Posted by
Virginia Daddy on Monday, March 24, 2008 12:44:37 PM
I should remember to never read the Washington Post opinion pages. I always get upset. Alas, I took yesterday, a nice cool but sunny Easter day to read them. I actually bought the paper for the results of a contest involving dioramas and peeps (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2008/03/21/GA2008032101983.html?sid=ST2008032102694). But me being me, had to read them. I wish I hadn't. After reading a letter from the editor about how Easter is a time of fresh renewal of spirit for all of us and Christ doesn't matter in it (after discussing how violent it was, of course), I read how people think Reverand Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ is good, at worst outdated, and how Obama is even better. These got me going.
The first I'd like to discuss is this,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032102858.html, byut Deborah Howell. Entitled "How the Post was Late to Church", Ms. Howell discusses why the Washington Post did not cover the story of the church until after it was picked up elsewhere and why they felt it best not to address. In short, it ends up being a case of political correctness. She essentially says that they didn't because if you pick on Wright and Obama's church, you have to pick on McCain's and Hillary's as well. She ends it with a comment saying that it is good t have a spiritual advisor who challenges the president.
This is absurd! If either of those two went to a church stating such things as Wright, I would wanat to know about it. She lists some controversies of the latter two, but fails to see the gigantic leap between the things of supporting Israel and having women pastors to talking about hating the American government. As to the challenging, I don't want an advisor advocating hate and division. That is not challenging, that is bigotry.
The second is insane. It is a letter written from a sixtyfive year old black woman called "Healing for a Truth that Hurts, Why Obama's Pastor Speaks to So Many". This is the reason I am scared for our country. Before arguing that it is no stretch to think that the US government infected blacks with AIDS before saying this: "The disconnect brings to mind the Post slogan "If you don't get it, you don't get it." As if only a select few can get it. This woman basically outlines why she thinks its a good idea to remember the pain blacks went through. I'll list a couple quotes:
1) "To deny it exists and to deny that anger is also wrong. Equally wrong is to expect people to eradicate a legacy of nearly 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow."
2) "The bittersweet stories of our survival are told endlessly -- by our grandparents, teachers, preachers and so many others. We dare not forget. We cannot get over it. Its much too close. We are still living it."
She ends it by saying we do need to move past these issues and communicate. She is right on that count, but I am not sure I believe she is interested in communicating. When she says we dare not forget and that they are still living it, it seems her mind is made up. And this is precisely the problem. People's minds are already made up about race and the past. It is more than just about the past; its about the present and the future. See, people like this woman cannot, for whatever reason, choose to move beyond the past. They choose to live in this state of victimhood. Sure, the pain was real. I do not denounce that, or deny that. I know I can never fully experience what she and others went through. But I can choose, and so can she. I can forgive, and so can she.
A final article I'd like to discuss was a bit more reasoned, and thankfully critical of Wright, but promoting of Obama. This one, written by Jonetta Rose Barras, is titled "He's Preaching a Choir I've Left". This is actually the most inspiring and optimistic of the three listed. While it condemn Wright as an object of the past, she embraces Obama as an agent for change. I think she, like so many others, fails to recognize that Obama doesn't stand for anything. His speech has been lauded by many as intellecutally honest, but I think it lacked something important: a strong stance against people like Wright. Barras goes a little further than Obama, but not much, but her attraction to Obama indicates to me she is not as willing to let people like Wright go to the scrap heap of the past.
See, one of the primary things that has bugged me about this issue is that Wright used his pulpit (literally) as a forum to preach (literally) hatred and anti-Amricanism. He used Christ as box to present these ideas. He used the man who told the disciples to be peaceful and loving, who told them to forgive as many times as needed, who told us to love him with all we can. Wright has not only given blacks trouble, but he has abused his power and authority as a pastor. A pastor should serve the needs of all believers, not just a select group of ethnic people. His radical talk goes far beyond what Christ commanded, and what we should do as Christians.
What is scary about it is that people believe him! They respect him! And he's not the only pastor to preach such messages. We have a whole sect of people who get taught hatred on Sunday mornings. The victim mentality is brought home at Sunday school. These are influential places to preach such dangerous and divisive teachings.
We should do all we can to truly teach these people who, like the black lady who wrote the letter, believe and cannot let go or forgive. This is a big challenge. These people were hurt. But, we must turn a corner. I hope this will happen in time, but when people live Wright teach in church, the young will be brought up to believe it, too.