UPDATES: Barack Obama Big News Page
The pastor of my church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who recently preached his last sermon and is in the process of retiring, has touched off a firestorm over the last few days. He's drawn attention as the result of some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents.
Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.
Because these particular statements by Rev. Wright are so contrary to my own life and beliefs, a number of people have legitimately raised questions about the nature of my relationship with Rev. Wright and my membership in the church. Let me therefore provide some context.
As I have written about in my books, I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago. I knew Rev. Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago. He also led a diverse congregation that was and still is a pillar of the South Side and the entire city of Chicago. It's a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS.
Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.
The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.
Let me repeat what I've said earlier. All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country.
With Rev. Wright's retirement and the ascension of my new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss, III, Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good. And while Rev. Wright's statements have pained and angered me, I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States.
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His comments should not be a reflection on you and your persona, at all, however, if we want a better America, we need to be able to point out the flaws. I'm not saying his comments were appropiate, but I also don't like the patriotiotic behavior that some project that America is perfect and does no wrong.
You can count with my support.
Gemma
You cannot lead the country very well at all, if you continue to deny truth. Your clergyman is right when he condemns America.
Dr. King said it best in 1967: the United States is the greatest purveyor of violence on this planet.
It is still.
So what are you going to do? Take the reins of power and continue that?
Rev. Wright is a black man who grew up at a time when he was not even considered a human being. He is a wounded soul who has been able to help many other wounded souls make it through just one more day.
It's just like John Stewart said, you talked to us like adults, not through fear-mongering like Hillary with the lame 3 am ad or whatever.
I voted for nader twice, the first was a mistake because I was in a swing state, the second wasn't because I wasn't, but this year I will vote for you. I however won't vote for Hillary under any circumstance, and I hope she knows there are many of us who feel that way. I feel you have always kept your cool, know the issues, despite a supposed lack of experience hillary talks about, despite the fact that you technically have more than her and first lady doesn't count to me.
you will be able to unite the democrats, and this country, but hillary will unite the republicans and divide this country just like bush.
I hope you win the rest of the primaries from here on out so the delegates from michigan and florida can be seated and not swing the race the other way because of their rule breaking. and i hope you win the rest of them by a lot so we see you as the clear winner and hillary can't claim any sort of victory.
People forget that speeches do matter. roosevelt told us we have nothing to fear but fear itself, kennedy told us to ask not what our country can do for us, but what we can do for it, and they inspired us americans to do things like joining the peace corps, or whatever. speeches do matter, especially by presidents, because we need inspiration and frank talk about the issues, especially after this current president.
The few things that I have heard come out of Rev.Wright
For many white americans the u tube video has succeeded in doing what it set out to do and that was to move Obama from being seen initially as the Peoples candidate to the Black peoples candidate. This is the tactic that the Clintons have tried to use from the beginning. Too bad that most Americans can't see that they are being minipulated into seeing Obama as an enemy. I have lost all respect for the Clintons and I fear they will do anything to make sure Hillary wins the nomination.
Obama is probably the first candidate I have ever felt who is actually who they say they are(other than Jimmy Carter). I believe that Obama is a man who loves this country and will make a great president.
In Sen. Obama's defense, not every parishioner in every church whole-heartedly believes everything that comes out of the preacher's mouth. And the preacher is there not to brainwash, but to give people something to think about. To think about the way we treat each other and to think about how we want our government to treat us is something all Americans need to hear in an election year. And every year. Further, we want to think about how our friends and neighbors in the rest of the world think about America and Americans. Because this is the year we choose the person who will represent us; how we believe and think and treat the rest of the world will be embodied in the person we choose.
As a black American who grew up during the times of greatest change of how we are treated in this country, the one thing that is pervasive through all of this is that while we can legislate equality and equity, we cannot change people's hearts with the law. I can sit at the lunch counter, but I can't make a law to make the server enjoy having to serve me.
Perhaps, in a way Rev. Wright didn't even intend, he gave us a fine example of what we as Americans don't want..... We don't want leaders that lead with hate and we don't want leaders that lead with fear. We don't want leaders that lie to us, to the world and to themselves when they blindly (or not so blindly) condone or endorse how we treat other countries, how we treat our prisoners whether they are political or not, and how we treat each other as groups and as individuals.
Groups and individuals. Perhaps Sen. Obama will be the one to finally lead us to see that we are not black Americans, white Americans, Italian Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, etc. Perhaps he will be the one to lead us to see that we are Americans, once and for all.
