Princeton professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell offers another challenging take on the Barack Obama/Jeremiah Wright controversy over at TheRoot.com. An excerpt:
This week Barack Obama was pressured to denounce Jeremiah Wright. But in the hundred years following the end of the Civil War more than five thousand African Americans were lynched and not a single president denounced the atrocities. Because of this history, black patriotism is complicated.
Black patriots love our country, even though it has often hated us. We love our country, even while we hold it accountable for its faults.
I understand why the Obama campaign felt they had to distance themselves from Wright’s post 9-11 comments. But I am worried that Obama has missed a chance to talk about the rich and complex tapestry of black religious life. Not all black people are Christian. Not all belong to large, urban churches. Even fewer worship with such an outspoken, unapologetically political minister. But Trinity UCC does represent an important segment of black religious tradition. It is not scary, racist or un-American. Quite the opposite, Rev. Wright is integral to the broad prophetic tradition that informs many black churches.
Before moving to Princeton, Harris-Lacewell was a professor at the University of Chicago. I’ve long appreciated her insights, even though I may not always agree. But I think she nails several important points in this article. I’d encourage you to read it in its entirety.
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The American people don”t deserve to be manipulated and lied to
Professor,
With all due respect, you’ve missed the point. Clouding the issue with histrionics has absolutely nothing to do with what is a very simple issue. So, to cut through your emotional gymnastics, let me simplify the issue (Academia always confuses simple issue).
This has nothing to do with the “rich tapestry of black religious life”, nor how America has treated blacks. This is not an emotional issue. .
The issue here is this: We are considering electing a black (bi-racial actually) to the most powerful office in the world. He has built his campaingn and said repeatedly, that he was not a part of divisive racial politics of the past. He has made a clear point of wanting all of us to beleive that. So too now we are also to believe that everyone should just dismiss this, and not be concerned that he grew up listening to , and repsecting this man. On a personal note, the behavior in the congregation was much more disturbing than Rev Wright’s! Professor, rather than contriving an emotional connection to the issue, try a simple American one.
As prez, he is our employee, and we have the obligation to ensure he is the type of person that show’s level-headed, clear-eyed judgement. As a white voter, it certainly concerns me that we could simply cover our eyes and put a militant, American-hating, white-hating militant in office, but I don’t beleive this to be the case with Obama. However it is our obligation to sort out the true position. Obama blogs are active with thier authors asking why this is important, and I say to myself that there simply cannot be this level of ignorance out there.
At the end of the day, Obama will NOT get elected without the White vote. Its simple math. Blacks acting indignant at our concern is almost comical if it wasn’t so misguided. Blacks simply cannot want a person with brown skin in office so bladly that they will ignore thier character….tell me it’s not true
But I think I’m beginning to understand that skin color is indeed more important to some that character, behavior, positions, and afilliations. Damn, I hate to see that.
Obama needs to account for this and make us understand exactly where he stands on this. I personally with not put a person in office, regardless of race, that disdains the very country that provided him the opportuniy he enjoys now. And according to national polls on the issue, many others will not as well.
Professor, this is not about the Civil War, MLK, religous culture or any other attempt at intellectual gamesmanship. its is purely about character.
I recently stated in my blog that I wasn’t going to comment on Rev. Dr. Wright’s comments. This in larger part was due to my assumption that Dr. Wright accused the American government of 9/11 attacks. Then today I read an excerpt from his sermon. I am neither schocked nor suprised. Dr. Wright didn’t say anything new or shocking to many in the black community.
This media frenzy is all part to see if Obama was going to repudiate these comments like Clinton repudiated Ferraro’s comments.
Wright’s words are criticisms of American government historic role in atrocities like slavery, segregration, and lynching. Wright’s use of hyperbole is to make a point across that the American government is still guilty and unrepentant of its sins.
I’m no fan of Wright’s theological perspectives, but I’m a leary of many whites near-jerk reactions to what Wright and others in and outside the black liberation theology movement points out: refusal to acknowledge, repent, and reform.
The charge of reverse-racism for these comments is reactionary and not honestly dealing with the complex and hard reality of the African American experience in the United States.
Mashawa-
One thing I’ve learned in the past year: Just because I as a white man don’t think race (or the historocity and the nationalistic atrocities therein related) plays a role in a particular situation, doesn’t mean that it uniquivicolly does not. The thing is, that I ask you to truly and introspectively reconsider your comment, “This has nothing to do with the “rich tapestry of black religious life”, nor how America has treated blacks.” Indeed, how can it NOT? Obama IS an African-American after all. And Wright’s sound bite was snipped out of a rather long, drawn-out sermon PARICULARLY REGARDING the “histrionics” of this topic. It is simply all too easy for us, as “white guys” to say, “this isn’t about race”. As a wise man once said… “It’s ALWAYS about race… but then again, it isn’t”. it’s just not morally or intellectually consistent to take Wright’s comments out of their original context, and then bring them into the current context and hold Obama responsible for them. Obama does NOT have to answer for anything Wright has to say, other than, (quoting his actual response) :
“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.”
What else do you want a man of position and power to say about something he disagrees with??? When did it become a moral comprimise to have a mentor, advisor, or hero with whom you disagree on certain points, particularly those so clouded by rhetoric?
