Reverand Jeremiah Wright

April 28, 2008

by

Kenneth Matinale

In the 1977 Woody Allen movie "Annie Hall" