Day By Day

Monday, April 28, 2008

Reverend Wright's Rants

Today Obama's mentor and pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, gave his speech at the National Press Club today. Last night he spoke at an NCAA function. Both were televised. These were billed as views into the real man, not the ranting racist lunatic we have seen all too much of in recent weeks.

Well, if anything, Wright on good behavior is even worse than the chanting fool of the videos. A few observations:

The guy is hard-core racist. He believes that blacks and whites have different mental and emotional capacities due to their different evolutionary history. Guess which genetic endowment he judges to be superior. This is the same Afrocentric nonsense we have been hearing from Black radicals for generations now and it arrives full-blown in the mouthings of the "moderate" minister.

Wright's talk of "reconciliation" between the races consists exclusively of Whites giving handouts to Blacks and begging them for forgiveness.

Wright's view of history is terribly restricted, consisting of a seemingly interminable listing of suffering inflicted by Whites upon Blacks. Essentially, it's nothing different from what you would hear from any of the other Revs. [Sharpton or Jackson]. The guy is just another grievance monger.

He also reaffirmed that Obama is just an ordinary politician who says and does what politicians do to get elected. In other words the fine young senator is not the transcendental figure his faithful believe he is.

The best response I can imagine to the outraged reverend is contained in this wonderful poem by my favorite contemporary poet, Jack Gilbert:

A Brief for the Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.


[emphasis mine]

Praising the Devil indeed.