On the South Side of Chicago

“Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.”
- Laurence J. Peter

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Some of us gained our first knowledge of the south side of Chicago from the opening lyrics of Jim Croce’s 1973 hit song, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” And while the tale of Mr. Brown was fictional, we took Croce at his word that the aforementioned part of the Second City was, in fact, “the baddest part of town.”

Fast forward 35 years, and Chicago’s south side is once again in the news, this time as home to Trinity United Church of Christ and two of its well-known congregants: would-be President and U.S. Senator Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr.

The latter has, of course, been vilified of late, with spill-over effect on the Senator and his church.

In response, many (including this writer) have argued that said vilification is unfair, based flimsily as it is on a handful of out-of-context remarks taken from a miniscule few of the Rev. Wright’s sermons. Unfortunately, our protestations have failed to convince people like Caroline Glick, who recently joined a chorus of voices lambasting Obama for sitting “through 20 years of Wright’s anti-white, anti-Jewish, and anti-American vitriol” and for failing to protest such “vitriol” until last week.

What writers like Glick refuse to acknowledge, however, is the utter lack of evidence that there was actually 20 years’ worth of vitriol to sit through. By all accounts, vitriol was not the hallmark of this church nor of Rev. Wright. If it had been, Sen. Obama claims he would have left — and, one might assume, Oprah Winfrey would have severed her ties with the Church, as well.

[UPDATE: Per a commenter to this post, Ms. Winfrey is apparently no longer an active member of the TUCC congregation. It seems she left, however, for reasons tied to her celebrity, rather than inflammatory remarks made from the pulpit.]

The charges of “anti-white, anti-Jewish, and anti-American” are similarly suspect.

Rev. Wright was invited to (and, it seems, willingly participated in) high-profile government events, including a certain prayer breakfast at the White House in 1998 — hardly the portrait of an “Anti-American” activist.

Rev. Wright also arranged “bus trips for predominantly white congregations to visit Trinity each Sunday” and “steadfastly maintained Trinity’s relationship with the United Church of Christ, a denomination with only a handful of black churches.”

What’s more, “The man who introduced Obama to many South Side figures is Abner J. Mikva, [who is] Jewish [and] once represented the area in the State Legislature and then in Congress.” It’s difficult to believe Mr. Mikva would have helped advance Obama’s political career if he had harbored concerns about the latter’s association with TUCC and Wright — and the same goes for other prominent community leaders from Chicago who are of Jewish heritage and faith and who presumably know Obama best.

Finally, as prominent, conservative Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman suggested on Sunday: Regardless of what you think of Wright’s most incendiary comments, the Reverend “is supporting a presidential candidate who clearly believes none of these things, but instead puts his faith in what Abraham Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature.’”

Perhaps the south side of Chicago isn’t so scary after all.