Sticking up for Wright
Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 05:43:19 AM PDT
Judging by the comments here on Kos, this Wright affair is really shaking people's faith in Obama. I have never read so many comments from wavering Obama supporters here - although thankfully that's still a big minority. The average opinion goes: "Yeah, Wright is nuts, but we can survive this, yes we can!" For shame you self styled liberals and progressives! Have we forgotten what we stand for? We're the ones who are supposed to be open minded to different voices, and to encourage oppressed peoples to stand up. And if it's rattled even the progressives like us, then believe that it's got the white blue collar voter all freaked out. Now our will is tested, and our conscience as well. More after the flip.
Rev. Wright is essentially a compassionate individual. In fact, he's exactly what Obama said he is: a truly caring, good person, blessed with an enormous intellect, but forever tangled in the emotional struggles of our racist history. The reality from which he comes exists, just as the reality of the Holocaust still exists, and the reality of what has become of millions of Iraqis today exists. But we have succeeded in blanking out that reality from many regions of our mind and country.
Wright represents a vision of today: of the crippling poverty millions are born into in this USA, because of the color of their skin. Of the drugs and violence and the destruction and incarceration of an ethnic people in the name of US profit. Wright represents skin color, not as an accident, free from history or predjudice, as we would prefer to see it, but as it actually is: steeped in a long and unfortunate history that is so tangled and tortured that it has been almost impossible to unravel and heal. How can we forget that black poverty and violence and other symptoms of endemic culture, for example, the fact 1 in 24 black men are in prison today, are the result of institutional bigotry and violence past and present? How can black people forget when that story is written on their very skin? Some may have missed in Wright Q&A the other night when he said, quote:
It isn't (Rev. Farrakhan's) fault that I was put in chains. It isn't his fault that my skin is this color
What Rev. Wright was referring to was not the blackness of his skin - that would have been a meaningless statement - but that his skin is so white. He refers to the fact that in his past is the rape of his black female ancestors by white men - their "owners".
Imagine how difficult that would be to swallow, for anyone, let alone a man or woman of voluminous intelligence. Imagine if that was you or me who had to face the indignity of a slave past, and not as a single incidence, forgotten in a generation, but as a shared cultural memory of shame, and a continued story of depravity. Have you ever met an older Jewish person with a number tatooed on their hand? It is the same for many in the black community, only that stigma is burnt into their very skin, their DNA, their most immediate visual cue. Imagine if every time that you looked at most of your friends, your brothers and sisters, your parents, your mirror, you might see a reminder of an atrocity and rape of your great grandparents. And imagine if that wasn't merely a distant memory but was a continued story of poverty, discrimination, and violence that echoed that same history in your everyday life.
Reverend Wright isn't wrong about his anger. He's not crazy, he's not a "loose cannon". Instead he's like Hamlet, blessed with an almost unholy knowledge of his own history, and by extension the history of our nation, and all people. Wright is a complex figure, he is a hero, and not a mad-man or a fool. We (even 30 something white folks like myself) need to have the courage stand up for him and try to understand how he can exist. Even more, we ought to honor his voice.
In the face of horrific history, in the presence of the realization of hell echoed everywhere in his present, the Reverend Wright has found a message of profound good and compassion. His life's work has been a reflection of the strength and selflessness that he discovered in himself. It is well known, and popularly pronounced by prominent men of all colors that Wright has been a servant to the poor and downtrodden. This isn't just talk. Rev. Wright has absorbed a tortured drama in a profoundly emotional and intellectual way, but he's done so for the brilliant purposes of speech and service. For every pundit out spanking this story to death in the noon day sun (for their own benefit I might add), there are thousands of people who Rev. Wright has helped either directly or indirectly. He has brought men and women out of poverty, offered them a sense of self worth and meaning, and even healed them from drugs and alcohol. And he has been a pinnacle of hope and brought life and meaning to a desperate and impoverished community in a broken city through the use of his voice.
This is the story that needs to be echoed in our media chambers - that the anger of Jeremiah Wright is the anger of our whole nation. It sounds black, but it is universal. It is the sound of pure rage at shared indignity - the kind we all here at Kos feel over the state of our world and our government. Do you feel as angry about the gutting of our constitution, the breaking of laws, the contracting of torture, the manufacturing of war? How about the extinction of diversity, the destruction of the environment, and the possible, irreversible destruction to human kind as result? Do you feel angry about the innocent blood shed for oil? About the atrocities of greed and inequality happening around the globe and in our own country today? If you had a tradition of voicing your frustration for hundreds of years the way the black community has, then you would sound a lot like Rev. Wright. Don't fear it, feel it as one kind of truth. The voice of black anger is on our side: it is also the voice of white anger and human anger.
It's OK to feel anger about the state of the world and the history that has brought us here. These feelings must be talked about in every venue outside of the control of the media spectacle in order for us to change their false reality. If we take a fair look at Reverend Wright, at what he has actually said and done, and if we consider his words outside of his feelings, then we are doing our part in living up to the truth of our history and our world. The Rev. Wright says, and Obama says, that we are one people, despite our religion, our color, our gender, or any difference at all. This message of unity is the only thing that can save us at this point. Believe it.
So speak up in defense of Rev. Wright in your private sphere if you can. It is a chance to stand strong for this candidate we believe in. We know he doesn't share the angry tone of his pastor, and that his world view is richer and broader, both in pragmatism and real experience. We also know he shares the compassion that Rev Wright does for racial inequality as well as gender inequality, and the class inequality that drive them, and that are driving our endless wars and killing our planet.
Now is the time to fight back and to stand for something. We need to be unafraid to defend the true story of Rev. Wright - his good deeds and compassion, and to combat the tone of anger and the fearful reaction that are quickly becoming the popular narrative. We are people who understand that when the Main Stream Media calls something "hate speech", then they are trying to manipulate the public, and that is the real "hate speech". We need to recognize that we are its answer. Wherever we can we need to make our voices heard and speak out against the false, fabricated narratives invented by the media corporations. This is our calling as the commentators and voices of a new media.
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