The Maverick Tribe

A couple things I wanted to clarify about my own feelings about Wright's statements.  Look, the point is not that these outbursts were offensive to white people, or the U.S. government, or Bill O'Reilly.  We'll be fine.  The government will be fine.  Bill O'Reilly is going to pull through.  But when a spiritual authority tells a room full of African Americans that AIDS was invented by the U.S. government to decimate their race, he is hurting the very people he's preaching to.  A huge problem in the African American community, AIDS thrives in an environment of ignorance and rumor.  When a spiritual authority teaches that hatred and rage on Sunday morning are proper responses to racial injustice, he is contributing to the destruction and despair of those families and those communities.  That is not "empowerment".  That is not what I thought Christianity was about.

I will probably always be disappointed in the tardiness of Obama's gesture of integrity on this matter.  Hate is hate, a lie is a lie, and slander is slander, no matter the source.  But in response to these transgressions, let's not suggest equivalence between white demagogues like Jerry Falwell and black demagogues like Wright.  One arises from a bitter attachment to its own historical power and the other arises from a bitter resentment of its own historical powerlessness.  I think the best defense of the Obama/Wright situation was offered by, of all people, Mike Huckabee.  Huckabee, a preacher himself, said that given the painful and humiliating history of African Americans, still palpable, we need to just "cut them some slack".  That's called compassion.  That is what i thought Christianity was about.