A racist is a racist David. Wright is a simple racist. It all comes back to the Gospels and the Apostles for what to do as a Christian. Racism is just as much NOT part of Christian life as same-gender sex is. Countries are judged as well as individuals. They are judged for their behaviors, for their words and deeds. We should denounce this guy. And what about his porn acting at the pulpit in regards to Bill?
D.

David,
I’m gonna read over this again. I just wanna say I appreciate the mention of Falwell at the beginning.
I agree. I’ve taught in a large municipal school system. Honestly, when you’re in the thick of it (even as a white like myself), some of what Mr. Wright says hits the mark.
That’s not saying that I or Obama agree with everything.
What I really appreciate about this and you is that you’re being honest about your side as well. Thank you!

Censored one:
Please give one justification for saying Wright is racist based on the snippet of the sermon publicized. Just one. I’ll wait. I’ve got a nice book to read.

Having lived in Chicago and seen the work done by his church I have to say that I am saddened by this witch hunt. I see many churches that do nothing to further the cause of Christ. But Trinity is working hard to ease the suffering of many. They are living Matt 25. Sure I don’t agree with every stand they take or every cause they champion. What I do know is that many of the people condemning them wouldn’t walk across the street to help the poor, let alone do what is really hard. I will continue to pray for and bless their work and the work of their new pastor.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The black political analyst Terence Samuel, who really knows the Democratic Presidential campaigns, was interviewed on a local black community affairs PBS show here back in early February. After hedging for most of the show, he finally said (in summary and paraphrase) “Look, the truth of the Obama campaign is the obvious one: it is all about race in America. That’s the opportunity, that’s also the limitation.”

I look at a lot of this as a community looking out for one of its own. Wright said what he said because he is a spiritual father of Obama, and thus like a mother bear is very angry and protective of him when he is attacked.

Rod Dreher is acting like the apocalypse is nigh.
Thank goodness you’re not, David.

Hey, Larry, good to see you back here writing.
Dreher shows his true colors all the time…don’t give him a second thought.

Rod Dreher is acting like the prissy, attention-hungry, aesthete that he is. He’s praying for another meme of his to be as sticky as “Crunchy Cons.” Sadly, his one trick pony has bolted, and he’s reduced to inciting the mob to take up pitchforks and torches.
tick…tick…tick… That’s the sound of 14:57…14:58…14:59 of Dreher’s 15 minutes.

David, my friend. You are right and wise. I despair, having grown up in the hood white and poor, that we are EVER going to be able to talk to one another about differences between us. Since we are in the era of competing focus groups, the political differences always have our attention. The human differences do not. Do I hear McCain talking about submerging our differences as Americans? No, I do not. I always seem to hear appeals to the worse demons of our nature.

Just how many personalities DOES Donny have?

This is an insipid, relativistic response. Why not learn exactly what Wright says and take a stand instead of itemizing responses by race? Is truth pigmented? Do blacks, whites, browns, reds, greens, have radically different epistemologies? Do you believe in objective truth that is knowable?

I wrote the previous post. I posted it without a name by accident

“Censored one:
Please give one justification for saying Wright is racist based on the snippet of the sermon publicized. Just one. I’ll wait. I’ve got a nice book to read.”
Posted by: Uncensored one | March 14, 2008 1:43 PM
///
Honoring Farakhan for one. His insanity on Japan’s demolish. There are many others. The black community in Chicago is another good place to start.

“Just how many personalities DOES Donny have?”
Posted by: canucklehead | March 14, 2008 7:53 PM
Obviously, just one. Monikers do not change substance. But they do dodge all of the storm trooper like computer programs B-net has implemented to silence a consistent anti-liberalism perspective. Tolerance and diversity does not dwell in progressive homogenization. It must all be humanist in flavor. All Lefty voices must be the same. Now that is quite alarming.

Just so you know, I agree with every word you’ve written here. And if you google “twoberry,” you’ll find my blog right at the top. Comments welcome.

