All over the news, Blogs and just everywhere on the web you are seeing a bunch of talk about Pastor Jeremiah A Wright and Trinity United Church that Obama attends. It seems that a lot of the comments this Pastor Wright make are seen as inflammatory and racist to a lot of people. I have only heard a few of his comments in sermons and I find that the hubbub is a little bit over kill. Is what he is saying so offensive and inflammatory or is what he is saying hitting home for a lot of people?
One such comment was “Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.” How is this statement not true that is the question? Now what is inflammatory about the statement? Was this country NOT founded on racism? Were the American Natives not racially subjected to terror and death at the hands of people who felt that they were less than human? Did these same people bring a race of people to this country for the purpose of exploitation through slavery based on the propaganda that they were of a race that these people felt were less than human? Is there not a discrepancy in how races are treated to this day in this country? Do black Americans earn only 78% or what white Americans earn? Even former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher called for greater equality in health care to close the gaps between blacks and whites in death rates and life expectancy. There are discrepancies between whites and blacks in wealth, credit, housing, healthcare, employment, wages and life expectancy. And we are supposed to believe that this is a false and inflammatory statement, please someone explain how that is.
“Who cares about what a poor black man has to face everyday in a country in a culture controlled by rich white people.” I am pretty sure he is not talking about Obama he is talking about poor black men or people. Now I would love for someone to counter this statement. As I will have you take a look at each and every president this country has ever had and you name all those that were NOT rich or white. Not to mention how many of them actually cared about the poor black man to the point that they actually decided to end racial disparities in the lives of those poor black men. Not one president has made one effort to end racially motivated disparities of any sort. Which president decided that white privilege has over stayed its welcome and needs to end? Not one, you say? I guess next you will tell me that 5 days is an acceptable amount of time for people to sit around in stifling heat with no water, food, medicine or rescuing. And yes the majority of them were poor and BLACK.
“It just came to me in the past few weeks why so many folks are hating Barrack Obama. He doesn’t fit the model, he ain’t white he ain’t rich and he ain’t privileged. Hillary fits the mold.” I can’t speak to Obama’s wealth or lack there of as a child but I can say that he doesn’t fit the mold of our stereotypical president. Unless I am mistaken there has not been a president in the past that is black, not obviously rich and comes from a single parent family. But we do know that Hillary is wealthy at this time, she is white and she is privileged. But to give her credit she isn’t a man and that also breaks the model of our stereotypical president.
“Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single family home Barrack was. Barrack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that, Hillary has never been called a nigger; Hillary has never had a people defined as a non-person.” How is this not true? She has never known what it feels like to be subjugated due to race. Neither she nor any of our other presidents knows what it is like to be of a people who were thought of as less than human called nigger and hung from trees for daring to be black in the wrong place and time. They don’t know how it feels to be in a country that has demonstrated a blatant hate for people who look like you. A country that is controlled by a race of people who still to this day will see discrepancies between the races and shrug their shoulders all the while saying hey that is just the way things are, what can I do about it. How about a country where we can make every excuse for why it was acceptable for police and guards to beat, punch, pepper spray and kill young black youths without any consequences.
And I am supposed to believe that in some way these statements are somehow “crazy”, “unacceptable” and “ludicrous”. Until someone can show me how these statement bear absolutely no truth then I and others will continue to say the exact same things. We can dismiss the hate speech of Bill O’Reilly, Michael Richards, Don Imus, Duane Dog Chapman, Kelly Tilgham and of course Geraldine Ferraro. Now this preacher who has not called anyone names (that I know of) but said some things (at least those I’ve heard) that no one so far can refute and people are on a campaign to burn Obama at the stake because he knows the man.
Well I know that this is a stupid thing to do. I didn’t advocate calling Hillary a racist because a couple of her supporters have said racist remarks. No one is advocating calling Hillary an adulterer because her husband whom is speaking on her behalf is one. This is pretty thoughtless. If Obama does attend that church isn’t it a far stretch to “assume” that this preacher who no longer heads that church said these types of sermons each and every Sunday? I am pretty sure he did not. So with all the calling of Obama a bigot etc. is just the audacity of stupidity.
The Black Sentinel 