Rev. Jeremiah Wright is controversial. He takes positions that challenge and disrupt the status quo. By his actions and through his statements, the man engenders discussion, contention, strife, and argument. Although he has been pastor of a large church in Chicago since 1972, it is only with the ascent of Barack Obama in American consciousness that Rev. Wright became well-known to most Americans.
Rev. Wright is pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, to which Obama belongs, and is most famous…or infamous…for an April 2003 sermon entitled “Confusing God and Government” in which he spoke the words, “Not God bless America; God damn America!”
Four days ago, the North Carolina Republican Party began running the ad below.
YouTube - North Carolina Republican Party's ad: 'Extreme' [their title]
This anti-Obama ad chastises Democratic gubernatorial candidates Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and Richard Moore for endorsing a presidential candidate who is “just too extreme for North Carolina.” By taking the “god damn” words out of context, Rev. Wright becomes radical, unpatriotic, even anti-American. But looking at the infamous quote (bolded below) in context yields an entirely opposite understanding:
“This government lied about their belief that all men were created equal. The truth is they believed that all white men were created equal. The truth is they did not even believe that white women were created equal, in creation nor civilization. The government had to pass an amendment to the Constitution to get white women the vote. Then the government had to pass an equal rights amendment to get equal protection under the law for women. The government still thinks a woman has no rights over her own body, and between Uncle Clarence (Thomas), who sexually harassed Anita Hill, and a closeted Klan court, that is a throwback to the 19th century, handpicked by Daddy Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, between Clarence and that stacked court, they are about to un-do Roe vs. Wade, just like they are about to un-do affirmative action. The government lied in its founding documents and the government is still lying today. Governments lie. The government lied about Pearl Harbor. They knew the Japanese were going to attack. Governments lie. The government lied about the Gulf of Tonkin. They wanted that resolution to get us in the Vietnam War. Governments lie. The government lied about Nelson Mandela and our CIA helped put him in prison and keep him there for 27 years. The South African government lied on Nelson Mandela. Governments lie. The government lied about the Tuskegee experiment. They purposely infected African American men with syphilis. Governments lie. The government lied about bombing Cambodia and Richard Nixon stood in front of the camera, ‘Let me make myself perfectly clear…’ Governments lie. The government lied about the drugs for arms Contra scheme orchestrated by Oliver North, and then the government pardoned all the perpetrators so they could get better jobs in the government. Governments lie. The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. Governments lie. The government lied about a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and a connection between 9.11.01 and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Governments lie. The government lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq being a threat to the United States peace. And guess what else? If they don’t find them some weapons of mass destruction, they gonna do just like the LAPD, and plant the some weapons of mass destruction. Governments lie.”
This is fiery oratory. But no student of history would deny his assertions about who was created equal by our Founding Fathers? Or about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution? Or WMD? You don’t have to agree with every one of Rev. Wright’s assertions (I find his Pearl Harbor analysis questionable and his AIDS comment laughable). It is enough if you accept that governments often lie to achieve their ends. He is preaching, not delivering a political screed or an academic paper. His litany of government-created lies asks his congregants to see the distinction between government and God.
“Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change. And I’m through now. But let me leave you with one more thing. Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontius Pilate - the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from East to West. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British government failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America?”
Wright accuses our government of treating citizens of Indian, Japanese, and African descent unfairly. Any reader of history knows that this is fact, not inflammation. Wright is right. He then ends with an “as long as” conditional:
“No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America! That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizens as less than human. God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme.”
This is not anti-American. It is a pleading that our government stop lying. And until she does, Rev. Wright shouts, she will be condemned (same root as “damn”) by God.
On Friday’s NBC Today show, John McCain asked the North Carolina Republicans to cancel the ad. “They’re not listening to me because they’re out of touch with reality and the Republican Party. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan and this kind of campaigning is unacceptable.”
Last week Bill Moyers’ PBS Journal show included a 30-minute interview with Rev. Wright. It is intelligent, probing, and offers a much fuller view of the man’s philosophy and goals than this post. If you missed it, here it is. By the end of the interview, it becomes clear that Rev. Wright is the truest kind of patriot. He eschews “my country right or wrong,” instead pointing out the wrongs and asking for citizens to call for repair of the damage.
Replace reaction with research, and truth triumphs.
* * * * *
Listen to the bleeped out “damn” in the North Carolina ad. Am I imagining that the sound has been excised in a manner that leads one to infer a more damning expletive?
2 Comments
I have two comments:
1. Yes, I agree — the bleep does sound more ‘damning’ than a ‘damn’ — it was the first thing I thought when watching. Clever of the ad-maker,yes, but highly irresponsible.
2. This morning on NPR’s All Things Considered, Nina Totenberg interviewed Justice Antonin Scalia (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89986017). One things he was quoted as saying caused me to pay a little more attention: “My Constitution is not living, it is dead.”
Now, I haven’t done the research on this, but I wonder how Scalia would respond to Rev. Wright’s statement you printed above: “This government lied about their belief that all men were created equal. The truth is they believed that all white men were created equal. The truth is they did not even believe that white women were created equal, in creation nor civilization. The government had to pass an amendment to the Constitution to get white women the vote. Then the government had to pass an equal rights amendment to get equal protection under the law for women.”
Does Scalia take issue with even the Amendments to the Constitution? By his logic, does he believe only white men should be allowed to vote? If it is written in an Amendment (and not by the founding fathers) is it therefore unacceptable? Or because it is an Amendment is it acceptable? If that is the case, how does that jive with his “dead” vs. “living” statement?
I am still in the dark on this, and welcome a more learned person on this topic to show me the light.
1. It would be interesting for a professional sound engineer to review the original sermon versus the edited ad to see if the latter has been altered or simply cut. Perhaps a reader is out there who…
2. Scalia has stated that he accepts the Amendments because they have altered the Constitution in accord with the original design for such alteration. This process, while clumsy, is entirely democratic and most importantly for Scalia, free from judicial meddling.
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