Wallis on race

Is it too much to expect during this season of the year when Christians purportedly commemorate God's coming into this world to walk in our shoes that we WASPS's make an effort to walk a few miles in the shoes of black Americans?

I find myself both sympathetic to, and disturbed by, Wright's comments. Sympathetic, because there are real, long-lasting problems to which we've developed a real talent for "looking the other way." But disturbed, because the excerpt I saw seems to divide the US into "poor blacks" and "rich whites." Neither Wright (nor several recent Presidents)seem to realize that lots of poor-to-middle-class whites exist too, and that they face many of the same severe problems the blacks in their churches do.

I find it so incredibly offensive that Wallis feels he is qualified to "explain black rage" to us insensitive white people. Allow the possibility that many of the people who are upset about Jeremiah Wright and Trinity Church actually have some understanding (in spite of being white) of the anger in the black community.

We might have understanding and empathy, and at the same time believe that anger or even rage do not excuse adopting a set of paranoid- delusional conspiracy theories and racist ideologies. Demagogues such as Wright have always been good at channeling the rage of their followers by employing scapegoating and mythmaking about "the others," whether those others are Jews, Muslims, African-Americans, White Devils, or the Bourgeoise.

Jim Wallis did a great job explaining the plight of blacks,and he is not a puppet for the GOP. Christians who are bound to the GOP,has no real knowledge of God. Politics are their god. President Obama is going to do a great job. All this liberal and left wing talk is as old as Rush Limbaugh. America is ready to vote for Obama and move forword. Wallis is a true born-again christian who is not part of a party cult. Continue the good work Jim and Jay. It"s time to move ahead to a new day in Christ.

Blacks are not racist when they discuss the evils of today's racism. They talk aboutg a plight that should not exist today. They are angery at a system that is unfair to some citizens and partial to others. Black churches express the unjustice in a "christian nation". Racists are those who hold other down in their strides for progress.

I suggest reading Michael Gerson's column about Obama's speech on the Editorial Page of today's Washington Post.

First time I have read your work. I am glad that Senator Obama opened this wound again. Unfortunately, racism is here to stay. Where resources are limited, like animals, it becomes a survival of the fittest. Individualism is lost, envy, greed results. Mr. Obama cannot be a soothsayer, especially comparing his white grandmother's fear of color to the Reverend's hate history. He should have just focused on his own experience, but he could not, because he did not have any, or if he had he was too busy being ambitious to be a President, it has border into grandiosity. This in itself is a turning point for him as a colored man in our society.