Bible Girl on Jeremiah Wright

There is a question that goes unasked in all this discussion surrounding Rev. Wright and TUCC. It goes far beyond the question of why Barack Obama has stayed with the church and to a much more difficult question for white Americans to deal with.

Why do so many people attend, and stay with, that church today? According to its website over 6000 people call themselves members of that church, and the vast majority of them are black. Why do so many people of color attend that church? Why do they stay through the sermons by Rev. Wright where he calls on God to damn America? (Why are we afraid to say the word "damn"?) Why do so many Christians who happen to be black find some sort of home there? Is it because of, or in spite of Rev. Wright's message?

This is the question we should be asking, but I think deep down we are afraid to have it answered. Do we really believe that there are some 6000 people in the Chicago area who hate whites, hate America, and are praying that God will damn our nation? Or is there more to this than we are willing to consider?

Rod: Amen to Julie's powerful post, which echoes the reasons behind a lot of folks' appreciation for Obama. We don't think of him as a "hero", he's not a messiah, we're not "maniacs". But we see in him someone who seems to both understand, and to not share the anger from, an old racial wound that our country can only benefit from addressing.

I love her conclusion:

"The American church is complex and confused, and in its sanctuaries love can be found right alongside hate.

"Do the Reverend Wright’s words rise to the level of hate? Nah. Not what I’ve heard, anyway. It’s the same conspiratorial talk-radio junk that’s been kicking around in black communities for years. ...

"The Reverend Wright’s problem isn’t hate. He, like so many members of his Christian generation, black as well as white, suffers from something much more mundane: a failure to love."

Bless,
Doug

Do the Reverend Wright’s words rise to the level of hate? Nah. Not what I’ve heard, anyway. It’s the same conspiratorial talk-radio junk that’s been kicking around in black communities for years.

Sure, if everyone's saying it, it can't be bad.

The Reverend Wright’s problem isn’t hate. He, like so many members of his Christian generation, black as well as white, suffers from something much more mundane: a failure to love.

I'm sorry, but this is a load of crap, probably meant to assure the writer as much as her readership. It isn't some "failure of love" that made him go on about chickens coming home to roost with an obvious tone of malicious glee.

White Americans with Forrest Gump-like obliviousness insist that ours is generally a fair and just society; black Americans see differently.

Well, if a good number of them buy into the conspiracies Reverend Wright peddles--as Ms. Lyons seems to be saying--that's no surprise. In fact, the only "Forrest Gump-like obliviousness" whites are showing is in their believing that they're dealing rational actors.

I must be pretty naive, because I was very surprised that Obama would sit through these sermons, and that he would continue as a member of this church, even to this very day.

But I am even more shocked by the commentary on Rev. Wrights, which basically shrugs and says big deal. I honestly didn't think that AIDS conspiracies were common in the black community.

If this is really how most black people feel about white people, then the racial divide is wide indeed.

I hope that I can achieve that ability to forgive someday. Few of us do. I think that most of us, having been treated like that black female doctor would sound more like Rev Wright than MLK.

Steve

After the past few days’ contentious airing of our “racial neuroses” (to borrow the WSJ editorial’s term), Julie’s essay is uplifting and refreshing. The takeaway: “Truly good people don’t indulge in race-based hatreds, and a lot of our so-called moral leaders don’t’ rise to that standard.” A simple human truth that doesn’t require any exceptions, conditions, or footnotes based on the race of who’s involved. To me, that’s a good thing, although others would doubtless say that my aspiration to a color-blind society is merely an attempt to negate or ignore the racism still endemic to our society.

Sigh. This whole Obama flap has taught me how little appetite I have for a ongoing nationwide venting about racial issues. I guess I’m supposed to welcome a “candid” and “long-overdue” discussion of America’s racial divisions, but I really don’t. Part of me can hardly wait for Obama to go back to being a nice young senator from Illinois, Hillary to lose in November, and McCain to get on with the grown-up business of running the country. The thought of four more years of “not black enough -- whoa! too black!” being our number one topic of public discussion is exhausting.

