Yes, this is a Racist Country, and Saying So is Not Racist
| posted by Jeff Fecke | Saturday, March 15, 2008Jeremiah Wright has gotten a good kicking around, and to some extent, he deserves it. His anti-Clinton sermon was over-the-top, and blind to privilege, and certainly he's said some intemperate things.
But a new assertion has been cropping up, from Clinton supporters and from the right wing. There are many different places I've seen it, but one of them was in comments on the post below this:
McCain has endorsements from the right wing nuts, but that IS NOT THE SAME THING as being a member of a radical church, giving money to a radical church, and having a wife and children who attends the racical church every Sunday.
Obama's church hates white people. Obama's church hates the USA.
Or you can look to The Corner's Victor Davis Hanson:
Despite the serial profession of a new politics, there is something Nixonian about Obama's recent disclaimers over his racist pastor's diatribes.
Wright has spoken out passionately and angrily about racism. He has done so blindly at times. But is Wright racist against white people?
The question itself contains the answer.
Nobody with any understanding of history would say that racism has not been a problem in America. Nobody with any understanding of the present would say racism is not still a problem in America. And nobody with any decency would think that problematic racism was directed at white people.
Conservatives and Clinton supporters have seized on Wright's anger to show that he "hates white people." I don't sense that, but let's say for argument's sake that he does. Jeremiah Wright came of age at a time when African-Americans were still struggling to get the vote in much of our nation, at a time when the American apartheid system was still fighting its bitter twilight struggle against integration. After serving in the Navy, he went to Chicago to get his divinity degree, a city that the first Mayor Daley worked assiduously to keep segregated throughout his long tenure. He stayed there to preach on the South Side, which has never been a bastion of tolerance and equality.
He has, in short, known an America where African-Americans were not just second-class citizens, but subhuman. He has watched that America change from one that kept black men from voting to one that incarcerated them over petty drug charges. He has eyes, and he can read, and he knows that African-American families were given a disproportionate number of sub-prime loans even when equally qualified as white borrowers. He knows that African-American families are still mired in poverty. He knows that when David Paterson takes the oath of office on Monday, he'll be only the third African-American governor since reconstruction -- and that the second, Deval Patrick, was sworn in just over a year ago. He knows that Barack Obama is only the third African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate since reconstruction, and that he's in the seat that was vacated when the second, Carol Moseley Braun, lost her reelection bid in 1998.
And when he talks, as Obama paraphrases him in Dreams of My Father, of "his world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere," tell me, is that an inaccurate representation of the world twenty years ago? Ten years ago? Today?
Jeremiah Wright has every right to hate how America has treated African-Americans, and he has every right to lay that at the feet of white America. Moreover, he is right to do so. From slavery to the 3/5 compromise to the corrupt bargain to the bombardment of Tulsa to the imposition of Jim Crow to the epidemic of lynching to the the Tuskegee syphilis study to Strom Thurmond to Bull Connor to George Wallace to Birmingham and Boston and Chicago and Selma and Detroit and Watts, white America has failed the African-American community, over and over again. Anger is not irrational; indeed, it is righteous.
That does not mean everything Wright said was put perfectly. As I've said, I think when he went into his diatribe against Hillary Clinton -- one motivated by the fact that of the 42 men who have served as president, none have been black -- that he forgot that none of them were women, either, and forgot that women have every right to be angry at male America.
But much of what he said was intemperate or inartfully phrased -- but it was not false. He said that rich white people run America, and that is inarguably true. He said that white America has not been involved enough in helping the African-American community integrate, and that is inarguably true. He said that America as a nation has made myriad mistakes, from the Middle East to the Midwest, and that is inarguably true.
It is not racist for an African-American to call out white people for our privilege, any more than it's "misandrist" to call out men for our privilege. And even when anger is included in that call, it is not proof of hatred. Jeremiah Wright reacted to the racism he saw in America by speaking out against it, by appealing to people to work to serve their fellow men and women. That is not hatred, not any kind that I know.