I want to clarify my previous comment: though Wright’s opinions of the American government are his own and are surely debatable, the fact of the institutional slavery, segregation, and racism as an unresolved deep wound in American history isn’t. I hope that this incident sparks an ongoing dialog about the power of racism personal and structural ideology and who it tends to pollute and pervert honest political discussion. History will tell whether or not Obama was wise in distancing himself from his pastor in the public plays a part in his race for the presidency.
What I meant to says was:
History will tell whether or not Obama was wise in distancing himself from his pastor’s comments in the public plays a part in his race for the presidency.
All good comments. But I still think the issue is still being clouded by all the emotional gymnastics regarding racial history. That just isn’t the story. The story is that Barack Obama has attended for twenty years a church where this is what is regularly preached from the pulpit, without registering discomfort. There are other churches, are there not? Why would someone stay that long in a place where hatred ignorance is preached so strongly from the pulpit (USA invented aids?), if the message doesn’t resonate? How can someone present himself as the candidate for all Americans when he has sat without complaint under preaching that condemns America? that is the point, clear of all the emotional baggage.
Nothing could be more dangerous to Mr. Obama’s political aspirations than the revelation that he, the son of a white woman, sat Sunday after Sunday — for 20 years — in an Afrocentric, black nationalist church in which his own mother, not to mention other whites, could never feel comfortable. His pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a challenger who goes far past Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in his anti-American outrage (”God damn America”).
How does one “transcend” race in this church? The fact is that Barack Obama has fellow-traveled with a hate-filled, anti-American black nationalism all his adult life, failing to stand and challenge an ideology that would have no place for his own mother. And what portent of presidential judgment is it to have exposed his two daughters for their entire lives to what is, at the very least, a subtext of anti-white vitriol?
So let’s drop the indignation, this is politics. he owes me and you an explanation, we should demand it, free of the flowery language he has used over the past months. I will not reconsider my position. Doing so would be ttacit approval and liscense that a candidate can say or do anything and not be held accountable. for it. I think the AA community could do well to consider how this plays in the white community. Jackson set the black community’s politcal aspirations back 50+ years.when he ran. he never had a chance. The USA was not going to elect a person that clearly wanted to punish white america for old sins of for fathers (the angry black man syndrome). Now we have Obama with a more populist message that we all enjoy. Black father, white mother, the sensibilities of both. This was his appeal to all. Now with his momentum (thanks to white america), most blacks have jumped on board the Obama bandwagon. But be careful, he is not a “black centrist” candidate. if he allows himself to be co-opted by the AA community amd given “most favored son” status, he will lose this election. he simply does not have that background nor is a product of the “struggle”.
Today Obama will give a speech and fight for his politcal life. It needs to be damn good.
We are, to an extent, products of the company we keep. Mothers, fathers, friends, pastors all play a role. To think otherwise in naive. Obama needs to stop the bleeding today or he is done. I deplore the mixing of religion, politcs and hate that seem prevalent in black churches. Growing up in Atlanta, I experienced this all too often.
Good comments all….appreciate again the tolerance of differing views!!
WOW,,,,nice job Obama. That is one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard. I think he nailed it!
Agreed with Mashawa. He nailed it.
As do I. Crazy! Mashawa and I are in agreement on something!
Maybe this Obama guy IS a consensus builder!
(I appreciate the debate as well. Both “sides” need less emotion-laced rhetoric and more honest discussion, about common ground and differences, as you note, M)
God bless the children in this country who grow up having parents of different races. God bless them.
B”H
Hey Ed & all,
First things first. Thanks for the personal prompting to rejoin the conversation here Ed.
I’m so glad to hear this topic once again being addressed. I very much appreciate Mashawa’s comments, but I rather strongly disagree with them too. It’s hard in a setting such as this, a blogsite with text only and no audio or visual, but I’m not sure that you, Mashawa, really understand Rev. Wright and the message he brings. I don’t approve of Rev. Wright’s use of the gd phrase, although I think he did use it in a proper context. I’m not a prophet so I can’t speak to the correctness of whether the LORD will surely judge or condemn America, but in light of the Biblical narrative, it sure seems plausible. When I heard the various clips from Rev. Wright’s sermons I immediately thought of a speech by Frederick Douglass given in 1852. Check it out here. http://www.freemaninstitute.com/douglass.htm Granted, there is a world of difference between the conditions that Frederick Douglass was speaking of and those which Rev. Wright was addressing, but that fact remains that much of Black America feels that there are issues of injustice which have never been rightly handled or atoned for. Through it all, I am hopeful that we, the community of believers, will rise to the occasion and exercise dynamic forgiveness to break the logjam of hurts and injustice that presently have us paralyzed.
More on this soon to follow.
Blessings,
Shlomo
I his entire sermon available somewhere?
Ed,
Anthony Smith (postmodernegro.com) and I had a videoblog conversation on Monday in which we referenced a couple of your blog posts surrounding the Obama/Wright controversy. I hope you’ll take a look at what we had to say and give us some feedback if/when you get a chance:
http://www.knightopia.com/journal/?p=883
Shalom,
Steve K.