<p>On page 4 of the Sunday New York Times Week in Review, last colunm fourth paragraph, you can read Mike Huckabee’s reaction, as a pastor and a conservative, to the Rev. Wright flap. </p>
<p>He explains that he grew up in the segregated South as did Rev. Wright and that those who did not can’t imagine what it was like for blacks in the South during that period. He says several times that he feels “slack should be cut,” for that generation. On another web site there is a longer excerpt from his statement where he says that it is understandable that Rev Wright has a bit of a chip on his shoulder but that if he, Mike Huckabee, had grown up in those conditions he would probably have a bigger chip. Wake up and smell the coffee people-we are all probably old enough to remember reports of lynchings and clan raids during that shameful period.</p>
<p>I also saw Obama interviewed about this incident on ABC News last night by Charles Gibson. He said he abhores those statements by Rev. Wright but that we all need to imagine what monsters we would sound like if someone took the stupidest thing we ever said and looped it over and over again on National TV over a period of days. He went on to say he doesn’t excuse Rev. Wright’s statements in any way, but we have all probably said really stupid things in our lives and that isn’t our whole identity.</p>
<p>I grew up in the segregated South as well. Reverend Wright, alone, can be understood in the context of his upbringing. He’s still pretty wacko, however.</p>
<p>Obama needs to distance himself from the Reverend and the remarks. </p>
<p>Perhaps not to the extent he should verbally split the good reverend from gizzard to gullet as you suggest, ph.</p>
<p>Were McCain to have such baggage it would also be endlessly looped. Tough cookies for Obama. The baby may be ugly but it’s all his.</p>
<p>ABC News reports that Obama reacted in this manner to the remarks:</p>
<p>“I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have [been] the subject of this controversy,” Obama said, saying that he’d never heard any of them personally.</p>
<p>“One of them I had heard about after I had started running for president and I put out a statement at that time condemning them,” he continued.</p>
<p>But more than a year ago, Obama disinvited Wright from speaking at his candidacy announcement. Wright told The New York Times then that Obama told him, “You can get kind of rough in the sermons. … It’s best for you not to be out there in public.”</p>
<p>I’m going to get flack here for being an Obama groupie, but two good things happened today… he was on The View, and I caught it. You can watch the full interview on ABC’s website. Anyway, as the cameras were fading away for the first commercial break, I saw Sherri Shepherd quickly get up from the couch, and try to grab his attention before anyone else did (then commercial break); when they came back from commercial break, Shepherd basically said, that she’d been a Hillary supporter all along, and that now she wants to spend her free weekends working for Obama. Even Elizabeth was touched by his presence… you could see it in her body language, and she acknowledged that Sherri’s idea was a good one.</p>
<p>Then tonight I found out Obama’s speaking at D2’s college on Monday. She told me if she gets a ticket that she will call me from her cell phone during the speech and let me listen in.</p>
<p>Although I’ve heard him speak on TV many times, I just felt moved again by this extended interview with him today, and they asked the tough questions.</p>
Wright isn’t just some unknown, insignificant joe on the street – he is a leader. One of the biggest problems with whites (usually liberal whites) interacting with African Americans is that the whites treat the African Americans like children. The set lower standards for African Americans. They make excuses like “in the past something bad happened to people of his race so it’s ok to be misguided.” If you wouldn’t make excuses for a white person saying such nonsence, you shouldn’t be making excuses for an African American saying such nonsence. This isn’t 1972 and if the man is still living in 1972, he is an idiot. Wright’s behavior is inexcusable under any circumstances, under any scenario. When you make excuses for him or try to minimze the impact of his hate, you are treating him like a child. He is no child, he is a leader. If there is one person who has an obligation to tell the truth it would be a leader. Wright ought to know better. Shame on him and shame on anyone who supports him.</p>
<p>Strong words razor.