Deride Wright as intemperate. Challenge him where he deserves challenging. Point out his blind spots, and state where you find his statements problematic. But if you're a white person who's offended at what Wright said about white people, your problem doesn't lie with Wright. It lies with the people throughout our country's history whose skin tones match yours, too many of whom chose to build their fortunes by climbing over African-Americans. If you want to stop that hatred, work for justice, and leave a better legacy than your and my ancestors did.
Yes, this is a Racist Country, and Saying So is Not Racist
Jeremiah Wright has gotten a good kicking around, and to some extent, he deserves it. His anti-Clinton sermon was over-the-top, and blind to privilege, and certainly he's said some intemperate things.
But a new assertion has been cropping up, from Clinton supporters and from the right wing. There are many different places I've seen it, but one of them was in comments on the post below this:
Or you can look to The Corner's Victor Davis Hanson:
Wright has spoken out passionately and angrily about racism. He has done so blindly at times. But is Wright racist against white people?
The question itself contains the answer.
Nobody with any understanding of history would say that racism has not been a problem in America. Nobody with any understanding of the present would say racism is not still a problem in America. And nobody with any decency would think that problematic racism was directed at white people.
Conservatives and Clinton supporters have seized on Wright's anger to show that he "hates white people." I don't sense that, but let's say for argument's sake that he does. Jeremiah Wright came of age at a time when African-Americans were still struggling to get the vote in much of our nation, at a time when the American apartheid system was still fighting its bitter twilight struggle against integration. After serving in the Navy, he went to Chicago to get his divinity degree, a city that the first Mayor Daley worked assiduously to keep segregated throughout his long tenure. He stayed there to preach on the South Side, which has never been a bastion of tolerance and equality.
He has, in short, known an America where African-Americans were not just second-class citizens, but subhuman. He has watched that America change from one that kept black men from voting to one that incarcerated them over petty drug charges. He has eyes, and he can read, and he knows that African-American families were given a disproportionate number of sub-prime loans even when equally qualified as white borrowers. He knows that African-American families are still mired in poverty. He knows that when David Paterson takes the oath of office on Monday, he'll be only the third African-American governor since reconstruction -- and that the second, Deval Patrick, was sworn in just over a year ago. He knows that Barack Obama is only the third African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate since reconstruction, and that he's in the seat that was vacated when the second, Carol Moseley Braun, lost her reelection bid in 1998.
And when he talks, as Obama paraphrases him in Dreams of My Father, of "his world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere," tell me, is that an inaccurate representation of the world twenty years ago? Ten years ago? Today?
Jeremiah Wright has every right to hate how America has treated African-Americans, and he has every right to lay that at the feet of white America. Moreover, he is right to do so. From slavery to the 3/5 compromise to the corrupt bargain to the bombardment of Tulsa to the imposition of Jim Crow to the epidemic of lynching to the the Tuskegee syphilis study to Strom Thurmond to Bull Connor to George Wallace to Birmingham and Boston and Chicago and Selma and Detroit and Watts, white America has failed the African-American community, over and over again. Anger is not irrational; indeed, it is righteous.
That does not mean everything Wright said was put perfectly. As I've said, I think when he went into his diatribe against Hillary Clinton -- one motivated by the fact that of the 42 men who have served as president, none have been black -- that he forgot that none of them were women, either, and forgot that women have every right to be angry at male America.
But much of what he said was intemperate or inartfully phrased -- but it was not false. He said that rich white people run America, and that is inarguably true. He said that white America has not been involved enough in helping the African-American community integrate, and that is inarguably true. He said that America as a nation has made myriad mistakes, from the Middle East to the Midwest, and that is inarguably true.
It is not racist for an African-American to call out white people for our privilege, any more than it's "misandrist" to call out men for our privilege. And even when anger is included in that call, it is not proof of hatred. Jeremiah Wright reacted to the racism he saw in America by speaking out against it, by appealing to people to work to serve their fellow men and women. That is not hatred, not any kind that I know.
Deride Wright as intemperate. Challenge him where he deserves challenging. Point out his blind spots, and state where you find his statements problematic. But if you're a white person who's offended at what Wright said about white people, your problem doesn't lie with Wright. It lies with the people throughout our country's history whose skin tones match yours, too many of whom chose to build their fortunes by climbing over African-Americans. If you want to stop that hatred, work for justice, and leave a better legacy than your and my ancestors did.
