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April 29 The Audicity of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Why Jeremiah Wright Is Willing To Destroy Barack Obama; This Campaign Really Is Generational by Thomas de Zengotita Remember when Barack first put himself forward? The Obama's not black enough kerfuffle among the old guard civil rights activists? Most of them slowly came around, driven partly by the Clintons' willingness to marginalize Barack after South Carolina but mostly because -- it was just crazy not to. After Iowa the impossible had become possible. But still. At some level there was this feeling, and it didn't go away. A feeling of -- this isn't fair. It fell into his lucky lap. Look at him, swanning around in front of all those adoring white kids, reaping all the props. And he never paid his dues. Jeremiah Wright is like the return of the repressed, a last desperate lunge of the undead 60s toward center stage. Wright represents a longing for enduring relevance so deep that it is willing to sabotage the very possibility of setting out on the long road that runs past race in order to preserve the claims of a certain righteousness, a certain rhetoric, a certain stance -- a familiar and heroic sense of self-in-the-world. It's so hard to get old. It's so hard to watch history pass you by. It's so hard to look out across a public landscape in which your style of being once loomed so large and to realize that somehow -- you are suddenly yesterday. People who say Obama needs to confront Wright are correct. But he needs to do it simply, he needs to tell the truth. He needs to say, kindly but firmly: old man, I love you and I thank you for your service -- but your day is done. For the exchange.... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-de-zengotita/why-jeremiah-wright-is-wi_b_99096.html *sigh* Poor Obama, He just can't catch a break. Is Rev. Wright deliberately trying to sabotage his campaign? Personally, I don't think so. I can't put my finger on it yet but I think that there is method to his madness and in the end, it's going to help Senator Obama in the long run. What I'm loving is that Rev. Wright is driving those media personalities crazy and he is not backing down. He is being brutally honest about race in this country and he got those fools so pissed that they are beginning to show their own racism. No matter what they report about him, they just can't get him to shut up. Pretty soon, they're going to let the word nigger slip out on national tv. Dr. King once said that "the vast majority of white Americans are racist, either consciously or unconsciously". All it takes is the right catalyst to bring that racism to the surface and Rev Wright have been instrumental in that. Tell me what ya'll think. April 26 Jeremiah Wright: The Marine Who Should Be Thanked for His Service to the Country The belief that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually
idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the
rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees
it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good
citizen driven to despair. ~ Henry Louis Mencken
chicagotribune.com April 24 9/11: Good for Isreal? “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” Ma’ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events “swung American public opinion in our favor.” -Former Israeli PM Benjamin Natanyahu Let me get this straight: 1. 3000 dead TWIN TOWERS attacked victims were good for Israel However, on the other hand, A little-known Reverend from
the South Side of Chicago said “God damn America” and it has received 2 months of
news coverage. "The Boss" Endorses Obama
Dear Friends and Fans: LIke most of you, I’ve been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest. He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where “…nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.” At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man’s life and vision, so well described in his excellent book, Dreams of My Father, often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment. After the terrible damage done over the past eight years, a great American reclamation project needs to be undertaken. I believe that Senator Obama is the best candidate to lead that project and to lead us into the 21st Century with a renewed sense of moral purpose and of ourselves as Americans. Over here on E Street, we’re proud to support Obama for President.  April 11 Tavis Quits!
Well that's not what Tom Joyner thinks. He believes that Tavis is leaving because of the lack of love he has been recieving from the black community. He feels that our angry criticism of Smiley because of HIS criticism of Senator Barack Obama has caused him pain and suffering. The problem I have with Tavis is not his criticism of Senator Obama, but his lack of balance. I agree that we need to hold our leaders accountable but his criticism has only been focused on Senator Obama. As the Clinton's race-baiting grew more overt and egregious, Tavis' silence was deafening. He seemed to be outraged at the media's lynching of Reverend Wright, but said NOTHING about Hillary Clinton labeling the Reverend's sermons HATE SPEECH. Yes, HATE SPEECH. Those were her words. She went on to compare him to Don Imus. That demanded a verbal butt whupin' from Tavis, but he said NOTHING! He only accuses Senator Obama of "throwing his pastor under the bus". Through all the lies concerning NAFTA and her so-called experience, Belittling Senator Obama, a fellow democrat, and taking sides with McCain, a republican, which I felt was hitting below the belt... What did Tavis do? Criticize Senator Obama some more.
There is nothing wrong with giving a heathy dose of criticism but Tavis' was just sick. His criticism of Senator Obama had escalated to a point where it became more like a personal vendetta. I just couldn't bear to hear it anymore.
By demanding that we hold Senator Obama to a higher standard than his white peers, Tavis was perpetuating white supremacy. It's bad enough that white folks expect us to perform twice as well as a our white peers to get half the respect, but when one of our own expects this, it's hurtful.
To be fair, Tavis is an intellegent and accomplished gentleman whom I believe geniuely loves Black Americans. He also gives his opinions and sticks by them, no matter what people have say about it. I enjoyed listening to Tavis' commentary on Tuesdays and Thursdays giving insight into political commentary. I feel that having various opinions only enhances the conversation, and Tavis brought that. I didn't agree with everything he said, but I listened to it and it made me think about the issues at hand.
