I think this entire issue is really more simple than people are making it out to be...
With no offense toward Rev. Wright, he obviously likes the spotlight. He comes off as the type of person who gets people to think by making a
statement that is controversial and then letting them wrap their minds around it. A lot of people do this, he just happens to be on the cusp of one of
the most news covered political campaigns in history.
Rev. Wright helped bring Obama closer to God (something Obama himself says), he married Obama and his wife, he was a spiritual mentor to Obama. I
think in a lot of ways Wright feels like he helped make Obama. Now Obama is getting all of the attention, and Wright is still preaching at his church
(admittedly a VERY large church) in Chicago. I think Wright feels shortchanged because he isn't getting any attention, and the guy he feels like he
helped create is getting a lot of attention.
Then Wright gets thrown into the mix and gets his 15 minutes of fame (when the video of his first sermon was released) and he starts salivating. A guy
like Wright won't settle for just 15 minutes. Like I said earlier, he likes the spotlight, and doesn't want to give it up.
So are some things that are apparent:
1.) Wright likes the spotlight
2.) He chooses to make his points by making controversial statements
3.) He feels that at some point in the mix of things it is harder in America to be an outspoken black person than it is to be an outspoken white
person
4.) He has a book coming out in November
I think Wright has "become a charicature of himself" as Obama said. He got into the spotlight and wants to stay. I believe Obama when he says that
Wright is no longer the person he once knew (or thought he knew).
Obama has done the right thing. He has discontinued his association with a man who is saying some very inflammatory things simply because he has a
louder voice to say them with now that he is being covered by the national news.
Wright doesn't speak for Obama anymore than Obama should have to apologize for what Wright says now that he has dissassociated himself with the Rev.
It is as simple as that...
Obama is the best candidate up there. No person has motivated and inspired people to participate in the political process (from both parties, for
various reasons) like he has. It is a shame that with so much inspiration and excitement around a campaign, there is an equal amount of skepticism and
bitterness. I think Wright surprised Obama by choosing to be on the bitter side rather than the inspired side...
Rev. Wright, More then just an attempt to smear Obama?, page 2
privacy
reply posted on 30-4-2008 @ 10:40 AM by grover
reply to post by RabbitChaser
AMEN AMEN AMEN!!! Not only has it been taken out of context but it has been run with for no other reason than the talking heads (not the excellent band) need something to talk about... It really does not matter what his preacher says.
I know some good and decent people who go to the Thomas Roads Baptist Church (Jerry Foulwell's) and did not agree with his hawking of a video on his old time gospel hour and at his church accusing the Clinton's of everything including murder and treason and god knows what else... still while they objected to what he was doing they did not leave his church. Just because they attended didn't mean they agree with every thing foulwell (yes I know how its spelled) said and did.
The simple truth of the matter is that black America has (rightfully so) a totally different take on America than white Americans have and it is often not flattering... and many on the right and in the media neither accept this or understand it, if only because they refuse to.
Obama is no more responsible for what the Rev. Wright says than my friends have for jerry foulwell and his opinions.
It is the media and only the media that are making all of this an issue.
AMEN AMEN AMEN!!! Not only has it been taken out of context but it has been run with for no other reason than the talking heads (not the excellent band) need something to talk about... It really does not matter what his preacher says.
I know some good and decent people who go to the Thomas Roads Baptist Church (Jerry Foulwell's) and did not agree with his hawking of a video on his old time gospel hour and at his church accusing the Clinton's of everything including murder and treason and god knows what else... still while they objected to what he was doing they did not leave his church. Just because they attended didn't mean they agree with every thing foulwell (yes I know how its spelled) said and did.
The simple truth of the matter is that black America has (rightfully so) a totally different take on America than white Americans have and it is often not flattering... and many on the right and in the media neither accept this or understand it, if only because they refuse to.
Obama is no more responsible for what the Rev. Wright says than my friends have for jerry foulwell and his opinions.
