Forgive me for dissenting, but I dispute the premise underlying most, if not all, of the punditry in the last 24 hours concerning Obama's speech yesterday. Chris Matthews absurdly called the speech the best speech on the topic of race in American history. (Has he not read of Martin Luther King? Abraham Lincoln?) Commentators on the Left and Right have opined on Wright's racism, the reactions of black and white voters, whether Wright's vitriol is justified by racial injustice. Obama himself spoke of a racial stalemate, as if a black perspective and a white perspective have locked in irreconcilable conflict on the grand stage of American politics and he alone has the moral authority to serve as mediator.
Perhaps I am insufficiently sensitive to racial undertones, but as I listened to excerpts of Wright's sermons last week I was struck not by Wright's racism but rather by his manifest hatred of this great nation and his anti-semitism. The only way that race might conceivably be relevant to this sorry episode is if one first accepts the premise, which any reasonable person must necessarily reject, that Wright's screed has any basis in historical fact. If ending World War II with nuclear weapons were morally equivalent to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, if the United States government were giving narcotics to black youths, if Israel were persecuting Muslim Palestinians, then Wright's speech might raise questions of race and racial justice.
However, none of those things is true as a matter of fact. And by accepting Obama's premise that his cozy relationship with Wright implicates some racial impasse, are we not ceding to his conclusion that his relationship with Wright is understandable or even justifiable? (I do not disagree with Titus' assertion that Democracts are suffering the consequences of their own identity politics. I just don't think that this particular episode is about race).
This is the genius of the man: Obama turned the tables on his critics yesterday by invoking white guilt, thus deftly avoiding examination of his own indisputable guilt. The facts are that Obama has taken counsel from and supported financially a man who preaches anti-American and anti-semitic calumnies. Let's talk about those facts a little bit and leave the breathless invocations of episodic American racial reconciliation to Chris Matthews.
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4 comments:
I agree that Wright's comments about 9/11 and Palestine betray a deep-seeded hatred for America. I also agree that punditry is completely missing this point. And as you point out, this is tremendously important and we should focus on it more. If Jeremiah Wright harbors this hatred for our nation, we had better make damn sure that the potential next President of the United States who sat in his pews for 2 decades does not share similar feelings.
But I am not sure that I agree that this particular episode has nothing to do with race.
A man who refers to our nation as the "US of KKA", A man who believes the government is selling drugs to black kids on the streets -- not poor kids of any color -- black kids, A man who mocks blacks like Clarence Thomas as "sellouts", a man who begrudges a "culture controlled by rich white people", a man who scoffs at Hillary Clinton because she "ain't never been called a n&^%$", a man who believes the government created the HIV virus "as a means of genocide against people of color"...This is a man who sees in black and white and from my vantage point is a racist.
Of course these statements are ludicrous and not factual, but does that make them any less racist?
Obama's speech yesterday would not have occurred were it not for the racist, America-hating comments of Jeremiah Wright.
The liberal media will continue to play this angle up, because as you point out, Obama is the one who has situated himself as the only possible redeemer. It is a narrative whose outcome is predetermined and approved by an adoring press corps. The story about America loathing is not so easy.
So if you are arguing that we should be paying more attention to the latter, I agree.
Certainly Wright is racist. But the fundamental problem with his statements is not his racism but rather his hateful slanders. By accepting the premise that Wright's comments are about race, we are accepting, at least to some extent, Wright's twisted view of the world.
I think that is a mistake.
OK, I think I am following you now. Bare with me as it takes me a bit longer to figure this out!
Wrights remarks were indeed racist. They were hateful. They were anti-American. But the crux of the issue is that what he says is fundamentally wrong.
Wright... I mean, right. I am sure the confusion is my fault. I did not mean to suggest that Wright is not a racist, only that his racism is not the real problem. Affirmative action as it is practiced in the US is a racist policy. But people can disagree in good faith about its efficacy. Wright's comments, by contrast, are indefensible even without reference to racial issues.
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