04.26.08
Wright Talks
Good wrap up from Scripting News, Why so quiet?, on Bill Moyers interview of Rev. Jeremiah Wright on PBS last night.
There’s so much to admire about Rev Wright, but first, the shame of the professional media, who hounded not only Wright, but members of his congregation, inclucding a woman in a hospice, to try to uncover more dirt about Wright and thereby embarrass Barack Obama.
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Watching Wright gave me pride in being an American, and shame at the same time, for coming from a country so willing to objectify and vilify this person before checking out whether the characterization was accurate. Even the supposedly courageous and thorough NY Times calls his oratory “racist” in an editorial in today’s paper. Based on what? I’ve watched the sermons that have been excerpted; if these are racist, then every other preacher in the US is racist too.
Wright says the religion of the people on the deck of a slave ship must be different from the religion from the people under the deck. On the deck, god is justifying the practice of slavery, and below — god gives them hope that someday they will be free. My people, the Jews, understand this very well, it’s part of our tradition. We’ve just celebrated the holiday of Passover, a feast that’s all about the pride of an enslaved people. If we’re still telling the story, passing it down from generation to generation, after 3000 years, why should we be critical of the African-Americans who are telling the story of their enslavement, which ended only 145 years ago, and whose manifestations are still with us today.
We, the United States, have made mistakes, and those mistakes are as much who we are as our triumphs. The failures leave behind people and their culture, their music, their legends, their religion and their hopes. Sure it seems strange when you hear it for the first time, but that’s good! Because the second time it’s not so strange, and eventually it becomes part of our melting pot, and enriches all our lives.
I had long been wondering what Wright’s view was of all the criticism he’s taken. It’s hard to take someone’s criticism of Wright seriously unless they hear his what he has to say first. I highly urge all to watch the interview.