David, you focus on the most extreme among your friends (“very conservative white evangelicals” and “liberal African American friends”) that you’ve forgotten about the vast majority of us — black and white — who belong to neither category.
I’m not black nor am I a white evangelical, but I’ve attended with black friends a good number of Sunday services at black churches here in the NYC area over the years. Wright doesn’t speak like any of the preachers I’ve heard in those churches. Whatever one might say about the accuracy of Wright’s historical and sociological analysis, it simply isn’t Christian in the sense that it does not reflect an authentic “imitation of Christ.” Wright’s language and tone only serve to re-open wounds and not heal them.
As for lauding Obama’s supposed loyalty to his church, I think a Christian has a duty to seek out congregations that most closely follow Gospel values and leave those that don’t. TUCC can’t be the only Christian church in Obama’s neighborhood. I’m sure there are many other congregations that more perfectly “take on Christ” than what is reflected in Wright’s incendiary rhetoric.
For crying out loud, Obama has young children — would he want them to have to sit through Wright’s so-called Christmas sermon from this past December? What parent in their right mind would put up with that nonsense, let alone contribute $28,000+ to this pastor’s church as Obama did in the most recent year reported?

What parent in their right mind would put up with that nonsense, let alone contribute $28,000+ to this pastor’s church as Obama did in the most recent year reported?

A black parent who has been awake in the last 30 years, maybe?

Wright’s language and tone only serve to re-open wounds and not heal them.

You assume that since white folks have “gotten over” the last 400 years that the wounds are healed. Last I checked, the white folks haven’t suffered many wounds in that time.
Pardon the rest of us if we don’t pretend your millimeter-deep scratches are as important as the flaying other folks have taken.

Last time I looked, it was white people that fought for centuries to end slavery. Slavery is alive and well and in African countries engaged in by Black African-Africans. Hello, Reverend Wright? And why is it, that of the vast majority of the missionaries going to the African continent, helping the poverty stricken Africans in all those different African countries are usually white evangelical Christians? Mr. Wright?

“Last time I looked, it was white people that fought for centuries to end slavery. Slavery is alive and well and in African countries engaged in by Black African-Africans.” Apparently, White people have not, nor are now, engaged in any form of slavery, sexual or otherwise. And some Africans are now sending missionaries to this and other White-dominant countries. White Euro-Americans have done a lot of good in this world. But let’s not lump them all together as saints. Corporate greed is alive and well. We still are the dominant power in the world. Let’s be a little more moderate in our praise of all things White

