Rev. Wright and America's Amnesia

The radio talk show hosts are up in arms about Rev. Jeremiah's Wright's assorted sermons over the years and poor Barack Obama has to deliver a strong denounciation of his pastor in order to maintain his credibility with the voters in the middle. Some of Wright's gestures have indeed been injudicious--such as his lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan--although most mainstream blacks credit the Nation of Islam for getitng untold thousands of black men off drugs and their lives straightened out.

But, here is what Wright said that forced Barack to pull the plug on him:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

You know what, a lot of that is true (though I don't know what he meant by 'Its in the Bible.' I guess he means that the Ten Commandments say: 'Thou Shalt Not Kill" and white America has been killing and enslaving and persecuting black people since the first slave ship pulled into Jamestown harbor in 1619). And yes, as Wright said, America does keep building bigher and bigger prisons and has locked up one young black man in 8. Yes indeed America has treated black people as less than human for almost its entire history. It held black people as slaves for 250 years (1619-1865) and then another 100 years of eighth class citizenship with segregation, disenfranchisement and lynchings. Thats 350 years of being treated like shit and only the last 40 years or so trending toward toward equality, that is if you overlook de- facto segreegation, redlining, 'driving while black', the imprisonment of much black youth and so much more.


Indeed, on what basis should a black person say, 'God Bless America'? Should he bless this country for enslaving African-Americans for generations and rendering the lives of countless generations a living hell? Yes, thank God, America is finally, finally beginning to come around, beginning to atone for 350 years of brutal oppression, but it has a very long way to go. And it is very sad and telling that in all the expressions of outrage at Wright and insistence that Obama distance himself, not one commentator I have seen has acknowledged that yes, America enslaved and brutalized black people. Maybe, just maybe, we are about to do something enormously important as a nation and elect a black president. But even if it happens, half of black America will continue to subsist in poverty, despair and isolation from the rest of the country.

So, it is a shame that Barack Obama cant express his real feelings at this moment and say, "I may not agree with everything my pastor has said, but he uttered some powerful truths." The truth is that America still has to pay some heavy debts to its black citizens to the point where many of them will finally be able to say 'God Bless America' and really mean it.http://rubyjewsday.blogspot.com/