EJ Dionne: Another Angry Black Preacher

[tpsbmam]

One of the least remarked upon passages in Obama's speech is also one of the most important -- and the part most relevant to the Wright controversy. There is, Obama said, a powerful anger in the black community rooted in "memories of humiliation and doubt" that "may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends" but "does find voice in the barbershop or the beauty shop or around the kitchen table. . . . And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews."

Yes, black people say things about our country and its injustices to each other that they don't say to those of us who are white. Whites also say things about blacks privately that they don't say in front of their black friends and associates.

One black leader who was capable of getting very angry indeed is the one now being invoked against Wright. His name was Martin Luther King Jr.

An important book on King's rhetoric by Barnard College professor Jonathan Rieder, due out next month, offers a more complex view of King than the sanitized version that is so popular, especially among conservative commentators. In "The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me," Rieder -- an admirer of King -- notes that the civil rights icon was "not just a crossover artist but a code switcher who switched in and out of idioms as he moved between black and white audiences."

Listen to what King said about the Vietnam War at his own Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Feb. 4, 1968: "God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place." King then predicted this response from the Almighty: "And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."
.......
I cite King not to justify Wright's damnation of America or his lunatic and pernicious theories but to suggest that Obama's pastor and his church are not as far outside the African American mainstream as many would suggest. I would also ask my conservative friends who praise King so lavishly to search their consciences and wonder if they would have stood up for him in 1968.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/20/AR2008032003021_pf.html

[SharonAnn]

1. I know my conservative friends celebrated when he was killed. They celebrated!

The said he was a godless communist, that we were better off without him, and "thank God he's gone".

[yurbud]

3. and those are the people most likely to be offended by Wright. They think only they have the right

to be judgmental and certainly should never be judged themselves.

[stellanoir]

2. I heard that MLK quotation this morning on NPR and was surprised that I hadn't heard it earlier

as it is so appropriate to both Obama and Wright's perspectives.

This line should have been screamed from every rooftop all over the country over the last week,

". . .And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. . ."

instead of all this bogus race baiting.

[Captain Hilts]

4. MLK died 40 years ago. The things Wright said are NOT appropriate today. nt

[Larkspur]

5. The USA committed a war crime by invading a country that was no threat to us

Bush and Cheney made up the threat about Iraq, just like Hitler made up the threat about Poland preparing to invade Germany in 1939.

[Karenina]

6. They're even MORE appropriate today

Most dominant culture Amis STILL don't GET IT.

[noiretextatique]

8. correction: king was assasinated 40 years ago eom

[Karenina]

14. Naaa, Duuu!!

:hi:

[MISSDem]

12. Why not? the USA has killed untold #s of people in Iraq and

they always say that they were "suspected insurgents". They do not know that maybe they were just innocent folks. And racism is alive and well. Look around you. Please!

[GeorgeGist]

7. Kinda smarmy ...

religion is in appealing to the lowest common demoninator.

[noiretextatique]

9. one of big problems of the king whitewash

is that he was not the beloved figure while he was alive that he became after death.

[abq e streeter]

10. That's one of the reasons I was ambivilent about having an MLK holiday

Easy to mainstream-ize his memory and blunt the true message he had..... I still wonder whether white America has earned the privilege of honoring him in this way.

[MISSDem]

11. There was an article in The Commercial Appeal yesterday

and several black Pastors were interviewed. According to them, the kind of preaching done by Wright is normal for Black ministers. White people are just not aware of it as they are not aware of a lot that goes on in other cultures.

[Karenina]

13. In linguistic terms it's called "register."