Preach It Brother Jeremiah
Just watched Rev. Jeremiah Wright on CNN speaking at the NAACP dinner. I don't know how this will play to the average white guy (I'm not sure what I have to do to get into this coveted club), but personally I thought he was great. It was an interesting speech with the theme of "different but not deficient" and he spoke of the various differences between the European-American community and the African-American community, in everything from language to music, and it was extremely enlightening.
The conventional wisdom is that Jeremiah Wright going out like this is going to hurt Sen. Obama. Personally, I think the more he speaks the better, as it gives context to his statements and sound bytes, so perhaps people can get a fuller measure of the man. From the interviews and full sermons I've seen, I think he's a remarkably intelligent pastor whose knowledge of history and other cultures is unique among many standard preachers. The problem of course is that while CNN might play this one speech unedited, they won't be so kind in the follow up stories where the splice and dice to portray the narrative they want to play (even more so with racists like Sean Hannity). We'll see....
Update:
Nathan Moore seems to think Wright's explanation about the differences between Blacks and Whites is somehow an excuse for illegitimacy rates. Which brings to mind this study that found "liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work."
9 comments:
The media will spin this into a disastor, but the really humorous part of all this is the average voter (like you) "gets it" and appreciates the cahnce to get to know this obviously dedicated man of faith and loyal American better. He acts Black. So what? As he said "different doesn't mean l;ess than". It will be especially well recieved in the South. Only the WASPy talking heads will be befuddled or scared by it. It was in many ways a continuation of the healing Obama has started between the races. No more hiding racism under the sheets. Let's talk about it, right? We do after all love each other and want the mess Bush got us into to end.
Interesting study you link to Sean, but the couple word description is problematic. Tolerating ambiguity is admirable in various contexts but could it also imply a weaker tendency to adhere to consistent world view? I think so, based just on anecdotal evidence.
As for Rev. Wright and what Nathan Moore had to say I would simply say that I don't think most reasonable whites argue that bias has not impeded their progress but also observe the self-inflicted wounds... the absurd level of illegitimacy (I think it is near 70% of African-American children who are born to single women). The reaction of many... hey, I'm down, to the extent I can be, regarding the struggles blacks face but throngs of kids growing up with no dads does far more damage than anything FEMA did or didn't do in New Orleans. Now I'm sure, well not sure but confident, that Rev. Wright has addressed the lack of dads question but the perception - driven by the short clips - is that he is too concerned with the macro questions and not addressing the micro questions, how his flock should go about living their daily lives.
Obama, to his credit, is calling people out, telling them that the quality of a school is of no matter if parents don't parent. I give him credit for that, and I think that is a great response to those concerned with his association with Rev. Wright.
Typical white liberals assume that black pastors routinely spout God damn in any context whatsoever from behind a block of wood ordained by that same God, even in front of our children! Somehow the arrogance of white liberals allows them to make these assumptions in reference to the "black church."
Leftist and Marxists share such affinity that they provide one another an echo chamber of self-deceit, each side receiving either affirmation or absolution depending on the transgressor and transgression.
Obama never had a problem with race until he, like so many black public figures that get into trouble, chose to invoke race. After Wright, he tried to deflect or stop criticism and did so by sitting in judgement of all sides and pointing fingers at even his own family instead of at himself. His issue is condescension and the problem of all leftists, either a blame America first or pure anti-American sentiment.
k...
While it is certainly incumbent upon black folk to solve our own problems and although I am a self-described black conservative, I don't consider the 70% illegitimate birth rate or for that matter the high abortion rate, low graduation rate, low literacy rate, high std rate, etc., as entirely self-inflicted.
Government largesse, in the case of the birth rate, contributed mightily to the deterioration of the black family and created a cultural phenomena that has infected us well beyond those at the lower end of the economic spectrum. It is now independent of economics.
The sinister form of American welfare required men to leave the home. In 1964 Moynihan noted in his report to the Senate entitled The Negro family, that black men had been marginalized and that the black community had become largely matriarchal.
Margaret Sanger, the American eugenicist and founder of Planned Parenthood targeted the black population for culling and now with 80% of their cash cow clinics located in black neighborhoods, she's been more successful than Hitler, Goebels, Himmler and the rest that used the work of the American Eugenics Society as a bible or template for their madness. She's more successful because she's even duped a large number of the targeted population into thinking that this is about "women's rights."
Rather than funding education with our tax dollars, we've funded teacher's union's goals for their client teachers to have better working conditions without regard to the purpose of those public dollars. The monopoly in funding has created as it must, poor quality at a high price. For black parents and our children, we may as well be shopping at the old sharecropping company store.
So what's the solution? Eliminate government sponsored "war on poverty" programs and allow responsible and rational decision making to take place. If I can't get a contraceptive abortion or welfare like my mother and grandmother, I might have to finish school, get a job and get married before I think about having a family or having unprotected sex. When young black girls start attending weddings, that's a good sign that progress is being made.
Bardo's first axiom of government interference: The intervention (unless its tax cutting or deregulation) is always worse than the "problem."
Be careful CB, you might be labeled an 'angry black man'.
The problem with your theory regarding contraceptives is that before they were invented, women didn't just not have sex, they simply got knocked up and married at a really young age. The reason why so many women are graduating college now, is because they are pressured into marrying young and having kids like their parents generation.
I'm happy for you CB that you got your degree and started a career before you had sex, but it isn't realistic that most people will, even if you do ban contraceptives. They'll just turn to 'pulling out' or back-alley abortions.
Speaking of wish, as you sound like a member of the Federalist Society, you might be interested to know that aboriton was legal until the end of the first or second trimester during much of the first half of the American experiment.
I don't disagree with anything you say cb. I agree that the government's "help" has undermined the black family and it has spread to the white folks... just as Charles Murray predicted.
Sean, I do disagree with part of your response... I don't think sexual activity occured at the same rates years ago. And cb's point is made, before we didn't subsidize such behavior. If you had a child and the man was out of the picture you were on your own. Now we "help" you. Want less of something? Tax it. More of something? Subsidize it.
... and another thing, legalized abortion in early America? I'll have to check that.
And yes Margaret Sanger, the founder of today's Planned Parenthood was a creep.
One more thing... every major Christian denomination was against artificial contraception until the 1930's.
Here is a link regarding the history of abortion (you won't like the source, but I can't find any others at this time).
As for religious institutions opposing contraceptives, I'm not arguing that it was deemed OK by religious institutions, simply by the State.
I accept the credibility of the source. I sought out some others that are consistent.
I give the organization credit for admitting that the motivation behind much of the support to liberalize abortion laws came from wanting to limit the population of undesirable segments of the population - the new immigrants.
I think cb's point is spot on. Sanger, I think explicitly, targeted the black community and the clinics nowadays tend to cater to many blacks.
I think in the not too distant future the abortion debate will go by the wayside due to technological advances. Women will be able to terminate pregnancies with greater ease with simple remedies.
The larger issue brings up, for me, a fascinating philosophical issue, one that I suggest divides liberals and conservatives. Many liberals point to data that suggests that comprehensive sex education "works." It reduces unwanted pregnancies especially in urban areas. While I think the data is contestable, it is beside the point. Even if it "works," does limit unwanted pregnancies via contraception and abortion, it regards the target populaltion as animals, unable to practice self-control and restraint. In this way it might "work" in the short run but at a great long-run cost. It de-humanizes the target population.
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