Deconstructing Wright’s defenders
Don Quixote on May 07 2008 at 6:47 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
A liberal friend sent me an article from the Winston Salem Chronicle (written by John Mendez, who is identified as the pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church and a longtime community activist). In the article, Mendez attempts to defend Wright. I sent the friend my comments on the article and thought the article and the comments might be worth sharing (rather belatedly) here. I know the Wright thing is about played out, but I’d be very interested in any comments you still have the energy and interest to make. Wright may be forgotten but his message of hate continues to be preached from hundred of pulpits every week.
Here’s the article (with my comments in bold):
In recent days, the American public has been bombarded by a series of video clips, relentless isolated sound bytes, and lots of frenzied, misinformed (note that nowhere in the article does he provide the slightest proof that they are misinformed; on the contrary. He goes on to prove the charges are completely true.) overcharged rhetoric by the news media, commentators, and right-wing bloggers, caricaturing (How is it a caricature when it’s true?) and demonizing my friend, Dr. Jeremiah Wright and Trinity Christian Church. Dr. Wright is under attack for the use of language and sentiments uttered while preaching a sermon that criticized and condemned American violence at home and abroad (No, he’s under attack for fermenting hate by spreading lies against America). In my estimation, however, the real reason Dr. Wright is under attack is that he was the pastor of Senator Barack Obama and his family for over 20 years, as UCC President John Thomas pointed out (Well, of course; his comments would be despicable no matter when, where or by whom they were made; but they are important because Obama sat and listened to them without protest for 20 years) . Those who sifted through hours of sermons looking for a few lurid phrases and those who aired them repeatedly were only seeking to discredit and harm Obama by associating him with the historic prophetic ministry and social gospel preaching tradition of the Black church, as if that is a bad thing (it is a bad thing; that’s precisely the point!); and to divide the American people along racial and religious lines by subtly playing the “race card.” (Wait a minute, it is the outrageous comments of Wright (God damn America, HIV/genocide and other garbage) that divides America! This entire paragraph is schizophrenic in that it claims that Wright was quoted out of context but admits that Wright actually said and believes everything he is quoted as saying and believing. Altogether, not very persuasive to the objective reader.) I have known Dr. Jeremiah Wright for over 25 years. He is a brilliant preacher and scholar. He was recognized by Ebony Magazine as one of the top 15 preachers in America. He has preached in Winston-Salem several times to overflowing audiences. Trinity Church is located in Southside Chicago ,where the consequences of racist public policies are manifested in a crumbling infrastructure, a failing school system, and a lack of economic development. For decades, Trinity Church has been hailed as a model church for what Dr. Martin Marty, a professor of religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School and frequent visitor to Trinity worship services, describes as a place of “hope, hope, hope.” (In the part of the world Wright travels in (the old-time black racist, socialist, America-hating world in which his lies are well received) Wright has done very well. There is no denying that. In some ways, the fact that a black bigot spewer of poison can succeed so well disproves his own theories. He has hardly been oppressed, has he?)In spite of Dr. Wright’s awesome ministry and achievements, the media paints him as some kind of “fanatic” based on a few isolated sound bytes, which is tantamount to doing “image damage,” which has historically appealed to those who have contempt for Blacks (On the contrary, black racist, anti-America, socialist garbage which further divides the races and ferments hate is the core of Wright’s message, it’s not a few isolated sound bytes (as is demonstrated by the rest of this article, which spews the same garbage). Wright destroys his own image by projecting an image of black racism and hate). Dr. Wright, like Adam Clayton Powell, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X, before him, is really under attack because he refuses to emulate the king’s “yes man” and bless a racist and exploitive status quo as so many prosperity preachers do (Here is the first admission that the anti-American spreading of lies is really at the core of Wright’s message.). Dr. Wright is under attack because he chose the prophetic over pseudo-patriotism, the social gospel over social accommodation, conviction over compromise, protest over prosperity, and truth over tranquility (No, he’s under attack because those who love America do not take kindly to “God damn America” and untrue charges like the HIV/genocide charge. Here the pastor is using lovely words to hide the ugly, hateful reality and carefully avoiding talking about the specifics of Wright’s message.). Dr. Wright’s words, though “mildly brash” (Whatever “God damn America” and HIV/genocide lies are, they are not mild; the pastor completely gives the game away here with this ridiculous description) were still nothing but the truth about this nation (Note again the lack of specifics. Anyone who believes that HIV/genocide is the truth has no concept of the truth. It is an untrue charge, pure and simple). What is ironic, everybody knows he spoke the truth, including the media (No, everyone knows the HIV/genocide charge is a lie). It is no secret America assassinated democratically elected presidents around the world and toppled governments to serve their interests; from Allende in Chile to Lumumba in the Congo, to a failed assassination attempt on the life of Caesar Chavez to the use of deception and lies to invade Iraq and kill its president (Finally, some specifics. Note that not a single one of these specifics has anything to do with racism, genocide or oppression within the borders of the