It is the media and only the media that are making all of this an issue.
reply posted on 30-4-2008 @ 11:11 AM by Sheeper
reply to post by grover
When it comes to the selection of a president yes these things are important. How else are you going to get an uncorupted complete picture of a man if you don't delve into his actions, associations and spoken words of the past. We most certainly will never ever ever get a true account of a politician from what they say and do in the present. You have to step back and grab all the peices and begin to tac them on the wall in order to form the pattern which will always give you a more accurate picture into a mans soul.
The Wright thing is just one peice of info tacked on the wall, to say 20 years of willful indoctrination isn't going to have any affect on a mans mindset is beyond foolish, but maybe he just indulged it because he liked him and didn't really agree all that much, sure fine but we still need to take that info and tack it on the wall lest we blind ourselves willfully. The mock and smear bitter comments were devisive and most certainly don't help to unify us infact quite the opposite, so tack that up there. The quotes from his own book acusing white people of all being typical in our thinking with our natural disgust of black people, and to think black people hate it when white people generalize, tack that up there. Another quote from his book where he lays out his tactics on how to fool white people you just have to be kind and act like them in order to trick them, he specifically uses the words trick and tactic, tack that little nutshell up there.
The list goes on and on and the pattern pretty much stays the same, to just gloss over the more important details of a man is to deny your brain true understanding. Sure the onion looks so nice and pretty on the outside but hidden underneith it might just be rotton to the core, if you refuse to peel away the layers you won't find out untill it's too late.
[edit on 30-4-2008 by Sheeper]
When it comes to the selection of a president yes these things are important. How else are you going to get an uncorupted complete picture of a man if you don't delve into his actions, associations and spoken words of the past. We most certainly will never ever ever get a true account of a politician from what they say and do in the present. You have to step back and grab all the peices and begin to tac them on the wall in order to form the pattern which will always give you a more accurate picture into a mans soul.
The Wright thing is just one peice of info tacked on the wall, to say 20 years of willful indoctrination isn't going to have any affect on a mans mindset is beyond foolish, but maybe he just indulged it because he liked him and didn't really agree all that much, sure fine but we still need to take that info and tack it on the wall lest we blind ourselves willfully. The mock and smear bitter comments were devisive and most certainly don't help to unify us infact quite the opposite, so tack that up there. The quotes from his own book acusing white people of all being typical in our thinking with our natural disgust of black people, and to think black people hate it when white people generalize, tack that up there. Another quote from his book where he lays out his tactics on how to fool white people you just have to be kind and act like them in order to trick them, he specifically uses the words trick and tactic, tack that little nutshell up there.
The list goes on and on and the pattern pretty much stays the same, to just gloss over the more important details of a man is to deny your brain true understanding. Sure the onion looks so nice and pretty on the outside but hidden underneith it might just be rotton to the core, if you refuse to peel away the layers you won't find out untill it's too late.
[edit on 30-4-2008 by Sheeper]
reply posted on 30-4-2008 @ 06:56 PM by Uphill
reply to post by grover
I agree with Grover's post, and particularly his statement that the mainstream media, and particularly media outlets on the right, are not interested in admitting that black Americans have a different perspective on this society than white Americans. When you add in the factor, however, that over 99% of those media commentators are white, the phenomenon of "white privilege" then should also be acknowledged as an important influence on what those commentators say about Rev. Wright. In the U.S., one of the first to describe "white privilege" is Peggy McIntosh, PhD, who is now a university professor. Here is a link to her landmark article on white privilege, titled "Unpacking the knapsack of white privilege":
seamonkey.ed.asu.edu...
No matter what your ethnic heritage is, that article is well worth a read. Once you become aware of white privilege, a second viewing of the Bill Moyers recent interview with Wright and those sermons in toto (not just the sound bites) shows that Wright's views expressed there are in fact within the mainstream of theology.
At the "Teaching Tolerance" website below, here are some tips that folks can use to begin to understand their own biases and assumptions about ethnicity. My favorite part was the "How Tolerant Are You?" test, which links to Project Implicit at Harvard University ... a real wake-up call:
www.tolerance.org...
