Is Wright Wrong?
Is Wright Wrong?
Emotion has an odd effect in our society. It isn't really established what lines are too far to cross and what is perfectly acceptable, and yet it seems as soon as that line is crossed we are unanimous in our derision. Hillary crying in New Hampshire = commendable, making her more human. Howard Dean over-excited in 2004 = over the top. Cuba Gooding Jr. jumped around on stage at the Oscar and became lovable, Tom Cruise jumped on a sofa and he became universally psychotic. We want our public figures to be human, but not too human, emotional but not actually emotional, passionate but not committed. Under this guise, all you need to damn someone is just an instance of them crossing the line (Howard Dean) and then step back for the firebombing to begin. At that point, we stop listening to what the person is saying and really just take them for the emotion, the style blotting out the substance.
This brings us to Wright.
Reverend Wright is of course the oft-played minister of Obama, and his screaming tirades are playing more on You Tube than that kid pissing and moaning about Britney. He's loud, he's abrasive, and controversial to be sure. But anytime general terms, and for that matter, extremely damning ones, like anti-semite, racist, and America-hater get thrown around, there better be some substance not style because anyone can have a five second clip of their life brought up to invite one of those terms, whether because of a joke, frustration or simply great editing. So instead look beyond the inflammatory sounding remarks and try to figure out what the person is actually saying, what they are actually driving at. As Reverend Wanda Harris Watkins told the Boston Globe, "The South Side of Chicago is no cakewalk - its a tough place - so he speaks the language of the streets." Being P.C. doesn't reach people who are living in squallor and don't have the time for empty rhetoric.
In one of the most played clips, the Hillary one, he is very adamant that the US and the world for that matter have been mostly run by rich white men and that Hillary has never had to wait for a cab, has never had "her people defined as non-people". Understandably, the red flags go up quick on this one. Clearly, he is setting up a black power initiative to take over the world, right? Thats certainly the way its been played and yet there are two very important sentences in this clip. One is which he says "I am sick of Negroes who just don't get it" and the other is "Hillary has never had her own people say she wasn't white enough." So beyond the racial overtones and being pissed off at the people in charge, whats he actually driving at? He's making a pitch for Obama, saying that all of the claims that Obama wasn't black enough, which was the talking point then, are baseless and out of order in the black community. He's talking to the black community after all, not making a stump speech to the nation, but rather talking to his congregation in "the language of the streets" his disgust at this idea of "not black enough" and the argument amongst the community for voting instead to get Bill Clinton back in office.
This isn't to defend his viewpoint or even apologize for them but instead, open up the fact that as 5 second clips ran out, Wright became the new radical leader of the Black Power movement in common society. His God Damn America clip was certainly pissed off and over the top, but Anti-American? Or just anti-American foreign policy? Is saying that bombing people over the years pissed them off and maybe made them want to attack us mean that we deserved it? Just because an effect has a cause doesn't mean it was a proper response. Hell if someone pissed on my shoes and my response was to castrate them, it would still be their cause but I'd still be way the hell out of bounds. But the BS inherent in these rallying cries against him is that he angrily yelled these things. We're more shocked about the style than the substance. Whereas, Jerry Fallwell calmly said, with Pat Robertson concurring: "the pagans, the abortionists, the feminists, the gays, the lesbians...the ACLU..all those that tried to secularize America" were the ones who helped 9/11 happen. As far as I can tell, that would be about 95% of the country, so isnt that the same as saying it was America's fault? Yet outrage was pretty limited and John McCains recent ties to Pat Robertson have been seen as him reaching out to the Republican base.
The point is that calling out Wright is pretty damn easy, so at least call him out over substance instead of style, actually listen to the argument before coming up with a counter based on sound bytes. But Wright is generally considered a great humanitarian across the country who is simply too immersed in his struggle to be PC, and for that matter so is Geraldine Ferraro, who is just overly dedicated to the feminist cause and wasn't being PC. Thats why neither of them are viable candidates for President. The ones we have, are. So, lets get back to the actual election and points, instead of these loose stories that really have nothing to do with politics. Well, at least now that Edwards is out of the race, did you know he got a 300 dollar hair cut? Clearly not a good candidate.
Emotion has an odd effect in our society. It isn't really established what lines are too far to cross and what is perfectly acceptable, and yet it seems as soon as that line is crossed we are unanimous in our derision. Hillary crying in New Hampshire = commendable, making her more human. Howard Dean over-excited in 2004 = over the top. Cuba Gooding Jr. jumped around on stage at the Oscar and became lovable, Tom Cruise jumped on a sofa and he became universally psychotic. We want our public figures to be human, but not too human, emotional but not actually emotional, passionate but not committed. Under this guise, all you need to damn someone is just an instance of them crossing the line (Howard Dean) and then step back for the firebombing to begin. At that point, we stop listening to what the person is saying and really just take them for the emotion, the style blotting out the substance.
This brings us to Wright.