Your point about Liberals treating African-Americans like children under the guise of “compassion” is probably accurate. It’s true that minorities will never learn to walk or run on their own until they are allowed to stand on their own two feet. The Welfare System as it has existed over the past several decades has inhibited some people from experiencing freedom & independence - in that way, those that advocate vast entitlement programs really are doing the recipients a DISservice. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, I do think there are circumstances where certain agencies should step in and render aid when someone gets down on their luck (personally I favor faith-based charities rather than gov’t), but it shouldn’t go on in perpetuity. </p>
<p>About Rev. Wright - I find it very difficult to understand how a “leader” of a Christian church could say the things he has said. Even IF all the things he accused white people of doing were true (big if!), shouldn’t a Christian preacher be teaching his congregation about loving their enemies, turning the other cheek & forgiveness?</p>
<p>I’ve said before, this whole issue is about Obama, not Rev. Wright, but fortunately it has opened the doors to discussioins about race relations, Christianity, etc. These are good topics!</p>
<p>I tend to agree with rs that liberals tend to patronize AAs. I however, in considering Obama as a southern conservative person, demand excellence.</p>
<p>Obama has satisfied me with his statements about his pastor’s inflammatory and racist remarks. However, Obama gets no further ground from me on any front - I will hold him to the same expectations I have for McCain - convince me you will be better for the United States than the other guy.</p>
<p>btw - Mrs. Clinton just needs to get out. She craves power way too much. She scares me.</p>
<p>So, razorsharp, holding yourself your own higher standard - have you spoken up to protest every racist remark you’ve heard in an all-white conversation? Challenged ethnic stereotypes each time you heard them? Or did you just let it slide, figuring that the speaker was basically an OK guy, and making a stink would be… uncomfortable? Because that’s the reality of the white world I live in. From where I sit, you guys are holding Obama to a higher standard than you set for yourselves, without even recognizing it.</p>
<p>However, we do hold our politicians to a higher standard, especially our Presidents. If McCain’s or Clinton’s pastor made a lot of televised racist statements then I think they would be in trouble too. </p>
<p>Of course, there is a lower standard with regard to gays. We allow our preachers to be homophobic.</p>
<p>“Huckabee explains that he grew up in the segregated South as did Rev. Wright and that those who did not can’t imagine what it was like for blacks in the South during that period. He says several times that he feels “slack should be cut,” for that generation.”</p>
<p>Liked him before. Liked him now. I hope he gets a TV show, and I will watch.</p>
<p>“minimize the impact of his hate”</p>
<p>Where is the hate? I hear an old fear, and I hear anger for what’s happened to him and his people, but I don’t hear hate. Who does he hate? Where is the racism? How do you explain his white parishioners and the love he shows them?</p>
<p>Your question is very valid. Trinity United Church is part of the United Church of Christ (UCC) denomination, which Obama has pointed out, is 90+% white across America. If Wright hates whites so much, why remain in a denomination that is predominantly white?</p>
Kluge, I had a lengthy response prepared but the system did a hiccup and I lost the words. It will take me a while, but I will try to get back to you on this. In the mean time, please note that Wright wasn’t making any personal comments among his friends and family. He was preaching to other human beings who were expecting him to tell them the truth.</p>
<p>And Razorsharp, it’s my perception that the people who would never vote for Obama anyway keep moving the goalposts, trying to find a place where their righteous condemnation is defined and restricted and limited to just one set of circumstances: Obama’s. Obama has stated that he never heard Rev. Wright make the kind of comments which have been recorded and looped endlessly. I have no reason to doubt that. Wright gave hundreds of sermons over the years - undoubtedly most of them are utterly unremarkable. The fact that one of the sleazebags of the right eight wing propagandists - a self-proclaimed “Freeper” - tried to place Obama in the church during a sermon at which something that was supposed to be in some manner objectionable, and only failed in his slime attempt due to the proven physical impossibility of Obama actually having been there, speaks volumes to me about why Rev. Wright feels the way he does. Yes, he’s an angry man. Yes, he’s got a lot of reasons to be angry. But he’s still done a lot of good for a lot of people, black and white, in his ministry - not that you’ve ever heard about that, have you? All you’ve heard are the tape loops of the most controversial things he’s ever said, and judge him solely from that.</p>
<p>Not that it would ever matter, anyway Kluge. Seeing Wright as a fully fleshed out human being, and not the one-dimensional caricature so many in the right wing insists he must be, would muddy the waters and and render their chest thumping righteous indignation ineffective as a political weapon. </p>
<p>And even as they continue to demand that Barack Obama apologize, and “condemn” ever more stridently, and “distance” himself from here to the moon, and “explain ever more fully”, and prostrate himself before voters who would never ever have considered casting a ballot for him in the first place, they smirk among themselves, agreeing that there’s neither word nor deed in the lexicon of human behavior that would ever be enough to placate them.</p>