I agree with Grover's post, and particularly his statement that the mainstream media, and particularly media outlets on the right, are not interested in admitting that black Americans have a different perspective on this society than white Americans. When you add in the factor, however, that over 99% of those media commentators are white, the phenomenon of "white privilege" then should also be acknowledged as an important influence on what those commentators say about Rev. Wright. In the U.S., one of the first to describe "white privilege" is Peggy McIntosh, PhD, who is now a university professor. Here is a link to her landmark article on white privilege, titled "Unpacking the knapsack of white privilege":
seamonkey.ed.asu.edu...
No matter what your ethnic heritage is, that article is well worth a read. Once you become aware of white privilege, a second viewing of the Bill Moyers recent interview with Wright and those sermons in toto (not just the sound bites) shows that Wright's views expressed there are in fact within the mainstream of theology.
At the "Teaching Tolerance" website below, here are some tips that folks can use to begin to understand their own biases and assumptions about ethnicity. My favorite part was the "How Tolerant Are You?" test, which links to Project Implicit at Harvard University ... a real wake-up call:
www.tolerance.org...
reply posted on 30-4-2008 @ 08:42 PM by Sheeper
reply to post by Uphill
You've lost it if you buy in to any of that theology, stop generalizing white people if you really want change, heres a little secret I'll let you in on, white people arn't thinking sinister things about blacks and white people arn't harboring some hidden agenda to keep the priveleges for whites only, thats just paranoid propoganda your spreading. The reality is most of the white journalists harbor more white guilt than anything and have adamantely been trying to push this scandalous stuff aside and whats this 99% of these people in the media are white bs, did you just pull that statistic out of your a##. And are you honestly suggesting that the reason "those white people" try to slander Rev. Wright is because of some hidden bigotry or racism? You don't think it's maybe, I don't know because Rev. Wright is obviously a racist with a political mindset long since dated.
Were never going to "change" anything untill that kind of thinking dies with the generation that ignorantly holds on to it. If you want to talk about mindsets atleas acknoweldge that such a mindset is unhealthy and unfounded, welcome to 2008, my name is Justin and I don't have a racist bone in my body much like(hold on reaching into my a@@) 99% of white people. Seriously yours or any assumptions you can dig up are not true for most white people.
[edit on 30-4-2008 by Sheeper]
You've lost it if you buy in to any of that theology, stop generalizing white people if you really want change, heres a little secret I'll let you in on, white people arn't thinking sinister things about blacks and white people arn't harboring some hidden agenda to keep the priveleges for whites only, thats just paranoid propoganda your spreading. The reality is most of the white journalists harbor more white guilt than anything and have adamantely been trying to push this scandalous stuff aside and whats this 99% of these people in the media are white bs, did you just pull that statistic out of your a##. And are you honestly suggesting that the reason "those white people" try to slander Rev. Wright is because of some hidden bigotry or racism? You don't think it's maybe, I don't know because Rev. Wright is obviously a racist with a political mindset long since dated.
Were never going to "change" anything untill that kind of thinking dies with the generation that ignorantly holds on to it. If you want to talk about mindsets atleas acknoweldge that such a mindset is unhealthy and unfounded, welcome to 2008, my name is Justin and I don't have a racist bone in my body much like(hold on reaching into my a@@) 99% of white people. Seriously yours or any assumptions you can dig up are not true for most white people.
[edit on 30-4-2008 by Sheeper]
reply posted on 1-5-2008 @ 09:21 AM by christiansoldier
reply to post by RabbitChaser
Good post Rabbitchaser, I couldn't agree more. I do think that much of white America is alot more prejudiced than they would like to admit. I think they are afraid of being called racists if they objected to Obama, so they are venting their vitriole on Rev. Wright. I'll bet the majority of people on this thread (or anywhere else) have actually listened to the entire interview of him with Bill Moyers. I think alot of whites are afraid of a powerful, selfl-empowered black man who speaks the truth about our country. I've been listening to this man, I watched the whole interview with Bill Moyers and have yet to find anything he has said that isn't true.