April 05 The Prophetic Anger Of MLK 40 years ago on April 4 1968, Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King was assassinated
outside his hotel room in my hometown of Memphis, TN. Memorials are being held across the country
this weekend to commemorate King.  This a photo of King, taken in Memphis the night before he was killed. Here are the final words of King’s final speech, given that night: “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.“ The Prophetic Anger Of MLK
After 1965, the civil rights leader grew angrier over America’s unwillingness to change. ON THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, few truths ring louder than this: Barack Obama and Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. express in part the fallen leader’s split mind on race, a division marked by chronology and color. Before 1965, King was upbeat and bright, his belief in white America’s ability to change by moral suasion resilient and durable. That is the leader we have come to know during annual King commemorations. After 1965, King was darker and angrier; he grew more skeptical about the willingness of America to change without great social coercion. King’s skepticism and anger were often muted when he spoke to white America, but they routinely resonated in black sanctuaries and meeting halls across the land. Nothing highlights that split — or white America’s ignorance of it and the prophetic black church King inspired — more than recalling King’s post-1965 odyssey, as he grappled bravely with poverty, war and entrenched racism. That is the King who emerges as we recall the meaning of his death. After the grand victories of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, King turned his attention to poverty, economic injustice and class inequality. King argued that those “legislative and judicial victories did very little to improve” Northern ghettos or to “penetrate the lower depths of Negro deprivation.” In a frank assessment of the civil rights movement, King said the changes that came about from 1955 to 1965 “were at best surface changes” that were “limited mainly to the Negro middle class.” In seeking to end black poverty, King told his staff in 1966 that blacks “are now making demands that will cost the nation something. … You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then.” King’s conclusion? “There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.” He didn’t say this in the mainstream but to his black colleagues. Similarly, although King spoke famously against the Vietnam War before a largely white audience at Riverside Church in New York in 1967, exactly a year before he died, he reserved some of his strongest antiwar language for his sermons before black congregations. In his own pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, two months before his death, King raged against America’s “bitter, colossal contest for supremacy.” He argued that God “didn’t call America to do what she’s doing in the world today,” preaching that “we are criminals in that war” and that we “have committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world.” King insisted that God “has a way of saying, as the God of the Old Testament used to say to the Hebrews, ‘Don’t play with me, Israel. Don’t play with me, Babylon. Be still and know that I’m God. And if you don’t stop your reckless course, I’ll rise up and break the backbone of your power.’ ” Perhaps nothing might surprise — or shock — white Americans more than to discover that King said in 1967: “I am sorry to have to say that the vast majority of white Americans are racist, either consciously or unconsciously.” In a sermon to his congregation in 1968, King openly questioned whether blacks should celebrate the nation’s 1976 bicentennial. “You know why?” King asked. “Because it [the Declaration of Independence] has never had any real meaning in terms of implementation in our lives.” In the same year, King bitterly suggested that black folk couldn’t trust America, comparing blacks to the Japanese who had been interred in concentration camps during World War II. “And you know what, a nation that put as many Japanese in a concentration camp as they did in the ’40s … will put black people in a concentration camp. And I’m not interested in being in any concentration camp. I been on the reservation too long now.” Earlier, King had written that America “was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race.” Such quotes may lead some to wrongly see King as anti-white and anti-American, a minister who allowed politics to trump religion in his pulpit, just as some see Wright now. Or they might say that King 40 years ago had better reason for bitterness than Wright in the enlightened 21st century. But that would put a fine point on arguable gains, and it would reveal a deep unfamiliarity with the history of the black Christian church. The black prophetic church was born because of the racist politics of the white church. Only when the white church rejected its own theology of love and embraced white supremacy did black folk leave to praise God in their own sanctuaries, on their own terms. Insurgent slave ministers such as Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner hatched revolts against slave masters. Harriet Tubman was inspired by black religious belief to lead hundreds of black souls out of slavery. For many blacks, religion and social rebellion went hand in hand. They still do. For most of our history, the black pulpit has been the freest place for black people. It is in the black church that blacks gathered to enhance social networks, gain education, wage social struggle — and express the grief and glory of black existence. The preacher was one of the few black figures not captive to white interests or bound by white money. Because black folk paid his salary, he was free to speak his mind and that of his congregation. The preacher often said things that most black folk believed but were afraid to say. He used his eloquence and erudition to defend the vulnerable and assail the powerful. King extended that prophetic tradition, which includes vigorous self-criticism as well — especially sharp words against the otherworldliness that grips some churches. In 1967, King said that too many black churches were “so absorbed in a future good ‘over yonder’ that they condition their members to adjust to the present evils ‘over here.’ ” Two months before his death, King chided black preachers for standing “in the midst of the poverty of our own members” and mouthing “pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities.” King struck fiercely at the ugly, self-serving practices of some black ministers when he claimed that they were “more concerned about the size of the wheelbase on our automobiles, and the amount of money we get in our anniversaries, than … about the problems of the people who made it possible for us to get these things.” Obama has seized on the early King to remind Americans about what we can achieve when we allow our imaginations to soar high as we dream big. Wright has taken after the later King, who uttered prophetic truths that are easily caricatured when snatched from their religious and racial context. What united King in his early and later periods is the incurable love that fueled his hopefulness and rage. As King’s example proves, as we dream, we must remember the poor and vulnerable who live a nightmare. And as we strike out in prophetic anger against injustice, love must cushion even our hardest blows. Michael Eric Dyson is a professor of sociology at Georgetown University and the author of 16 books, including the just-published “April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Death and How It Changed America.” I believe that King was not only angry at his government, but also at himself. In the light of the Vietnam war, he became disheartened and angry because out of all of the marches, protests, the jails, the hosing, the beatings and his message of love, peace, and nonviolence, America was still determined to to pursue violence instead of peace. He felt that he had failed his calling. On the night before his assassination, in his "Mountaintop" speech, Dr. King knew that his death was coming but he was at peace with himself and the state of America because God had given him a glimpse of America's future. I believe that what he saw was a country, once divided, has now become united in it's desire to change for the better. Also that his work was not in vain. If Dr. King had lived, he would have been 79 today. |
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