United States. Indeed, none of these has the slightest thing to do with anything inside of America’s borders. For the most part, they are isolated examples that happened many years ago. Allende was a mistake. I don’t know enough about Lumumba or Chavez to comment intelligently. But, boy, does he reveal how little regard he has for the truth when he gets to Iraq! First, consider the use of the word “deception and lies.” By traditional definition, a lie is a statement made while knowing the statement is untrue. The untrue HIV/genocide charge is a prime example of a lie because Wright stated it knowing it was untrue. By contrast, Bush and his advisors really believed what they were telling America. They were wrong, of course, about things like weapons of mass destruction (and they were wrong on the merits; we never should have invaded) but, since, unlike Wright, they did not know what they were saying was untrue, they did not lie. Double standard, double standard, double standard. The peak is reached with the charge that America invaded Iraq and “kill[ed] its president.” Now here is a lie! We killed the “president’s” sons, but the “president” was tried by an Iraqi court (and not an American puppet court, either) and killed by the Iraqis, as he richly deserved to be. But the real stunner is that Hussein is called the president, as if here were a freely elected American president. In truth, of course, he was a ruthless dictator. Anyone who wants to see real genocide and oppression should study what Hussein did to the Kurds. That these pastors are condemning America for a genocide and oppression that it is completely innocent of and standing silent about real genocide and oppression tells you everything you need to know about their complete disrespect for the truth and the depths of their anti-American political agenda.). Dr. Martin Luther King said long ago in his Beyond Vietnam speech that America was the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” (Anyone who believes this is not paying attention to what is going on in the rest of the world. America put a stop to the genocide and mass killings in Germany in World War II. America has nothing comparable to the millions who died in Stalinist Russia or Maoist China. Far more people died in Iraq before we got there than after. Around the world, true genocide and oppression abounds, none of it America’s doing.) The attack on Dr. Wright is tantamount to engaging in “selective ignorance.” (On the contrary, making false charges against America like the HIV/genocide garbage, and Dr. King’s attack quoted in the last sentence, while ignoring real genocide and oppression around the world is “selective ignorance.” It’s like condemning America for 150 year old slavery and demanding an apology without giving America credit for the Civil War to end slavery or anything else that has happened since.) James Baldwin, wrote in The Fire Next Time, “This is the crime of which I accuse my country and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them that they have destroyed … hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it.” (If we were guilty of such charges, I would definitely want to know it. But the charges are so over the top and obviously untrue that they actually obscure the real problems that remain in America and around the world.)America is imprisoned by its own myths. It engages in an epistemology of willful ignorance. White America does not have to and does not want to have knowledge of the injuries and pain they have inflected through slavery, terror, lynching, and racism so manifested in the everyday lives of people of color. (Stuck in the 60s. The 1860s. “Slavery, terror, lynching and racism” have not been “manifested in the everyday lives of people of color” for many, many years. This is a prime example of what I’m talking about. People of color in America do face racism from individuals and when that racism rises to the level of discrimination it must be dealt with. But, by focusing on charges which have nothing to do with America today (slavery, terror and lynching) and on false charges (HIV/genocide, and vague, undefinable (and non-existent) systemic racism), these pastors divide the races and prevent America from solving the very real problems that remain.) America has no desire to know what it is about them and their institutions that have wreaked such havoc in the lives of Blacks, people of color and the poor at home and abroad. (False, false, false. America does want to know about the truth, but not about the hateful lies these guys are spouting.) This is why white America is not able to hear or believe that Black America’s grievances are real. (If only these guys would actually focus on the real grievances, perhaps we could put this theory to the test.) They cannot seem to understand why we are angry or why the world hates America. (Blacks are angry because the black leadership has spent the last 40 years making false charges and fermenting hate, successfully so. The world hates America partly out of envy, partly out of legitimate resentment of American arrogance and ignorance, and partly because America has failed to oppose those who launch false attacks against her.) It is not because of the American way of life. America cannot believe it because they cannot face what this reality says about themselves. White America has immunized and numbed itself from any kind of criticism that might correct their misunderstandings or expose their self-imposed ignorance. Worse still, neither does America have the vision to imagine a different world where justice, peace, and equality are a way of life (It is only by rejecting these hate-mongers that justice, peace and equality will be possible. Unfortunately, I see little sign of the black community rejecting them). Such an attack upon Dr. Wright is only another attempt for the authors of devastation to play innocent, and sadly, it is playing the role of innocence that constitutes the crime. (Wright preys on the fears and insecurities of the innocent, doing everything he can to cause blacks to hate whites and America, including spreading lies like the HIV/genocide lie. He and his ilk have done a masterful job of this. I pray they do not succeed in completely destroying America, but I am not optimistic.)