Reverend Wright is of course the oft-played minister of Obama, and his screaming tirades are playing more on You Tube than that kid pissing and moaning about Britney. He's loud, he's abrasive, and controversial to be sure. But anytime general terms, and for that matter, extremely damning ones, like anti-semite, racist, and America-hater get thrown around, there better be some substance not style because anyone can have a five second clip of their life brought up to invite one of those terms, whether because of a joke, frustration or simply great editing. So instead look beyond the inflammatory sounding remarks and try to figure out what the person is actually saying, what they are actually driving at. As Reverend Wanda Harris Watkins told the Boston Globe, "The South Side of Chicago is no cakewalk - its a tough place - so he speaks the language of the streets." Being P.C. doesn't reach people who are living in squallor and don't have the time for empty rhetoric.
In one of the most played clips, the Hillary one, he is very adamant that the US and the world for that matter have been mostly run by rich white men and that Hillary has never had to wait for a cab, has never had "her people defined as non-people". Understandably, the red flags go up quick on this one. Clearly, he is setting up a black power initiative to take over the world, right? Thats certainly the way its been played and yet there are two very important sentences in this clip. One is which he says "I am sick of Negroes who just don't get it" and the other is "Hillary has never had her own people say she wasn't white enough." So beyond the racial overtones and being pissed off at the people in charge, whats he actually driving at? He's making a pitch for Obama, saying that all of the claims that Obama wasn't black enough, which was the talking point then, are baseless and out of order in the black community. He's talking to the black community after all, not making a stump speech to the nation, but rather talking to his congregation in "the language of the streets" his disgust at this idea of "not black enough" and the argument amongst the community for voting instead to get Bill Clinton back in office.
This isn't to defend his viewpoint or even apologize for them but instead, open up the fact that as 5 second clips ran out, Wright became the new radical leader of the Black Power movement in common society. His God Damn America clip was certainly pissed off and over the top, but Anti-American? Or just anti-American foreign policy? Is saying that bombing people over the years pissed them off and maybe made them want to attack us mean that we deserved it? Just because an effect has a cause doesn't mean it was a proper response. Hell if someone pissed on my shoes and my response was to castrate them, it would still be their cause but I'd still be way the hell out of bounds. But the BS inherent in these rallying cries against him is that he angrily yelled these things. We're more shocked about the style than the substance. Whereas, Jerry Fallwell calmly said, with Pat Robertson concurring: "the pagans, the abortionists, the feminists, the gays, the lesbians...the ACLU..all those that tried to secularize America" were the ones who helped 9/11 happen. As far as I can tell, that would be about 95% of the country, so isnt that the same as saying it was America's fault? Yet outrage was pretty limited and John McCains recent ties to Pat Robertson have been seen as him reaching out to the Republican base.
The point is that calling out Wright is pretty damn easy, so at least call him out over substance instead of style, actually listen to the argument before coming up with a counter based on sound bytes. But Wright is generally considered a great humanitarian across the country who is simply too immersed in his struggle to be PC, and for that matter so is Geraldine Ferraro, who is just overly dedicated to the feminist cause and wasn't being PC. Thats why neither of them are viable candidates for President. The ones we have, are. So, lets get back to the actual election and points, instead of these loose stories that really have nothing to do with politics. Well, at least now that Edwards is out of the race, did you know he got a 300 dollar hair cut? Clearly not a good candidate.
I am so happy to see someone put this controversy into the context it truly deserves. I am so irritated with the media and the people who base their opinions strictly on whatever their favorite anchor or right wing talk show host has to say. In both cases, 30 second clips form their opinions. Is it no wonder that the Obama camp carries the more educated people in this country--the people who do their research and don't follow (very lemming-like)some crackpot with an agenda? I don't mean to say that anyone who doesn't have a college degree is not educated. And that anyone who does have one is naturally an Obama supporter. There are plenty of people, my parents are two, that do not carry degrees, but who gather facts from multiple sources before making an opinion.
The fact of the matter is...as a white person, I have no right to judge the anger that any black man who lived through some of our most shameful years as a country has to say with regard to his pride or lack of such in a country that treated him, for a good portion of his life, like a second-class citizen.
What Obama was trying to say in his speech-and this too has been misinterpreted and cut apart into snippets of sound bytes depending on the agenda of the station or anchor reporting it-that we all have experiences in our lives that cause us to have some fear or resentment toward another group. And that we need to understand those feelings by looking at the experiences that caused them. He gives the same allowance to every race...not just the black man. The sad thing is...the people his eloquent and touching words needed to move are the very same people who will not listen to them. They insert their index fingers, say la, la, la and blindly follow the Rush Limbaughs of our society because that takes no real work. It takes no reflection. It takes no empathy or understanding for other people's pain.
And, I'd like to pose this question to those people. Have you not ever been ashamed of your country? No? Then you're ok with the way we've allowed big business to take our jobs overseas so that big business owners can put more billions in their pockets while American workers lose jobs at an alarming rate? You're ok with the way our current administration has tarnished our name throughout the entire world? You're ok with our government boldly and blatantly robbing us of our Constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties? If that's true--one word of advice--carry a parachute with you at all times...the cliff you're about to go over is pretty damn high.
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