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 I’ve Had It With Rev. WrightPosted on Apr 28, 2008Note: This column has been updated since its original posting in light of Barack Obama’s Tuesday speech. WASHINGTON—We all have our crosses to bear. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has become Barack Obama’s. I’m sorry, but I’ve had it with Wright. I would never try to diminish the service he performed as pastor of his Chicago megachurch, and it’s obvious that he’s a man of great charisma and great faith. But this media tour he’s conducting is doing a disservice that goes beyond any impact it might have on Obama’s presidential campaign. The problem is that Wright insists on being seen as something he’s not: an archetypal representative of the African-American church. In fact, he represents one twig of one branch of a very large tree. It’s understandable, given how Wright has been treated, that he would want to attempt to set the record straight. No one would enjoy seeing his 36-year career reduced to a couple of radioactive sound bites. No preacher would want his entire philosophy to be assessed based on a few rhetorical excesses committed in the heat of a passionate sermon. No former Marine would stomach having his love of country questioned by armchair patriots who have done far less to protect the United States from its enemies. Given Wright’s long silence, I thought he had taken to heart Jesus’ admonition to turn the other cheek. Obviously, I was wrong. I’m through with Wright not because he responded—in similar circumstances, I certainly couldn’t have kept silent—but because his response was so egocentric. We get it, Rev. Wright: You’re ready for your close-up. He made some good points Monday when he entered the lion’s den of the National Press Club. I especially liked this one: “My goddaughter’s unit just arrived in Iraq this week while those who call me unpatriotic have used their positions of privilege to avoid military service while sending over 4,000 American boys and girls of every race to die over a lie.” But his basic point—that any attack on him is an attack on the African-American church and its traditions—is just wrong. In making that argument, he buys into the fraudulent idea of a monolithic, monocultural black America—one with his philosophy and theology at its center. In his speech Sunday at the NAACP dinner in Detroit, Wright spoke at length about how “different” does not mean “deficient.” He talked of how European and African musical and rhetorical traditions are different, and how that doesn’t mean that one is better than the other. The point was that there is no one way to preach the Gospel. In this, Wright is right. Where he overreaches is in claiming, as he did at the Press Club, that the criticism he has suffered “is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright; it is an attack on the black church”—and in claiming that this episode “just might mean that the reality of the African-American church will no longer be invisible.” The reality of the African-American church, of course, is as diverse as the African-American community. I grew up in the Methodist church with pastors—often active on the front lines of the civil rights movement—whose sermons were rarely exciting enough to elicit more than a muttered “Amen.” They were excitement itself, however, compared to the dry lectures delivered by the priest at the Catholic church around the corner. And what I heard every Sunday was nothing at all like the Bible-thumping, hellfire-and-damnation perorations that filled my Baptist friends with the Holy Ghost—and even less like the spellbinding, singsong, jump-and-shout sermonizing that raised the roofs of Pentecostal sanctuaries across town. Wright claims to represent all these traditions and more, but he does not. He also claims universality for the political aspect of his ministry. It is true that the black church, writ large, has been an instrument of social and political change. But most black churches are far less political than Wright’s—and many concern themselves exclusively with salvation. I point all this out not to say that one tradition is better than another; as Wright said, different doesn’t mean deficient. But what Wright did was try to frame the issue in such a way that to question him or anything he has ever said was to question the long, storied tradition of African-American religion. Historically and theologically, he was inflating his importance in a pride-goeth-before-the-fall kind of way. Politically, by surfacing now, he was throwing Barack Obama under the bus.
On Tuesday, Obama returned the favor.
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By john doreami, May 1 at 2:45 pm # McCain: completely full of shit Clinton: completely full of shit Obama: completely full of shit Wright: not so much full of shit Keep Wright on the air, fire the others. Crimes of the State
By Bill Blackolive, May 1 at 7:19 am # I AM GLADI am glad to see some Wright fans. I watched Wright, found him hip and talented, a great performer. I don’t know he has fully said the USA planted the AIDS virus. He said he would not put it past a government who let sypilis be given to black prisoners without their knowing, in order to study sypilis. Meantime, the US government is guilty of terrorism, certainly. The US government attacked its own people, see patriotsquestion9/11. Yes, Israel commits war crimes every day and the US press ignores this, the European presses do not ignore it. Meantime, this night I watched Jerimiah carrying on, he was so funny, I believed he would be taking pressure off Obama - I had not seen how Wright could be offending even the most scared US whites. Next day I suffered mild shock seeing what the corporate news was doing. They panicked nice black guys like Eugene Robinson. Yes, this stricken land needs a “black” president, but I would prefer Obama were tougher. He should say: Let the loose bowels typical whites lose their potential greatest president, and I will fight on as champion of their children. Ah, sadly ever more, this is not reality. Whew.
