Is Wright Right About Racism?
Is Jeremiah Wright right about racism? There, I asked the question - a question that should be at the center of the "controversy" surrounding Barack Obama's former pastor, but which has been completely ignored. Somewhere deep down, I am guessing Wright feels some shred of vindication, because the entire "controversy" surrounding him now answers that question resoundingly. As I discuss in my newspaper column out today, Wright has become the latest target of the media lynch mob - and in becoming that target, he has proven his very assertions about the persistence of racism in our culture.
There are some things Wright has said that I strongly disagree with, and I certainly may disagree with more of his statements that come to light in the future. However, as the column shows, the specific statements at the center of the Wright "controversy" today are rooted in undeniable fact. Yes, there is a black community in America - and acknowledging that does not make one a "black separatist." Yes, terrorist attacks are often the product of what our own government calls "blowback" - even if that "blowback" is undeserved, criminal and immoral. And yes, bigotry is still a powerful force in American culture - and our society would do well to understand that bigotry makes African-Americans unhappy. As archconservative Mike Huckabee (R) said, "I grew up in a very segregated South and I think that you have to cut some slack...we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names."
But the intolerance the media lynch mob has shown toward Wright - and the tolerance the same media has shown toward the real extremists around John McCain and Hillary Clinton - is a telling double standard proving Wright's fundamental thesis correct. While Wright has dominated the news, anti-Catholic pastor John Hagee and anti-Semitic Reverend Billy Graham have received scant attention for their close relationships with McCain and Clinton, respectively. The Serious Media have followed modern day Bull Connors like Sean Hannity, Pat Buchanan and Charles Krauthammer into the ugliest gutter - the gutter of racial politics. And these three racist lynch mob leaders will undoubtedly retain their perches on cable networks and on the op-ed pages of Serious Newspapers. They will continue championing what one expert calls "colorblind racism" - the kind of racism that hides itself in platitudes against racism and extremism itself.
Clinton, of course, has fueled the fire. Just this week, she granted an interview to the fringe right-wing Pittsburgh Tribune Review - the tiny newspaper owned by the same Richard Mellon Scaife who financed Republicans' anti-Clinton infrastructure in the 1990s. Clinton used the interview to specifically stoke the Wright "controversy" ahead of Pennsylvania's primary. Her much-vaunted political "firewall" that she says will stop Obama has very clearly become a "race wall" (more on this in a new In These Times article set for release on Monday).
This was a very difficult column to write. It took a long time to craft, because racial and foreign policy taboos (especially those that question American exceptionalism) are such sensitive topics - and I've gotten some hate email already this morning. But I'm glad I wrote this. With so much of the well-heeled, white Establishment simultaneously preening around like they oppose racism while pushing this story in a fundamentally racist way, I felt it was important to make the basic point that started out this post. And that is, again: This whole "controversy" has confirmed Wright's fundamental assertion that our culture is still deeply afflicted by bigotry. If the media is a mirror reflecting what we as a society consider acceptable and unacceptable, then that mirror is right now telling us just how powerful racism still is in American life.
You can listen to my discussion about the column on Colorado radio this morning here. Or, read the whole column at Creators, Credo Action, The Denver Post, The Vail Daily, The Ft. Collins Coloradoan, In These Times, TruthDig or Alternet. The column relies on grassroots support, so if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.
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The best way to combat the Fox and MSNBC new that you find so distateful is to not watch it. The ratings are what drive their shows. If you vote whenever you can, and you use your pocektbook and your television viewing to send a message to the corporate world, you can change the world. Stop watching the bullshit and you won't have to hear it.
Yes!
Turn off the crap!
They don't call it "programming" for nothing.
there are 5 sources that do not follow the MSM War Profiteering agenda:
Daily Show, Colbert, Olberman, NOW, Air America.
Then if you want fact, go online.
Regarding the myth on HIV?AIDS some data on where such myth is rooted....
Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge—a tradition that continues today within some black populations. It reveals how blacks have historically been prey to grave-robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the twentieth century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of blacks, and the view that they were biologically inferior, oversexed, and unfit for adult responsibilities. Shocking new details about the government’s notorious Tuskegee experiment are revealed, as are similar, less-well-known medical atrocities conducted by the government, the armed forces, prisons, and private institutions.
http://www.s193082824.onlinehome.us/
Considering Rev Wright was preaching - "God will damn America if she thinks she is God" it is obvious politicians are attacking him out of context confirming some of his rhetoric to be true..
