Before yesterday, I really didn't think Jeremiah Wright was all that bad. Well, I admit that I thought he was "out there" -- and certainly a liability to Obama -- after first seeing the snippets of Reverend Wright's sermons on YouTube early this year (or maybe even last year; conservative websites were harping on them long before they became the talk of mainstream media). But when I had the opportunity to listen to the full sermons I found it obvious that they had been taken entirely out of context for the purpose of vilifying the man and, by extension, Barack Obama.
Sure, "God damn America" sounds pretty harsh, but Wright was chiefly talking about the American government -- and the injustices towards "racial" minorities that he attributed to it in that sermon, for the most part, have been well documented. When he thundered that "America's chickens are coming home to roost," he was quoting former US Ambassador Edward Peck and highlighting that our country is far from being an innocent bystander on the international stage. Far from gloating that America had gotten its just desserts with 9/11, Wright was simply pointing out that "violence begets violence, hatred begets hatred, and terrorism begets terrorism" -- and that, as we move forward, we need to recognize this reality and stop perpetuating the cycle. And the sermon from which Obama lifted the title of The Audacity of Hope was probably one of the best and most interesting sermons that I've ever heard. I haven't heard all that many sermons, of course, but considering that I'm hardly Christian I was surprised by how engaging I thought it was. I listened to it twice.
(Okay, I have no idea why the heck he went off on how Hillary Clinton has never been called a "n-" and how that fit in with that Sunday's lesson -- I haven't heard the full sermon or seen the transcript -- but he's probably right about that. Right?)
I even enjoyed watching Rev. Wright's interview on Bill Moyers Journal. True, that he described Obama's actions as those of a (typical) politician was a little dickish, as Bill Maher put it, but I liked that they showed lengthier clips that put Wright's comments in context and gave him the opportunity to talk more about his service to the country and his community. Here, it seemed, was the fair and accurate portrayal of the man that the media had deliberately hidden from the public.
And then in separate speeches to the NAACP and the National Press Club, Wright fucked up. To be sure, there's probably something to be said for his assertion that most Americans know very little about the black church, and I agree with his mantra that "different" does not necessarily mean "deficient." Yet "separate" does not necessarily mean "unequal" -- and the kinds of differences that Wright argues exist provide both hateful and "well-meaning" racists with legitimate reasons for advocating the same kind of separation that was deemed unconstitutional during the Civil Rights Movement. How can integrated schools work when Wright asserts that whites and blacks learn differently because their brains work differently? (Seriously, in this respect, can you think of a more problematic statement than Wright's contention that, "in comparing African-American children and European-American children in the field of education, we [are] comparing apples and rocks"? Again: apples and rocks? Never mind that Obama and even Wright himself have proven perfectly capable of learning despite being part of a Western educational system that supposedly places people of purported African descent at an inherent disadvantage.) How can diverse individuals come together and truly learn from each other when their interests in music and other subjects are influenced not by cultural, environmental, or other substantive factors but, supposedly, by their DNA? Dogs and cats are "different" -- and not "deficient" in that neither species is objectively superior to the other -- but unless a particular dog and cat had proven capable of getting along in the past, I would hesitate to place them in the same room unattended. And yes, I'm aware that many dogs and cats do get along famously, but by suggesting the existence of physical differences that do not actually exist -- that "race" goes beyond the superficial and that "culture" is a product of biology -- Wright's comments can more be easily adapted to serve the forces of division rather than unity.
(Also, accusing the US government of creating AIDS as a means of genocide against Africans? I mean, it could be true, and Wright is correct about the Tuskegee experiment, government involvement in the crack epidemic of the 1980s, and other injustices that suggest our government would not have been above such an act. But since there will never be any convincing proof of this AIDS conspiracy (as if the government would ever let that information become public knowledge -- imagine the fallout!), publicly asserting one's belief in it is not at all helpful. To most Americans, it sounds completely nuts.)
So like Obama, here is where I break with Rev. Wright. Granted, he should be able to say whatever he wants to say, but I hope that, after these most recent remarks and Obama's unequivocal rejection of his comments, people will stop bloody paying attention. Yet what I find most disturbing and unfortunate about recent events is not what Wright said, or the potential that his comments have to completely derail Obama's candidacy, but that he actually seems to be gaining support. And whereas before I thought that a national dialogue on race might be helpful, I now think there is an excellent chance that it is totally going to suck.