Because, honestly, I’ve got my own life to lead. And even if I desperately yearned to help the black community, I’m not sure how I could. I honestly don’t’think I’m a racist, so self-flagellating and changing my evil ways isn’t really an option. Also, I live in a city with a large black underclass, and every day brings fresh evidence of its dysfunction and self-destructiveness. When the people in these communities start raising their kids in stable, productive families, when they start working a 40-hour week from age 22-65, when their young men stop committing crimes and their teens stop blasting ugly, dehumanizing music and calling each other the N-word, when they stop literally pimping out their pre-teen girls -- in other words, when they start showing the basic decency and responsibility of every “normal” person I know -- then maybe there’s something additional I can do to help them out. Until then, why am I being harangued about the “injustice” of their plight? I’m a working mom with $40,000 in college debt. My taxes help to feed their kids, for whom I feel genuinely but helplessly sorry. If there’s something else I supposedly “owe” them, I’d be interested to know what it is. Meanwhile, the “normal” black people I work with don’t seem to want or require my help. So that’s out.

In short, if electing a black president means we’re going to engage in a four-year “dialogue” about race in which people like me are constantly accused of not doing enough to “atone” for “racial injustice,” I suddenly find myself in no hurry to elect one. Thanks, I guess, Reverend Wright, for helping to clear that up.

If there’s something else I supposedly “owe” them, I’d be interested to know what it is. Meanwhile, the “normal” black people I work with don’t seem to want or require my help. So that’s out

You see, the corporations
finance Team America.

And then Team America goes out,
and the corporations sit there in thei

In their corporation buildings,
and, see, they're all corporation-y,

oops wrong meme, I grew up on Sesame Street, I can't figure out what I'm supposed to owe them either.

The discrepancy in crack vs powder cocaine sentencing is part of this problem and accounts for much of the black -white prison discrepancy.

It was black activists who originally asked for the tougher sentencing to get the drugs in question, crack in this case which is far more potent, out of their neighborhoods. Of course, the result has been blacks crying that whitey is out to get them again. If it should be changed fine. But let's not play the race card yet again.

Pyrrho: "I'll be the first to admit that I've used the "Obamaton" label to described his supporters, but I'm sure you can understand why his following can seem cult-like to people like me."

I can absolutely understand, which is why I personally as a reasonably intelligent, fair-minded, non-automaton with a lot of strong sympathies for Obama am sick of some of the rock star vibes. Kids these days!

I too am eager to get to the real election season, post-convention, when Lord willing we'll all be able to take a more measured look at McCain and Obama. I'm honestly not sure which one of them I would support. They both have qualities and qualifications that I admire, they both scare the bejeesus out of me in some areas.

Bless,
Doug

It is the extraordinary believer who refuses prejudice in any form, who simply calls a hater a hater.

I'm having a little trouble with this idea. When I'm at my spiritual best, and I see someone hating, I'm unable to look at the person and reduce them to a label. "Well, that person's just a hater." It seems lazy. It shows a lack of curiosity. It seems to lack a willingness to try to put yourself into the other person's shoes and understand where they're coming from. Really, it's not very loving.

I can understand why conservatives like to pick at Rev Wright and reduce his life and thoughts and being to a label. He's a hater and God's Kingdom isn't the place for him. I feel that way about Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, and those conservative ministers who have been know to spew hatred. But I would never claim to be extraordinary in any way as I called those people haters.

To Charles 'I spend every night at this bar and here is what the guys said tonight' Cosimano; Raising a glass back at cha quoting you in your above post: "And he thinks we care".

As for me, I have several very white male friends in their 30s who are drunk every night and have no real career future and blame everyone under the sun and moon for their own failure to advance in life. The fact that they drink like fish and many smoke until everything within 50 inches smells like a slab of baby backs has nothing to do with their dead end position in life. It's got to be the (you said last night they freely use N-words and epithets) 'others' who are responsible.

My friends who tell me this call themselves "the true minority"; the white male. Yep, as Jon Stewart said on the Daily Show; they are the minority. White males. I mean,, up til now every single president in the history of this nation has BEEN a white male, but hey: "we have a right to feel like a persecuted minority!!!!!" And then, they drink to that and stumble home.