Last year, the Jena saga revealed a disturbing perception gap between white and black Americans. The controversy sparked by brief snippets from the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright provides another indication that black and white Americans have a fundamentally different understanding of the great nation we all call home.
Bill Kristol’s column in today’s New York Times typifies the response of white America. Kristol refuses to expose himself to the African American perspective on either the past or the present. The state of race relations is quietly and consistently improving, he suggests, largely because black and white America don’t talk much.
I guess that’s why Kristol printed Charlotte Allen’s “Jena” story in which Alan Bean comes off as a self-promoting race baiter, black America’s concerns about equal justice are dismissed out of hand, and the revisionist history cobbled together by Jena Times editor, Craig Franklin is swallowed whole.
Message: it’s okay to have a national conversation about race so long as conservative whites do all the talking.
Like all preachers, Jeremiah Wright sometimes gets his facts wrong. The US government didn’t invent AIDS to cripple blacks and gays as some, including Wright and Bill Cosby, have asserted. The well-worn notion that crack cocaine was introduced into poor African American communities to neutralize the poor black people is also a gross simplification of a complicated story. Poor people are uniquely vulnerable to contagions of every kind; gross economic and educational inequalities have consequences.
So where does this tendency to demonize white America originate, and why are black and white Americans so quick to believe the worst about one another?
The answer, my friend, isn’t blowing in the wind; it’s hidden in the pages of history books–not the sort of history-lite we encounter in school history classes, I’m talking about the work of serious historians willing to face sober facts.
White America has an insatiable desire to be lied to about race and racial history. Black America hungers and thirsts for the truth, no matter how painful it may be. If black preachers and intellectuals sometimes exaggerate white transgressions, their white counterparts are inclined to minimize and deny.
A few days ago, at the conclusion of a charming ceremony in Grand Prairie, Texas, I became an American citizen. As I recall, 362 newly minted Americans left the building gripping little American flags and precious citizenship documents.
We sang God Bless America and the Star Spangled Banner and we repeated the Pledge of Allegiance with hands held over our hearts. I choked up on more than one occasion–this is powerful stuff, even for a Canadian transplant. While we waited for the ceremony to begin, I read every word of the little pamphlet containing the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights that I had been given.
The America described in these materials is an experiment in freedom, equality and justice. The America referenced in the course of the citizenship ceremony was quite different. This America is a mighty empire. “You will soon be a citizen of the most powerful nation in history,” one speaker told us, “Isn’t that awesome!”
Well, yes, it is awesome. But for lovers of liberty, it is also a bit frightening. I did my doctoral dissertation on W.O. Carver, professor of missions and world religion at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville between 1898 and 1954. Carver frequently lamented that with each major war, America’s standing army had increased in size and influence and the flame of American liberty was left to burn a wee bit lower. Power and liberty have never been on good terms.
American exceptionalism, the idea that America is God’s last and best hope to the world, is a staple of white America civil religion. White America conveniently forgets what black America remembers all too well. Hence the racial perception gap revealed, this time, in the reaction to Jeremiah Wright.
Those of us who read our Bibles on a regular basis cannot be surprised by the tone of Wright’s comments. He sounds a great deal like his namesake, the biblical prophet. Consider this brief excerpt from the 38th chapter of Jeremiah:
. . . Jeremiah was saying to all the people, “Thus says the LORD, He who stays in this city (Jerusalem) shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes out to the Chaldeans (the Babylonians) shall live; he shall have his life as a prize of war, and live. Thus says the LORD, This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon and be taken.”
The response was immediate:
Then the princes said to the king, “let this man be put to death, for he is weakening the hands of the soldiers who are left in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them. For this man is not seeking the welfare of this people, but their harm.” King Zedekiah said, “Behold, he is in your hands; for the king can do nothing against you.” So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mire, and Jeremiah sank in the mire.”
Does any of this sound familiar? Listen to Jeremiah Wright’s comments in their entirety and you will understand why Barack Obama chose to sit under his teaching. Wright is a man of loving compassion who preaches like a prophet only when harsh circumstance demands it.
This is why Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas will be honoring Rev. Wright on March 29th. The Divinity School is on the campus of Texas Christian University. The University has washed its hands of the affair. Free speech is one thing, a university spokesperson says, but the university would not be so reckless as to hand an award to a person as controversial as Jeremiah Wright.
The Divinity School, to its credit, has resisted the temptation to throw Jeremiah down the well, even though several graduates say they are prepared to renounce their alma mater over the matter.
“Contrary to media claims that Wright preaches racial hatred,” Brite representatives say, “church leaders who have observed his ministry describe him as a faithful preacher of the gospel who has ministered in a context radically different from that of many middle class Americans.
In refusing to throw this latter day Jeremiah down the well, Brite Divinity School has maintained its commitment to biblical authority. Handing the award to a lesser, but less controversial, candidate would have been tantamount to trampling on the cross of Jesus Christ–another outspoken prophet who suffered for his candor.
