| I typically do not post on politically-oriented threads because I am panpolitical (my sociopolitical viewpoints are all over the place, and I don’t conform to any single political party’s ideology), but I am going to weigh in on this one.
After hearing and reading about Rev. Wright on a daily basis for the past several weeks, I finally saw him in action for the first time on television last night. I liked him immediately. I like him not because of what he says, but because he has the guts to say it. He tells it like it is. He’s like the little child from the folk tale who pipes up, and--to the shock and chagrin of his “politically correct” elders--blurts, “But the Emperor has no clothes!” Rev. Wright is simply blurting--to the shock and chagrin of "politically correct" America--that racism is still parading throughout our country buck naked, and that we’d all be better off if we finally admitted to ourselves and to each other that the sight is very real and very ugly.
Rev. Wright also brings to mind screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's brilliantly crafted and unforgettable character, veteran news anchor Howard Beale, Network’s “I’m as mad as expletive and I can’t take it anymore!” Mad Prophet of the Airwaves, about whom entertainment programming producer Diana Christensen wisely perceives, "Howard Beale got up there last night and said what every American feels, that he's tired of all the expletive. He's articulating the popular rage… I see Howard Beale as a latter-day prophet, a magnificent messianic figure, inveighing against the hypocrisies of our times…."
Rev. Wright is 100% real and 100% sane, but like fictional madman Howard Beale, Rev. Wright is “inveighing against the hypocrisies of our times.” Bravo to him. |