How can Americans who care about the truth and actually wish for racial reconciliation combat the purveyors of hate like Wright, Mendez and their ilk?
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Hi DQ,
[Redacted because of personal information.]
When I work with young poets, I do so as long as it takes, if they want to learn. The don’t have to agree with me, but they need to learn something before their opinion counts for much. If you were explaining to me a point of the law, as Bookworm did tonight when she spoke of “affirmative defenses” (of which I know nothing), I’d be willing to listen. But you seem to know nothing about the black church or its beliefs.
Ignorance like this can set race relations back fifty years. Discussion closed. You are in my prayers.
As historians, the good reverends are very good preachers. As Reverend Wright showed his ignorance when he accused the US of killing Miskito Indians in Nicaragua when it was the Sandinista government that did it, Reverend Mendez shows his ignorance about Allende and Chile. Perhaps a paraphrase of Goldwater is due: Lies and ignorance in the defense of leftism are no vices.
Those who consider the democratically elected Allende a victim of the US and CIA have examined the historical record in a very superficial manner. Three weeks before the coup, the also democratically elected House of Deputies passed by 81-47 a resolution titled the “Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy.” An excerpt follows.
In general and in specific, the resolution could be interpreted as an invitation to a coup. Allende himself called it such. The democratically elected members of the House of Deputies would not have passed such a strongly-worded resolution by a commanding 63- 37% majority if their constituents, the Chilean people, were not also disgusted with the Allende government’s repeated violations of law and democratic procedure.
Book, regarding the “moderation” hassle: is there a way for the software to recognize “frequent posters” and thus let them through? After all, in order to post at all, we are registered.
I would want you on my side if I were going to court.
a failed assassination attempt on the life of Caesar Chavez
If there had been an assassination attempt on César Chávez ( Spanish spelling), the farm workers’ union leader, one would imagine that one could easily find reference to it from a Google search. No such luck. Googling “ ‘cesar chavez’ ‘assassination attempt’ ” does not readily produce any such references.
Most likely the good Reverend Mendez, who as a historian is a good preacher, was referring to Hugo Chavez’s repeated claims that the CIA had tried to assassinate him. Hugo will make such claims every month or two, I would estimate. Like many South Americans of the leftist persuasion, he has CIA on the brain. (If anyone wants, I will refer them to some good English language blogs on Venezuela)
Here is one reference where “Caesar Chavez’’ is used instead of Hugo Chávez, referring to the President of Venezuela. This is obviously a satire, and in most of the piece reference is made to Hugo, not to Caesar.
This is obviously a satire. (see below reference)
This is another example of the Reverend Mendez’s ignorance and/or lies. As a historian of Latin America, Reverend Mendez is at BS level, and I do not mean Bachelor of Science.
http://pointfiveblog.com/index.php/2005/08/263 for the assassination satire.
Book, your software just ate one of my comments.
“ a failed assassination attempt on the life of Caesar Chavez “
If there had been an assassination attempt on César Chávez ( Spanish spelling), the farm workers’ union leader, one would imagine that one could easily find reference to it from a Google search. No such luck. Googling “ ‘cesar chavez’ ‘assassination attempt’ ” does not readily produce any such references.
Most likely the good Reverend Mendez, who as a historian is a good preacher, was referring to Hugo Chavez’s repeated claims that the CIA had tried to assassinate him. Hugo will make such claims every month or two, I would estimate. Like many South Americans of the leftist persuasion, he has CIA on the brain. (If anyone wants, I will refer them to some good English language blogs on Venezuela)
I found one reference where “Caesar Chavez’’ is used instead of Hugo Chávez, referring to the President of Venezuela. This is obviously a satire, and in most of the piece reference is made to Hugo, not to Caesar.
“Killing President Caesar Chavez would not be the lark we had expected.”
This is obviously a satire.
This is another example of the Reverend Mendez’s ignorance and/or lies. As a historian of Latin America, Reverend Mendez is at BS level, and I do not mean Bachelor of Science.
I think (and fervently hope) that the “black community” we see accepting Mr. Wright’s poisonous analysis of America and of “white folks” is a relatively small percentage of all black people in this country.
Given the current slant of the major media, they quite naturally focus on (what I believe to be) the minority that suits their purpose of making conservatives generally, and this Administration in particular, look as bad as they can.
I would be MORE worried about this were our media situation as it was 20+ years ago - without talk radio, without the Internet, without the bloggers, without the Web-based news sites, etc. In those days, Walter Cronkite defined “the way it was” much as a jury decides what the facts are, and makes its decisions accordingly. Now, we can fact-check even Uncle Walter, and those of us who have done this know for a certainty that even our old Uncle wasn’t telling us the truth - whether he thought it was true, or was knowingly lying to us (for our “own good”, of course).