The specific accusations flung at Jesus by false witnesses were intensely political: claiming that he, not Caesar, was the true King of the Jews, and threatening to tear down the temple in Jerusalem. Like the sermons of Rev. Wright, the words of Jesus were cherry picked from their original context, yet his accusers were essentially right–the preaching of Jesus has always constituted a grave threat to the Roman Empire . . . and to every other empire that has ever existed.
These insights are standard fare among biblical scholars, but they become rank heresy when they enter the pulpit. There are exceptions of course. No one excoriated Billy Graham for saying that if God didn’t judge America he would have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. But then, Graham was talking about sexual sin, not racial sin. href=”http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/NationalLies.html” mce_href=”http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/NationalLies.html”>Tim Wise has recently pointed out, white Americans have a curious understanding of their national history. We don’t deny the fact of slavery or Jim Crow or community lynching, we just don’t like to be reminded of these things and often speak as if they did not exist.
The white conservative historical narrative describes a glorious and godly nation striding majestically from glory unto glory as brave white people founding a brave white nation. As a practical matter, black people don’t enter this story until the mid 1950s, and it has been straight downhill ever since. Black people, the white conservative narrative states, are whiners. While they should be thanking their luck stars for the slave ships that carried them to such a wonderful place, they insist on bringing up ancient indignities and rehearsing lamentable anachonisms. We have moved beyond racism, the white conservatives say–end of story! People like Jeremiah Wright who insist of stirring the turds of history are whiners, at best, and traitorous terrorists at worst.
In America, we bury the losers and move on.
No empire built on myths, however glorious, can long survive. Those who refuse to learn the lessons of history, as the wise man said, are doomed to repeat them.
Last week, a woman in Washington DC directed my attention to a book on “Sundown towns”, all-white communities that have historically excluded black people, often with signs reading, “Nigger, don’t let the sun go down on you in this town.”
My research into the history of Tulia, Texas made me familiar with the concept. James W. Loewen (a blessed exception to the white stereotype I have been developing) has built a career around unearthing unpleasant bits of Americana (I first stumbled across his work in the excellent, Lies my teacher told me.) This review of Dr. Loewen’s book on Sundown towns provides an excellent primer on the kind of historical detail white Americans studiously ignore.
Barack Obama has accused his pastor of holding a static view of America–a nation that does not and cannot grow and mature. There is a modicum of truth here. For most black Americans, the latter half of the 20th century was a time of significant, even sweeping, change. This is why Bill Kristol thinks black folk should shut up and move on.
Unfortunately, for the least fortunate 20% of black America, change, though undeniable, has not always been for the better. If suburban nirvana is the American heaven and prison is our version of hell, the poorest Americans are moving in the wrong direction and people of color have been disproportionately affected.
I am not suggesting that Barack Obama emphasize this point–not if he wants to be elected; but somebody needs to say it. The inequities of the present are firmly anchored in the past. Ergo, if we refuse to talk honestly about the past, ain’t nothin’ gonna get better no time soon.
In times of crisis we inevitably haul our prophets out of their muddy prisons. As the hand of God continues to scrawl across the American wall, we may soon find ourselves turning to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his spiritual kin, for guidance.
Alan Bean, Friends of Justice
Friends of Justice 
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Things take a slightly different perspective when viewed in the right context.
Whether one agrees with Reverend Wright or not, it seems to me that he has been unfairly demonized to make a media controversy.
Watch Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s 9-11 sermon in context on youtube and decide.
Jeremiah Wright’s God Damn America in context on Youtube
You’re not completely alone in this, Alan, though some are coming at it from a different persepective. Frank Schaeffer, son of evangelical/fundamentalist scholar Francis Schaeffer, has noted in Op. Ed. Times that his father said very bad things about America, even at times suggesting the violent overthrow of the U. S. government. Yet he was not excoriated by the media or the government.. Instead, he was invited to lunch at the White House by Presidents Ford, Reagan, and Bush. It is important to note however, that the senior Mr. Schaeffer was not denouncing America for racial inequality.
As you wrote, prophets aren’t usually listened to, at least not for a long time, and have been even less attended to since 9/11, so there’s a good chance they won’t be in the present moment either. A “good” (white, active Catholic) man just last night in the presence of his family told me a black man he was near asked who nigger-rigged something, and then my friend said “a nigger did”. He told me then that that word doesn’t mean anything anymore, even though he also said the guy look up very startled. What could i say? I said several things, but nothing had an effect, as I had supposed. Guess I should’ve knelt down and prayed.
While on a site which proclaims to be a faith based justice seeking organization I understand I will find myself in the minority, however i feel as though the historical narrative promulgated by white conservatives in America is anchored in a feeling of divine righteousness. It is this false conception of a divinely inspired nation which allows the grevious faults of our past to be overlooked. Viewing history as an inevitable process which strives towards a goal, a method of perception endemic in religious thought, permits the failures of our ancestors to be excused simply as regrettable, if not entirely necessary. We must critique history in a solely this worldly manner and realize that we are the tangible results of our historical confluences. As such we must be familiar all of our history and the circumstances surrounding it in order to understand our nuanced existence. When individuals, regardless of race, status or economic circumstance, attempt to indentify themselves with the history of people deemed to be sufficiently like them they fail to grasp the connection which is inherent in the human speicies. The history of the modern United States of America is composed not just of the founders whose intellect laid down the tenets of our country with which we are still familiar, and the enslaved africans upon whose blood and sweat the infrastructure of our nation was build, but on the great civilizations of Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, China and the early America’s who helped to advance the conscious of humanity and formed the foundation of all of today’s civilizations. When we ignore any of humanities past, regardless of how trivial it may now seem, we ignore a piece of ourselves.
