Jeremiah Wright is a self-absorbed and egocentric man. Barack Obama must disown Wright if he wants to have any chance of being elected President. I listened to the speech Wright gave at the National Press Club. I wanted to hear something good. The Bill Moyers interview was fine in my estimation. But Wright came out of the gate as provocatively as he could with a lecturing diatribe about the duplicity of White American Christians and its role in the development of the Black Church. He was unapologetic in his defense of the United Church of Christ and Trinity Church. But, he spoke in terms that many will find so objectionable that one cannot predict what negative implication it could have on Obama’s campaign. He is a divisive figure, indeed. I didn’t want to believe it, but Jeremiah Wright has become true Kryptonite for Obama. You have to hear it to believe it.
Wright said he was taking Barack Obama at his word to open a national debate on race. His theme was to explain why blacks consider the Black Church the “Invisible” Church, much as Ralph Ellison called black Americans the ‘Invisible Man.’ He correctly called Sunday morning the most segregated hour in America. He proudly linked the Black Church tradition back to Jesus of Nazaeth. All of this was positive.
However, the problem is his words were so condescending, so vitriolic and so filled with hatred and anger, no one but his own ‘true believers’ will take his lecturing at face value. The WAY he spoke was not the way one speaks who seriously wants to convince someone of his argument. He will convince no one that he is a decent and honorable man who didn’t already believe so. Therefore, from where I sit I believe he was speaking to Black America and Black America only as he does every Sunday.
He spoke of the Black Church as invisible because of white oppression. He listed out a number of despicable acts perpetrated on blacks by their ‘oppressors.’ He listed out a litany of despicable acts perpetrated by the U.S. Government against its own people. He spoke of government indifference to the inner city despite the courageous efforts of Blacks in the armed forces. He has made sweeping statements claiming that an attack on him is an attack on the entirety of the Black Church. He defended Louis Farrakhan, a man who is considered anti-Semitic by many Americans.
In essence, he tried to touch on every issue that angers many in the Black community, who have felt and feel helpless in the face of slavery, Jim Crow and continuing racism and indifference. He, too, sounded like a man who felt helpless in the face of the many barriers to success for the American Black community. Rev. Wright’s conclusion, therefore, was that the Black Church, and the exaggerations and race-baiting theatrics is an outgrowth of a need to nourish the souls of an oppressed people. While that may be true, his words struck me as defeatist words of someone who perpetuates a sense of victimization and hopelessness. His message was too angry, too hectoring, too lecturing and condescending to be hopeful. His message was anything but ‘The Audacity of Hope.’
I’m sorry but he does not represent the Black Church. He represents only himself and he does so poorly. I wanted to like Wright. But, he is so absorbed in his own anger and hatred to understand that his statements are provocative and divisive. His view of America is distorted and twisted by his anger — a caricature.
Anyone undecided about Obama must be asking themselves right now how is it possible that a man so absorbed by anger could hide it for 20 years, that a man so filled by hatred could be the one chosen by Obama to marry him and baptize his daughters, that a man so self-involved could be the source of his book title ‘The Audacity of Hope.’
Obama cannot just reject his statements. He must now disown the man himself. Obama said the following after Wright spoke:
“Some of the comments that Rev. Wright has made offend me, and I understand why they offend the American people,” Obama told reporters. “They don’t represent my views and they don’t represent what this campaign’s about, but he’s obviously free to make those statements.”
That doesn’t cut it, Barack. You have to categorically reject this man. But, quite honestly, the damage may be done. This could well be Obama’s Waterloo. I cannot overstate the damage Wright has done.
Read Bob Herbert’s Column. His analysis is the best of all pundits I have seen.
Also read the Washington Post analysis of the speech by Dana Milbank.
Also read the NYTimes analysis by Alessandra Stanley.
On Salon.com, a few pundits take a stab at what Obama should say now. Very thoughtful.
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