My real worry these days is that we’ve got to where some of the Founders worried we might - to where we’ve lost the moral compass that we need to keep us on the straight and narrow in a representative republic. More and more people have discovered they LIKE the idea of voting for benefits that will be paid for by others. This is a clear and present danger to our country.
Not to worry Bookworm, most people get it. This is a political organization masquerading as a church, basically Marx 2.0. I offer for proof; some of the leaders of the United Church of Christ with huge megaphones in front of their faces never actually mention Jesus.
Heck even I know, as a non-Christian, that Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and whoever else, are not considered the Messiah in Christianity.
Austin Yankee — Thank you!
Helen — Well, I guess you’ve outed yourself as my liberal friend. I probably should clarify for the readers that my private comments that you decided to quote in this public forum were part of a long e-mail exchange between the two of us that was not intended (at least by me) for public consumption. Not that I mind. At least you quoted me accurately. [From Bookworm: I did mind, when DQ brought this to my attention, so I redacted the personal communication stuff.]
Gringo — Thank you for the addition factual insights. I still think we had no business interferring in Chile, but reasonable folks can disagree on that and you’ve certainly given me something to think about.
Allen — of course it is, which is why it puzzles me that so many good people like Helen are taken in by it. And just to be clear, I’m to blame for the above post, not Bookworm.
But I left this hatred behind. And I’m not going back.
What is up with helen’s incoherent ramblings that picks and chooses stuff from all over the place and posts it here? Is “coherency” something poets naturally must discard or is it just the Leftist variety?
helen speaks mightily on how she is confronted here on many issues. Her lack of etiquette simply invites her to have her arguments and statements ripped apart by people like me.
I could argue in your place.
I doubt you were ever in a classical liberal or conservative position, helen. Or let me clarify that. If you were in such a position, you were an unthinking adoptee of such views because they were other people’s views, not yours. And now you are in the same position of being beholden to other people’s views, just Leftist ones. You can’t argue your positions but rely upon links and other people explaining things because the ideas aren’t yours. You didn’t come across them by independent thinking and you sure as heck can’t reproduce them through independent thinking.
But you seem to know nothing about the black church or its beliefs.
Black church demagoguery is like a skill or profession, it seems. Where new people must “learn something” of the trade before their opinion counts for anything. And like all jobs, the black church seeks to make a profit off of the victims they are exploiting through this capitalistic system they are in.
As for the black community monologue, all these things about Bush and America are designed to make people hate the status quo. Only in this way can you get people to be willing to destroy the status quo and bring about a strongman that promises to take care of things. The forces that would normally defend the US government only do it because of a sense of duty or a sense that this will create a better life for themselves and their families. By making people hate the US government and believe that it is as horrendous as Saddam’s government and the UN combined, you motivate people to destroy the United States.
You don’t need Saul Alinsky’s teachings for this, any ordinary revolutionary doctrine will do.
If you have heard the comments from young blacks that I’ve heard talk around me, you’d know that they neither respect American culture, even while living off its fruits and playing/buying xbox games, nor do they particularly respect the Constitutional failsafes such as the President. They are for assassinating Bush because not only are they pissed off at what they perceive to be Bush’s corruption, but they have no idea what killing the President would do to the nation’s stability itself.
You make people hate another that they don’t know well, by spreading stories about atrocities and the things the “enemy” has done. Things the enemy has done that requires waging war and drastic action, you see. The Left accuses Bush of the same thing. And why is that? Because the Left are often the ones to first think up such things, so it is natural for them to assume their enemies are doing the same things. Some don’t recognize this, but they are well practiced at double think.
You cannot have a Thermopylae if the Spartans hate Sparta and believe anything could be better than the status quo. That’s not what strong militaries are based upon, you know. They’re based upon love and loving something enough to do your duty by it and protect it; it is not based upon bitterness and hate for your side.
I mind. At least you quoted me accurately.
It sounds like helen doesn’t know how to use email since she posted her reply here instead of in your email.
Is she inviting people like me to pile on her arguments in order for her to defend herself as being unfairly attacked?
What a waste of a pastor’s time. You won’t find a black pastor anywhere who has time for this nitpicking of every point.
What helen means is that she doesn’t like your use of the bold, same as when I used it. The bold-comment style allows for making comments on specific points of text or quoted text without making an essay about it after the fact.
“nitpicking” is what happens when you take apart everything a person says instead of piecing together a story about it in summarization after the fact.
Helen prefers to offer links that argue for her in grand total strategy rather than nitpicking specific arguments and statements. Specific arguments and statements cannot be proven false cause that is just based upon individual perspective, so those things can’t be nitpicked since a pastor would have to spend too long educating you on his experience before you could “get” the nitpicking details in his words.
