First Obligatory Obama/Wright Post
(posted by Mona)
May have more to say tomorrow, but for now I simply wish to make known that the scholar of religion “Karl” — Jeff Goldstein’s mini-me at Protein Wisdom — has settled the question of whether Barack HUSSEIN Obama is a Muslim mole, or a Christian; Obama is neither. He’s a Marxist.
(Liberation theology is far more complicated than Karl understands, and the Catholic Church, including Pope Benedict, are not the last word on it. The “social gospel” has a long and respectable tradition in America. Even if the abolitionists, suffragettes etc. were all, apparently, Commies.) Which is not to say I agree with all, or even most, who preach the social gospel, but devout Catholic Dorothy Day and her Catholic Worker Movement would find commonality with Obama — and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright — on a great deal, tho not all.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Black liberation theology originated on July 31, 1966, when 51 black pastors bought a full page ad in the New York Times and demanded a more aggressive approach to eradicating racism.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88512189
That’s not very long and, thanks for playing, but Marxism is not respectable. Wright’s hatey religion by far postdates abolition and suffrage. You’re not being very honest I think.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
So what are your theological education bona fides, mona, since you see fit to dismiss Karl’s?
March 18th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
B Moe: BA in Religion in America, U of Wisconsin, as well as a strong interest in all things Catholic having been raised such by conservative, Jesuit-educated parents. But credentialism is not the issue. Persons lacking any degree show better understanding of the dynamic of white and black “social gospel” denominational trends, and the influence of various forms of liberation theology & etc, than does poor Karl.
But at least we can now give up on the Obama-the-Muslim-mole meme. He’s a Marxist! This may be a form of progress.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
BTW, B Moe, you’d have know about my religious studies degree had you read my author bio. Again, however, I do not think a degree per se confers advantage over a smart autodidact.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
That is decidedly not when it “originated.” It was brewing well before then and grew out of multiple facets of the black church in America — as well as borrowing from various denominational versions of liberation theology, many of which had a prior, strong “social gospel” component. Religious syncretism is nothing new.
Some blacks coming out of the era of Jim Crow, and the (sometimes) lethal attempts to even register blacks to vote, did, indeed, become radical. That was then, this is now. Rev. Wright comes from “then.” Obama is “now.”
March 19th, 2008 at 1:01 am
I just love the fact that oppo research swarmed all over Indonesia looking for dirt on Obama’s religious beliefs, and it was sitting right there the whole time in a Chicago church.
I actually don’t think Rev. Wright’s statements (at least the snippets I’ve seen) were all that bad. But I do love the irony in all this.
March 19th, 2008 at 8:41 am
The way that whole article (not Mona’s post, but the link) is framed is proof that America is far from being “post-race.” That African Americans aren’t entitled to their “liberation theology” because it is not “standard” (whose standards again?) is absurd and that somehow by “outing” Barack Obama’s church, good Americans should be repulsed at the prospect of voting for him (radical black Marxist liberationist, gonna sleep with your mama and make Flavor Flav secretary of “keeping it real” in the “house of representin’” blah, blah, blah).
That African Americans have come to find pride in themselves in a country which has systematically enslaved, oppressed, and misrepresented them–and in which African Americans are constantly reminded that they are “black,” and that black is inferior and they better watch what they say in public (unless it has to do with guns, drugs and hos, then your a millionaire)–is pretty amazing and is testimony to the durability and strength of the black community.
The greatest irony is that once black people develop racial pride, they are told that America is now “post-race,” that such sentiments are “divisive,” and they should embrace a “color-blind” (meaning blind to injustice) America.
If Obama is a black liberationist, Marxist, revolutionary–just one more reason to vote for him.
And oh yeah–God Damn America.
March 19th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Obama was a Trotskyite as a college student, wasn’t he?
March 19th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Well, I decidedly do not believe “God damn America,” but I can understand why a Marine who came home to what Rev. Wright did, would. I can further understand why some whites are afraid of that jargon, because black crime in “underclass” neighborhoods is a rational fear, but whites admit they hold it in “polite company, ” i.e., among themselves around the watercooler and dinner table. Obama referenced his own white grandmother’s fears of young, black males, and Jesse Jackson said something similar a few years back.
