I watched in a state of minor shock, not so much at the deftness with which he defused the sophomoric conflation of his call for national unity with the inflammatory rhetoric of the retired head pastor of his church -- a conflation that would imply that we must each swallow whole the entirety of views expressed by our friends and associates [Derrick Ashong, "Courageous Obama Poses Challenge to America," CNN.com, 2008.03.19].
A good friend of mine from SDSU, Greg, used to tell me that the U.S. should cede South Dakota to the Indian tribes we stole it from. I agreed with my friend Greg that we took the land by less than fair means, but I also told him I'd be one of the white folks with a shotgun fighting to keep the land if the government ever tried to impose his plan. Greg is still my friend; am I obliged to denounce and disown him because of a radical disagreement on an important political (and racial) issue?
I like Todd Epp. I like Steve Sibson. I really like my wife. But I disagree with each of them on one thing or another (and I can think of some real doozies).
The company we keep would be really dull and our politics all the poorer if we associated only with our ideological clones. But that fact is lost on the campaign mouthpieces and point-scorers.
On Pastor Wright himself: Ben Calhoun, a reporter on NPR's Morning Edition, today offers an interesting observation: He interviews Martin Marty, a pretty smart theologian, who observes that Pastor Wright's namesake, the prophet Jeremiah, was thrown in a pit for annoying the authorities and seeming to speak against his own country. Dr. Marty says the prophet Jeremiah called attention to the faults of his country out of a sincere love for his country.
Check your Bibles, draw your own conclusions. But remember: there's a big difference between criticism and hate, just as there's a difference between friendship and ideological identity.
Sorry, this is hate speech pure and simple. Suppose a Catholic priest or a Methodist minister or a Jewish rabbi said these exact same words, but inserted Black instead of white, and said the same anti-American things. Just what do you think would happen?
ReplyDeleteI can pretty much guarantee what wound NOT happen, and that is it would not be ignored or swept under the rug or explained away, and in this day and age the speaker would probably not keep his/her job.
This rhetoric has just inflamed the race issue among many people who do not consider themselves racist. Even Blacks are speaking out against this.
IMO his speech did nothing to quell this issue either. In trying to explain it away, Obama played the victim card again as far as Blacks are concerned, which in his mind justified these beliefs.
Obama is a gifted orator who so far has not really been challenged on his core beliefs or how he intends to implement his "change" and "hope." People are now getting a peek into his belief system, and into his being a true politician and saying what is expedient at the time and hoping that a lot of these things don't come out. He has been caught in lies and omissions regarding Rev. Wright and he's not handling it well.
So, it's bye, bye, 'Bama.