state senator from Illinois, that's where I'd let it be. However, he's jockeying to be POTUS. He's going to be appointing people to run HHS. Will he be listening to Wright? I think we should hold the man to a higher standard.

Obama will not be able to "whitewash" this. This stuff is poison, and even white liberals know it.

"One's racism is bad; the other's racism is good. It's all about power in the end. Right?"

No, I'm not saying it's good, but resenting a group that has oppressed and mistreated your people for centuries (which might give you, oh, a reason to mistrust them) is different from that oppressive group institutionally disadvantaging and terrorizing another to stay in power.

"Tell that to the Falashas, the black Jews of Ethiopia, who were welcomed as Jews to Israel."

Read up on the treatment and double standards the Falashas have faced and then get back to me.

"I'm sure lots of people who supported the Nazi party in Germany didn't really go along with the anti-semitism. They just thought that the Nazi party was bringing back community values and respect for the Volk. They felt they could disregard the other part and things would turn out just fine."

You clearly no nothing about the circumstances under which the Nazis came to power if you're going to toss out a blanket statement like that. Besides, comparing any non-genocidal group to Nazis pretty much tells everyone that nothing you have to say that is worth listening to.

Rod,

I don't know how much experience you have in predominantly black churches. I am a 42 year old White Roman Catholic of Irish descent who grew up in a small lily-White town in Ohio, registered Republican all my life, pro-life, went to Catholic schools, and even spent six years training for priesthood where I discerned that marriage is really my calling.

It was during my formation for priesthood that I was first exposed to churches (Catholic churches mind you) where the population was predominantly to exclusively African-American. During most of my time in formation, I was preparing for urban ministry among African Americans, Latinos, and other people or color.

Further, after I left seminary, I met the woman I would eventually marry, who is a Black Roman Catholic born in Africa, and raised largely in the United States. We continue to worship in churches that are predominantly "colored".

I can tell you from experience - which I realize is anectodal, and not to be taken as a scientific survey - that the type of preaching Obama hears is what African Americans hear in every church where they are predominant.

And, in context, it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. It is not a call to hate white people. It is not a call for violence or revolution. It is not "anti-American". Please don't take snippets - or even a full text of a sermon without looking at the entire cultural context - without being there. You can't really understand what is being said without being there.

Perhaps the best way I can explain this is to suggest that Obama's pastor is doing is what Saint Paul does in Athens or when Paul preached to be all things to all men. In the Black community, especially in certain urban areas, drug dealers rule the streets with more porn and liquor stores than grocery stores - boarded up crack houses - prostitutes brazenly selling themselves at 9:00 AM, etc....Unemployment is high and job opportunities are few or far away, crime is high, the schools don't work, the hospitals don't work, etc....

It is very easy for those of us who do not know this experience to hold a "pull yourself up by your boostraps" mentality, and decry any semblence of a "victim mentality". Those who actually live in such circumstances tend to look at the TV or the few trips they make out of the hood and notice that white people don't live like this, but all black people they know DO seem to live like this.

They pick up the notion that white people brought their ancestors here as slaves, and that racism has existed in the country, and draw the conclusion that the reason things are the way are HERE AND NOW is that White people continue to oppress Black people. Conspiracy theories are rampant in this sort of community.

And a preacher in this community has to reach people who ALREADY have this world view as their STARTING POINT. The preacher does not MAKE the Black man in the city resent the White man. Rather, the preacher comes to a community where resentment already exists. It is in that context that the preacher must show how the Gospel addresses the situation.

So, imagine you are preaching on something as simple as "turning the other cheek". You will speak to how the drug dealer standing on the street REALLY DID "dis" you, but you turn the other cheek. You speak to how maybe that White lady who made you wait at the hospital REALLY IS a racist bitch, but you turn the other cheek, etc....

So, part of the context of this sort of rhetoric is reaching people where they already are.

Yes, another piece of the equation is that White racism DOES really exist, and there are themes of liberation in the Bible (the slaves escaping Egypt, the prophets speaking of a God who loves the poor, etc....). That theme does get hammered too in Black churches - along side of a call to assume personal responsibility (where do you think Obama gets his rhetoric on this theme).

My point is that much of this rhetoric needs to be expeienced in it's actual context to make any sense of it. I can tell you that when I read your snippets, they no longer mean to me what they would have meant when I was growing up in Ohio. And they do not mean what the critics say.

Peace!