The tone of his speech is one of victimization, Marxist categorizatin of the races, and a view of whites as the top of the racial hierarchy and as deserving of being treated as a group and knocked off the pinnacle. He justifies the worst anti-American and anti-white tripe because he’s a simpleton or a demagogue or both.

Look the guy very recently gave Farrakhan a big award. Farrakhan hates white people. If he himself is a middling figure between normal preachers and Farrakhan that doesn’t redeem him.

I came across something today that speaks directly to this question of whether or not Rev. Wright “hates white people”. It is an article written by a white member of Trinity UCC. It recounts the story of how his African American wife, also a member of Trinity, had initially broken their engagement because she didn’t feel that she could marry a white man. Upon finding out, Rev. Wright’s response was to ask her to “drop everything” and come to Trinity. There, he spent four hours counseling her, explaining that “racial divisions were unacceptable…no matter how great or prolonged the pain that caused them. God would not want us to assess or make decisions about people based on race. The world could make progress on issues of race only if people were prepared to break down barriers that were much easier to let stand.”

Following this ordeal, he presided over their wedding.

These are clearly not the words and actions of one who “hates white people”. I think this is why we need to be willing to give benefit of doubt when we’re presented with only a skewed perspective of someone or something.

Peace,
TR

See for yourself:

Rev. Wright after 9/11 – in context.

The context behind “God damn America”.

As you will see, even a few more minutes of context on either side of the infamous quotes paint a vastly different picture of Rev. Wright than what we’ve been fed over the last two weeks.

Peace,
TR

P.S. Phil, I’m not going to continue to hijack this thread, as Mr. Roach has already been more than gracious and I have a blog of my own. Please direct any further discussion on this matter over there. Thanks.

You’re right Tom, changing my mind now will be tough. I’m a 27 yr vet of the marines and air force, and hearing those little clips, short as they are, damning our country and telling outright lies about it will be difficult to overcome. From a fellow ex-marine it was a stab in the heart. It will take a whole lot more than another clip about say…, giving your heart to Jesus, to convince me that Obama didn’t sit there in the middle of that vocal vileness without walking away because he was only concerned about managing his voter base. If I’d have heard my priest say such things from the pulpit I would have exploded from the pew. I can’t imagine ANY context that would rationalize the public spouting of what I heard in those clips; and can you tell me what else he might have said in his “sermons” to provide this supposed “context” I keep hearing about? What are we missing? Why shouldn’t we be as outraged as so many of us apparently are?

Nice.

You seem to be intent upon disparaging this man no matter what, which is, of course, entirely your prerogative. Yet, your impression of Rev. Wright appears to be only based on your interpretation of “his tone”, as filtered through the ridiculously narrow lens of a few of the worst sermon snippets that could be found after an extensive search.

However, my impression of Rev. Wright is based on personal experience with him, his church, and his parishioners. I don’t feel like I’m somehow “missing” anything about his tone or otherwise, that you have been able to glean through your much more limited perspective.

As to the rest of your comment, well, you’ve got your version of history, and I’ve got mine.

Happy Holy Week,
TR

It’s absolutely clear what is being preached at that church. They are very up-front about being commited to Africa, first, last and always.

I think your summary of Obama’s speech is spot-on. His idea of unity is to gather all those wanting something for nothing into one mob for looting America’s most productive people.

Your exquisite defenses are missing his tone: he hates white America. He hates white people. He wants to advance his tribe at our expense, and he blames white people for almost every problem facing black America. Obama doesn’t hate whites; he just thinks they are playing ball and need to continue to do so. Wright and Obama both fail to take stock of the fact that the black family and the black community experienced more degradation and decline after various discriminatory laws were lifted and things like the Great Society and Affirmative Action were put in place than they did before. The disorder released by the 60s, soft on crime judges, bastard-subsidizing welfare programs, and warehousing of poor, fatherless families, as well as the decline of moral leadership by black leaders and the utter corrosion of black popular culture, has a lot more to do with black regress than imaginary white racists or “structures of oppression.” The problem with the structural argument is that it’s overbroad. I’m sure you define as any test from life where blacks don’t do well. I suppose gravity is a structure of oppression. And the law of supply and demand. I say that basketball is institutionally racist, because there’s so few whites in the NBA. It must be right. There can’t be some other explanation, like differeing levels of talent and interest between the races?

Other than my own experience that I’ve already shared here, I really doubt that anything I can offer is actually going to sway you one way or the other. You seem like a decent guy, but seriously – are you really going to be convinced by anything I come up with? Probably not.

But I do want to tell you why I don’t agree that Jeremiah Wright is anti-American or anti-white: it’s possible to hate America’s systems of oppression without hating America itself. You can also hate systems of white oppression without hating white people or whiteness itself. Now, I imagine you and I won’t agree on what constitutes “systems of oppression,” but understand that Rev. Wright is operating from that framework: total condemnation for the oppressive system, not the people operating within that system. That’s what he means when he says, “God damn America – that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people.”

Also keep in mind that this has been a very one-sided media spin cycle, comprised of 30 second sound bytes. We got to see was not a planned discussion of systems of American oppression to the uninitiated, but rather fiery sermon snippets to a group of people who already accepted that premise.

30 second sound bytes are, however, sufficient to rally rabid home-grown terrorists to flooding Trinity UCC with firebombing threats, and death threats against Rev. Wright personally. My prayer for today is that it gets no worse from here.

Peace,
TR

I’ve directly experienced Trinity UCC as a visitor who got to actually hear a couple of Wright’s sermons in their entirety. I’ve gotten to know Trinity indirectly through some of my closest friends and favorite faculty members who go there. Also, I’ve witnessed from living on the south side of Chicago what tremendous community impact Trinity has.

You’re free to watch the 30 second sermon snippets and come to whatever conclusions you will, but from my vantage point, the proof is in the pudding: generous, good, joyful and loving friends; life-saving community ministries; fiery, passionate, – and yes, imperfect – leadership.

Peace,
TR

P.S. Sophia, I’m not sure how to respond to you other than to say that I disagree with Wright regarding the US gov’t and AIDS. I really have no idea why he said that.

Also, I find your personal attacks to be unwarranted and mean-spirited. Disagree with me all you want. But you don’t know me – so please don’t attempt to impugn my character.

P.P.S. T. French, no free passes for Obama, Wright, Hillary, McCain, Bush, or anybody else. As I tried to explain just now, I rank deeds and words in context far higher than out of context sound bytes.

BTW, both Roach and Sailer write and write well,about interesting topics give it a try sometime P. III