Everywhere I turn I am hearing the pastor painted as a guy who spewed racial hate from the pulpit every Sunday.
Having known personally people who've attended Trinity, I know this is far from the truth.
"He also could not have just become aware of the existence of the videos and the statements that Rev. Wright made after 9/11 because they have been brought up in the media for the past two years on FOX News, MSNBC, and others, including overseas publications dating back to 2001"
"Obama himself alledgedly sat in during a racialy hot sermon back on July 22, 2006 and was alledgedly seen nodding his head in agreement as Wright blasted "White America"!"
I think you should back those claims up. Until you do, i can only see your post as being libel.
You are misconstruing the objections to Wright's sermons, the vast majority of people who object ot Wright are not concerned about hating slavery and racism they are about his comments such as the US government gave people of color AIDs or that the US should be known as the US of KKKK... (If the KKK were running the country do you think we would have affirmative action or Obama would have gotten this far..? Hardly)
As for your other point, If I were in a church and a minister started condemning gay people I would walk out. Obama stuck around Jeremiah Wright (who he called his mentor..) for 20 years. I know there quite a few Whites who attend churches that rant about "Homosexuals" and all I can say is.. I wouldn't want a parishioner who tolerated that nonsense as my President either.
Then we shouldn't have a Catholic or Christian Fundamental President (abhors homosexuality and abortion)?
Is it that much of a leap of faith that the US could have been experimenting with AIDS when the Tuskeegee syphillis study ran from from 1932 to 1972 - 40 years - and only ended when it was leaked to the press? I was 13 in 1972 - if I had found out that my government was experimenting on my people for FORTY YEARS - denying adequate treatment, even though the penicillin treatment became available in 1947 - I could see me making that connection, no matter how ill-informed or wrong it is. After all, didn't Reagan think that AIDS was God's way of punishing gays? HIS preachers sure did.
Al Qaeda bombed us partly because of our presence in Saudi Arabia. In effect, our arrogance with respect to foreign policy in the Islamic world, and unflinching support for Israel (Why is that we have regular disagreements with almost all countries but never Israel?), is in part to blame for 9/11. DO NOT misinterpret my remarks here. I do not in any way excuse or condone any of what happened, and the blame for 9/11 rests firmly on radical fundamentalism; however, we must, as a nation, recognize that nothing exists in a vacuum. As for the "chickens coming home to roost" sentiment, well, he lifted that straight from Malcolm X for impact.
The Obama speech was brilliant as a treatise on where theings stand and why. I do, however, have a problem that has not been adequately answered by Senator Obama - while I can understand a black politician with political aspirations attending a 8,000 strong black church and taking controversial statements with a grain of salt, once your kids are born, why still attend? I cannot fathom allowing my children to hear filth from the pulpit. At some point, your own moral compass has to take over. His answer that he can no more disown Rev. Wright than he can the black community rings a bit hollow. Along the same lines, while he may not have physically been present during the "You Tube" sermons, he had to have been told about them, given his celebrity status in the congregation.
I think Senator Obama gave the speech of a lifetime. I would equal it to one of my greatest heroes: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. However, the thing that troubles me about this whole race thing and religion is how easily it has been for white America to try and make blacks feel guilty for sermons delivered from the pulpits of their churches. Also how easily the media tried to hold Obams'a feet to the fire for not leaving the church because of those comments. Traditionally, that is not something blacks do. It was in those churches that we learned about the KKK and other marauding murderous white militiamen. It was in the black church that we learned how to protest during the Civil Rights Movement. That is where we learned about non-violent protest.
Had it not been for those type of sermons,(not necessarily the words used by Rev. Wright, but the fieryness) we would still be living under the rule of jim crow. I think the whole thing has been blown out of porportion. Had the members of the reverends congregation taken it seriously, they would have been rioting in the streets. They were not. Racism is not dead in this country, though we would like to think that it is.
In 1995, I was run out of business and driven to the point of near insanity because the town found out that I owned my business and was not running it for my white landlord. I lost a sizeable amount of money. When I sought legal help, I was told that there was not a lawyer within 100 miles of that city that would sue a white citizen for a black person. He was right. Fortunately, I had an excellent psychologist in Sacramento who helped me to not judge all of white America by the deeds of those few who had so damaged me. I am still struggling.
