Seems like folk have fallen into two camps over the Wright controversy: Either they resent Wright and want him to shush so as not to ruin Obama’s candidacy, or they resent the media and want Wright to speak on – but not ruin Obama’s candidacy. Here’s Errol Louis’ take:
Errol Louis
Wright corrodes the message
Thursday, May 1st 2008, 4:00 AM
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s televised outbursts have maimed the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, perhaps fatally, but the Illinois senator is not Wright’s only victim. The controversial minister’s current turn in the media spotlight is denying America the reasoned, honest national conversation about race that Obama tried to launch.
What a shame.
Obama’s candidacy is, in part, a national referendum on race, an answer to the question of whether American voters are ready to judge a candidate without getting blinded, distracted or hoodwinked by the color of his skin.
The candidate has, understandably, fought ferociously against being reduced to a set of racial descriptors, which don’t comfortably fit Obama’s biracial, immigrant background. And as a practical matter in a mostly white nation, a vote along racial lines won’t gather him enough votes to win.
Anybody pushing race as a reason to vote for or against Obama ends up undermining his candidacy. That’s why Wright – no matter what combination of personal, political and theological agendas inspired his latest speeches – hurts Obama’s chances. Wright’s every word and gesture scream the message that America cannot and will not evolve beyond the tribal politics of old.
It didn’t have to be this way.
Shortly before Wright went bonkers at the National Press Club, he had a long, thoughtful televised talk with Bill Moyers that showed his best side. Love him or hate him, Wright is clearly part of an honorable tradition of faith-based social criticism that runs in a straight line from the 19th-century abolitionists and Social Gospel preachers through Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker movement and the spectacular successes of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s church-led attack on racial segregation.
It’s important to acknowledge that these faith-based movements have made America better, freer and fairer.
It may be too late, alas, to convey this simple truth in the current politically charged atmosphere.
“I would reserve a special circle in Hell for those who are gloating and smirking over Obama’s pastor’s self-immolation,” essayist Jim Sleeper wrote this week, urging current and potential supporters of Obama not to lose hope.
“I’d like to think that since countless blacks stood up to dogs and mobs, we who support Obama can find in ourselves the faith to withstand his cankered, middling detractors,” he wrote.
Sleeper’s right. It benefits no one – not Hillary Clinton, not John McCain – to sacrifice a chance for improved race relations on the altar of a White House win. If nothing else, the Wright flap has made clear how badly we need to get beyond the pain and prejudice of the past.
“If Wright’s recent dominance in the media has compelled nonblack Americans to consider just some of his ideas, that has to be good,” writes novelist and blogger Eisa Ulen. “If a free and open discourse of our shared history, our proud legacy of uplift, our insistence on hope and, yes, even our rage can now begin outside the black community, that has to be good.”
Ulen is much too idealistic. There are millions of dollars – chasing millions of votes and the vast power of the presidency – that depend on depicting Wright’s angry exhortations as the only possible conversation about race. And there are many powerful media voices more interested in extending and enjoying the current turmoil than resolving it.ill take a concerted, determined effort by people of good will to assert a more reasoned, moderate conversation. If they can do so – not only now, but long after Obama’s campaign is over – perhaps some good can be salvaged from Jeremiah Wright’s troubling contribution to American race relations.
Comment(s)
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