I thought Obama was well-educated and well-spoken

I was watching a video of Rev. Jeremiah Wright on the Times of London Website, a British paper. As I was watching Wright preach, almost singing in a rhythmical cadence, I marveled at Wright’s charisma, his hypnotic prose and his skill in giving the bible a modern-day message every man could use. But, it also occurred to me that the British would find Wright a bit odd. The man on this video is someone that one would not necessarily run into every day in British society. That’s when it hit me!

What is really behind the Wright controversy has as much to do with class as it does with race.

Now, we all know Barack Obama is a well-educated, Ivy League, charismatic and well-spoken world traveler. He is a man that anyone would be proud to introduce to colleagues, friends and even family.

On the other hand, in the videos making their rounds on the evening new and on the Internet, Jeremiah Wright comes across to many as a loud, coarse, emotional spark plug of a man, breathing fire and brimstone. His demeanor, his rhetoric, his emotion, his dress — all of it is greatly at odds with the man we know Barack Obama to be.

So, then, you could imagine the wheels spinning in an American voter’s mind …….

I thought Obama was well-educated and well-spoken? This man, Jeremiah Wright isn’t well-educated or well-spoken in the least. He seems to be just another preacher, yelling and screaming with rancorous emotion. I have no respect for people like that. I see rude, obnoxious people like that every day on TV, on the street, on the bus and subway, in the mall. And quite frankly, they scare me. And this is supposed to be Barack Obama’s spiritual mentor? Whoa. Now, I could understand if this were his uncle as he alluded to in his speech. I mean, everyone has a crazy uncle they wish would just shut up. But, uncles are not uncles by choice, spiritual mentors are. Maybe Sen. Barack Obama isn’t who I thought he was. Maybe Sen. Barack Obama isn’t who he says he is at all. And here I was thinking about putting this man in the White House.

It is this fear in the minds of the American electorate, conscious or subconscious, that the Jeremiah Wright story gets at. Truth be told, Americans like an erudite and well-mannered black person as a symbol for their nation. This is why Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice have been successful in politics. This is why Will Smith and Denzel Washington do well at the Box Office. This is why Oprah is loved by all races. This is why America loves Michael Jordan and Bill Cosby. Furthermore, you don’t see any Reverend Wright’s in their entourages, let alone as their spiritual mentor, do you. (The irony, of course, is that Jeremiah Wright is a well-educated man with a BA, MA and PhD from three different universities including the University of Chicago, one of the most prestigious schools in the United States.)

And, let’s be even more specific here: Rev. Wright represents for many the stereotypical black person demonized, vilified and pilloried in American TV and movies — the sort of person seen arrested on Cops for selling cocaine or beating up an old lady during a mugging. For some, this is a lower-class black they don’t want anywhere near the White House.

That’s what the Wright controversy is all about: ghetto blacks versus middle class blacks. For many Americans, one group is scary, the other is acceptable, even commendable.