Last Americans rushed to read Noam Chomsky's book "Hegemony or Survival"
" the repression of other nations' citizenry is, in fact, the very reason Americans support certain foreign leaders. The charges made throughout the book are severe, as are the dire consequences he posts if current trends are maintained"
American foreign policy simply the continuation of a consistent half-century of foreign policy-an "imperial grand strategy"-in which the United States has attempted to "maintain its hegemony through the threat or use of military force." but Chomsky builds his arguments carefully, substantiates claims with appropriate documentation and answers expected counterclaims. Chomsky is also deeply critical of inconsistency in making the charge of "terrorism." Using the official U.S. legal code definition of terrorism, he argues that it is an exact description of U.S. foreign policy (especially regarding Cuba, Central America, Vietnam and much of the Middle East),
There has never been any uproar about Chomsky who is by far a more influential figure than Rev will ever be, instead he is a distinguished Prof of MIT.
Neither the media, nor Pat Buchanan will of course not engage either Chomsky or Michael Moore -(Stupid White Men), on any of the issues raised by Rev Wright. One wonders why.....
Yes, thank you for this post. It is by far the best analysis of the race issue by a journalist that I have read.
It turns my stomach that The Clintons are stoking the fires of racism in their campaign. I look at Maggie Williams and wonder how she can continue to work for them. She has to be a hugely cynical woman to support them even if she is getting paid. I used to defend them when my republican mother, who had friends from Arkansas, would shake her head and say, "you just don't know". And I didn't know then. There was so much right wingnut noise that I simply couldn't hear the real Clintons. I can hear them now, though, and it's not just the race baiting that shows them for what they are.
what CNN, Fox and MSNBC did to Rev. Wright, along with New Gingrich with his newsletter
(who is the origin of Barack Obama sitting in church for 20 years soaking up Wright's hate), and Rush
Limbaugh with his hate talk on radio, is as close to a black lynching we you can get without actually
tying the rope.
Racist bigots
Comment on Sen. Obama's acceptance of Rev. Wright is overwhelmingly and irrationally centered on a single, arguable phrase. It would be more useful going forward to address Wright's participation in the HIV/AIDS conspiracy theory, which, according to Rand, has had a demonstrable effect on the community.
A 2005 Rand study found that due to the accompanying distrust of the health care system, "Conspiracy Beliefs Among African Americans Deter Condom Use."
http://rand.org/news/press.05/01.25.html
THE WHOLE GUILT BY ASSOCIATION ARGUMENT IS LUDICROUS. I had a disagreement with my mom the other night. She is a child of God, a great mom, sister and daughter. And sometimes she says the STUPIDEST THINGS. Well the other night she said a whopper. (and i'm sure i have too) In any event, she is still one of my mentors and I love her and she's smart. If i run for office do i need to disavow her? My dad, one of THE most intelligent people I've ever met is also one of my mentors. Sometimes he says the most racists stupidest things (usually after a day of teaching in a particularly bad inner city school). Do I denounce him? What about my pastor who allows gays to be in the ministry? Or what about on of the other ministers at my church who used to be a drug addict? Or what about our President who believes it is fair to put some people in jail for $500 worth of drugs and others have to have $500,000.00 worth of drugs? Or what about other Presidents in our recent history who have turned a blinds eye to the HUGE disparity in the court system/prosecution of people of color? What about them? Perhaps we should reject and denounce the WHOLE STINCKIN' govt for not doing something about the atrocities Native Americans face on the reseravations.
Just a thought...
"Lynch mob," you say.-- An amusing bit of fatuity. Has someone suggested any sort of punishment for the clownish old fool? (Hint: No.) Try to calm yourself enough to see what's up here. The fact that a candidate for president willingly listened to the clown's obloquies for nearly two decades, plus the fact that the candidate's wife sat beside him and apparently absorbed at least a part of her admitted disrespect for her country in the process is a legitimate news story. Still, we've heard enough of it. It showed unequivocally that Barack Obama is not someone we want in the White House. No further reinforcement of that particular one of the vast herd of reasons is necessary. Let Clinton's wife have the stage to emphasize more of the other reasons.
What I don't understand is why some people expect all people to feel about the US the way they do. More specifically why do YOU think that I or Wright should feel this BLIND love for this country the way you do? How are we going to fix what's wrong with this country if we refuse to admit that anything's wrong? My laundry list of problems with this country does not make me want to necessarily live anywhere else. My laundry list of problems with this country did not stop me from weeping on 9/11. My laundry list of problems with this country did not stop me from wanting revenge on the people who did it. Nevertheless, while I was weeping I knew that we had just received payback for one of the 100 atrocities that our govt NOT ME AND NOT YOU our govt committed in the name of imperialism, arrogance, cultural colonialism. or just plain greed.
AND WRIGHT IS RIGHT. Just like a human being - until this country rights the wrongs it is committing at home and abroad IT WILL NEVER EVER EVER be a Perfect Union. NEVER.
Urban, read my post, arguing right and wrong is pointless, as you are arguing against deep racial dread. Only the truth of the sermons, that was cut out by Fox, is any repost to the bigot class.
