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Barack is No Hypocrite: He Correctly Defended Jeremiah Wright and Rightly Castigated Don Imus

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is shown here at an Obama rally last week, right after endorsing Senator Barack Obama for the presidency

By Wil Greer— I recently received a “free news alert” from Newsmax.com, a neo conservative e-zine I subscribe to in an effort to balance out my radical liberal proclivities. To be honest, I’m not looking for balance as much as I’m looking to find out what the other side is thinking, but I digress. What they sent was an article dogmatically titled, “Hypocrisy Hurts: Obama Led Charge for Imus Ouster”. With a name like “Newsmax” one would think they’d leave a disclaimer asserting their total lack of objectivity with respect to news, but again, I digress.
Well, let me provide my disclaimer upfront: I am supporting Barack Obama’s candidacy for president, and while I would never even attempt to argue that the man is perfect, I do believe that on this particular issue, Obama is no hypocrite.
The Newsmax reporter –whose name is conveniently not cited in the article – attempted to argue that Obama is phony because last year, he took radio shock jock Don Imus to task quicker than he did his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. The reporter also reminds us that Obama was at the fore of those who were clamoring for Imus’ termination after Imus made the now infamous, “nappy headed hoes” remark.
Then, in a particularly weak and infantile twist of logic, the reporter asserts that Obama should be equally as indignant with pastor Wright because Wright has made “insensitive remarks” and “has blamed the government for HIV, cast the country as institutionally racist, and said God should damn the United States.”
So, what’s wrong with that?
Sadly, there are some Americans have hot-headedly rushed to condemn pastor Wright without first listening to his speeches in their entirety. Second, and more importantly, they refuse to place his words in their proper historical context, thereby omitting the rationale that makes much of his message true.
Let me explain.
There is no way that we can fully understand Imus’ and Wrights’ comments without first understanding the historical antecedents the comments were born from.
Don Imus’ words reeked of the historical insensitivity and prejudice that black people generally, and black women in particular have been fighting since the ships dropped us off in Virginia. Chuck D once said that black women are the most disrespected people on the planet, and I agree with him.
Imus’ words were indefensible and worthy of immediate reprove because black women have been perhaps the single most discriminated upon and exploited group in this nation’s history. They were literally the last ones to gain voting rights (neither the 15th or 19th Amendment enabled them —they had to wait until the passing of the Civil Rights Act some 40 years after the granting of “women’s suffrage”), and are sadly still the first ones to be exploited, mocked, orridiculed in popular culture as video vixens, jezebels, mammies, and “take-no-mess” ghetto queens.
Barack Obama stood up for black women, and took a stand for his wife and daughters. This was courageous, because so few have stood up for them in the past. He need not apologize for or distance himself from this.
Pastor Wright’s comments, on the other hand, were nothing more than honest critiques of American de jure and de facto foreign and domestic policy. If you listen to an entire Wright speech, you would be hard pressed to find one thing he said that wasn’t true. Honestly, I’ve heard several television pundits say that they disliked the comments, and believe Obama ought to further “repudiate” the words of his former pastor, but I have yet to hear one explain how the words aren’t true.
For instance, Wright said that America was “institutionally racist”.
Well, last I checked, there are still many institutions (i.e., labor, economics, education, law, entertainment, etc.) marred by racism. This is evidenced by the woefully high black unemployment, poverty, and prison rates, as well as huge gaps in wealth and education between blacks and whites, Asians, and even some Latinos. To highlight this I’ll give you one glaring statistic: According to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center in 2005, whites had an average wealth of about $88,000. Blacks had an average wealth of about $6,000 – a difference of nearly $82,000. Historically, we haven’t all spent our money on spinning rims and the latest depreciable trinkets, but historically we were systematically shut out of wealth-building opportunities. The lessons of financial loss due to unrighteous destruction and “takings” still resonate from the ashes of the “Black Wall Streets” in Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Virginia, places where the rise of black wealth and financial independence gave rise to envy, hate, and anger, ultimately expressed in terrorism..
Wright also said that America is “supportive of oppressive, racist regimes”.
This one is also tough to argue against. Did not every U.S. Administration until recently support the apartheid government of South Africa. If I recall correctly, Ronald Reagan called Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress – the group that was actually trying to create democracy in the country— a “terrorist organization”. America gave aid to the oppressive and racist Dutch South African government, and this prolonged Apartheid. All of this was occurring while we were still, as a nation, officially trying to achieve true integration here at home. And as of the time of this writing, many facets of American society have yet to be fully integrated.
Lastly, Wright said that America is guilty of treating its citizens as “less than human”.
Now come on. Do we really need to explore this? Enslaving people, lynching men, women, and children, using people as human lab rats to test diseases like syphilis, secretly sterilizing people, turning attack dogs and fire hoses on nonviolent protesters, creating structures that shut people of color out of equal opportunities for good housing, education, and health care, and then blaming the victim when they underachieve.
Show me a black man in his fifties who hasn’t thought or said something similar to Jeremiah Wrights’ comments, and I will show you Clarence Thomas or Ward Connerly!
As Senator Obama said in his stirring speech Tuesday, “What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them”.
What I don’t understand is how so many Americans, today in 2008, still cannot intellectually grasp that racism is an inextricable element inherent in the black world view. As Dr. W.E.B. DuBois famously said in his classic, The Souls of Black Folk, “The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line”. We pushed, fought, and undoubtedly made some gains, but it is still THE problem, or at least A problem, we must contend with head on in the 21st century.
Sadly, far too many of our fellow citizens still don’t want to acknowledge this, and would instead prefer to cut down comments and persons who speak ugly truths we have run from since emancipation, some 143 years ago.
I long for the day when we can engage in a national discussion on race, class, gender, and their intersections, and begin the healing process that would make men like Jeremiah Wright archaic reflections of an outdated epoch. Unfortunately, it would seem that the requisite resounding courage is still lacking in too many Americans, and it is critically necessary to forge that more perfect union.