My hope would be that Obama’s speech allows an honest discussion of race, and not just the one that takes place by blacks among blacks, and whites among whites.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Race seems an immensely complicated issue in America and one that will have to be dealt with before much peace can occur. The only comparable situation in the UK was anti-Irish discrimination which still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
I think the key is for White liberals to stop feeling “guilty” for being White. Only then can communication between equals occur. “Anti-racism” in America seems to be leaden down with “white privilege” and “white guilt” rhetoric and stops many White (working class) people from giving a hoot, as their daily experience (and the experience of their ancestors) was quite a different kettle of fish. Middle-class Whites may be deflecting some kind of class guilt-feelings to racial guilt feelings. I’m not sure — I don’t understand the situation.
Has anybody read Jim Goad’s book “The Redneck Manifesto”?
March 19th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Thanks for bringing Dorothy Day into the discussion, Mona. And it looks like B Moe got pretty well punk’d.
Like goffchile, I’m surprised the mainstream press has been so shocked about this. It probably betrays their lack of familiarity with religion in general. The American establishment press, in general, tends to be shocked by anything outside their vanilla-flavored, half-inch-to-the-left-or-right-of-center frame of reference. A good example is Chris Matthews’ thunderstruck reaction to the militia movement’s call for restoring the Constitution, back in the ’90s: “I thought that was what we’re living under right now!” I’d kind of enjoy forcing him to read Jim Goad at gunpoint.
Wright’s denunciations of America wouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with the prophetic movement in Israel, whose statements make his look pretty tame. And the African diaspora in the West has always been prone (for quite understandable reasons) to the most millenarian and apocalyptic forms of theology. A good example is the Rastafarians’ Afro-Israelism and their preoccupation with “Babylon.”
It’s quite consistent IMO to love the promise of America and yet use the harshest and angriest terms in denouncing its betrayal of that promise. We’re always hardest on what we love. I’d put Wright’s patriotism up against that of the soccer mom with the yellow magnetic ribbon on her SUV, sending Americans to die by the thousands for cheap gas, any day.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I’ve read Jim Goad. It is an interesting book, although I don’t wholly agree with everything he says. I prefer Joe Bageant’s, Deer Hunting with Jesus on the isse of white racism and privilege (or lack there of). Goad’s book is too easily interpreted as a justification for white racism (they hate us, so I can hate them)–I don’t think that was the original intent, but it seems like he has played into it–because it gets him paid.
I agree wholeheartedly on the issue of white guilt–guilt is something that people suffer if they don’t intend on doing anything–and I don’t think that one should feel guilty for things you did not do (slavery, segregation)–by the same token, many whites benefit from their race in less than obvious ways and I know precious few whites who would honestly trade places with a randomly selected black person. If more white folks were willing to engage in the often uncomfortable discussion of race, “guilt” wouldn’t be an issue.
March 19th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
It’s funny reading Daniel’s reference to Goad in the post above mine, because I hadn’t even seen it when I made that comment. I think Goad’s main problem was not with the anger of the black underclass or working class, but with the tendency of the black bourgeoisie and civil rights leadership to ignore class issues. You know, the whole Oprah thing: as long as the professional upper middle class is racially integrated, the only thing left is to give working class folks a copy of The Law of Success, and everything’s hunky-dory. Or maybe just have “liberal” billionaires play Lady Bountiful: like setting up a South African girls school where every morning the girls file past the giant statue of Oprah and kiss her butt.
Goad wanted to expand the racial justice debate to include class, and to point out that (with apologies to Peter Tosh) it was a pretty shitty “Four Hundred Years” for everybody except the propertied classes. The indentured servants and transported convicts who provided a majority of white settlers before the Revolution, most of them driven here directly or indirectly by land expropriations in Britain, were quite likely to die in servitude (because the term of indenture could be extended indefinitely for the most minor infractions).
I agree that Goad sometimes expressed himself in pretty unjudicious terms, and that his work has been exploited by some unsavory elements. I ordered both his book, and some of the primary sources he cited on the history of the Enclosures and indenture system, from Amazon, and for weeks my “recommendations” page was clogged with some of the weirdest white nationalist crap you can imagine.
March 19th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Yes — the “Four Hundred years” rhetoric gets stale. My ancestors suffered around a thousand years of serfdom. Apparently around 1/3 of Ireland was sold as slaves to the Americas during Cromwell’s reign. David Hoffman has written a book about early White slaves in America.
