When I heard the words "God Damn America" the first thing I thought was, "Thank you, Jeremiah Wright, for being angry."
I'm a white female (lesbian), but I am a person looking for respect, like any other person. I read a Paul Kivel article called "Uprooting Racism" and it really brought up some good points about the content and intent of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's speech that has caused so much controversy.
"A person of color who is angry about discrimination or harassment is doing us a service. That person is pointing out something wrong, something that contradict the ideals of equality set forth in our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. That person is bringing our attention to a problem that needs solving, a wrong that needs righting. We could convey our appreciation by saying "thank you, your anger has helped me see what’s not right here". What keeps us from responding this way?"
The article goes on to discuss how traditionally, people are afraid of anger. We are trained to be polite, so an angry response to what is going on around us is uncouth. But I respect and appreciate Rev. Wright for his passionate declaration of truth. He wasn't just being angry, he was doing a variety of things. He was trying to break through the apathy of his congregation. he was trying to bring attention to an issue that affected his congregation everyday. He did it in a dramatic form, because as Dale Carnegie has written, it is one way of being persuasive.
I learned about racism and it's forms in a sociology 100 level class, so with Michelle and Barack Obama's higher education, I have no doubt that they understood at least this much of what Rev. Wright was saying. I think this was just one more idea that Obama championed in his speech to the nation on Tuesday.