America has no desire to know what it is about them and their institutions that have wreaked such havoc in the lives of Blacks, people of color and the poor at home and abroad.
Given that it was the Democrat party and institutions that created the KKK, black lynchings, Black Codes, Jim Crow, and the start of the Civil War, you bet your arse “America” has no desire to know.
This is why white America is not able to hear or believe that Black America’s grievances are real.
Blacks in America are primarily slaves of the white Democrat party. Don’t give me that shat about white America not being able to hear blacks when blacks don’t want to be heard enough to throw off their Democrat master’s yoke.
How can Americans who care about the truth and actually wish for racial reconciliation combat the purveyors of hate like Wright, Mendez and their ilk?
This is also what Iraq is for, Don, and why victory there doesn’t just mean victory on a military scale. You need pure counter-insurgency tactics to successfully combat Wright and his ilk. But you don’t know counter-insurgency tactics because those things must be tested and learned in war and you can’t have war in the United States without a civil war.
You want “racial reconciliation”, Don? Then you need to learn the lessons that Petraeus is teaching the Iraqis about how to bind together Sunnis, a minority of oppressors, and Shia, a majority that was oppressed, amongst the Kurds, who were oppressed by all Arabs.
Without Iraq, you would have to blindly go along testing things against the race war mongers until you got lucky. With Iraq, you don’t have to. Iraq has also proven that regardless of the propaganda in the media, success breeds success and it actually shuts up, if not counters, enemy propaganda from the media.
When having some email conversations with Book, I try to take care not to violate any personal ethical code for confidentiality. An important aspect in engineering or other professions. For one thing, some people are more open and will talk about things in email that they won’t talk about in public.
While I value indirect violence, subterfuge, and propaganda more than I value the direct hammer to flesh approach and swarming the enemy, I still scorn the rumor mongering of the rabble. No discipline there and with no discipline, no ethics either.
DQ - sorry, I can’t resist….
A story of two Civil Wars to protect a national constitution:
United States. Leader - Pres. Abraham Lincoln. Pop. approx. 20 million. 700,000 dead.
Chile. Leader: Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Pop. approx. 20 million. <3,000 dead (the Left’s claims of over 10,000 dead and disappeared were totally debunked).
Allende was openly supported by Cuba and imported Cubans to “manage” Chile’s military and security apparatus. He tramped all over his country’s constitution and legal system. He was overthrown after he had lost the support of the Chilean congress, military and supreme court for his extra-constitutional acts.
Subsequent to Chile’s civil war, Pinochet took Chile from a third-world country to close-to a first-world country.
How, exactly, did we interfere with Chile? (please…no Wikipedia on this one).
Just trying to provoke thought, here.
“Helen prefers to offer links that argue for her in grand total strategy rather than nitpicking specific arguments and statements. Specific arguments and statements cannot be proven false cause that is just based upon individual perspective, so those things can’t be nitpicked since a pastor would have to spend too long educating you on his experience before you could “get” the nitpicking details in his words.”
Yes, I do. Because then I am presenting (in this case) a primary source. What I believe is what I believe, but I prefer to allow black people to speak for themselves (as opposed to me speaking for them). Surely they know what they believe better than I can paraphrase it. And that practical aspect of not having to re-key what’s already on the web.
but I prefer to allow black people to speak for themselves (as opposed to me speaking for them)
Even I, helen, have a hard time deciphering that. I’m sure it will come to me, but it will take a minute or 5.
Using primary sources is a good thing. I won’t criticize anyone for linking to the actual speech or some such document. However, it is one thing to use primary sources in order to back up an argument you are using and quite another thing to hide behind primary sources so that you can criticize people like Don for disagreeing with you as being “ignorant of black X”.
After all, since you believe you know more than Don about black mentality, then Don’s behavior of actually confronting and dissecting black words while you just post the link so that blacks will speak for themselves, must be a horrendous thing to witness given that you, with your knowledge of blacks, respect the words of blacks more than Don, who doesn’t know anything about blacks in your view.
Btw, there was a real delay between 5 and the two paragraphs above. I was being quite serious about the 5 minutes.
Surely they know what they believe better than I can paraphrase it.
DQ expects some defense of these black comments, whether from you or from your links, helen. The fact that you place greater priority on “black authenticity” concerning airing their views over the accuracy and honesty behind black words, is what divides here.
Surely they do know what they believe better than I or you. That doesn’t mean linking to them means anybody should accept their words at face value. In fact, I accept some of their words more at face value than DQ here. Which I guess, may be why you think he doesn’t know anything about black mentality. DQ thinks they are lying and telling untruths. My perspective on black mentality is that they believe 100% what they say and 50% more of what they haven’t said.
Btw, DQ, I’m being discriminated against by Akismet, or maybe you and Book. I demand some restitution here for the various numbers of comments that have been held in moderation and prevented from being seen by others.
