Crunchy raises an excellent question in response to my earlier post.
If that’s true — and it sounds plausible to me — that does not make me feel any better about Obama’s moral reasoning. How does one get around the idea that he calculated that fear of and hostility to the white community was the glue that held Trinity’s community together, and that he thought the greater good of that community was worth the racism and paranoia that was its social glue? Why is that okay?
First, I want to clarify something. I don’t think Obama believed the glue that held Trinity together was hostility to whites. Rather, racial hositility was one strand within Trinity. There were other strands, too, including old-fashioned integrationists, like Obama. What Obama appreciated about Trinity, and Wright, was its capacity to unify these communities. The glue that held those constituencies together was not hostility to whites; it was commitment to Jesus, and to the poor. That’s what got Buppies and gangbangers, separatists and integrationists, racists and non-racists serving and praying together.
I think there is an ends-justifies-the-means aspect to this but not quite the one you mentioned. Trinity wasn’t based on hostility to whites but it did indeed tolerate it and, at least sometimes, encouraged it. So the question is whether the greater good — serving Christ by serving the poor — made up for this acceptance of a very real anti-white strain. It’s a tough question, and not one that necessarily accrues to Obama’s benefit.
By the way, this is all my own armchair-psychologizing. I strongly doubt Obama would agree with my interpretation. He would say the reason he stayed is that this is the church that brought him to Christ. I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t take that explanation seriously enough. I should have. It’s the old cynical journalist in me that just assumes that such a rationale coming from the mouth of a politician is inherently suspect. But we should at least be open to the possibility that that really was a key factor.
If it was, then you have an even more interesting ends-justifies-the-means conundrum. What if Obama tolerated Rev. Wright’s racist views because the pastor and the church strengthened Obama’s connection to Christ? Rod, if you believed that to be true, would that change your view of whether he should have stayed at the church?
posted June 5, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Why is no one mentioning that blacks have good reason to be anti-white? Even to-day, because of discrimination, most blacks live in poverty, are forced to go to run down public schools and are the most likely to be sent to the war in Iraq. I would much rather see someone like Rev. Wright speak up and name their oppression and encourage black people to believe in themselves, then to see black young people feeling powerless, hopeless, suicidal and thus killing each other in the streets. Even Archbishop Tutu says that the worst oppression is the negative messages that are internalize. Healing begins when truth is acknowledged. I wish we white people were more interested in truth and reconcilliation then in denying our ooppression. Bush was supported by Pat Robinson who says far more outlandish things the Rev. Wright ever did.
posted June 6, 2008 at 8:56 am
Steven: I’d like to pose one other alternative to why Obama was a member of the Trinity Church.
Because it was the place to be for a upper middle-class black man.
Several important people were from the Chicago area were and had been members of that church including Oprah. How many times are we directed to an institution as a place where people “like me” can be found? I’m sure he found Rev. Wright personable on a one-to-one basis, and more importantly, he found like-minded souls sitting next to him in the pews. Excuse my cynicism here, but wouldn’t that institution be a great networking opportunity for a rising star and state congressional leader?
I have no problem imagining this line of thought at all. I know many Caucasians who treat their church like a club. So common is it, I don’t even say it in a disparaging light. I think people look at the pastors only as an aside to the church. Prominence matters, not the Sunday sermon.
posted June 6, 2008 at 9:12 am
“…it was commitment to Jesus…”
A person can’t be committed to Jesus and at the same time spew vile, hate-filled comments. Jesus and hatred are mutually exclusive, regardless of what either Rev. Wright or Jerry Falwell would have us believe.
posted June 6, 2008 at 1:19 pm
It’s hard to leave a church when it is the place where you first committed your life to God. I had to do it myself and I cried when I made the choice to find another place to Worship because the church started to condone sinful nature and let people whose lifestyles were in defiance to the Word of God have leadership roles.
Trinity UCC is just like any other large church,; the bigger you get the more likely sin and corruption is going to creep in. Whether it is bigotry or adultery, sin is sin and we must stay firm in the Word to protect our churches.
