You've known me and we've had some good discussions with regard to race relations, so it may come as a surprise to you that as a conservative, I like Barack Obama. When he started his campaign, I was infected by the hope that he was a black man who was above race, that I could relate to not as a white-American, but as an American-American. I would never vote for him, but his message of unity and hope from a Democrat was as refreshing to me as a cup of cool water in the political desert.

But it turns out he's either:

1. A political opportunist who cozied up to Wright's church simply to advance his political career.

2. He believes in his heart the hatred that Wright preaches, and has thus far kept it hidden from the “white electorate” (how I hate that term). The quintessential “Manchurian candidate”.

3. He's a pussy who didn't believe what Wright was preaching but didn't have the guts to stand up to him.

In any case, he's finished with me. My hopes dashed. Back to the racial desert with me. What is more alarming to me is the implication by brother Obama that Wright's views are mainstream in the black community.

He may have done irreparable damage to black candidates for years to come.

In fact, it is zero per cent correct.

> The bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, while tragic,
> were not terrorism.

Absolutely correct. There is no excuse for PC revisionism as well as anti-nuclear hysteria, especially when the attacks hardly dwarfed the incendiary raids on German and Japanese cities, and when destruction of an enemy population's ability and will to fight (not merely “terrifying people” [sic]) was the real objective. (The atomic bomb made the goals of stragetic bombing actually achieveable, and it was the USA that succeeded rather than Germany or Japan. Are those two facts what really are resented by the PC crowd?)

I will add: The bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, while tragic, were not terrorism.

They certainly were. The idea was to kill as many civilians as possible to terrify the Japanese into surrendering.

If you have children, sooner or later they are likely to say 'I hate you' to a parent.(you?)
If you are or have ever been married, sooner or later you are likely to say or hear the words .”you're impossible and I'm leaving.”

Then the stormy moment passes and everyone loeves everyone else again.

The height of anger among blacks rose when the peaceful methods of Martin King appeared to be failing. He was shot dead. Thatt happened after decades and decades, centuries of pent up, unexpressed anger and frustration. It was a stormy period in American race relations, much like the stormy momnets in families.

When things got better, Rev. Wright's methods became ineffective, and a new generation of blacks (Obama) recognizes that. But you can't do lobotomies to expunge memories, and for some, the bad memories persisted. and the old anger would rise up from time to tome. That's human nature.i I certainly have memories that can produce old fears, old shame and old anger again when I entertain them. Why should it be different for Wright?

You are right that this will be a political problem for Obama. A political problem is not a moral problem, however.
I'm hoping he will have time to overcome this hyped up problem and people will remember to not judge a man by the hat (or skin) he wears but by what he is as a man.

I don't know, not having attended his church for years. But, as Black pastors have commented (Dennis Sanders here at TMV, for example), there was nothing Christian about Wright's comments in his video. I have read the Gospel, as much as have you I imagine, and there is more divisiveness in Wright's words than unity or brotherly love.

Domajot, I think we have got hold of different ends of the same stick. Like the parable of the blind men with the elephant…. You seem generally a supporter of Obama, and you do not think this matters. I disagree.

Perhaps you are right, and it will blow over. Time will tell.

Domajot, that is just my point. Countless groups in America have grievances…but aren't necessarily “damning America”.

You are quite right to point to aboriginal Americans…the one group who can rightly say to have suffered far more at the hands of European Americans than African Americans.

My point is not to say one group suffered more than another. My point is to try to explain why Wright's comments will not go over well with some other groups.

Nationalism is an abstraction often rooted in ethnicity (as in the case of France, Germany, post-colonial nationalisms).

The United States is the only nationalism rooted in an idea . . . America!

By damning America, Wright attacked the foundation that links the multicultural diversity of the United States.

That … and not racism against “uppity Blacks”… is why Obama's link with Wright is damaging.

“Wallowing' is not an improvement, it is equally an offensive misrepresentation.

I'm beginning to wonder if you really know anything about Rev. Wright, his generation of blacks or his church.

What percentage of his sermons could remotely be described as 'wallowing' as opposed to sermons dealing with general topics of Christianity, as , for example the topic of love or the topic of family?

Have you absorbed what young blacks, including Obama, are saying about Wright being representative of an older generation? Or is that factor just an inconvenient truth?

Are you aware that the congregation in Wright's church includes many whites and some say whites are the majority? It isn't race or a particular view of racial problems that attracts people to the church; it's religion and community.

You address and riff off of one narrow strip of the subject we are discussing (I'm guessing cable news or certain blogs are your souce) and procede without looking left or right to check if you're on the right road.

,

I will add: The bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, while tragic, were not terrorism.

I've now read the Glenn Greenwald piece now and agree with much of it. I didn't know that about Francis Schaeffer

white evangelical ministers that are tied to Bush, McCain and other Republicans (Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, etc.) have said plenty of “anti-American” stuff themselves. Like blaming America's sinfulness for Katrina and 9/11. I guess that means they were “cheering on” the Trade Center's collapse and the flooding in New Orleans

Pretty much the same. I don't know why you expect me to defend everything my race does.

To your list of those Americans have mistreated, you forgot to add the original sin group – native Americans.

Wright is not claimeing that blacks own exclusive rights to suffering. That's a notion you invented and are trying to pass off the authorship to others.

