Jeremiah Wright - Part I

The recent address by Jeremiah Wright at the National Press Club has generated discussion in religious circles that are as wide and varied as what you see in the population at large. A near majority of members in white congregations of more liberal denominations are sympathetic of Wright and register understanding of his message while many pulpits in fundamentalist churches are occupied by ministers who cannot heap enough condemnation on Wright as if he were the devil incarnate.

Here is the link to the complete address including Q&A following the address.

So did this event generate divisiveness? I think not, at least no more than existed prior to the address though tiptoed around as we so often do sensitive subjects. The topic of race in modern day America is one of euphemistic references and idealistic rainbows of diversity as flights of fantasy in no way reflecting the day to day realities experienced by most people.

I know of one Methodist congregation in Florida in which the availability of the transcripts and videos was made known. There was widespread enthusiasm in obtaining them without any hint of revulsion or sentiment that could be characterized as less than a willingness to try and understand. There were a few murmurs of Wright's having seemed to be egotistical. One solitary individual out of dozens had a difficult time with the mention of the transcripts and they nearly went up in flames.

Wright’s address did not bother me. I did not find him egotistical but rather possibly hurt and speaking of things so dear to him that it he considered worth speaking out about them in light of recent denouncement via repitition of cherry-picked sound-bite. I think he has run up against something so nasty and perhaps even evil that it is deserving of nothing less than defiance. Take that as egotistical, uppity, spiteful (we should be spiteful of spite, though shouldn’t we? Intolerant of intolerance…) or angry. However, I think he is probably a happy person in general. He just found attacks on him (and I agree that the attacks were on the black church, not just him) so utterly repugnant that if there were ever anything worth fighting over then this was it.

Most people really do not know what to do when their assumptions are not just questioned but shouted down as being wrong-minded. There is discomfort and the first inclination as a result of embarrassment is to deem the one taking exception as egotistical or uppity.

When you are getting stoned by a gang of sinners you help nothing by falsifying your assessment of what is going on or by being indirect. I don’t think he thinks he is perfect but he has been confronted by some of the most overt, bald-faced hypocrisy that I have seen. ANYONE who engaged it for what it is and calls it for what it is will risk appearing judgmental. Being as honest as one could be is the best that could be done. The restraint that mutes the truth, that softens descriptions of what has happened so as not to upset or anger will not help.

How am I to compare the red-faced indignation of one who feels swept up in what seems to be not a personal sleight but an indictment-by-proxy (as Wright points out America’s seamy underbelly while suggesting that we not only have past wrongs but current, ongoing ones as well) with the appropriately earned distrust of those who have been stomped underfoot and ground down by the policies and actions of our government?. The two are not even in the same ballpark but to many Wright is deserving of scorn and should just “get over it.” I have little sympathy or expectation that reaching out to these types of people will help, but I would always listen to them and try to make a connection. Many are indeed bitter and they want their indignation because it buoys them, gives them meaning and also gives them someone to blame.

When we encounter pointed, direct and clear rhetoric from someone as eloquent as Wright I think we badly need to take stock of precisely what bothers us about it. Diffuse, emotional responses where the one responding cannot put their finger on what bothers them, where they cannot cite examples and point at what bothers them about it are not helpful or constructive and are often destructive. It is very easy to wonder as he talks, “Who moi?” and to feel as if you are being accused when you are not. Now if someone says that it makes them uneasy and they cannot understand just why…well that is at least honest and can be respected, perhaps even discussed.

However, I have heard incredulous southern, white, evangelical ministers hem and haw and screech “You don’t know????”, sanctimoniously dripping with self-righteousness. I have heard others indicate that if they have to explain then it is not worth their time or trouble. That does not go very far with me or engender sympathy or understanding – because it does not reflect a credible attempt to understand. I have asked a few people who claim that white people are afraid of his “kind of talk” (they don’t let on what exactly about his differences they refer to) and to that I ask just what was it that I was supposed to be afraid of? I add that I would love to be in Wright’s congregation and not only would I stay awake during the sermon but I’d have a lot to discuss with others during the week. People are almost violently opposed to anything that would hold the fact that America enslaved blacks on some pedestal to be examine more closely…to shine the light on the issue. It pisses people off for it to even be brought up. Some white people, that is.

See the reaction to Wright for what it is. It is gang mentality. Those on the right attacking Wright, some openly and others with a more muted tone of disapproval, do not attack on the basis of his assertions and ideas. Listen to them. They don’t apply logic they repeat what he says and look for others to join them in disagreement. It is that reflexive and it does not go much deeper. I am not saying that these are people who do not consider themselves good or who do not try to be good. I am suggesting that they feel too threatened (perhaps by proxy as their identifications appear to be threatened) to examine the points Wright made with such clarity. Perceived tone in no way disqualifies the ideas. Once the sting of having ones outlook, assumptions and reality challenged subsides the dedicated and substantial can resume the discussion of ideas.

So it is very important in these matters to be honest about one’s feelings and to take an ethical and emotional inventory in an effort to know just what one means. It is equally important to follow that by some attempt at expressing it. Perhaps I am cynical but I doubt many care to do the soul searching to come to grips with whether they might feel differently themselves had they had the other’s experience. If tone was all that mattered we’d never do anything but turn our backs on those who were hurting.