I may not be black, but I sure as heck came from Solaris, which is just as good in Afrikan terminology.
My comments refuse to be authenticated when they are very authentic.
Hello Don Quixote,
As Allen pointed out, Black Liberation Theology is re-packaged Marxism in the guise of religion. Advocates of this ideology call their “sermons” the “social gospel” and yet rarely mentions Jesus Christ when it has more resemblance to a political rally.
If you replace the “bourgeoise” with “White people”, more specifically, “White Protestant Males,” and replace African-Americans with the “Proletariat”, the narrative (to use and exhausted word) would fit in perfectly.
Think back to the Cold War, or those legions of Marxist professors ranting about so-called American imperialism and the injustice and evil America. I think Marxism is one of the primary progenitors of modern victimology and you can superimpose Marxist comments with Wright and Black Theology and you would get a very similar product.
Black Theology and Marxism and all the other “-ism’s” out there has as its central premise two pillars: a) collective responsibility, and thus, collective guilt and b) that Man is entirely a product of his environment, and thus, if you reshape the environment, you reshape man.
I reject the first pillar of collective responsibility/ guilt out of hand. (If radical African-Americans want to blame the United States collectively for slavery, why do they not blame the Black Africans who sold them into slavery? Or the Muslims who WERE the slave traders?)
The second pillar is a lie since Mankind clearly isn’t simply a bag of walking chemicals or a dumb beast subject entirely to the whims of his surroundings. We have the gift of choice. While Marxism believes in historical and economic determinism, it seems that Black Theology believes in historical and racial determinism as is evidenced by the Black Value System, which is also preached from the pulpits of Rev. Wright’s church, the Trinity United Church of Christ website. Here is a snippet:
Black Liberation Theologists, Don Quixote, relies on the essential humanity of their white American “oppressors” to be successful. Otherwise, if white Americans were truly as evil as they say they are, we wouldn’t have the largest concentration of Black millionaires in the world.
As with all victimology ideologies, Black Liberation Theology has more to do with gaining power than it is about justice.
Mendez is mostly good for a laugh. It’s difficult to believe he’s particularly bright, either, because he continually fails to notice where his arguments take him. For example:
“Those who sifted through hours of sermons looking for a few lurid phrases…” Well… no. Nobody “sifted through” anything, it’s easy enough to buy the DVDs from Trinity, and by golly, there they are: paragraph after paragraph of lurid phrases.
“Trinity Church is located in southside Chicago, where the consequences of racist public policies are manifested (sic) in a (sic) crumbling infrastructure, a failing school system, and a lack of economic development.” Probably all true. However, it is neither racist nor unfair to point out that for decades now while all this has been going on Chicago has been run by a democrat machine that is as immovable as the mafia in Sicily - and if you persist in voting democrat to the tune of 92% Rev., then perhaps you have some responsibility for your own problems.
America is not unique in the world in having gone through a period (a relatively short period, at that) in which slavery was the order of the day; indeed it still continues in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia et al., but it’s been gone for a while now. (I’m Irish, Mr. Mendez: my family was oppressed by England for 600 years, which is likely a hell of a lot longer than yours was.) The only place where the “plantation” persist is in the democrat party, and, as noted, you cheerfully buy right into that.
“The world hates America.” I don’t know how much of the world you’ve visited, Rev old boy, but I’ve wandered a fair piece of it. It’s very popular to say America is hated, but there isn’t a whole lot of evidence for it. In fact right now today a friend is at work in Harare for the CDC, and though the city is locked down and the country in an uproar as Mugabe tries to steal yet another election he clearly lost, the American contingent of which my friend is part walk the streets in safety, watched over by grateful people on both sides of the political struggle who are united only in being glad they’re there.
“America is imprisoned by its own myths.” Well, somebody is, Rev., but it’s going to take a brighter bulb than you evidently have to process where the myths truly lie; because if there’s anyone myth-driven, it would seem to be you. Your whole life and “ministry” seem to be imprisoned by myths.
And the only American institution most of us know about that has wreaked havoc on the minority community (from the confederacy right through to Jim Crow and Chicago’s crumbling south side) would seem to be the democrat party - for which you line up to vote.
You’re a strange guy, Rev.
JJ,
Since we’re on the oppression kick…
I’m Vietnamese, so my ancestors were oppressed by the Chinese for a roughly a thousand years, then the French, then the Japanese again, then by the commies…
The only people that gave much of a hoot about Vietnam really were… well, the Americans. The Vietnamese to this day knew that the Americans could have ended the Vietnam war at any time America chose to. They could have bombed that dikes and that would be that (not to mention what was shown in the Linebacker campaigns). The Vietnamese people I know and my relatives still living over there know that neither the Chinese, nor the French nor the Japanese would have such restraint if they possessed such power.
