What Wright did wrong
Mar 30, 2008 Americana, Homo sapiens, Oppression
Obama’s close association with Rev. Wright may have destroyed his political ambitions by undermining the perception that he is a new kind of African-American politician, who does not see white Americans as evil. It called into question the sincerity of his views about the majority of Americans and American institutions. How can he represent, protect and lead the white Americans that his long-time minister, confidant and mentor sees as evil people?Leftist African-Americans like Rev. Wright take it as axiomatic that they cannot trust white Americans due to their evil and corrupt nature. Yet they seem puzzled and angered that white Americans do not trust them in return.
Trust is a two-way street. To be trusted, one must give trust. Let us hope that one day, those on the Left learn that lesson.
I have often argued that it is a grave mistake, and one commonly made by conservatives who do not think deeply enough into the matter, to insist that white-black dialogue, sensibilities and even policies be mirror images of each other. This is urged only as the appropriate policymaking premise for “color-blindness,” but the appropriate standard for interpersonal relations. Thus certain whites pretend to be offended when black comedians imitate whites, or fume over black expressions of themselves as people who, surprise, insist that they experience a different cultural experience as Americans from that of typical whites.
This is simply a lack of sensitivity disguised as fairness. It is different when you are the majority. You can be teased. You can be the butt of jokes. It is not really offensive to be made fun of for being white, and the people pretending offense know this. This is a simplistic conception of how to react to the overplaying of the victimization card, and those who insist on it are not advancing either the discussion or the solution in any sense.
There is also a flip side to this argument, which is what Shannon is pointing out here. If blacks as a group, at this stage of the game, expect their group identity, their legitimate shared experiences and perceptions, and their interests to be taken seriously, they have got to stop playing the game she has described. Not because I say so, or she does, or a judge will, but because the majority will not have it. The concept that people are wicked for being who they are is not only ironic when applied by blacks, once considered by some satanic themselves simply because of their negritude. It is not only morally and logically unsupportable. It is a loser of an argument. Liberalism is premised largely on guilt; but that much guilt is not being distributed through the water supply.
There will be no political maturity, no Promised Land, until black leaders accept, teach and preach that Pharaoh and his minions are dead on the shore of the Red Sea, and that we are all here, on the other side, together.
Cross-posted on Right Wing News.
March 31st, 2008 at 5:34 am
Pretty good stuff, Ron. You sure you’re not a closet Obamacon?
March 31st, 2008 at 10:29 am
[...] wright about it at Likelihood of Success. My thoughts there are based on a very long discussion we had here at Dean’s World in [...]
March 31st, 2008 at 10:47 am
If you want to get beyond race, then that kind of behavior is not acceptable, the kind of language is not acceptable, from anyone, at anytime. Rev. Wright isn’t teasing, he isn’t making a joke. He’s stroking the edge of a knife and he is serious – or at least his listeners think he is serious. Unless blacks as a group want to be told where they can get off then they have to crack down on the Rev. Wrights and their rhetoric.
Seriously – where does it say anywhere that I have to tolerate that? Where does it say that I have to treat a person who speaks like that about me with anything but cold contempt? Why on earth would I help someone who stands there and damns me?
And there is no way I could ever vote for a man who sat there for twenty years listening to that verbal sewage and did nothing more than nod his head like a dashboard puppy.
March 31st, 2008 at 11:15 am
If you want to get beyond race, then that kind of behavior is not acceptable, the kind of language is not acceptable, from anyone, at anytime.
Says you.
Condi Rice, bless her heart, gets it right when she says, the U.S. “still has trouble dealing with race because of a national ‘birth defect’ that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country’s very founding.” She added that this “birth defect” makes it “hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today.”
It isn’t easy to talk about; and telling someone what they can — and can’t — say makes it even harder.
But let me guess: you probably agree with Lou Dobbs when he says he’s sick and tired of “cotton pickin” black leaders telling him how he can — and cannot — address the issue of race.
March 31st, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Yes Ara – says me. Do we wnat to get beyond this or is nursing a greivance better? If I’m told that I’m the devil my reaction is going to be a version of “Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Yourself”. And any assistance or consideration from me can be kissed good-bye. I was born forty-two years ago; I didn’t do anything to anyone. If some want to sit with a hate poisoning your heart and mind and soul then they can go right ahead; I’ll just let themu sit and stew – count me the heck out. Again, there is nothing good that can be said about a man that leads others to nurse hatred, greivance, and revenge.
And as to telling someone what they can and cannot say – who said I was censoring? I was censuring. I was saying it wasn’t acceptable behavior, and that I wouldn’t have dealings with a person who said those things. You can say them all you want, but you don’t get to do so uncriticized. I don’t hang with people who repeat Nazi slogans, why would I hang with someone who says the same thing, only swapping the cast around? Please, get real.
Dr. Rice is brilliant and I respect her, but the subject has been addressed at length. Perhaps you ought to read this:
“If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/al16/speeches/lincoln2.htm
With respect to Lou Dobbs – please do not compare me to that cheap Father Coughlin imitation. That’s a direct insult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin
March 31st, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Do we want to get beyond this or is nursing a greivance better?
Lessons learned: Wright – nursing a grievance. Obama – getting beyond this.
I was born forty-two years ago; I didn’t do anything to anyone.
So what? I was born 55 years ago and it wasn’t even in this country. So my record is even cleaner than yours. Big deal.
Fact is, we both live here, now. We get the benefit of what this country has become. Not only that — we live with others who also didn’t do anything to anyone except maybe get born with a particular genetic makeup, if you catch my drift.
If some want to sit with a hate poisoning your heart and mind and soul then they can go right ahead; I’ll just let them sit and stew – count me the heck out.
I hear you. Unfortunately, that rarely works whether we’re dealing with an aggrieved family member or the strangers that live among us. But then you’ve probably figured that out by now. We don’t have the luxury of being “left alone.” Our national motto is E Pluribus Unum which, roughly translated, means, “We’re all in this thing together.”
Dr. Rice is brilliant and I respect her, but the subject has been addressed at length.
Apparently, many others disagree.
March 31st, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Looks like we’re just going to have to disagree on this, Ara. My opinion and yours are on the record, let’s just see what happens next.
This is going to be an instructive year for all.
March 31st, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Interesting observations, Ron. At one level, I think your comments are quite sensible and thoughtful. I do think, though, that there is an underlying problem in the line of argument that goes along with the foolishness of the colorblind absolutism that permeates conservative orthodoxy on the subject of race. For most conservatives, at least from what I have seen, the concept of “Eracism” is nothing more than “Erace.” By this I mean that conservatives think that ending racism depends upon making race meaningless. There is nothing inherently wrong with race having meaning for one’s identity. What is problematic is when race becomes a wedge used for purposes of discrimination. But that someone’s blackness or whiteness gives meaning to one’s life is not necessarily an evil thing. I have no problem with a black person or a white person claiming that being black or white is a source of pride or a symbol of cultural meaning. Just like I have no problem with women or gays or short people or left-handed people or disabled people coming together to discuss how a shared attribute has given meaning to their lives. We should celebrate this diversity, not seek to eliminate it from the public discourse. And my advice to conservatives is that when they speak about race, they would do well not to pretend that they don’t see skin color and to claim that seeing different skin color doesn’t have meaning for them. They are fools that think this. But what they can say is that they don’t allow or tolerate this meaning to translate into social discrimination.
April 4th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Black, white, grey
In Two Black Americas, columnist Eugene Robinson makes an important observation: In a sense, then, the most striking measure of how far African Americans have come since 1968 isn’t the rise of Barack Obama. It’s the story of Stanley O’Neal. That’s …