God Damn The Black Community

“God helps those who help themselves!” – Benjamin Franklin

Reverend Jeremiah Wright is in the news again and is said to be a distraction to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, by far his most famous former parishioner. Reverend Wright has spent the last week or so giving his side of the story. Mr. Wright feels that he has been personally attacked and also feels that the institution of the black church has been attacked by the dominant American culture. He’s been referred to as a kook and described as trying to knee cap Mr. Obama’s presidential bid. Mr. Obama tried to minimize his relationship with his former pastor. But when that didn’t put the issue to rest, Mr. Wright conveniently comes back on the scene to give Mr. Obama a second chance to sever the relationship cleanly in the public’s eye.

The overwhelming majority of America never knew Mr. Wright prior to the networks airing of the infamous recording of Mr. Wright saying that god should be damning America instead of blessing America. People refer to Mr. Wright as a blatant racist although he never once said white people were the problem. Mr. Wright said black and white people are different with neither one being better than the other. But this is too racist a concept for most. White and black people are actually saying that Jeremiah Wright is the problem. No one of any prominence has given Mr. Wright any understanding or support, with the possible exception of Bill Moyers when he hosted Mr. Wright on his PBS show Bill Moyers Journal and allowed the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ to defend himself without adding fuel to the fire of controversy. Mr. Moyers doesn’t have a political agenda to push so it is no surprise that he isn’t condemning Mr. Wright the way that the typical network pundit would.

But nevertheless, for the most part, when it comes to the black community, Mr. Wright is standing alone. Other than Mr. Moyers, I have yet to see any high profile support. Where are the leaders of the black community? Where are the people who claim to the welfare of the black community a top priority? It is a given that white people would want take the five or ten minutes of Mr. Wright’s sermons that have captured America’s attention as gospel. When Mr. Wright says god should damn America white people take this personally for America is white America. America is baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet. America is the corporate environment where white people rule the upper management, white people make up the vast majority of middle workers, and black people make up the bottom rung of the corporate ladder in janitorial services and the mailroom. To say America is messing up is to say that white people are messing up since they are the ones in control of 98% of America’s institutions. And these corporate institutions are using their resources to pick Mr. Wright apart and make him an example of what happens when you bad mouth America’s managment team.

And with an election coming, and with the chance that a black man could actually obtain the highest office in America’s land, America will push with all of its corrupt corporate capitalist might to find anything and emphasize anything to keep Mr. Obama from obtaining the title of President of the United States. It is truly understandable why the dominant community would work so hard to keep the status quo of white only from being broken. Black man might become President and try do something positive for the black community. White America just can’t take that chance. So I can understand why the Tucker Carlsons and Sean Hanitys and Pat Buchanans of the world to persecute Mr. Wright, and therefore Mr. Obama by association. These are the type of people who would be content to see the despair of the black community continue without end. But where are the people who say that they have a vested interest in the uplift of the black community?

Where are the people who are more likely to defend Mr. Wright? Barack Obama tried to distance himself from Mr. Wright without outright rejecting him and it nearly cost him his lead in the presidential nomination race. There is too much to lose. So regardless of what Mr. Obama says to the contrary it is relatively easy to see how his highly visible divorce from Mr. Wright can be considered politically advantageous. So it doesn’t take much of a brain to see that there will be no comfort there. Where are the other high profile blacks who sit in black churches on a weekly basis and can relate to what Mr. Wright says about being black in America? Are we in the black community are supposed to believe that Jeremiah Wright is a lone exception with a totally unique perspective of the relationship between America and what she has done for and what she has done to the black community? Are we to believe that no other black high profile black celebrity has any idea what he is referring to?

Certainly there must be a gangster rap artist who is aware of what Mr. Wright is saying. Rap artist are constantly depicting the despair of the black community. Certainly these artists must know about the disparity that Mr. Wright is talking about. How about the black actors who must appear in works of fiction without any, or a severely limited number, of black actors appearing as characters that provide positive role models for the black community? Certainly these artists know a little something about being black in America and how black people have to work harder and longer just to get their foot in the door. Where are the black people who work in the corporate environment that sees black people at the bottom and white people at the top? Where are the black police officers, lawyers, judges, bureaucrats, lawyers, doctors, and other black professionals who see the inequality between the black community and its white counterpart?

No one else has a clue as to what is happening. No one is willing to come forward and add their voice to the outrage of inequality in the social conditions of this country. We are supposed to believe that so many black people are too afraid, too complacent, too oblivious, or black people want to assimilate so badly that they support, even encourage, the unfairness under some pretense such as the black community is not being subjugated and simply needs to lift itself out of its predicament by making the choice not to be in a disparaging predicament. Granted many black people fit into one of these categories. But I refuse to believe there isn’t a single high profile black professional or celebrity who doesn’t feel the same way Mr. Wright feels enough to say something about it.

Change doesn’t happen when a single person is the only dissenting voice. It is far too easy to dismiss a single voice as little more than a crackpot or a trouble maker. Change happens when a single voice is joined by another voice and those voices are joined by more voices until there are so many voices that they cannot be dismissed as an exception to the rule. Those voices become a force that must be reckoned with.

If America’s black community allows Jeremiah Wright to be relegated to crackpot status until humanity becomes just another part of oblivion then we truly deserve to be subjugated. We think it is so much more important to keep the hope alive that Barack Obama will be the first black person to gain the White House that we are willing to let the truths that Mr. Wright spoke of be labeled as little more than a single black man’s slander against our beloved country. We are willing to let a man who has the audacity to boldly speak on our behalf, to boldly speak on Mr. Obama’s behalf, to be publicly crucified by the dominant community. We choose to become complacent in the rejection of the man who says something troubling is afoot in the black community in order not to stoke the fears of the dominant community.

If the black community does not stand firmly behind Jeremiah Wright, if we do not stand up and say he is correct and he speaks on behalf of us, then everything the dominant community says about us is true. Even if we disagree with everything he said he believes he is speaking on behalf of the black community.  We should not be so quick to abandon a black person simply because the white community finds him or her offensive.  The white community rarely abandons its own simply because black people find him or her offensive.  If we allow ourselves to submit to the establishment without so much as a peep then we choose to be victims. We make the collective choice to be subjugated. We choose not to use whatever means necessary to get ourselves out of our plight. We choose to turn our backs at the chance for a movement. We choose not to be unified for our own self interest. And if all of that is true, then we owe the dominant community a huge apology, for obviously the only power they have over us is the power we let them have. And we can forget all that smack about god damn America. What everybody should be saying from this point on is god damn the black community!