“Everyone else did it” A brief critique of NPR’s defense of Dr. Wright
Posted by americana83 on April 5, 2008
source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89109217 by Michel Martin
The article begins with a description of how the author’s debate coach and fellow teammates remained silent when the white host of a reception ushered her into the back room to socialize with the maid 20 years ago, and how the coach recently apologized for doing nothing.
She then launches into an attack on Dr. Wright/Obama critics by saying this:
Setting aside the fact that I question how many of these people have actually darkened the door of any house of worship in recent years…
Which leaves unanswered the question of her own “darkening the door of any house of worship.” Obviously she didn’t learn too much about theology at her United Methodist Alma mater, and how many elements of Dr. Cole’s “liberation theology” contradict scripture. (I plan on doing a thourough analysis of liberation theology once I get my copy of Dr. Cole’s book Black Power, Black Theology which is the foundational theology of Obama/Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ).
Following this, she gives several illustrations of “good” people sitting idly by while others do or say bad things. She then provides this example:
They would have sat right there just like countless good people do when their friends tell racist jokes, or when their employers refuse to return phone calls of applicants they suspect might be black or brown, or refuse to rent apartments or work with people of color.
So, because prominent figures tolerated evil, and “countless good people” tolerate evil, makes it okay to tolerate evil? I know I’m not the only person who has taken a stand against racist jokes in the work place. Last year there was a trio of neo-nazis whom I had the unpleasant experience of working with. They constantly slurred Jews, Blacks and Women using the worst possible words. They even asked me if I was Jewish. While I never considered them friends, or even open to having their minds change on those matters, they did know where I stood, and that I was offended by their vulgar langauge and hateful graffiti. You better believe it was hard. God does provide strength to say the truth when a lie would be easiest of all. At least one person I worked with at the time did try to flatter them, by saying how she would never let her child date outside his/her “race.”
What people do or don’t do doesn’t mean an action should be considered acceptible.
She goes on to say this:
I know this because, over the years, I have met too many white people who have told me how they have struggled to find their voices when language or behavior emerges from people they otherwise care about — who they believe to be good people — but who, nevertheless, say or do things they think are wrong.
Okay, but Dr. Wright’s incindiary statements have spanned decades. Not only has Barack Obama tolerated these things, but he has exposed his children to them, again and again. I can say that, if my pastor started preaching incindiary racist hate then I would walk out of the message. If, after private discussion, I could not get him to see what the bible says about race, then I would leave that church and never go back.
Just because the right thing is hard to do, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.
The author closes her article with this:
Obama has explained his relationship with his minister at some length. One is free to accept or reject his explanation. But please — spare me the moral outrage about what you would have done or would do in that situation. And just do it.
Obama has had an intimate friendship/mentorship/spiritual relationship with this man for decades. His repeated claims of ignorance and “amnesia” can only be believed if he never attended Trinity United regularly, as he has said he did. He has no excuse, regardless of what others have “gotten away with.” If he is a “devout Christian” who “prays to Jesus” as he as claimed several times, then he would have made some kind of stand. Jesus never prayed for the damnation of the Roman Empire, and they crucified him (in a legal sense).
There are plenty of things Barack Obama has done and supported that deserve “moral outrage” and I will do my part to expose them.
