Talking About Race, Pt.2: Wright is Right

These are some clips, aired on O'Reilly's show on FOX, of the now infamous Rev. Jeremiah Wright sermonizing. Watching them, I am almost more amazed by O'Reilly's reaction than by the actual content of the sermons themselves (and of course FOX assembled these for maximum damage). "There's some offensive material coming up," he warns, yet what follows - the material that blew up in Barack Obama's lap three weeks ago - is hardly as offensive as I imagined. (I admit, I watched these clips for the first time just yesterday)

The political crisis caused by the broadcasting of these sermons strikes me as quite silly, yet entirely representative of the profound ignorance that many white Americans have of the black church. After all, the black church in America was founded as a response to the fact that they were being kept out of white churches in the south - race was written into the very founding of the cultural institution, so is it any surprise that race relations still continue to play a role there? Furthermore, Rev. Wright is drawing upon a long tradition of black liberation theology, a lineage that includes Martin Luther King amongst its ranks. The basic premise here is that racial justice in America is a Biblical commandment, and that the church should be a place of organization about social justice issues. It is a movement that puts race issues and politics to the forefront of the religious discussion. As Michael Eric Dyson pointed out on Talk of the Nation this week, ML King said many of the same things that Wright did. It is intriguing to imagine how King would be received in today's world of youtube and cell phone cameras.

Anyways, for all the "anti-American," "hate-mongering," "racist" flap that these clips have generated, I found them to be quite benign. This whole issue is shedding a lot more light on the mainstream media, Hillary Clinton, and American culture in general than it is casting aspersions on Obama's character and political judgment. His speech on the issue only fortified my support for the candidate, since a whole-sale denouncement would have defanged some very legitimate concerns in the black community. As much as I loath the phrase, denouncing Wright would have been "selling out."

Let's just step back from all of the noise and look at three of the inflammatory things Wright actually said:

- Barack Obama knows what it means to be living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people.

To me, this statement is a no-brainer. There is little controversy behind the irrefutable fact that money drives the mechanisms of American power, both politically and economically, and whites have far greater wealth than do blacks. We could all drudge up some data to prove this point, but it's self-evident. So where's the controversy behind this statement?

- The government gives them [black people] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law, and then wants us to sing "God Bless America." No, no, no - not "God Bless America" - God damn America.

I'm not going to argue the theological point presented here (that God damns America); rather, let's move beyond the justified sense of anger and frustration to look at the reasons for Wright's indictment. The reverend is touching upon a deep and complex set of interrelationships between drugs, crime, and imprisonment that is born disproportionately by the black community (and black men in particular). For an in-depth break-down of some of the data, go here. To summarize: over 45% of prison inmates in the US are black, and the majority of these are doing time on drug charges. With mandatory sentencing guidelines (something that was thankfully overturned just a couple months ago), possession of crack cocaine and other controlled substances that are prevalent in black communities receive far stricter punishments than "whiter" drugs like powder cocaine. When mandatory sentencing guidelines were in full effect, 10 grams of crack carried the same weight as 100 grams of cocaine. As Welch and Angulo write: "Our criminal laws, while facially neutral, are enforced in a manner that is massively and pervasively biased. The injustices of the criminal justice system threaten to render irrelevant fifty years of hard-fought civil rights progress."

This has created a devastating blight on American blacks. According the the Justice Department's own figures (presented in a study by Human Rights Watch), over 28% of black males born in America today will spend some time in prison during their lifetimes. Over 28%. This means that black communities are being denied a shamefully large proportion of their productive workforce, their fathers, and their husbands.

And what about the drugs themselves that are ruining so many lives, both through the deleterious effects of the substances themselves and through biased sentencing practices? While Wright's claim the "the government" is giving drugs to people is hyperbolic, it is based on facts that have become well-known in the black community. The CIA has been complicit in heroin and cocaine importation for many years, an unfortunate history documented in Alfred McCoy's startling book (see also Alexis's post from February). Crack began its destructive life in inner-city black neighbors as a direct result of the CIA's funding of contra groups in Central America: since these organizations' chief source of cash was cocaine, the CIA looked the other way to allow anti-Communist forces to fund-raise at will. Of course, the biggest victims of the CIA's complicity in the international drug trade are poor black people. This may sound conspiratorial, but it is too well documented to deny.

Again, returning to the reverend, can we blame him for his anger over this issue? While his sermon leaves out a lot of nuance, it is factually accurate in many key ways.

- We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now being brought right back into our own front yards.

I don't want to debate US foreign policy in regard to Israel and apartheid South Africa (and all the other places Wright didn't mention). Nevertheless, we should all be conscious of the fact that "terror," as is narrowly defined by the administration, is not a monopoly of Islamic extremism. America is and has been complicit in acts of terror all over the globe, and even a partial elucidation of this fact would quickly eat up this whole post. Any reader of Noam Chomsky knows this very well.

Is Wright a racist? If he were to get up in his sermons and say that white people are stupid as a result of their inferior genes, I'd say "yes." But Wright doesn't say this. No, he says that rich white people control the culture and government of the US. This is not a racist statement - it's a diagnosis of the power structure in America. And it is an accurate one.

Is Wright anti-American? Sure, he is certainly critical of US policies. But does this make him "anti-"? Osama bin Laden hates America - it's safe to say that he's a dyed-in-the-wool anti-American; but Rev. Wright is simply angry at what the American government has done. Confusing just criticism - even when it comes in the form of a fiery, passionate sermon - with "anti-American," a term that implies a level of hate, is completely unfair. Furthermore, it minimalizes the very real and legitimate grievances about which Wright speaks. Would O'Reilly really suggest that the drug/prison issue for blacks is truly good, justified, balanced, and unbiased? I don't see how he could.

We as a culture need to get away from this Bushian frame of mind that sees all criticism and justified anger as "America hating." I wouldn't stand behind every word Rev. Wright uttered, but I do see the validity of his claims and the authenticity of his frustration. It's also important to remember that this sort of fiery oratory on race and politics is part of long tradition of black liberation theology - when we yank statements out of their specific cultural context, of course people will misunderstand them.

As I started out this post saying, this whole debacle is shedding a lot more light on the mainstream media, Clinton (who is profiting from it instead of seeking to quell the flames), and mainstream American (white) culture in general, than it is on Obama. The level of self-righteous indignation and pure ignorance that many people are showing towards Wright (and by extension, Obama) is much more startling than what Wright said. I hope that we as smart consumers of media will check our knee-jerk reactions to an "angry black man" at the door and put this farce to rest.