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But a new assertion has been cropping up, from Clinton supporters and from the right wing. There are many different places I've seen it, but one of them was in comments on the post below this:
McCain has endorsements from the right wing nuts, but that IS NOT THE SAME THING as being a member of a radical church, giving money to a radical church, and having a wife and children who attends the racical church every Sunday.
Obama's church hates white people. Obama's church hates the USA.
Or you can look to The Corner's Victor Davis Hanson:
Despite the serial profession of a new politics, there is something Nixonian about Obama's recent disclaimers over his racist pastor's diatribes.
Wright has spoken out passionately and angrily about racism. He has done so blindly at times. But is Wright racist against white people?
The question itself contains the answer.
Nobody with any understanding of history would say that racism has not been a problem in America. Nobody with any understanding of the present would say racism is not still a problem in America. And nobody with any decency would think that problematic racism was directed at white people.
Conservatives and Clinton supporters have seized on Wright's anger to show that he "hates white people." I don't sense that, but let's say for argument's sake that he does. Jeremiah Wright came of age at a time when African-Americans were still struggling to get the vote in much of our nation, at a time when the American apartheid system was still fighting its bitter twilight struggle against integration. After serving in the Navy, he went to Chicago to get his divinity degree, a city that the first Mayor Daley worked assiduously to keep segregated throughout his long tenure. He stayed there to preach on the South Side, which has never been a bastion of tolerance and equality.
He has, in short, known an America where African-Americans were not just second-class citizens, but subhuman. He has watched that America change from one that kept black men from voting to one that incarcerated them over petty drug charges. He has eyes, and he can read, and he knows that African-American families were given a disproportionate number of sub-prime loans even when equally qualified as white borrowers. He knows that African-American families are still mired in poverty. He knows that when David Paterson takes the oath of office on Monday, he'll be only the third African-American governor since reconstruction -- and that the second, Deval Patrick, was sworn in just over a year ago. He knows that Barack Obama is only the third African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate since reconstruction, and that he's in the seat that was vacated when the second, Carol Moseley Braun, lost her reelection bid in 1998.
And when he talks, as Obama paraphrases him in Dreams of My Father, of "his world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere," tell me, is that an inaccurate representation of the world twenty years ago? Ten years ago? Today?
Jeremiah Wright has every right to hate how America has treated African-Americans, and he has every right to lay that at the feet of white America. Moreover, he is right to do so. From slavery to the 3/5 compromise to the corrupt bargain to the bombardment of Tulsa to the imposition of Jim Crow to the epidemic of lynching to the the Tuskegee syphilis study to Strom Thurmond to Bull Connor to George Wallace to Birmingham and Boston and Chicago and Selma and Detroit and Watts, white America has failed the African-American community, over and over again. Anger is not irrational; indeed, it is righteous.
That does not mean everything Wright said was put perfectly. As I've said, I think when he went into his diatribe against Hillary Clinton -- one motivated by the fact that of the 42 men who have served as president, none have been black -- that he forgot that none of them were women, either, and forgot that women have every right to be angry at male America.
But much of what he said was intemperate or inartfully phrased -- but it was not false. He said that rich white people run America, and that is inarguably true. He said that white America has not been involved enough in helping the African-American community integrate, and that is inarguably true. He said that America as a nation has made myriad mistakes, from the Middle East to the Midwest, and that is inarguably true.
It is not racist for an African-American to call out white people for our privilege, any more than it's "misandrist" to call out men for our privilege. And even when anger is included in that call, it is not proof of hatred. Jeremiah Wright reacted to the racism he saw in America by speaking out against it, by appealing to people to work to serve their fellow men and women. That is not hatred, not any kind that I know.
Deride Wright as intemperate. Challenge him where he deserves challenging. Point out his blind spots, and state where you find his statements problematic. But if you're a white person who's offended at what Wright said about white people, your problem doesn't lie with Wright. It lies with the people throughout our country's history whose skin tones match yours, too many of whom chose to build their fortunes by climbing over African-Americans. If you want to stop that hatred, work for justice, and leave a better legacy than your and my ancestors did.
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