I see headlines today here about Obama throwing his pastor under the bus because he is being a bad association and the first thought that comes to my mind is my parents.
My mother grew up in Portugal to an Aristocratic family (as she calls it) in the 40s. My father a lesser human being (as seen through the eyes of my mother and others) born in the colonies. My mother grew up in Portugal, Mozambique, Angola and a whole lot of other Portuguese colonies. She grew up with maids and gardeners and other people to take care of her needs, She was privileged and got what she wanted.
Then one day she met my father, less privileged but smart and fun to be around. They fell in love and they had a almost 40 year old marriage until my father passed away 3 years ago.
My mother's prejudice about people in the countries she grew up in molded her opinions about them till today. It was about how they went in life, their ambition or their education. She made it a part of my learning, always ignoring the difficulties my father had being successful. He was different is all I heard. She made no accommodation for change in their behavior with respect to change in their environment.
But my mother was a wonderful person at heart, one who loved and tried to be charitable whenever the occasion demanded, But the thoughts in the back of her head kept her from always being genuine. She was a church going person who believed in being kind and gentle and decent to human beings even though she always held these prejudices about people.
I am darker in skin then the rest of my family but it never stopped her from judging my girlfriends or accepting my non-biological daughter (who looked more like her) that I love to death.
Am I going to reject my mother because her views are contrary and just plain wrong ? Hell No ! Can I educate her, maybe but if she chooses to just compromise, am I going to reject her ? Hell No !
We can wish for the perfect parents, the perfect friends we make, the people we associate with. But the fact of the matter is if we choose to DISASSOCIATE with every human being that ever had something contrary and different opinion of the world as "so called narrow minded Journalists see it", we would be very alone in this world. Hypocrisy in life is a sad realization of human beings as we know it. Honest people who live and breath and say what they believe in are now restricted to the extreme of society.
There are a lot of mainstream subjects that I do not agree with but in a way I am like my mother and cannot criticize her when I have my own prejudice.
The fact of the matter is we are all flawed. If we choose to blame someone else for their faults we have to have none of our own. That is God's word in a way.
I am a seriously flawed individual and I am not going to judge why Obama has not thrown his Pastor under the bus.
UPDATE I: I wanted to comment about Obama's father not being part of his upbringing but I do not know how much it effected him and how much Rev. Wright was part of the solution, so I did not feel comfortable talking about it.