Again with the twenty years. Anyone who has seen the entire sermons will realize that what the "old fool" was doing was bringing up the mythology of the black experience, as vividly as possible, and then attempting to put it to rest through faith. It will not play any longer, neither the tapes or the fallacious argument about some seed of hatred being sown, when it is obvious that just the opposite was the purpose of the sermons in question.
THANKS FOR TELLING THE TRUTH!
THANKS FOR TELLING THE TRUTH!
THANKS FOR TELLING THE TRUTH!
AGAIN THANKS FOR TELLING THE TRUTH DAVID SIROTA!!!
Tavis Smiley on "Real Time with Bill Maher" made a point that needs to be brought up every time this Wright controversy keeps coming up. That is this. That Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made this statement in April of 1967. King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." Here is a link to my source.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2269
My point (and Mr. Smiley's) is that lots of people, even American heroes, can be quoted as saying controversial statements that sound anti-American. Does that mean we need to condemn them? I don't think so.
A very insightful, articulate and succinct article to date on the Wright issue.
It is very odd, when using 'guilt by association' argument that some people come to think, that, it is valid and plausible. Even identical twins differ in their personality as distinct as two individuals can ever be. How many of us have grown up in a family (from infancy to adulthood) where your parents or siblings have different political and religious views? You spend ~18-20 or so years with them, but yet you can develop your values, ideas and aspirations differently and distinctly.
Wright's MSM 30sec marathon and Obama's speech made it possible for all the likes of Pat Buchanan, C. Krauthammer, & Sean Hannity that have suppressed their deep prejudiced view of race so far, to voice it out over TV. Not only is it clear how distorted their views are but how receptive the general public is to their views.
At least, the voices of moderates and of reason are speaking out -objectively.
People,
Google the names of Drs. Boyd E. Graves and Richard Gallo and find out the real history of the HIV/AIDS virus.
I think a legitimate argument can be made that his central argument is correct. However, his rhetoric is incendiary, his assertions are looney (AIDs, drugs, prisons), and he is now a divisive figure. For Obama, who spoke about the One America, this remains a problem. Wright was the man who married Obama and his wife and baptized the Obama children. He sat in on 20 years worth of these kinds of sermons. His attempts to dodge criticism has only made his situation worse. Wright may be right at heart, but he is wrong in how he makes those arguments.
do you know for a fact that wright, every sunday (or every other sunday, or every third sunday or even once a month) made "controversial" sermons for 20 years? i'm assuming you don't, unless you, in fact, attend that church. you're spouting the typical media-hyped bullshit line. there's lots of things in the bible, i'm sure wright spoke about quite a few of them w/o making uppity remarks.
Just like the quintessential American, "the gift is good, but the packaging is not perfect, hence I'm not going to accept the gift from the giver". Listen, people have labelled Rev Wright a Racist and tried to tie Obama to his "racist" comments. Yet when asked, what's not true about Statements Rev Wright spoke and they're not able to come up with stuff. The next thing is they talk about his tone.
Just like back in the day, people complained about Malcolm and Martin. Eventually, Martin was humanized and honored, while some segments of society still try to demonize Malcom to this day. It took both Malcom and Martin along with a host of other people of other races to get the civil rights movement going. In this day and age, Rev Wright speaks lile a Malcom, but acts like a Martin. People will rather define him based on his speech, which is a reflection of Malcom, rather than his true deeds which is a reflection of Martin.
Nothing changes the fact that the Rev spoke truth to power. Accept the gift (message of America's misadventures that is hurting us), and look past the gift wrap (the rhetoric that conveyed the message).
Well, it seems Obama is UP in all the polls.... so Sean Hanity and Rush Limbaugh, with your able assistance, didn't get the job done.
That is your problem....the 20 years.... cause if you want to know what Barack Obama was listening to all those years, you have to listen to whole sermons, which will prove you barked cause Sean Hanity said so.
Thank you! Even the blogs on ABC news have been beating this drum ignoring the other candidates religious affiliations. Doug Coe and the fellowship is a concern that merits a lot closer look due to his overtly political stance on 'power elites,' which Clinton as well as Pol Pot is a part of.
Thank you David. I was outraged when I read Pat Buchanan's article and amazed that his opinions are still valued by MSNBC and CNN. There are plenty of other conservatives who are intelligent enough to express their opinions on these programs and are not blatantly racist. According to Pat Buchanan, we rescued the Africans, brought them over on a cruise ship while being wined and dined, and gave them not only a piece of the American pie when they got here, but also gave them Christianity. We saved their lives and their souls at the same time. How generous of us and how ungrateful they are.
I don't believe that Pat Buchanan actually believes the things he wrote. He and Fox news knowingly tell lies to manipulate the less informed or if you will, dumb Americans. Sad but true. If we must take a test to drive a car, graduate from school, and prove our knowledge for acquiring a job, why shouldn't we have to take a test to vote? All Americans should be required to learn the issues and have knowledge about the candidates before casting a vote that will affect the lives of all citizens.
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