I have asked DQ to remove this from the Bookwormroom, which he will not do. I shared this link with him as a part of the same “personal” dialog that got my comment “truncated.” Apparently to conservatives, it is unfair for me to post criticisms that he doesn’t like and all right for GQ and his friends to bash my beloved pastor.
Go for it. But don’t, whatever you do, google Mendez and find out he’s been a part of the World Council Of Churches and is widely traveled and holds a doctorate. Don’t even look for the truth that would destroy your vicious yet ignorant fuel.
Hi Helen,
You can post whatever criticisms you like. In fact, I welcome you to do so here, since it makes the Boorkwormroom a more lively and interesting place. I criticized you only for publishing my name and directly quoting something I had said privately to you. But, as for posting criticisms, go for it!
I’m not nearly as interested in Mendez’s credentials as I am in his words. I never said he wasn’t completely qualified, just that I profoundly disagreed with his hate-filled (and publicly published) article.
Thomas — Great example!
@ Helen
Go for it. But don’t, whatever you do, google Mendez and find out he’s been a part of the World Council Of Churches and is widely traveled and holds a doctorate.
The possession of credentials such as a doctorate does not mean that others should unconditionally accept anything the possessor of a doctorate says, especially when the possessor of a doctorate is speaking outside his or her area of “expertise.” Regardless of one’s credentials, one gets evaluated on what one has said or written. Along the way Mendez apparently did not learn all that he should have about research and facts, as shown by his ignorant remarks about Allende and “Caesar Chavez.” Perhaps he decided that research and facts were to be confined to a dissertation.
Don’t even look for the truth that would destroy your vicious yet ignorant fuel.
After Mendez has shown his ignorance of Latin America, the above remark is rather amusing. ROTFL, shall we say. I might also add that I and other readers of this blog are far from ignorant, and far from stupid. As such, your above remark is very counterproductive as regards any attempt to persuade others to agree with your point of view. The above remark may make you feel good, but it will do nothing towards convincing others.
>>he’s been a part of the World Council Of Churches>>
According to the WCC website, there don’t seem to be individual memberships, just member churches, which says nothing about John Mendez’ activity in the WCC other than belonging to a member church. By that standard, you, too, might be a member of the WCC, if you’re a member of his congregation. I was unable to find a biography for John Mendez, even on the Emmanuel home page. Perhaps you have a link for that.
“…the real reason Dr. Wright is under attack is that he was the pastor of Senator Barack Obama and his family for over 20 years,…”
This is backwards. The reason _Barack Obama_ is under attack is that he was a member of Dr.Wright’s congregation for over 20 years.
Dr.Wright’s anti-Americanism and anti-white racism is a bit of a shock since it is being preached in a church that claims to be preaching the love of Jesus Christ, he has the right to preach whatever he wants - until he crosses the line of advocating rebellion. Still, for those of us who profess to be Christian, his hateful sermons _are_ a bit of a shock. For those of us who thought that racism was a thing of the past, his attacks on white America are equally shocking. And lastly, for those of us who believe that America is the greatest country on earth, his anti-americanism is offensive. I wish he had the honest to leave his homeland for a better place - since his comments indicate that _this_ place is such an unpleasant one.
I still say, what is his opinion of the South African nations, where the government is all black? Are they better than _this_ country? If not, why not? No oppressive whites there…. Do _their_ preachers preach the same way??? Bet not. Bet they’d be _dead_ if they did.
20 million Mexicans can’t _all_ be wrong!
Now helen wants to remove her links that she put up? That makes no sense.
Helen doesn’t mind her link being here. She just doesn’t like my less than worshipful treatment of it. Just my opinion. She can speak for herself.
Then I suppose I also don’t get why helen takes it personally when her “pastor” is attacked on his views.
pparently to conservatives, it is unfair for me to post criticisms that he doesn’t like and all right for GQ and his friends to bash my beloved pastor.
In this sense, it makes the quoted comprehensible.
Dear DQ,
I guessing that, due to your ingnorance of Black Liberation Theology in particular and your ignorance of American Guilt in general, you thought that an article published by the Winston Salem Chronicle was fair game for deconstruction on a conservative blog. If not for your ignorance, you would understand that, as Helen alerted you to the existence of this article, Black Liberation Theology accords her certain rights.
In typical white-oppressor fashion, you assumed that because you didn’t identify Helen as the ‘liberal friend’ who introduced you to this fine piece of scholarship, and because you didn’t actually quote any comments Helen may have made to you in private, you would be free to discuss it with other white oppressor friends -
Au contraire, my racist friend. According to Black Liberation Theology, when a recovering-racist/race-victim/minority chooses to share intellectually enlightening publications with a white oppressor in the hopes of making herself feel superior, said oppressor must a) publish the results of the exchange if it was successful from the point of view of the recovering-racist/race-victim/minority or b)never let the intellectual exchange NOR the source material NOR any criticism of the source material be mentioned in public again.