I enjoyed Goad’s fresh tone, to be honest. His very attitude “yeah, I’m white, fuck you” seemed to open up much more room for equal relationships with people of other races. It seems more than coincidental that in Europe the anti-fascist movement has been made up of white, working-class men who sometimes also are part of the SHARP skinhead “scene”. Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) in the UK developed a deep critique of multiculturalism and statist-liberal “anti-racism” that is bang on.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Mona’s comments from Salon:
“Whites who avoid poor black neighborhoods with high crime rates are not being racist…In fact, I’d go so far as to say some whites are angry at the black community for making it difficult for them (the whites) to have no issues at all with some parts of black culture, since they want to be considered “good.”
“High crime rates” are not “parts of black culture”… like, say jazz and gospel and hair braiding. That assertion is racist. Gang violence, for example, is a human problem; and like any state of dis-ease, it can thrive amidst any group of people given the right conditions. Has it not afflicted the Irish and the Italians and the Russians and the HIspanics, etc? Competition for resources gives rise to violence. It’s not a phenomenon of black culture, it’s human nature. People fear young back men. Should people also fear all white men in proximity to their children? According to the Justice Department, at least 70% of convicted child sex offenders are white (men)). Criminal justice professionals I know say the number is probably higher. Should people also fear the white female teachers of their male children?
The problem is that the people you refer to tend to look at gang members and (illicit) drug dealers (the majority of whom are black and Hispanic) in terms of race and culture; but when it comes to pedophiles, drug users, pension raiders, war mongers, and war profiteers (the majority of whom are white) they don’t dare consider race and culture.
So, the black man who shoots a little black girl in a drive-by is a cultural actor; but the white man who kidnaps and assaults a child is an individual?
This double standard is what’s racist.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I meant to write “competition for limited resources.” And I’m not making excuses for criminals in “poor black neighborhoods”; I just think it’s way past time that we change the way we talk about crime and general debauchery, i.e., we need to stop pretending that black people have some kind of copyright on vice.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Actually PB, I agree that predatory child molesters (outside the home) and serial rapists are overwhelmingly likely to be white. There are damn few black Ted Bundys. It is not racist or “anti-white” to state that. But they are not disproportionate to the white population. {Edited to add: actually, I didn’t mean that last sentence, which may actually be wrong. The fact is, when I take my grandsons to the movies and they have to use the restroom, I do not, in fact, picture a black man molesting them — my mind always envisions a white man as I stand outside fretting.}
None of that changes the reality that young black males commit violent crimes disproportionate to their numbers — and indeed, usually against other African-Americans. But not always. And white (as well as some black) fear of black neighborhoods with high violent crime rates is not racism. It is a rational acknowledgment of reality.
It is a reality borne from of a disastrous oppression of the black community, but still reality. Do you think arrogant whites can fix it? I don’t. The black churches and activists are going to have to take the lead.
Of course, one thing whites could help do is end the “war” on drugs, which largely contributes to the gangster mentality among some poor blacks. Yesteryear it was lily white, Italian Al Capone re: beverage alcohol, as well as Irish and some Jewish mobsters causing blood to run in the streets.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:58 am
I agree with much of what you said. I would like to point out though that black churches and activists–both religious and secular–have taken the lead in addressing high crime rates. They do not need prodding from whites. In fact, black ministers and churches have always (i.e., since slavery and throughout the Jim Crow era) played a seminal role in addressing problems faced by the community. I understand that Sen Obama’s church is a prime example.
I would also like to point out that black people do not consider whites who avoid “poor black neighborhoods” racist. I am a black woman, and although I lived in a “poor black neighborhood” as a student and have also ventured into such places to do both for-profit and not-for-profit work, I generally avoid all poor neighborhoods (by the way: I am no safer in your average white trailer park than in your average black ghetto.) And yes, high crime in poor black neighborhoods is a reality. We all know that. Believe me: well-off black people are a lot less likely than well-off white people to move into “poor black neighborhoods.” A friend recently joked that soon there will be yuppies jogging in Newark, but you won’t see any of us jogging alongside them.
