Jeremiah Wright Can Be a Problem or Opportunity for Obama

By GWEN RICHARDSON

There is an adage that the most segregated hour in America is at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. Therein lies the difference in reaction to the recently released videos featuring provocative statements by Sen. Barack Obama’s pastor for the past 20 years, Dr. Jeremiah Wright.

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Most African Americans who view these video snippets know that they are taken out of context and can be taken with a grain of salt. Sermons by Black pastors are often filled with hyperbole, colorful language and cultural cadences. In an average year, Wright probably delivered at least 50 sermons on a variety of topics.

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Meanwhile, the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which Wright pastored for 35 years until he retired in February, continued to be a beacon of light to people in the surrounding community, providing drug and alcohol recovery, marriage counseling, prison outreach and other community services. As in most Black churches, the members of Trinity engage in the Christian rituals of baptism and communion, as well as baby dedications and rites of passage ceremonies. The church’s Afrocentric focus, which teaches the principles of self-reliance and self-determination that conservatives claim to embrace, is designed to build its members’ self-esteem and solve some of the intractable problems within the African-American community.

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Wright himself spent six years in the military, has four earned degrees and has been the recipient of eight honorary doctorates. He is the author of several books, including two titled What Can Happen When We Pray? and Good News!: Sermons of Hope for Today’s Families. He was born in 1941, came of age during the crucible of the Civil Rights Movement and, as do many Black pastors, speaks to the pain and suffering many African Americans feel from the nation’s legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination.

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Unfortunately, because few non-black people have spent any time in black churches, the recent video clips of Wright shown on cable news channels conjure up fears and anxieties that are, quite frankly, unwarranted but understandable. These video clips were first promulgated several weeks ago on Fox News by commentators Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. One can only guess at their motivations, but it appears that they want to sully Obama’s image by tying him to Wright and implying that Obama shares the same attitudes that the videos portray. If successful, this could be enough to frighten the bejesus out of enough White voters to deny Obama the nomination and/or the presidency.

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Among the remaining presidential contenders, all have had challenges with religious leaders who have made shocking statements. Texas televangelist John Hagee, who endorsed John McCain last month, has described Catholicism as a contributor to Hitler’s anti-Semitism and a “false cult.” On Feb. 26, McCain appeared at a rally with the Rev. Rod Parsley, an Ohio minister who is notable for suggesting that the United States should be at war with Islam. Hillary Clinton, for her part, belongs to a Methodist church that has decided to perform ceremonies joining homosexual couples.

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However, since race is one of the most powerful motivators in American society, the image of a Black minister who makes inflammatory racial statements is more intoxicating than the others. For Obama, this is not an issue that will go away, nor can it be ignored.

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It has been in Obama’s best interest televise nationally the march 18 Pennsylvania speech on race and politics. Similar to the speeches made by John Kennedy in 1960 regarding his Catholicism, and Mitt Romney about his Mormon faith, Obama has tackled this issue head on. He has been open and honest about his background, his motivations and his vision, as transparent as he was in his memoir, “Dreams of My Father.”

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Obama’s supporters, and those who would like to support him but have questions about how influential Wright has been regarding his spiritual journey, got the opportunity to hear directly from the candidate, not campaign spokespersons.

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Because of Obama’s parentage, he is not a product of generations of American slavery. He is identified as black because American society operates by the one-drop rule: If a person has one drop of black blood, he or she is considered black by American standards. But because of Obama’s heritage, he is in a unique position to talk to the nation from both sides of the divide. He can actually share the points of view of both blacks and whites.

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Going on the offensive regarding Wright’s remarks has been the best way for Obama to put this issue to rest. Otherwise, it might have simmered beneath the surface for the remainder of the campaign, rearing its ugly head and diminishing his message of hope, change and unity.

Gwen Richardson is an entrepreneur and author based in Houston, Texas. Her new book is titled: Why African Americans Can’t Get Ahead: And How We Can Solve It With Group Economics. Richardson is currently writing a book about the 2008 presidential election.

The Power of the Black Vote

 

By BROOKLYNE GIPSON

 

 

A year ago I attended a Barack Obama rally at Rancho Cienega park near Dorsey High School. I went because I had heard whispers here and there about this relatively unknown black Senator from Illinois who was rumored to be a viable candidate for the US presidency. So I trekked over to the rally with raised eyebrow because I wasn’t so sure that he’d be the candidate for me. Ethnicity has never and will never be a qualifying factor in the decisions I make, so there was no need for me to get too excited about the idea of a potential black President of the United States at the time.    However, I left the rally in awe. I was impressed by Barack’s now arguably over-saturated message of bringing change to American politics. I was relieved at the absence of hyper-racial Sharptonian-style politics and delighted to hear messages of true American unity (“It’s not about red states or blue states, it’s about the United States!”). I was charmed— as have many Americans in the last few months— by his relatable, personable character. I was pleased with each and every point that Obama made in his stump speech as I felt that his moderate and practical views were totally in line with mine.  I was sold.  By the time Sister Sledge’s “We are Family” was blaring from the loud speaker, sending visitors off, I was already on my cell phone telling my friend who had missed the opportunity to go with me just how amazing and inspiring that 45 minutes had been for me. It was a watershed moment.Obama left the rally with not only my total support but I was surprisingly left with something as well— a rejuvenated level of hope and belief. I knew that this was going to happen for him. Naturally my excitement over the endearing candidate was met with a lot of skepticism among my family and friends as I quickly hit the pavement running on informing them about Barack. I heard the exact responses that Obama had forecasted in his speech. “A black man, for president? America is just not ready.” To which I replied, “But are you ready?” Then I’d hear, “White people aren’t going to vote for him,” to which I replied “but will you vote for him? He needs your support too.” Most disheartening of all, was a close friend of mine who said “The way I see it, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration, there hasn’t been any real change in my life so why vote? My vote doesn’t count anyway.” And so on, and so on. In those early stages it was an uphill battle to get people motivated, to believe, to even pay attention. But hope prevailed. Almost one year later, I sat at my desk and opened the (March 12) Los Angeles Times newspaper and came across an article titled “Black Vote Fuels Obama Primary Win” by Mark Z. Barabak who commented on Barack’s latest victory in the Mississippi primaries, pointing out that: “Overall, black voters accounted for roughly half the vote…Nearly complete returns late Tuesday in Mississippi showed Obama with 61 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 37 percent. The high black turnout helped Obama beat Clinton among voters across a range of education and incomes.”After reading the article, I sat back and marveled at the power of the black vote.

 

At this point, I feel like Obama has already accomplished more than most black people ever thought was possible and instilled such a high quality of hope and belief in not only the African American community but the entire American community that even if this were the end of the road, he’ll still be revered as a hero.

At this point, he’s made it so that there is no excuse. The lights have dimmed on the people who boast their reasons for not voting. The negativity of the nay-sayers has waned with each victory and the skeptics have turned their attention to an evident truth that their hesitance hadn’t allowed them to realize before- there’s power in the black vote. I look forward to the day when my future child inevitably writes the black history month report on a true American hero— Barack Obama and I hope that it inspires them to hope, to believe, and to know that the sky is the limit and that the glass ceiling exists only in their mind.From Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream”: “Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? …I’m not talking about blind optimism here—  the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; … the hope of a mill-worker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!”