If you insist on comparing appples to oranges, let's look at some items on your list.
How long did the internment of Japanese last in comparison to the length of slavery and Jim Crow laws.?
How many generations of Chinese had to live here before they were allowed to travel freely and to own land.?
How many bullets did the Italians or Jews have to dodge in order to get the right to vote?

If you want to compare, compare honestly.

My point being: persecution on the basis of race/ethnicity is a heritage of many Americans. Obama seemed to many to offer a way of moving beyond it (or of “bargaining” with white liberal guilt to ignore it, in Shelby Steele's view).

Instead, because of his close, long-term association with Wright, Obama has been re-defined (despite the best efforts of the NYT, CBS News etc) as being immersed in the grievances of one group.

Obama has to try and re-define himself against this to move forward. Whether he can or not is the question.

Re; “You can persist in believing this is not a problem, but it clearly is.”

You are right. It is aproblem., but it's not a problem of either Wright's or Obama's making. It's a prolbem because those who judge do so without understanding or acknowledging the roots or the history that produced a Rev. Wright. They are willfully ignoratnt crowd. I hate to say this in 2008, but it looks to me as if some folks are just upset because blacks got too uppity and forgot their place.- in spite of the fact that the generation after Wright are getting over the anger just fine on their own.

You use opinion polls as a reference?
Should we rely on international opinion polls to determine the worth of the US?.

Not everything can be determined by majority opinion.Even if 99% of Americans agreed that the earth was flat, that darn globe would refuse to change its shape to accomodate the opinon.

I disagree. It is the same thing.

You want one example of a voluntary immigrant group who has suffered similar to lynchings: the Chinese! Another, the Japanese!

Anti-Chinese riots on the West Coast in the late 19th and early 20th centuries commonly resulted in murdered Chinese.

Violence against minorities and peoples of colour is as American as apple pie.

That is why Wright's monopolization of suffering is distasteful to many Americans.

Re: “Wright is claiming exclusivity for his pain. Get in line…lots of Americans come from legacies of pain and suffering. “

No, you are putting words in this mouth.
He is speaking for his pain; Jews speak for theris. The Irish still sing their songs of revolution. Every group cries for and commerates its own history.

Do we tell the Irish which songs offend us because they rage against our allies, the British?
Why are you applying special restricitons on blacks?

As to:: ” America is a land where many have come to escape endless cycles of rage and outrage.”

There you hit the nail on the head. Every group came here to seek refuge. from some form of outrage against them elsewhere. . Only the blacks were brought here, in chains and aganst their will to be subjugated to horrors AFTER they got here.
And how many of those voluntary immigrant groups were subjected to treatment equivalent to lynchings aftercoming herre?
Every immigrant group got better treatment than the black Americans who lived and died here for centuries.
IT IS NOT THE SAME THING.

Greenwald is being typically rhetorically slippery in this defense of Obama.

(1) None of the people you mention have called God's damnation down upon the United States.
(2) Those that have blamed America's ills (e.g., Katrina) on US tolerance for homosexuality have made public apologies (has Wright…no!).
(3) All the preachers you mention are only linked to Bush or McCain. None has been as integrally tied up in a candidate's life as Wright is in Obama's.

Finally, equating Hiroshima (a bombing meant to end the Japanese war and avoid the massive costs of an American invasion of Japan) with the attack on New York on 9-11 is not “100% correct” in the view of most Americans.

As I noted above, the audience response analysis of Wright revealed that all American groups – including African Americans – views of Wright plummeted immediately after his “Goddaming” America.

You can persist in believing this is not a problem, but it clearly is.

Wright is claiming exclusivity for his pain. Get in line…lots of Americans come from legacies of pain and suffering.

Well, you're absolutely wrong about that. He doesn't just talk about the pain of black America, but what do you expect when he's talking to a black congregation?

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost,” he told his congregation.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4443788

The sick part about this entire controversy is that Rev. Wright is almost 100% correct in the supposedly “inflammatory” quotes I just pasted. Righteous indignation is flying from all quarters because he basically said that violence and war begets more violence and war.

I agree with Marlowecan. As a white male, I am not particularly offended by Rev. Wright's racial understanding of the Bible. But as an American, his anti-American comments are like cheering the World Trade Center collapse.

I don't know how you got that from what Rev. Wright said. And as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in his excellent post yesterday, white evangelical ministers that are tied to Bush, McCain and other Republicans (Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, etc.) have said plenty of “anti-American” stuff themselves. Like blaming America's sinfulness for Katrina and 9/11. I guess that means they were “cheering on” the Trade Center's collapse and the flooding in New Orleans.

Because everyone hurts, Domajot.
Look at Irish history, with the emigration in the wake of the famine (c.1 million dead) and British oppression. All the celebrations of “Bloody Sunday” and “Black Friday” and “Black Monday”. It's like all of Irish history happened last week.

Like James Joyce said: “History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awaken.”

America is a land where many have come to escape endless cycles of rage and outrage.

Wright is claiming exclusivity for his pain. Get in line…lots of Americans come from legacies of pain and suffering.

That is, I think, one of the reasons for the general distaste for Wright's comments.
If Obama remains associated with that anger…if he cannot move beyond it in the public consciousness…his candidacy is toast despite the support of white liberal media.