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celticlord2112 -> RE: Interesting Quotes from Obama's Pastor (3/21/2008 11:36:31 AM)
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ORIGINAL: RealityLicks
Outrage suggests that you find racism the most heinous crime imaginable. If you have that sentiment in common with your fellow Americans, why is there so much racism in your society? Outrage is justified if someone challenges every racist he encounters and still wants to do more, when I suspect most white Americans are nowhere near so concerned about it.
Outrage suggests that I don't like being called racist. Outrage suggests that I reject the notion that racist thinking can be altered by racial rhetoric.
Outrage is justified if a man is not a racist and is called one.
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Come on celtic, we're talking about a pastor trying to keep his congregation awake with a little theatricality. I'm not a religious person but if I know this is part of the play, you ought to too. Like Wright, and you, the kids in that church will go on to leave school, join the Marines and then adopt calm, productive lives in suburbs bounded by white picket fences and indignance at impropriety. It's not some satanic malediction aimed at fermenting hatred but a reminder of teh challenges they face.
"God damn America" is a malediction. Moreover, in the vocabulary of Christianity, it is the worst malediction. That is what it is to say "God damn".
Wright is not a high school athletics coach whipping up fervor before a big game. He is preaching to his church--and he is preaching a curse upon America. "God damn America" is cursing America. There is not a second interpretation for that phrase.
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All fair assumptions, however as Obama has made abundantly clear, it's not the letter of the sermon but the spirit of it that should concern you. If racism offends you so much, why not a single thought for how you are going to bridge the gap between yourself and your compatriots? How does "outrage" help, exactly?
Given that those same sermons accuse the government of selling drugs to black people, as well as creating the AIDS epidemic, I fail to see where the spirit is vastly different from the letter.
Moreover, I bridge that gap every day in my personal and professional life. When I said I am not a racist I mean exactly that. I react to people not based on the color of their skin but on what they do, and what they say. That is how I live my life. You do not know me, so you will have to take me at my word.
As I have stated elsewhere, I would be less troubled by Wright's racist rhetoric were he not Obama's longtime spiritual teacher, and were Obama not running for high office. If you think my outrage is misplaced because I do not want a man who has blithely sat and listened to that manner of venom for 20 years occupying the Oval Office, then you are sadly mistaken. My outrage is placed exactly where it belongs.
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You're really warming to your theme now. Are you enjoying your outrage? Just a little bit? The highlighted part is an exaggeration and you know it. Like I said elsewhere, if main street America instead of indignantly stomping their feet, grasped the nettle and accepted that there are massive divisions there, they would earn enormous respect - both at home and overseas. (It's the same story here, btw).
Where is Wright's apology? Where is Wright's acknowledgement that his statements were the theatricality your apology here makes them out to be? Not only do I not know that it was an exaggeration, the available extant evidence indicates that it is anything but exaggeration. Wright's hate-filled sermons are a pattern of several years' worth of preaching. This is not one poorly chosen phrase, but several, uttered time and again. When Wright's other sermons spread vicious rumors and lies about the US government selling drugs to black people, and spreading AIDS, how exactly am I exaggerating? When Obama's wife states that his campaign for the Presidency was the first time she felt proud of this country, how exactly am I exaggerating?
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