An American Tragedy

Billions of words have been written about Barack Obama and Reverend Wright.  Some of what has been said is ridiculous; some sublime.  Much is worth saying.

The Economist has a column that highlights the tragedy of what has happened with these two men and our nation over the past couple of months. 

This is both a personal and a political tragedy for Mr Obama. Mr Wright was clearly a father-figure to a fatherless man who was confused about his identity. He introduced him to Christianity, and later conducted his wedding and baptised his children. In his speech on race relations in Philadelphia Mr Obama resisted incredible pressure to throw Mr Wright under a bus.

Mr Wright responded by throwing Mr Obama under the bus instead. He dismissed Mr Obama's attempt to distance himself from his former pastor as a politician doing what he had to do. He announced that, if Mr Obama becomes president, he will be “coming after him” because he will represent a government “whose policies grind under people”. Mr Obama was said to be “deeply, visibly angry” when he was shown transcripts of these remarks. He responded with a press conference, in which his tone was alternately hard-hitting and elegiac, to make it clear that “whatever relationship I had with Rev Wright has changed”. Whether that will reassure nervous white voters, time will tell.

This was also a tragedy for Mr Wright. He is far more than the blustering buffoon who was on the stage on Monday. He has presided over an increase in the size of his congregation from 87 when he arrived in 1972 to 8,000 today. Trinity is a welfare state in its own right, providing more than 70 welfare programmes for the poor, the unemployed, prisoners and HIV patients.

He is one of the most liberal members of the black church, happy to question Scripture when he thinks that it forsakes common sense and unusually tolerant of gay couples, who can be seen holding hands in his pews. No less a figure than Martin Marty, who is probably America's most distinguished historian of religion and who happens to be white, has defended Mr Wright and said how welcome he and his family feel in his congregation. But Mr Wright could well be remembered as a race-baiter who helped to prevent one of his parishioners from becoming the first black president of the United States.

And finally this is a tragedy for race relations in general. Mr Wright had a chance to explain how blacks can feel ambivalent about America—how they can volunteer to fight in a war, as he did, but also feel furious about slavery and segregation. But he furnished the anger without the explanation.

Senator Obama was never going to be "my guy"; his policies are simply too disparate in general from my own.  Still, that a charismatic, very intelligent and capable black man would be a serious candidate for President has to be a plus for our nation for a variety of reasons.

That both Wright and Obama damaged some of what was so positive, uplifting and worthy in all this is indeed unfortunate.

Comments

[Greg]

Interesting commentary given the fact that you would be unable to list any of his 'policy stances' on any issue without the use of google or a right wing web site.

Reasons like these sometimes makes me wish we had some sort of test like a drivers test to see how informed the voters actually are on the issues and the candidates. Then again, if that was the case who would vote Republican?? LOL