Despite the media's attempt to make Obama a mirror image of his pastor, because of association, Senator Obama is not racist, neither is his pastor a racist. Rev. Wright is a product of his early childhood in a racist America which shaped his views, just as they have shaped mine.
Senator Obama has sought consistently, throughtout this campaign to bring this nation together. He has sought to rise above the race issue. He has gathered an army about him that is truly representative of the fabric of America. He is a candidate I feel that I can trust and rely on. Not because he is black, but because he refuses to allow his opponent to drag him into the mire of underhanded deeds. The Senator is right, America cannot just walk away from the problem, it has to be openly dealth with.
world can Sen. Obama control what other people say?
Why aren't we talking about what the definition of "is"
is? You think 35 years in Washington hasn't made the
Clintons beholden to people? ...please.
supporters can see that 35 years in the "business" isn't
something to be proud of; she's had 35 years to dig
herself in to Washington politics - this is what America
needs LESS of. 35 years does not equate to experience, it
equals "knowing how to manipulate the machine."
The only thing Obama knows how to do is to talk? GOOD!!
What does a president do?!?! HE HAS TO TALK! How sick and
tired are we of the knucklehead in the whitehouse now? Do
HIS words inspire people with confidence?
And if that's all his words do is inspire, isn't that a
good thing? Don't we want people to be inspired? Isn't a
president supposed to use his words to change political
minds in Washington? To influence lawmakers?
Make note of this date: A democrat has hit one out of the
park and it's continuing around the world with no sign of
stopping.
Some Republicans are so busy trying to keep the fear of electing Obama or Hillary...
Personally, I am not going to allow partisan politcal rhetoric to take me off focus of what I want and that is not to be swayed by them to either sit out the election or vote for their candidate in a way of showing my displeasure for whoever the Democratic nominee is.
I would hope that Senators Clinton and Obama would focus on the issues and the only way that can be done is by voters asking them at rallys specific questions regarding the economy, health care and the war. I am a grandmother with a 19 year old granddaughter serving in Iraq and I pray constantly for her safety along with all of her fellow soldiers safety and return....
People, I urge you to stay strong in what you want the election outcome to be.
.
Too bad his speech did not denounce the pastor. Saying "I can no more disown him then disown black america"..
I wish someone would ask Obama if he believes "white america" put Aids in the black community!
I now believe Clinton is correct... Obama does think you can fix everything with a speech. Now we can see why Obama''s wife hates America and calls Americans "sloths" and says we are all "mean". They are both disgusting and he should never be President of a country they apparently have so much disdain for.
If he didn''t pick up something from his insipid preacher over 20 years of going to that church it is apparent his wife did.
To bad we had the media pushing their own agenda for so long and only now are we finding this out.
The democrats will never win the white house back now.
About the AIDS comment, a poster above said it best
"is it that much of a leap of faith that the US could have been experimenting with AIDS when the Tuskeegee syphillis study ran from from 1932 to 1972 - 40 years - and only ended when it was leaked to the press?"
I thought true democrats were those that stood for justice and equality. If you see a fellow democrat being bullied into submission because of his race, shouldn't you be sticking up for him? What you are basically saying is the democrats should abandon the fight for justice, and pick the safe option. That is, let's give in to the bigots and the racists.
His pastors remarks were not so different than those he spoke. Asking America to accept wholesale white guilt, or saying they must accept it because he says so is ridiculous. Who is he to be telling Americans what they can, should, or must think?
Just because he isn't as passionate as his pastor doesn't mean they aren't saying the same thing.
Telling people what they ought to think doesn't sound like a good plan to get where he wants to go.
In fact, it's every reason not to elect him.
I found the remarks on race harsh but I suspect they were made in the reverends zeal to support you Obama.I thought the contrast he made between Hillary and yourself was an attempt to make some folks who felt you were not black enough,understand that you were.but the other statements kinda wacky,but who doesn't have some wacky ideas ? I spent nearly 3 years in foster care from the age of 3-6 where I suppose I first heard about Jesus.But,
As I said before,I don't disagree with some of the political view,the reverend expressed.
"I have no difficulty believing him a religious man, yet he was not a Christian!" -- Lincoln's friend and law partner Ward Hill Lamond
"I am sure one or the other is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps in some respects both." -- Abraham Lincoln declining to pledge his fidelity to the Evangelicals, who were both Confederate and Union at the time.
“I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievanc and
animosity against my mother's race.â€
“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in
an ugly direction