Thank you for your time. I pray this post finds you in a suitably remorseful frame of mind, though I hold no great hope that it is possible for you to free yourself from your own white-centric willfully ignorant myth-based remorselessly racist ethics system.
P.S I’d appreciate it if any and all would point out any glaring mistakes and/or omissions in this, my first attempt at rabble-rousing victimology. I am searching for a new career and I need to know if I have any future in this field. Thank you.
You’ve almost got it, Tap.
You assume there is an “intellectual exchange.” In fact, there is little or nothing truly “intellectual” going on and very little actual exchange. All that matters is “point of view” and the only “point of view” that is permitted to be heard is Black Liberation Theology. Whites stand accused. If they agree, they are obviously guilty, even they admit it. If they disagree, the content of the disagreement is not considered and the very fact that they disagreed is taken as proof of their guilt. This is a clever debate tactic, but it’s hardly intellectual or conducive to an exchange.
Keep at it, though. What these folks actually say is so far from an honest discussion of race that they are hard to parody, and yours made me laugh out loud. Thanks for writing.
For what it is worth, here is the abstract of John Mendez’s dissertation, courtesy of Dissertation Abstracts International.
The welcome table: Reframing the Dialogue on Racism
by Mendez, John, D.Min., United Theological Seminary, 2006, 310 pages; AAT 3279067
Abstract (Summary)
This study seeks to evaluate and refine the existing model of, Refraining the Dialogue on Racism. A case study was implemented to evaluate the experiences of those that participated in a well-planned series of consciousness raising transforming seminars. The results of the evaluation revealed that the majority of the participants developed an oppositional consciousness and emerged as anti-racist agents of social change.
I thought I spoke English, but apparently not. Will someone please explain to me what “developed an oppositional consciousness” means. Really, maybe I’ve just been out of academia for too long, but I have no idea what I’m reading.
I’m not sure, but I think it means you make ‘em really mad by convincing them they’ve been oppressed by racists all these years and just didn’t know it (consciousness raising), so that they will become “oppositional” and work for the social change (Marxism) which is your real goal all along.
My guess is that “developed an oppositional consciousness” refers to opposing one’s previous points of view. “I once was lost, but now I’m found. Once blind, but now I see.” IOW, they “saw the light,” and became “anti-racists.” Why? Because “emerged as anti-racist agents of social change” can only refer to Wonder Bread people. By definition, blacks are already “anti-racist.”
All the buzzwords in the abstract make one’s eyes glaze over. “consciousness raising” …”social change”….. Is somebody stuck in the 60’s, or what?
From my point of view, “social change” should mean that someone who is poor gets an education better than one’s parents, acquires job skills, and gets a better job than one’s parents had. One by one. It ain’t about liberal guilt trips.
Mendez is presenting to us the latter day reincarnation of the revival meeting, somewhat updated with 1960’s rhetoric. Hallelujah, I’m an anti-racist! The insidious aspect to this is that anyone who does not agree with them and adopt their “emerged as anti-racist agents of social change” viewpoint could then be labeled as “racist.” Sinner!
DQ,
It’s curious that bringing about social change is almost always on the Marxist end of the political spectrum. Does preaching the “social gospel” as Barack Obama and Black Liberation preachers constantly say simply consists of socio-political propaganda?
I believe there are, indeed, genuine miscarriages of justice happening everyday, and our society has even sanctioned some of this injustices. Sometimes it’s along racial lines; sometimes it’s not. I have seen how Black men are treated more suspiciously than other men by the police. But it is also true that Black men cause a disproportionate amount of crime per capita than all the other races in America, and victimology does not justify it.
I think Black Liberation Theology, the Rev. Wright’s, the Al Sharpton’s and the Jesse Jackson’s of the world add more fuel to the fire by propagating racial grievances than they solve any of the real problems plaguing the Black community. Bill Crosby was howled down by the leaders of the Black community because he dared to say that Black people have to own up to their part of the problem.
I think we do need a content-based national conversation on race that is not stymied by multiculturalism and PC nonsense. We share a common culture, a common language, a common history. We are all part of ONE nation, not a nation divided into many parts.
A part of me wants Rev. Wright, et al to just go away. But in a peculiar way, they are also part of the solution. If young Black men want to look at where all these grievances and grudges lead, they have to only look at Wright’s radicalism.
It’s like the hippies looking at Marilyn Manson and seeing where all their happy little dabbles in Eastern occultism and drugs would go over time. They pulled back from the brink, but still left us with a drug culture and anti-establishment “undermine the paradigm” rebellion ethic for our youths. We may be more than twenty years before recovering from what the Baby-Boomers had wrought in our nation.
But if the Black community is to recover from their current state, they’ve got to start at some point to address their own actions.