Barack & Jeremiah

There is an old saying in the South that goes something like this: "don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining!" In America the meaning of that sentiment needs no explanation—except when it comes to religion & politics!

It seems that no matter how often ministers and politicians piss on the American public, their only reaction is to reach for the nearest umbrella. The latest example of this insanity can be found in the strange relationship between Sen. Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

First of all, if you are among those die-hard Republicans or Democrats who still believe that Americans actually VOTE presidents into office, then so be it. We'll leave it to other web sites to enlighten you on that assumption. What we're concerned with here is the very real danger that organized religion has always posed to any responsible society. Fortunately America's founding fathers recognized this danger and enacted laws to separate church and state. Unfortunately they left one big loophole in their founding documents, which all but mandated the inclusion of God and the Christian bible in presidential politics. Thus, the unique American institution of packing up God and taking him on the presidential trail has always been and no doubt always will be part of the road to the White House. This is why presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama put his foot into it by publicly embracing Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ as his "mentor" and spiritual father.

In the past the bond between presidential hopefuls and men of God has been carefully choreographed for photo ops to impress fundamentalist Christian voters. Secular Americans know this and usually shrug it off in the secure knowledge that men like Bill Clinton are as Christian as they are faithful husbands. This is why the smoke and mirrors of political religiosity employs benign boring old farts whose sonorous religious rhetoric wouldn't fill the back seat of a Volkswagen with listeners, let alone a press conference. Someone should have told Sen. Obama about this formula before he brought Rev. Wright & baggage to his presidential campaign. Last week Rev. Wright demonstrated to a stunned Barack Obama that he can fill a press conference.

Instead of rehashing Wright's "God damn America" sermon and the damage it did to his protégé Obama's presidential hopes, let's focus on Wright's non-stop 36-year blame game wherein he has taught generations of blacks to blame and hate white America for all their ills. He, like Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton before him, has long ago learned that selling hatred will fill his church and keep him in the limelight. Racial hatred in 21st century black America is also profitable.

To make the case that Jeremiah Wright's rhetoric is nothing but calculated racism, let us start with the notorious racist, and Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan, whose religion is built on the violent anti-white hatred of the late Elijah Muhammad. (Blue-eyed white people are devils who were created to persecute blacks, and who must one day be destroyed en mass, etc.) Since Rev. Wright's open embrace of Farrakhan, and his refusal to denounce Nation of Islam fundamentals is proof enough of Wright's racism, that alone is enough evidence of Barack Obama's true character. But, alas, not so in America.

When the Obama-Wright controversy finally broke in the national news, most Americans simply reached for their umbrellas and said "it's raining again"!

Fast forward past the initial controversy to last Monday (April 28) when a theatrical Jeremiah Wright spoke at Washington's National Press Club and publicly pissed right into the face of both Obama and the American public—no umbrellas needed this time around! Wright's theatrics were given a boost by an eclectic audience that included Marion Barry, Washington's disgraced former mayor, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party, and officials of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam. Reacting to their collective cheers, Rev. Wright slowly twisted a sharp carefully-worded dagger into the back of his supposed friend, Sen. Obama by once again publicly embracing Farrakhan's racial hatred. Wright: "He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century; that's what I think about him.... Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains, he did not put me in slavery, and he didn't make me this color."

For those who know the history of Wright and his church, the Jeremiah Wright show in D.C. was no surprise.

Rev. Wright's true feelings about Farrakhan were revealed in his own Trumpet Newsmagazine, a publication of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ—where, remember, Sen. Obama is a parishioner and has been for 20 years). In 2007 the magazine (read Rev. Wright) awarded Louis Farrakhan the "Lifetime Achievement 'Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. Trumpeter Award". Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen reported that the Trumpet said of Farrakhan that he "truly epitomized greatness." We can add this background to Wright's 1984 trip to Libya in the company of Louis Farrakhan when they visited with dictator/terrorist Muammar Qaddafi. Of course, Sen. Obama wasn't blind to the potential fallout of Wright's nefarious association. In his book, Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote that when his political opponents discovered the details of Wright and Farrakhan's Libyan visit, his "Jewish support would dry up quicker than a snowball in Hell."

Now we know why Jeremiah Wright, throughout his National Press Club speech, was conspicuously flanked by a posse of Farrakhan's Nation of Islam "bodyguards." One can only conclude that this display, like Wright's speech, was carefully calculated since Wright obviously needed no protection in a room filled to the brim with his own supporters.

Perhaps the most revealing words by Rev. Wright during his National Press Club performance has gone unreported and no doubt went over the heads of most whites listeners: "In the late 1960s, when Dr. James Cone's powerful books burst onto the scene, the term 'black liberation theology' began to be used. I do not in any way disagree with Dr. Cone, nor do I in any way diminish the inimitable and incomparable contributions that he has made and that he continues to make to the field of theology. Jim, incidentally, is a personal friend of mine."

To have this clear, let's notice what Barack Obama had to say about his pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright: "As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children." (Speech, March 18, 2008.)

Now that we have clear Obama's feelings about Jeremiah Wright, and we know the reverence Wright holds for James Cone, let's see what Cone believes and teaches.

First of all, James Cone is a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Here are a few of his "inimitable and incomparable contributions" with which Rev. Wright does "not in any way disagree":

"All white men are responsible for white oppression. It is much too easy to say, 'Racism is not my fault,' ... Racism is possible because whites are indifferent to suffering and patient with cruelty."

"To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people!"

"The demonic forces of racism are real for the black man. Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man 'the devil.' The white structure of this American society, personified in every racist, must be at least part of what the New Testament meant by the demonic forces."

"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love." (Quoted from Cone, James: A Black Theology of Liberation: Twentieth Anniversary Edition. See William R Jones, "Divine Racism: The Unacknowledged Threshold Issue for Black Theology", in African-American Religious Thought: An Anthology, ed Cornel West and Eddie Glaube, Westminster John Knox Press).

The politics-as-usual in America's so-called presidential race doesn't overly concern us at www.darrellwconder.com. What does is the specter of religion being used as a tool in the hands of religious racists like Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright so that they may pander to fanatics, bigots and fruit cakes.

Okay. So what if Rev. Wright embraces the racist views of Louis Farrakhan and James Cone? So what if he truly believes that the US government (meaning a "white" US government) invented AIDS to kill off the planet's black race? So what if he has spent nearly 40 years bashing white folks as victimizers and blacks as their victims? A racist, sexist, homicidal bible in the hands of a racist fanatic proves the very real danger organized religion poses to the safety of the planet, which is what www.darrellwconder.com is all about. It is therefore the position of this site that if Sen. Obama truly wants to heal the racial divide and take our nation forward, as he claims, it can not be accomplished in the shadow of a dangerous bible-thumping racist. It is the position of this site that Barack Obama's past totally disqualifies him as a potential leader in any official capacity. He should apologize to the American people and quickly remove himself from not only the presidential race, but from the Senate forthwith!

(You may see Wright's speech on C-Span, posted on Youtube in five parts, with parts 4 & 5 being most revealing. For more information about Rev. Wright's church, and what it teaches, this link offers insight.)