ShareThisWhen Geraldine Ferraro and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright spoke out respectively on their behalf, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama may have wondered what they ever did to deserve such support.The Ferraro dust-up didn't raise much dust. But Wright's volatile comments about race and 9/11, delivered from the pulpit of Obama's church and perpetuated on YouTube, have had much more staying power. And they've raised questions about why Obama would maintain for 20 years his membership at a church that would employ a pastor like Wright.And Wright is outrageous. Shortly after 9/11, he tried to explain the actions of the suicidal jihadists by blaming America for its long-standing foreign policies in the Middle East and elsewhere. We bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and "never batted an eye." The chickens, he says, have come home to roost.With regard to race, Wright transitions quickly into full harangue, asserting from the pulpit that Obama knows what it means to be a black man living in a country controlled by rich white people, whereas Clinton has never had to watch a cab pass her by because of the color of her skin. Clinton has never, he shouts, been called the N-word.God bless America? No, God damn America, says Wright.America-bashing like this is hard to take for secular white people like me, especially when Wright, dressed in fancy African garb, adopts the full-of-himself, sanctimonious pulpit-persona of a preacher who's certain he's been handpicked by God to set the rest of us straight. Like many preachers, he seems to enjoy it a little too much. Where's the humility that's supposed to be central to the message of Jesus? I thought it was the meek who would inherit the earth.And yet -- and this is the problem -- if you separate what Wright says from his fiery, provocative rhetoric, you find more than just a dash of the truth.Wright's comments about 9/11 were ill-timed, but they have more depth than some of the canned, simpleminded reasons that we were given for the attack, such as, "They hate us for our freedom."As offensive as some of Wright's language may be, it's refreshing to hear someone publicly and emphatically connect 9/11 to our foreign policy in the Middle East, which for years has been directed toward the preservation of our interests in their natural resources, often at the expense of the locals.If Wright isn't quite ready to accept the idea that the post-racial millennium has dawned, I'm not sure that, as a white man, I'm in a position to contradict him. Clearly, his provocative message still resonates with thousands of African-Americans. When it comes to race, Wright may be overbearing and abrasive, but he's not being unreasonable when he argues that the race issue in America has not suddenly been resolved.In any case, the overreaction to the Wright episode probably reflects our failure to remember the traditional role of the biblical prophets and preachers. I'm an English teacher, not a theologian, but you don't have to know much about the Bible to understand that it was never the job of preachers to prop up the government or to perpetuate a society's complacent status quo.Preachers and prophets were called out when there was iniquity in the land, and they railed against society in loud, emphatic and sometimes obnoxious terms. Elijah and Jeremiah minced no words over the sins of Israel, and Amos excoriated the decadence of the people, asserting that "the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste." This wasn't exactly what the people wanted to hear.So maybe Wright is over the top. Or maybe he just seems to be because we've become used to complacent, well-fed preachers who are willing to cozy up to power in the White House, focusing on easy targets like gays and abortion doctors while leaving unexamined our corporate malfeasance, our racial issues and our sometimes dubious international undertakings.Jeremiah Wright isn't exactly Elijah, but his honest outrage may be something that we need to hear occasionally. It's what good preachers do.(John M. Crisp teaches in the English Department at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. E-mail him at jcrisp(at)delmar.edu.)
Wright continues an outrageous biblical tradition
Submitted by SHNS on Mon, 03/24/2008 - 13:26
Paying taxes unites us. It also divides us. People can pay five and even six times more in state and local taxes than other folks in similar circumstances making similar incomes.
Who's got your number?
In one of the fastest-growing forms of identity theft, crooks are stealing tax refunds by swiping personal information and using it to trick the Internal Revenue Service.
serom
if you take the time to internalize what is being said. your whole perception of what was said will change because you will understsand why it was said.
Change Churches
Senator Obama’s membership in this church is just not acceptable for a President of the United States. Now he does not have to leave the United Church of Christ faith, just choose another place of worship in that same faith. There is more then one United Church of Christ in the Chicago Area. I here this argument every time this comes up that people don’t agree with everything there priest says but you don’t stop being a catholic and change faiths. That may be true but you should choose another Catholic church if the Catholic church you do attend and its priest is saying anti American beliefs and statements, If it supports Hamas and is anti Semitic. If racism is promoted and preached. If your priest is a pedophile would you not at least change another Catholic church but not your faiths? So should have Senator Obama chosen another United Church of Christ church in the Chicago area and his refusal for years speaks volumes about his judgment. Looks like he has more in common with Bush then just admiring Chaney. Americans are saying NObama for our President!
Not only do we expect
Not only do we expect civilized boundaries of language to be observed, we need them. When I was a teenager, I was a very passionate anti-Vietnam war, politically minded individual who would get into loud arguments around the dinner table every night with my parents and my long-suffering brother. I didn't like what the U.S. was doing, I was wounded to hear of the Me Li Massacre, and when I could, I was in the streets with thousands of people demonstrating/protesting the war. But I never cursed my country. I would have argued with any of my fellow demonstrators who would say such a thing within earshot. We can't afford to excuse the Reverend Wrights of this world. The more tolerance we extend to their behavior, the more of that behavior we will see. It is not healing behavior, it is not thoughtful behavior, and it is "passion" that comes from the darkest sources, not the human heart. It's not "refreshing" as you put it ... it's disheartening to hear him use these words and disheartening to read your words defending it. A President of the United States needs to understand this because he or she is president of all of us.
Actions speak better than words
Mr Obama choose Mr. Wright as his spiritual teacher for 20 years and included Mr. Wright in his election staff, these are the actions of Mr. Obama. When shocking hate messages began to flow from the mouth of Mr. Wright on television, hyperbole spin was written for Mr. Obama distancing Mr. Obama from Mr. Wright. The weird thing is, some people actually believe the spin written by Mr. Obama’s election machine. But regardless what Mr. Obama says, he chose Mr. Wright as his spiritual teacher for 20 years and added Mr. Wright to his election staff.
If you make the choice to listen and learn from Hitler every week over 20 years, do you expect me or any other rational being to believe that you wouldn’t be or want to be influenced by Hitler’s ideas? And what does that say of your personal integrity if you chose American hating Mr. Wright, or Mr. Hitler as your guide in life?
And also consider recent announcement that the chief of the firm involved in the State Department’s passport breach is one of Obama’s adviser. And that Obama has been caught lying about Rezko, regarding the amount of money Rezko gave him, and that Obama still hasn’t come clean about his Rezko land deal. Or further, how Mrs. Obama makes a phenomenal $317.000 a month at a hospital in Chicago that is famous for turning away the poor, especially the black poor.
If Obama were to become president, what would stop Mr. Obama from appointing Mr. Wright to his cabinet? And after Mr. Wright’s appointment, if anyone complained they would be called racist. And it seems as if this strategy - that it is racist to criticize a black man - is already in effect as Mr. Obama can do anything corrupt with minimal impunity by the public or the press. But if Hillary so much as sneezes, she is taken through the laundry and hung out to dry and then beaten some more. Such bias treatment towards Mr. Obama because of his race is racial discrimination. And I believe another reason why Mrs. Clinton is unfairly criticized to such an extreme is because the men of this country can’t stand the idea of a woman for president. Think about it. It seems a lot of powerful men in the media will do anything to keep Hillary Clinton from being president; clearly a libido thing.
We should have as our country’s leader someone with wisdom and knowledge, whose goal is the selfless betterment of the world. We should not elect someone with a personal agenda of personal power or select them because of the fashionably of their race or the prejudice of their gender.