I am 60, black, female, and agnostic. Missionaries have been some of the front persons for colonizer’s who ended up with the land, and the people of the countries ended up with a new religion and a bible. Please do not use them as examples of virtue. Some are, but many have not been. Trying to change others to something they are not is a hostile act, as far as I’m concerned. I was raised Baptist, and during the Civil Rights days, the ministers may not have spoken so “energetically” but the civil rights movement was often organized within the church community. My grandparents always subscribed to the periodicals that contained information about the real situations for blacks–not just information that was deemed important by mainstream news.
During my youth, I would be instructed at school on the many “myths and legends” of American History, only to watch children being attacked by dogs as families sought to gain the rights that were supposed to be afforded to all American citizens on the nightly news. Billy Holiday was not singing about a banana tree that grew in an unexpected area, when she sang about “Strange Fruit.” The Voting Rights Act was passed in the 1960s–not the 1860s. People were still being killed for trying to vote when I was in high school. If all was going well in this country, there would have been no need for the songs and the stories or the civil rights movement.
It is uncomfortable to consider actions of forefathers, but those actions have indeed been less than humane from the onset. Most Presidents during the early years, were slave owners, and no matter what spin is put on that truth–it is the truth. Had the mistreatment of the Native Americans and the slaves stopped at that time, we probably wouldn’t be exchanging these words today. The fact is that for all persons of color, and many white people who were not perceived of the “right” background, the US experience has been painful for centuries. Yet these same people have been some of the most loyal citizens. Discrimination has been nonstop–even in the armed forces. Medals have been withheld. Acts of bravery have been surpressed, etc. Soldiers have survived war only to be killed after returning to the US. The deaths have been directly attributed to “isms.” Stating what other groups or countries do does not excuse the “Great Democracy” from its behaviors. If the country wants to promote itself as the land of insensitive SOBs who don’t care about anyone or anybody, then the behaviors won’t be questioned. When a country tries to offer itself as the example of democracy, then the citizens can’t be alarmed, when behaviors are questioned. People see through the hype.
From the very beginning, the Federalists believed that a few knew what was best for the masses as they sought their own success. That sounds so much like today. The wealthy have “legacy” entrance into the most prestigeous universities, and GPA is not a consideration, but the masses worry about whether or not a few people of color or gender difference have an opportunity that has been denied in the past. The tax laws have been skewed to allow the wealthy to keep what they have even into the next generations while paying a disportionate amount of taxes, and the middle and lower economic class is worried whether or not a minister stated some uncomfortable facts, and offered a possible theory about how HIV was initiated. The fact is that veneral disease was given to blacks in Tuskegee, Alabama. Drugs were taken into the Black community to fund initiatives overseas. Those facts can’t be denied. A ten minute sound bite out of more than thirty years of ministry hardly presents a total range of the topics discussed. Where are the other messages–thirty plus years of them?
There are no appologies needed when truths are told to a constituency that needs to know history in order to survive. Being angry that these ugly truths are aired in church is a waste of energy as the country is spiraling downward economically and is emeshed in a war that there was never a chance of winning. I knew that based upon studies I had done in my twenties. Last election, the distraction was who was marrying and/or sleeping with whom. Now a key issue is whether or not a person should have quit their church.
First of all, Obama is neither white nor black. He is biracial and bicultural. Therefore, he is GREY! Furthermore, from childhood through education, Obama had limited black experiences. Being raised by a white mother and his white grandparents in Hawaii, would hardly prepare Obama to know how to interact within a black community. He had to learn how to things were in the lower 48. He needed to attend a church such as Rev. Wright’s plus get involved in a neighborhood that would enable him to gain that understanding. Little about his early years would have prepared him to survive in any way in a typical black community. You don’t know the expectations by DNA–those come from living within context. Obama’s dad was African, not American. His step father was Indonesion. By life experiences, this man has a more global perspective than most candidates at any time. It is what makes him so unique. He is a brilliant and charismatic person, who looks through a different lens. If whites don’t want to claim him because half of his DNA is non white, that’s their loss. His other family wasn’t even born in the US. I will gladly welcome him into my family–the human family. The ancestors to most African Americans would not have come from Kenya. That we don’t share ancestry, but he resembles me matters little. I vote for white people frequently. That Obama might just be that person who can help us come together as a nation, and regain allies throughout the world is all that matters to me.
In order for conflicts to be resolved, the issues have to surface, and the emotions have to be considered before communication can take place and problems resolved. That is the standard conflict resolution model. These steps are too long overdue. Healing in the country cannot occur until this process is allowed to take its needed and natural course. If we are to survive, we have to think outside ourselves to the extent that our needs are addressed, plus the needs of someone else are addressed too. There has to be consideration of the greater good.

Jaqueline I appreciate your comments I am not as literate as you, but I want to comment too. My children, both adult males, are bi-racial black and white. They have experienced prejudice in theire lifetime. They know what it is like to be black, even though one of them is as fair as me. All through school I had to fill out emergency contact cards that requested race. They were either black or white, they could not be both. After complaing of this for a few years, I was once told it was for some sort of benefits the school got. My children know what it is like to be black and white, from going camping/fishing with theire white country (but not prejudice uncles) to eating neckbones andplaying and watching sports with theire black uncles. They would never go againsnt either side of theire race, they do have different perspective on things though than if they were all white. A friend of mine told me that there is no way Mr Obama didnt know what the reverend wrights views were after attending his church for twenty years. I was always told you have to keep your eyes on God and not on man, and now I guess Reverend Wright is an example of why we are supposed to do that. I hope it does not hurt Obama’s chances for being this country’s thats made up of variety of God’s children next president.