(Note–While this might at first seem a meandering away from the usual subject matter on this blog, read on for the connection between racism and sexism and the voices of some very wise feminists.)
I confess that it wasn’t until I opened my morning newspaper morning and found almost an entire Op Ed page dedicated to tarring and feathering Rev. Jeremiah Wright after his appearance at the National Press Club that I decided I’d better find out what he’d actually said. And as I did, I was reminded of the old fable about the young boy who had the temerity to point out that the emperor had no clothes. These days we call that speaking truth to power and promptly swiftboat the hapless heretic.In reading through the transcript (and I strongly recommend that you do so instead of blindly accepting the media interpretation of Wright’s speech) the words that riveted my attention were these:
“When using the paradigm of Dr. William Augustus Jones, Dr. Jones, in his book “God in the Ghetto,” argues quite accurately that one’s theology, how I see God, determines one’s anthropology, how I see humans, and one’s anthropology then determines one’s sociology, how I order my society.
Now the implications from the outset are obvious.
If I see God as male; if I see God as white male; if I see God as superior, as God over us and not Immanuel, which means God with us; if I see God as mean, vengeful, authoritarian, sexist or misogynist, then I see humans through that lens.
My theological lens shapes my anthropological lens. And as a result, white males are superior; all others are inferior. And I order my society where I can worship God on Sunday morning, wearing a black clergy robe, and kill others on Sunday evening, wearing a white Klan robe.
I can have laws which favor whites over blacks, in America or South Africa. I can construct a theology of apartheid, in the Afrikaner church, and a theology of white supremacy in the North American or Germanic church.
The implications from the outset are obvious. But then the complicated work is left to be done, as you dig deeper into the constructs, which tradition, habits and hermeneutics put on your plate.”
The implications are indeed quite obvious, and with those words, the Rev unleashed a full frontal assault not only on our national inner racism but our inner sexism as well. But to confront those words would be far too dangerous to our fragile national psyche so instead the questions asked the Reverend after his speech were a further vicious attempt at skewing and misquoting this man of vision in order to further the media-created image of this man as the embodiment of the evil spirit.
–“Can you explain what you mean in a sermon shortly after 9/11 when you said the United States had brought the terrorist attacks on itself, quote, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost”?”
REV. WRIGHT: If you heard the whole sermon, first of all, you heard that I was quoting the ambassador from Iraq. That’s number one. But number two, to quote the Bible, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked, for whatsoever you sew that you also shall”
–“Some critics have said that your sermons are unpatriotic. How do you feel about America and about being an American?”
REV. WRIGHT: I feel that those citizens who say that have never heard my sermons, nor do they know me. They are unfair accusations taken from sound bites, and that which is looped over and over again on certain channels.
I served six years in the military. Does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?
–“What is your relationship with Louis Farrakhan? Do you agree with and respect his views, including his most racially divisive views?”
REV. WRIGHT: As I said on the Bill Moyers’ show, one of our news channels keeps playing a news clip from 20 years ago, when Louis said 20 years ago that Zionism, not Judaism, was a gutter religion. He was talking about the same thing United Nations resolutions say, the same thing now that President Carter’s being vilified for and Bishop Tutu’s being vilified for. And everybody wants to paint me as if I’m anti- Semitic because of what Louis Farrakhan said 20 years ago.
I believe that people of all faiths have to work together in this country if we’re going to be build a future for our children…
Now, I am not going to put down Louis Farrakhan any more than Mandela will put down Fidel Castro. You remember that Ted Koppel show where Ted wanted Mandela to put down Castro because Castro is our enemy, and he said, “You don’t tell me who my enemies are; you don’t tell me who my friends are.”
Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains, he did not put me in slavery, and he didn’t make me this color.
As the questions continued, it became abundantly clear that the scandal was not what Rev. Wright was saying but the press corps’ unspeakable feeding frenzy for the sole purpose of creating an Obama Drama.
–“In your understanding of Christianity, does God love the white racist in the same way he loves he loves the oppressed black American?”
–“Can you elaborate on your comparison of the Roman soldiers who killed Jesus to the U.S. Marine Corps? Do you still believe that is an appropriate comparison? And why?”
–“Do you think it is God’s will that Senator Obama be president?”
Erica Jong had these thoughts earlier this week in her commentary about Wright’s appearance on Bill Moyers’ show,
“Wright seems utterly sincere to me. He strikes me as having a true spiritual calling. When he says, “America’s chickens have come home to roost,” I can’t fault his logic. Haven’t we been squandering hard earned taxpayer money on overseas adventures while we starve poor children? Haven’t we been supporting dictators while prating of democracy? Haven’t we been enriching profiteers at the expense of health care and education? You betcha.
So where’s the discussion of Jeremiah Wright’s real calling? You can’t find it. Our idiotic press prefers to play orphaned excerpts and force Barack Obama to apologize for words he never spoke. What is this apology stuff? Everyone has to apologize for their pastors, their doctors, their mothers, their fathers, their churches, their social affiliations. Why? Apologies are cheap. Inspiration is hard to find.”
And the Women’s Space blog offers more of Rev. Wright’s words and these spot-on comments:
“I have been absolutely floored, in a continuing and ongoing way, by the media coverage and public reaction to Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor. It is a continuing, ongoing, painful, painful reminder to me of everything that has gone wrong with the United States over the past 40 years, of the ground we have lost as progressives and persons committed to justice and an end to oppression for all people, of the turn we have taken in the wrong direction in this country.
These are prophetic words. These are visionary words. They are the words of a leader.”
Do I agree with everything he says? No, but that isn’t the point and implying that his words in any way define the Obama candidacy is repugnant. The fact is that Reverend Wright’s words have touched a wound, a very, very deep wound in our national identity. But isn’t it time that we quit shooting the messenger and insist that those we elect not shy away from the truth of whom we are and where we have come from. Then we can truly be strong.
–Lucinda Marshall @ 2008
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