9/16/01, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - "The chickens have come home to roost"

So are you American, or from Europe? You left that pretty unclear. The things the United States does right does not erase those things we do that are wrong...and we do a lot of things that are wrong. For African-Americans, America has a lot of room to improve, as Obama said in his response. There is ample reason for a black person in America (or a member of many other minorities, for that matter) to be really, really pissed off. For those who were alive before and during the Martin Luther King era of the civil rights movement, blacks were very literally treated as second-class citizens, kept seperate from the "good white folk." This was enforced with jail time, and often brutal physical violence for which there was no legal recourse because the police and the judges were also all white. This is living memory for many Americans.Even now, we are dealing with the results of racist policies and culture, some of which has been improved in recent times, and some of which are ongoing. Racism is far from dead in America. When we pass laws like the Three Strikes law that Rev. Wright mentioned, combined with the hugely disproportionate number of blacks currently in prison and I'm pretty pissed off, too - and I'm not black. As Obama mentioned, other issues abound and make the problems worse even without direct racist laws in place. The fact that so many black men are in prison has created a huge community of single mothers, many of whom are on welfare - and current welfare policies may be making matters worse by encouraging such behavior. The culture of debt in America, with massive credit card balances and no real savings to pass on to future generations, means that the poor (a disproportionate percentage of whom are black) have no way to accumulate wealth and opportunity generationally like most middle- and upper-class families have for decades or even centuries. The fact that schools have been desegregated by law has not desegregated schools in reality, where poorer inner-city schools tend to be overcrowded, understaffed, underfunded, and predominantly black. The net result is that blacks tend to receive a much poorer level of education in this country than most whites - which only furthers the cycle.Here's a better question: why are you not condemning the American policies of the past and present that have mistreated African-Americans so horribly? You seem to be reacting, like most, along patriotism lines. You don't like that Rev. Wright said "god damn America." But when you actually look at the current state of blacks in America, where the downtrodden are just kicked while they're down, where despite the efforts of many to imrpove conditions things just continue to get worse, and where a huge portion of white America honestly believes that it's not a problem any more becasue they don't see it happen in their predominantly white neighborhoods in the suburbs...Does your god really support that? Wouldn't any just god, or even a just person, condemn such policies and attitudes?Your Jesus has said that what you do to the poor and the downtrodden, you do to him. Rev. Wright apparently sees it the way I would if I were a Christian - a god with those sensibilities would condemn America. Excuse me? Rev. Wright isn't from Africa, any more than I'm from the Netherlands, or you're from wherever your ancestors came from.The racist policies of America are not excused by simply saying "oh yeah? well get the hell out then if you don't like it so much!"Yours is the attitude of a nationalistic moron who honestly thinks that the proper response to anyone who points out a flaw in your country is to say "get the hell out!" rather than try to actually fix the problem. His message is not one of hate. His message is a condemnation of the hate that has plagued blacks in America for over 100 years after being set "free." He hasn't overlooked any of the successes - rather he's noting that the successes are too few and too far in between! The obstacles in the face of a black child born into a poor urban family are stacked immeasurably high. Equal opportunity has not been reached, and that is surely worthy of condemnation. If guilt by associasion is your bag, who will you vote for? Some of McCain's largest supporters have condemned America with similar language to Wrights, except their "villain" was not racism but homosexuality. A pastor, advisor, and large contributor to McCain's campaign has been quoted saying that Hurricane Katrina was the result of God's wrath on America for the gay parade that was about to be held in New Orleans!Who do you not condemn him? Why instead do you focus on a man who is legitimately upset because he has friends, parishoners, possibly even family members who are even now being denied the equality guaranteed them by the Constitution?I'll certainly repeat my earlier statements that some of Rev. Wrights specific complaints, such as the assertion that HIV was created by the US government as a weapon against blakcs, are absurd conspiracy-theorist insanity. But his outrage and other comments are indeed based in fact. I think that says it all. We're all just ni**er-lovers, aren't we, ThreeDogs.

When you say such utter trash as this: ...it makes the implication rather obvious, ThreeDogs. Even if you didn't specifically mean that implication, your position is that the black man should shut up with his outrage against America for the American policies that have so horribly mistreated blacks in the past and continue to do so in the present, and move to wherever his ancestors are from. Again, the implication is rather obvious.Are you seriously suggesting that I am the racist, when you suggested in the preceding post that we should send a black man back to Africa?!