Pop quiz. Who said the following?
1. The United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own "terrorism."
A: Sen. Barack Obama
B: Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., his pastor
2. "‘God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America."
A: Obama
B: Wright
3. "Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty."
A: Obama
B: Wright
4. "[America] started the AIDS virus."
A: Obama
B: Wright
5. "Hillary ain't never been called a n****r!"
A: Obama
B: Wright
Pencils down. In case you're wondering, the correct answers are B, B,
B, B and B. I imagine that everyone scored pretty well--even those of
you haven't switched on CNN, MSNBC or FOX News (which first broadcast the video above) in the past 48 hours to watch the
talking heads pontificate endlessly about how Wright is hampering
Obama's presidential hopes. Because even though Wright was, until his
retirement last month, Obama's pastor at Trinity United Church of
Christ on the South Side of Chicago; even though Obama has described
Mr. Wright as his "sounding board"; even though Obama borrowed the
title of his bestseller "The Audacity of Hope" from one of Wright's
sermons; and even though Wright married Obama and wife and baptized his
children, only an irrational person could possibly imagine Obama uttering,
believing or condoning any of these inflammatory, often offensive,
statements.
Which is why Wright poses a problem for Obama. Irrational people,
of course, will simply allow Wright's
remarks to confirm, by association, whatever biases they already held
toward Obama--that he's a "foreigner," or an "anti-American," or an
"angry black man." But rational
people will react as well, wondering, I think, why the Illinois senator
has spent nearly 20 years of his life choosing to
attend a church where stuff like this--stuff that seems to contradict
his core values of unity and healing, and that Obama himself has
repeatedly rejected--was sometimes said. I don't put Wright's frequent
remarks on institutional racism and black struggles into this category;
while they might make some folks uncomfortable, they remain firmly
within the black theological tradition. But the comments above (and any others like them)?
Absolutely. "Like many people, I wouldn't sit through one of these
sermons, let alone come back for more," writes the Atlantic's Andrew
Sullivan, one of Obama's smartest and staunchest supporters. "It would
be helpful, to say the very least, if Obama told us more candidly why
he did and does."
I'd prefer not to dwell on the irrational side of the equation; there's
really no closing that can of worms once it's opened (and it was open
long before Wright). But the rational question--why keep attending
Trinity?--is an important one. In a statement published Friday afternoon
on the Huffington Post, Obama writes, as expected, that he "strongly
condemn[s]," "outright rejects," "categorically denounce[s]" and
"vehemently disagree[s]" with Wright's "inflammatory and appalling"
remarks, adding that "these particular statements by Rev. Wright are... contrary to
my own life and beliefs." Which, of course, only makes Sullivan's question--which Obama calls "legitimate"--all the more relevant. He gives a two part answer. First, the senator
says that "the statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of
this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach
while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private
conversation." There's no reason to doubt that this is true in a narrow sense, but still--it isn't particularly convincing. After nearly two decades,
Obama was surely aware of Wright's more controversial tendencies. Thankfully, the second half of the senator's explanation--that Wright's remarks don't represent
the real spirit of his
church--is considerably more compelling:
[Wright] led a diverse congregation that was and still is a pillar of
the South Side and the entire city of Chicago. It's a congregation that
does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through
ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those
with HIV/AIDS. The sermons I heard him preach always related to our
obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor,
and to seek justice at every turn.
This, I think, gets at Obama's larger reason for sticking with
Trinity.
Raised by his secular white mother in Hawaii and Indonesia, a
post-collegiate Obama arrived in Chicago desperate
for a sense of community and eager to establish his identity, after
years of self-doubt, as a black American. He found both in the church.
Describing his first experience at Trinity in 1995's
"Dreams from My Father", Obama writes that "at the foot of that cross,
inside the
thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of
ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath,
Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of
dry bones. Those stories--of survival, and freedom, and hope--became
our story, my story... Our trials and triumphs became at once unique
and universal, black and more than black." It wasn't that he accepted
everything Wright said, or everything the church stood for--much like
most religious Americans. (Consider how Jerry Falwell's outrageous
views, for example, have colored perceptions of evangelical Christians
as a whole.) In fact, Obama admitted from the start that "part of me
continued to feel that this Sunday communion
sometimes simplified our condition, that it could sometimes disguise or
suppress the very real conflicts among us." But to him the good far
outweighed the bad.
I guess the voters now get to decide whether or not they agree.
UPDATE, 7:30 p.m.: The Obama campaign sends word
that "Rev. Wright is no longer serving on the African American
Religious Leadership Committee," severing his only formal tie to the
campaign--a la Samantha Power and Geraldine Ferraro.
