Reverend Wright--There We Go Again

Reverend. Wright—There We Go Again

My daddy who was a minister used to say to me “son, it’s better to be silent and appear a fool than to speak up and remove the doubt.” Now that Rev. Wright has spoken out, it is easy to see how a learned man can be both a fool, an actor, and a politician all wrapped in one clothe.

Reverend Wright refuses to apologize for his despicable remarks about “God damn America.” Rather, he “goes off” on this all-purpose victim hood rant. It’s as if we’re watching an unsolved murder show on television—up pops the all-purpose black guy as suspect. Victim hood claims work the same way for many black Americans who commit acts or say things that are dead wrong, but they blame it on “racism.”

Reverend Wright is a very intelligent man. He had the ability to curse America for its wrongs by using pre-1970 rhetoric. He is stuck in his own time zone. As a black American of roughly his generation and as a Southerner, I fully understand how difficult it is to put behind the feelings of victim hood and to blame one’s faults and failings on the historical (and in all too many cases present) lack of opportunities. But this is not the whole story.

Reverend Wright has traveled to Africa and presumably to other parts of the world. He surely has seen the salutary affects and benefits that America has had on black Americans. Nowhere in his “God damn America” sermon did I hear him say how very proud he is (or should be) to be an American. You can’t have it both ways.

Correspondingly, he wants to have his religious and political cake...but retreat to his fanciful separation of religion and politics and cloak the press’s criticism of him in an attack on the “black church.” This is better than victim hood politics—it’s Carl Rove right wing political savvy rhetoric in action. Perhaps I’ve been deaf during the political firestorm that the good Reverend has stirred up but I simply do not remember the media’s attacking the black church.

Finally, what we see here is an egotistical man’s trying to protect and promote his own legacy and agenda by throwing his most politically successful parishioner “under the bus.”

Senator Obama has not thrown his former pastor under the bus. This says a lot about the character of the two men.
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©All Rights Reserved.Reproduction is permitted provided credit is given.Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1,
2008. You can read his blog: Go to: http://lentonaikins.com and click on blog.