Rev. Dr. Bean:
While Rev. Wright may be factually off point with his AIDS assertions. For many to just say this, but not offer at least a brief as to what are the actual origins. We’ve been inundated about the transmission routes, that the disease took. The need for that indepth historical account still remains.
The same would hold true for how cocaine (and guns) flooded certain neighborhoods. Surely we can agree that pure greed was a strong motive, but let us also remember Oliver North, and the clandestine financing of the anti-Sandinista operations. Was this the first time that such machinations had been executed? Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the San Jose Mercury News, author Peter Dale Scott and others think not. (http://books.google.com/books?id=FVNRG-KA9WgC&dq=%22cocaine+politics%22&pg=PP1&ots=Lkiphf39J8&sig=lQQo4UudSBNE1SF6pMcCwZZCUXc&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=jTb&q=%22cocaine+politics%22&btnG=Search&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail
In this age of blog as wiki and wiki as blog, one can easily link to brief accounts and references. To merely say that a claim is incorrect still leaves a matter shroud in ignorance.
In Service of THE ONENESS,
Rafiki “The Digital Doctor” Cai
Thank you to all who have left comments. To Rafiki, I am aware of the Ollie North association with the origins of the crack epidemic and believe there’s more to the story than is generally believed. On the other hand, crack was introduced into poor communities as a poor man’s form of cocaine, which is why I maintain that the primary explanation for the crack epidemic is economic. Poverty shaped both the marketing strategy and the market. I confess, I have no earthly idea how AIDS originated and I doubt Rev. Wright does either. That’s why I consider some of his comments vulnerable to criticism.
On the other hand, as Charles suggests, far more outlandish (and much more hateful) statements have been made by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson et al and their political favorites have never had to explain why they hang out with these guys. Preachers of every stripe see the hand of God in current events–but only the more progressive politicians have to answer the hard questions. Somehow, it simply isn’t as threatening that Bush backs a guy who links 9-11 to gays, the ACLU and People for the American Way than it is for Obama to be close to a guy who links 9-11 to American imperialism. I think Betsy is on target when she says that Rev. Wright is being unfairly demonized.
Finally, my thanks to Ian for his thoughtful comment. The prophets of the Old Testament didn’t generally see the future as unfolding in an inevitable way–they spoke in terms of either-or, blessing or curse. They did, however, associate obedience with blessing and disobedience with curse. If you don’t buy that line I won’t try to persuade you otherwise, but it’s kind of what-goes-around-comes-around on a cosmic scale.
The idea of history unfolding toward an inevitable end point can certainly be found in the Bible, but the pure form of the idea is Hegelian–which is why it came to full flower in Marxism and classical liberal theology. Around the turn of the 20th century it was commonly believed by liberal preachers that the millennium was right around the corner. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out so well.
Thanks to all for sharing.
Excellent piece as always, and especially the comments.
Of course, the Republican nominee, John McCain, has had to explain his affiliation with Falwell, chastising him in 2000 when McCain lost to Bush and the religious right, making peace with the esteemed reverend later (recanting his words that Falwell is “an agent of intolerance”). Watch the Meet the Press clip here:
http://mccain.bravenewfilms.org/blog/578-mccain-jerry-falwell-no-agent-of-intolerance
As for history-as-teleology, it’s true that Marx borrowed heavily from Hegel to craft his theory of human progress, but of course that history is the history of conflict (primarily class, according to Marx) and unfolds not just according to a monotonically increasing justice narrative, but along a dialectic of back-and-forth forces.
I wonder why Bill Kristol has nothing to say about Pastor John Hagee’s support of McCain, this pastor who wants war with Iran now, and well, if that provokes Armageddon, so much the better. What about that, Bill Kristol? What about that, Tim Russert? What about that, American news media? What about that, John McCain? And this is not partisan. This is not pro-Obama. This is a plea for fairness in the way the media presents the issues.
I believe Obamas Preacher is right. I also believe that the founding fathers knew what they were doing when they placed the checks and balances system into the constitution that is cast away right now. They knew first hand what an uncontrolled government would do, and we are seeing it here now and can see it throught history. Work groups, religions, races and many other factors have been the targets of rouge governments throught history.
Are we so blind to think that this can and is not happening here?
You better check yourself again, or be decieved.
By the way, I am white.
Poet Langston Hughes once wrote, “Let America be America again, the land that never has been yet…”. It is a long and rambling poem about the origins and the potential of a great concept that has yet to materialize. We, the people, have the power to make these ‘self-evident’ truths a reality. It will not be easy and there are many who would hamper any push toward that end. Fortunately, Obama, his supporters and people, like myself are hopeful optimists who hold firm in the belief that a brighter future is possible. To end this little rant, I will again quote the aforementioned poet:
“Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!”