What I see here on this thread, is that people are making all kinds of assumptions about him without providing any evidence or even any reasons why they fell they way they do about him. Arrogant, attention-seeking, Moslem - can anyone provide evidence of these claims? If you had seen the interview then you would know that this is a man who holds integrity very high, who is obviously educated (he has two Master's and a Doctorate), is extremely articulate and is soft-spoken and thoughtful about what he says. He speaks the truth and people don't like to hear the truth, not so blatantly anyway.
Good post Rabbitchaser, I couldn't agree more. I do think that much of white America is alot more prejudiced than they would like to admit. I think they are afraid of being called racists if they objected to Obama, so they are venting their vitriole on Rev. Wright. I'll bet the majority of people on this thread (or anywhere else) have actually listened to the entire interview of him with Bill Moyers. I think alot of whites are afraid of a powerful, selfl-empowered black man who speaks the truth about our country. I've been listening to this man, I watched the whole interview with Bill Moyers and have yet to find anything he has said that isn't true.
What I see here on this thread, is that people are making all kinds of assumptions about him without providing any evidence or even any reasons why they fell they way they do about him. Arrogant, attention-seeking, Moslem - can anyone provide evidence of these claims? If you had seen the interview then you would know that this is a man who holds integrity very high, who is obviously educated (he has two Master's and a Doctorate), is extremely articulate and is soft-spoken and thoughtful about what he says. He speaks the truth and people don't like to hear the truth, not so blatantly anyway.
reply posted on 1-5-2008 @ 10:46 AM by LLoyd45
A very disturbing issue I find with Barack Obama and the Reverend Wright is the doctrine upon which their church bases it's worship and
Black Value System upon, Black Liberation
Theology.
I was watching a taped interview the other night with Reverend Wright conducted by Sean Hannity. Wright made a big point of saying that you could not possibly understand his Church's Black Value System, if you knew nothing of Black Liberation Theology and James Cone. This made me curious, so I did a little research on James Cone. What I found was rather disturbing..
James Cone's book Black Theology & Black Power was up to last year singled out as a required reading for Trinity parishioners.
How Obama can claim to want racial Unity after undergoing years of Reverend Wright's mentorship and listening to his sermons predicated on this doctrine confounds me.
Another disturbing matter is why does Reverend Wright have Nation of Islam bodyguards for his security? Is he that close with Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam?
[edit on 5/1/08 by LLoyd45]
I was watching a taped interview the other night with Reverend Wright conducted by Sean Hannity. Wright made a big point of saying that you could not possibly understand his Church's Black Value System, if you knew nothing of Black Liberation Theology and James Cone. This made me curious, so I did a little research on James Cone. What I found was rather disturbing..
James Cone defines the theology thus:
"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love."[
James Cone's book Black Theology & Black Power was up to last year singled out as a required reading for Trinity parishioners.
How Obama can claim to want racial Unity after undergoing years of Reverend Wright's mentorship and listening to his sermons predicated on this doctrine confounds me.
Another disturbing matter is why does Reverend Wright have Nation of Islam bodyguards for his security? Is he that close with Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam?
[edit on 5/1/08 by LLoyd45]
reply posted on 1-5-2008 @ 03:39 PM by christiansoldier
Well, one of your links is to a Zionist website which says "there are no diplomatic solutions" right on its front webpage. They would seem to be
extremists and biased.
www.tucc.org...
Here is the website for Wright's church. There is nothing in there about oppressing whites.
Also, here is an article from Wikipedia on black liberation theology:
en.wikipedia.org...
Article on James Cone from wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org...
A quote from the Wiki article on James Cone:
"Cone told Newsweek that in Obama's rhetoric "the fierce urgency of now comes from his church," and he views Obama as a prophetic figure who, like King, embodies the wish for "a society without racial conflict and racial oppression."
"Embodies the wish for a society without racial conflict and racial oppression." Sounds good to me. I don't see anything anti-white about that statement. He sounds like he is trying to empower the Black community, which is a good thing IMHO, it needs it.
www.tucc.org...