So, please, stay as far away from “poor black neighborhoods” as you can get, for god’s sake. I don’t care. But for the record, the perception of black men that Obama alluded to predates the crime waves of black inner city neighborhoods (hell, it predates the disastrous de-industrialization of the inner cities, and it even predates significant black presence in inner cities) and it IS NOT limited to street thugs. My husband is a physician who has been treated like a criminal while dressed in business casual, just as my grandfather was treated as some kind of social derelict while wearing a military uniform upon his return from Vietnam. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan…these men are generally viewed as toxic scary radicals while, for some mysterious reason, white evangelical fundamentalists like Hagee, Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell are treated as less threatening. A gang-member with brown skin is a Black Criminal, but though the pedophile you fear may have white skin, you do not view him as a White Criminal; nor do you view his crime as “White crime” (although it is disproportionate to whites). Crack in the 80s is still viewed as a black crime epidemic (though most crack users are white); but the current methamphetamine epidemic is not viewed as a White crime epidemic. I have heard soaring editorials about the meth problem. Such editorials often refer to young meth users as “our children.” I cannot even begin to imagine black youth involved with drugs being referred to in this way, outside of the black community. White drug users are “our children.” Young black drug users are criminals, and not just any criminals–they are Black Criminals.
Again, it is the double-standards that are racist; the way that black people are put into boxes and judged according to the bad acts of other black people, but white people are forever and always judged as individuals. I can understand why white people take their individualism for granted. To have your individual humanity respected–it’s your right. But it’s my right as well.
(Such double standards are not limited to blacks/whites. For instance, I knew that the V-Tech shooter was Asian before I knew his name. Why? Because the media kept describing him as “an Asian student.” Yet, I have never heard the assailants in the many mass shootings by white males referred to in racial terms).
Anyway, the impression that I got from Obama’s speech was that his grandmother’s comments were not made in the context of rational, thoughtful social commentary. It sounded as if he grew up hearing slurs and stereotypes that gave him disturbing insight into the way that many people in his country would perceive HIM, not some abstract poor black criminal.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:09 am
PB: Thank you for your thoughtful commentary. You shared some of your history, and I’ll tell you some of mine. In 1991 I moved my whole family from a 99.99% white city in Wisconsin to a predominantly poor, black neighborhood in South Bend, Indiana. I was a law student at Notre Dame, so we were poor, too.
All three of my sons had been raised to believe that everyone is equal, and I did not permit racial epithets in my home. In particular, I preached that racism vis-a-vis blacks was obscene.
What happened in that South Bend neighborhood caused my oldest two sons to believe I had either lied to them, or was naive. The crack house across the street from us saw Molotov cocktails thrown at it (I called 911). We finally moved after I crawled on my belly at 2 a.m. to the fone because of a drive-by shooting that sprayed the neighborhood. The black mother next door didn’t make her kids go to school; one night, one of her drunken suitors mistaking our home for hers, threatened to break down the back door if we did not let him in. Again, I called the police.
My middle son was strong-armed on his way to a fast food restaurant, and his bicycle stolen. A body was found one day behind another neighborhood fast food restaurant.
My oldest two sons ended up racists. The one who is still alive (the other died in an accident having nothing to do with issues under discussion) is an Obama supporter, but thinks Rev. Wright is crazy, and is very hard-hearted now about sympathizing at all with the problems in the poor black community, because he thinks it is depraved — as a result of his experience. All my sermons about the historical events that harmed the black family and ripped it apart fall on deaf ears with him. (He has no problem, however, with the middle-class blacks in his nice suburb.)
Also, I do not think whites are always regarded as individuals, at least not by all blacks. I’ve worked with black people who distrust all whites. One of my fellow librarians, a black woman, said her sister just flat out doesn’t like white people.
There is more, including the fact that a serious health problem forced me to quit practicing law, and I was unable to work for several years. As a consequence of devastated finances, I live in a trashy apartment complex, and some of the white hillbillies are a crime issue, but so very much are the blacks here. I, a 51-year-old short woman was shaken down for money on this property by a young black male who has been ordered by the courts to stay out of here. He scared me out of my wits. Since then, my son has been inundating me with ads and fone numbers for other rental units, and when I am sure I have the financial security to make the move, I will certainly do so.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I would refer readers to my new post about a horrifying example of white-on-black violence.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
“Again, it is the double-standards that are racist; the way that black people are put into boxes and judged according to the bad acts of other black people, but white people are forever and always judged as individuals. I can understand why white people take their individualism for granted. To have your individual humanity respected–it’s your right. But it’s my right as well.”
Just wanted to repost this excellent insight.