Doing The Wright Thing

The following is in response to an emailed response I received from an old college friend and fellow Obama supporter, to whom I posed the question of what she thought regarding the whole Rev. Wright situation. I've included her inital response to the question, to provide context, followed by my response.


"From the moment I first heard the sound bites I thought, 'People like Ted & I will probably agree with or at least understand where he’s coming from as soon as we hear the whole context. But sooooo many others are going to have a big problem with this!' And I was right. We totally get the whole “chickens coming home to roost” sort of thing and the fact that God does not bless the bad things we do. I admire Rev. Wright. And even though I think this will hurt Obama, I admire the way Rev. Wright will not back away from defending what he believes and speaking the truth as he sees it! I also understand Obama’s response in distancing himself from someone who will cause “divisiveness”. Obama’s goal is to bring everyone together in order to move forward together.

"What do you think?"


My response:

What I think is, "Thank you", for seeing this as I see it. I totally agree with what you just wrote. Rev. Wright is not saying anything that hasn't been said within the black community for a number of years. I think it's unfortunate regarding the timing of this with Obama running for president and I hope this doesn't have an adverse effect on his candidacy. But sometimes when you speak the truth, you run the risk of alienating and dividing people. The Old Testament prophets were considered crazy for their preaching, too. And it's been noted that a sermon that Dr. King was working on before his death, was titled, "Why America May Go To Hell"; he was vilified for his stance against the Vietnam War, saying that America was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. But as always, America has short-term memory, as evidenced by how we choose to remember him every February and on his birthday. And why is what Rev. Wright's been saying any more outrageous than anything Jerry Falwell, Pastor Hagee, or Pat Robertson have said and been saying for years? Why hasn't the media focused on those statements like they have with Wright?(I don't think I need to answer that, if you know what I mean). I hope down the line that Obama and Rev. Wright can sit down and work this out--it would be like disavowing the knowledge of having an uncle. And I also hope that Obama can move forward and that people will see through the media smokescreen and diversion that this is and see Obama for the person that he appears to be and wants to be as president and that is, someone who does want to unify us and move this country forward.



Besides, we've had 8 years of a president who claims Christ as his favorite philosopher and yet, has no intention of admitting he was wrong about the war or of trying to get us out of it; who dropped the ball on Katrina; and wants to put the blame for the economy on Congress, but yet wants to continue to send billions and billions of dollars to Iraq. And they say that Wright is divisive? Or Obama, for having gone to his church? Don't get me started!! "Nuff said!!