Here is the website for Wright's church. There is nothing in there about oppressing whites.
Also, here is an article from Wikipedia on black liberation theology:
en.wikipedia.org...
Article on James Cone from wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org...
A quote from the Wiki article on James Cone:
"Cone told Newsweek that in Obama's rhetoric "the fierce urgency of now comes from his church," and he views Obama as a prophetic figure who, like King, embodies the wish for "a society without racial conflict and racial oppression."
"Embodies the wish for a society without racial conflict and racial oppression." Sounds good to me. I don't see anything anti-white about that statement. He sounds like he is trying to empower the Black community, which is a good thing IMHO, it needs it.
reply posted on 2-5-2008 @ 08:53 AM by grover
reply to post by Sheeper
I have to disagree with you... like I mentioned before just because a pastor has one set of views does not mean all of his congragation has to adopt them in situ... people often go to churches because they are either convienient or because they know everybody there or because it is the most prominat one in their area to see and be seen... theology often takes a back pew as it were.
As for indoctrination what if I were to tell you that bush minor was educated into fundamentalism by a pastor close to the christian reconstructionist movement whose worldview is to bring about the end of days? How would you judge him then?
By all accounts Obama is a very smart and (obviously) articulate man and is obviously intelligent enough to think for himself and pick and chose what to accept from what anyone says. pastor, pundit or politician.
Also keep in mind that there are many white funnymentalist preachers who have damned America as well and claimed that disasters were God's punishment for our ways and that we deserve whatever we get because of it. And some are quite prominant... Pat Robertson (as does Sun Yung Moon)...comes to mind immeadiately but there are others. To critize Rev. Wright when you let the others pass is hypocritical.
Instead of paying attention to Sean Hannity and his mindless dribble try watching Bill Moyer's interview with Rev. Wright on his PBS program... Bill Moyer's Journal. Now there is an intelligent conservation.
[edit on 2-5-2008 by grover]
I have to disagree with you... like I mentioned before just because a pastor has one set of views does not mean all of his congragation has to adopt them in situ... people often go to churches because they are either convienient or because they know everybody there or because it is the most prominat one in their area to see and be seen... theology often takes a back pew as it were.
As for indoctrination what if I were to tell you that bush minor was educated into fundamentalism by a pastor close to the christian reconstructionist movement whose worldview is to bring about the end of days? How would you judge him then?
By all accounts Obama is a very smart and (obviously) articulate man and is obviously intelligent enough to think for himself and pick and chose what to accept from what anyone says. pastor, pundit or politician.
Also keep in mind that there are many white funnymentalist preachers who have damned America as well and claimed that disasters were God's punishment for our ways and that we deserve whatever we get because of it. And some are quite prominant... Pat Robertson (as does Sun Yung Moon)...comes to mind immeadiately but there are others. To critize Rev. Wright when you let the others pass is hypocritical.
Instead of paying attention to Sean Hannity and his mindless dribble try watching Bill Moyer's interview with Rev. Wright on his PBS program... Bill Moyer's Journal. Now there is an intelligent conservation.
[edit on 2-5-2008 by grover]
reply posted on 3-5-2008 @ 11:17 PM by RabbitChaser
Unknowingly, I backed up the OP's views on this topic again, when I posted this thread of my own...
Glenn Beck -- Hypocrite or Shill
It is clear that Wright is anti-gov't at this point in time (like many of you reading this). Anything else has been placed on 'the back-burner' -- as is the case with the majority of the people who can actually see what is going on and do not like where this country is now, nor where it is headed.
[edit on 5/3/2008 by RabbitChaser]
Glenn Beck -- Hypocrite or Shill
It is clear that Wright is anti-gov't at this point in time (like many of you reading this). Anything else has been placed on 'the back-burner' -- as is the case with the majority of the people who can actually see what is going on and do not like where this country is now, nor where it is headed.
[edit on 5/3/2008 by RabbitChaser]
The President of the World... I think EVERY ATS member should see this.
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