Mary Mitchell’s defense of “warrior” Wright
Here’s one response to the Obama/Wright brouhaha that lets you know why Obama may have been so reluctant to throw Wright under the bus. It seems that Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell (who is an African-American woman, a fact I mention because it’s relevant) thinks Wright has been grievously Wronged:
…[T]he notion that white pundits can dictate what constitutes unacceptable speech in the black church is repulsive to most black people…[W]hen Obama says America was “offended” by Wright’s harsh language, he isn’t speaking for or to Black America. He is speaking to White America…I don’t want to see a warrior like Wright denigrated to prove to white voters that Obama is not a radical.
I have no idea where Mitchell gets the notion that white pundits are dictating what is said in black churches. What white (and some black: see this and this) pundits are doing is responding to what is said in a small subset of black churches (and maybe even some fringe-y and Leftist white ones, for all I know—I haven’t been in attendance myself), and deciding whether they want a President who for twenty years had as his spiritual mentor a pastor who preaches that particular form of hatred and paranoia.
As Baldilocks (who knows a great deal more about this than I) recently wrote:
Here’s what I do come to defend, to stand in defense of: Christianity and Christians who are black. Jeremiah Wright defames both and speaks for neither and little obscure me will not let him use either as fig leaf…To quote myself, there is no “black church.” There is only the Church.
Mitchell herself cannot speak for the black community, either—nobody can, although she might try. It’s a group of individuals who don’t march in lockstep, nor should they. But in demanding that for the sake of unity they rally behind a racist, hatemongering demagogue like Jeremiah Wright, she certainly does them no favors and offers them no respect.
[ADDENDUM: And now I see that Baldilocks also has quite a bit to say about Mitchell and that word “dictate.”]
Wright. Shite. I’m here for the Jello Molds!
Sad to say, though, I suspect Mitchell does represent a substantial number of black Americans. I’m stunned by the enthusiastic support Wright has received from blacks at all levels.
It seems that race relations are worse than I thought and the Obama-Wright circus has made this all too clear to whites, and who knows what conclusions Asians, Hispanics, et al are drawing. Obama, whatever his motivations are, has increased the divisions in America.
…[T]he notion that white pundits can dictate what constitutes unacceptable speech in the black church is repulsive to most black people…
I would instead suggest that it’s hightime we as a society get beyond Mitchell’s kind of unscientific, sub-rational, bigoted/stereotyping – and even dehumanizing – method of dictating how any individual person must think based upon some virtually happenstance physical trait.
And it’s time we get beyond the essentially anecdotal/unscientific kind of “proof” Mitchell inherently implies in support of her bigoted dictate – seemingly arguing only that some other people with that trait might also say something equal in bigotry to what Mitchell says – such as the Rev. Wright does.
I, for one, am not going to stereotype “Blacks” as bigots simply because Mitchell and Wright are black.
In rational, scientific thinking the existence of bigotry, or subrational thinking in general, cannot be presumed a priori to be present, much less deterministically dictated by any particular person’s physical characteristics.
Nor can any individual person’s alleged “experience” be dictated or stereotyped – or claimed to have somehow been the main “determinant” – of how or what they think. Otherwise, we would all only be billiard balls.
So, as far as I can tell, essentially all Mitchell is doing in her demonstrably subrational way [since she offered no significant proof] is making a narcissistic proclamation – which is really only about herself and what she says and believes – and which sounds exactly like what some, say, white people say about “blacks”, and even about “whites” – when, likewise, such people are actually only talking about themselves – or at best about their group, the actual size of which has not yet been determined, in spite of the fact that Mitchell and people like her have tried to dictate that it must be large.
Bookworm has a non-hostile, mostly, defender of Wright and black liberation theology responding in her thread here.
http://www.bookwormroom.com/2008/04/29/jeremiah-wright-at-the-national-press-club/
For those interested in the “Other Side” so to speak, you all might be curious enough to go there.
All the work has been done for you. No debate need take place because it has already more or less resolved itself and all you have to do is to read to find out why people support Wright.