By Violavicki, April 30 at 6:23 pm # WrightI totally agree that MSNBC is constantly talking about Obama and how much Wright has damaged him. Well, MSNBC has damaged themselves as much as Fox News. Obama is very popular and will have continuing support because we know he is a smart man who is needed as our president right now. We can’t wait 4 more years with McWar Monger or with Clinton who is becoming a republican herself.
By Greg Jones, April 30 at 1:10 pm # A Bit Of TRUTH !Dig this truth...Special thanks to CNN (especially Wolf & Campbell Brown), Fox News, especially Hannity the media king of race baiting, Joe (keep her in so we can win)Scarborough, Pat ‘hate anyone of color’Buchanan, Laura Ingraham, Flush Limbaugh, and the whole GOP media gang (Medved, Prager, Hewitt, etc.) for running the Rev. Wright story totally in the ground. Now that the whole Wright issue has been settled, all superdelegates can now come to Obama’s side without fear that the Wright ordeal will be an issue in the GE. When the GOP brings it up in the general....it will be old news. THANKS MEDIA ! (can you say.....back-fired!) FIRED UP....READY TO GO !!!!!!!!!! Greg Jones
By marywendyroberts, April 30 at 11:12 am # Wright is Wrong, Obama is indeed unfairlyThank you Mr. Robinson.
By John Hanks, April 30 at 5:51 am # Wright and Obama have integrityThey are inner-directed men in an other-directed world.
By tft, April 30 at 9:20 am # Re: Re: It's too late to denounce Wright...Hey Joe, where you goin’ with logic in your head? You think, now that Obama has denounced not just the statements by Wright, but the man himself, that Obama “trusts” wingnuts? When did Obama ever say he trusted Wright with nukes? Your logic is tortured, to say the least, and just stupid, to say the truth.
By Conservative Yankee, April 30 at 4:38 am # By Joe Sixpack, April 30 at 4:14 am # Absolutely correct… But the Clinton’s have been accepting campaign contributions since 1978 at least…
By Conservative Yankee, May 1 at 7:09 am # This mattersNever checked that out… does it matter?
By Sassy, April 29 at 8:25 pm # I love your columns, Eugene. You seem to have a knack for zeroing in what’s troubling me. As for Reverend Wright, I think he needs a spiritual advisor. He’s not the only one, of course. There are a lot of other preachers who urgently need spiritual advisors these days, including McCain’s good buddy Hagee. All things considered, I still believe Obama is the best candidate. I can hardly look at McCain these days without hearing that Beach Boy tune. His crazed performance of “Ah, ba ba ba ba, bomb bomb Iran, oh, ba ba ba ba, bomb, bomb Iran” was downright creepy and it’s not the kind of thing one easily forgets. The U.S. is dealing with a lot of tough issues these days and the last thing we need is a President who thinks this kind of thing is cute. As for Hillary, I believe she could benefit from a spiritual advisor as well. One can only assume if someone runs a dirty manipulative campaign, things will not improve once they get to the White House. We’ve had almost eight years of this kind of thing under Bush and we simply don’t four more years of the same.
By Dr. Wright and Dr. King, April 29 at 5:50 pm # Rev. WrightIf the good Reverend could get past his religion to his politics, we might have a leader. His words of history and culture are true. Dr. King was reviled by white America by the time of his murder but he is conspicuously the greatest leader of living Americans in hindsight. While I enthusiatically endorse Barack Obama, the good Reverend is more likely to take us to true peace and reconciliation. And to the racists in Pennsylvania, some of you my close friends, confrontation against your racism might get us farther than foregiveness. Add Your Comment |
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