Obama is but a man and is not a “Saint”. I always remember that David was just as big a sinner as the rest of us and God still loved and used him as His appointed. Not to say that Obama is God Appointed, but to use it as an illustration.
posted June 6, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Bob, when did Falwell ever preach hate? God does judge nations. And mgf, the conditions in Black Communities are exclusively the fault of the people that live in them. No one has to tell me to mow my yard or “snitch” out the @$#^^% (#$%^+ selling drugs in my neighborhood. Blacks are laying in the bed they make for themselves. Literally. C’mon now.
posted June 6, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I can’t believe that someone would say that it’s okay for blacks to spout anti-white rhetoric. Racism is racism, and there should be no double standard.
The obvious problem with the race baiting is that it keeps blacks wallowing in victimhood, essenitally crippled. Sharpton and Jackson love to keep black folks stirred up, and they never apologize when they’re wrong, which is pretty often.
I’ve taught in the ghetto for 20 years, and I can honestly say that the single biggest problem is NOT white racism but black irresponsibility. The “no snitching” culture breeds crime; blaming the white man won’t change a thing.
To imply that bringing black folks together to hate white folks…especially in the house of God…is anything short of evil…
posted June 9, 2008 at 4:19 am
Wow…..it’s a BEAUTIFUL DAY for racism, ain’t it?
We won’t dare talk about all of those wonderful Black people who graduate from college every year or who serve their country in big numbers.
We won’t talk about the entrepreneurs or the astronauts or the lawyers, police personnel, judges, congresspeople or doctors of color in this country.
Blacks are fantastic people. They have done so much since they got their freedom in the 60′s. In just forty plus years they have come so far.
Sure there are those that remain ghettoized. But so are Whites, although mainstream America does a good job at hiding and protecting those poor Whites from view.
Appalacia has always been a hill billy ghetto. And the Mormons getting welfare for their unending families was a well hidden problem too. White women have always gotten the biggest share of the Welfare dollar. I know: I worked for Social Services.
We could all point the finger. But the truth is that Black people took their freedom and have done a lot of amazing things with it in the short forty plus years that they have had it.
They help keep America strong and wonderful. I can’t be mad at that.
posted June 11, 2008 at 1:15 am
It’s nice to see you read my comment from your last blog post.
As for “What if Obama tolerated Rev. Wright’s racist views because the pastor and the church strengthened Obama’s connection to Christ?” how about this: What is Obama tolerated Rev. Wright’s racist views because he realized Rev. Wright was a brother in Christ with a problem with a sin? Doesn’t the Bible tell us first to go to our fellow Christian when see they have a fault, with the attitude that we ourselves are also tempted, and only after praying and counselling with them for however long it might take then to take it before the whole congregation–and not the mass media? Hasn’t Obama honored Biblical teaching by not condemning Wright as vehemently as one “righteously” might even as he finally has to disassociate himself with Wright’s church?
I have a relative who is in his 80′s who is fond of quoting a commonly held view of his times, “The only good N—– is a dead N—–.” I haven’t turned him into the Secret Service (although it’s crossed my mind). I have told him he is absolutely wrong and his attitudes are utterly un-Christian, but I haven’t outed him to his church, either. I pray for him, and I still include him in family gatherings.
Racism can only be cured by love. Perhaps Obama knows that. Perhaps we’re all better off remembering it.
posted June 23, 2008 at 2:49 pm
There was nothing racist about Reverend Wright’s message. Just because it upset and offended white AmeriKKKan beneficiaries of the current social order does not make the messages racist. Wright’s messages were no more racist than the Bible is homophobic.
posted June 25, 2008 at 10:46 am
“Bob, when did Falwell ever preach hate?”
That’s an easy one to answer, Child – almost every time he opened his mouth.
Bearing constant false witness against God’s gay and lesbian children, blaming hurricanes, floods and 9/11 on gays, declaring war against gays (I still have my original copy of his “Declaration”).
The man was so UN-Godly it boggles the mind. I wonder what his homosexual son Johnathon thinks about him?