I saw this earlier as well. I kept wondering how Mitchell went through life up till now. I remember the comment that there are two Americas, one white, one black, but Micthell seems to have taken this to the extreme. I assume she was educated in an institution that also educated white people and I’m also sure some of the people in higher management at the Chicago Sun-Times are white and it was probably a white person she was hired by. Im really not sure why there is such animosity.
I did find a post from one person in the comments section reassuring:
“raw280 wrote:
“At a time when African Americans are on the cusp of watching a barrier come crashing down, up jumps a divisive issue that is being driven by those outside of the black community.”
Mary do you believe if all white people were off the earth, blacks would stop killing each other in the black community?
Would we get a hold on the high AIDS rate in the community.
Would we stop selling drugs to each other in the black community?
These are only a few examples that have nothing to do with whites or any other race. I’m a fellow Dunbar graduate and I grew up on the south side. In all that time most if not all of my pain came from within. Stop making young people believe that their happiness is controlled by outside forces. i.e. Whites, Satan, Boogyman. Our young people need to know that they are responsible for their future. No one else and definitely not “outside forces.” Stop crippling the very people I believe you love. We are not victims.”
Who exactly elected Wright to speak for all black churches anyway?
I was listening to Juan Williams talk about this and I did not get the impression that he thinks of Wright as some kind of role model.
Obama’s core appeal is that he’s not an Al Sharpton-Jesse Jackson-style “black” politician.
His patrilineage is decidedly beside the point to his career, his policies and his vision for the country.
True, his skin is brown and hair nappy. So race, in America, is inescapable. But as the election grinds on, I’m betting that the more we know about Wright and the more we know about Obama, the clearer it becomes how different their careers, visions, persona and motives really are.
To be sure, the conservative side of the mainstream media will keep trying to blur the identify of Wright with the identity of Obama, but most Americans will easily see that the contrasts far exceed the similarities.
Libtard: You are tarded. That is the most blind and self-deluded analysis i have yet to see today.
ALl someone has to do is make a list of lies and garbage that came out of that egomaniacal race baiter’s mouth unprompted by any whitey and ask other blacks things like,”Do you believe that AIDS was created by our government to kill black people and if you agree, do you have some proof or are you comfortable parroting a racist lie?”
“Or do you believe Jesus was in fact a black African when in fact he was Jew living in Roman occupied Palestine? And since I think it is a lie, if you believe this one, then shouldn’t most Jews be black, not Semitic or European?”
Finally, ask them since Reverend Wright defends Farrakhan on the specious claim that Farrakhan, as well as nobody else in the world, DIDN’T dragged Reverend Wright here in chains, because Reverend Wright was born here a free man and slaves stopped being imported in 1807. So since he was never broguht here in chains and everyone in the USA is innocent, does that mean he stands by Ted Bundy or David Duke too?
It’s time we started calling blacks on their BS, like “Church’s Chicken make you sterile” garbage and stop calling them conspiracy theories and start calling them racist lies.
All I could see was someone of such low intellect and morals trying to sound profound but sounding like a total scumbag with every sentence he spoke.
By all means, Jakester. Call them on it.
But there’s no need to segregate your anti-BS crusade, is there?
Plenty of myths, urban legends and superstitions floating around to be debunked.
Have at it!
The reason people tolerate this mix of insanity and ignorance from black “leaders” is simply racism. Whites — and especially white liberals — expect black Americans to be ignorant, uneducated, and gullible. Therefore the white liberals don’t treat black Americans with the same intellectual rigor they would use when dealing with whites.
Or, in dialogue:
Jeremiah Wright: “The government created AIDS to kill black people!”
White Liberal: “That’s an interesting idea and I’m sure you are rightfully concerned about institutional racism.”
John Birch Society Member: “AIDS is Communist biological warfare!”
White Liberal: “Typical conservative lunacy.”
Jeremiah Wright: “The government created AIDS to kill black people!”
White “Progressive”: And they’re using the Patriot Act to spy on Americans.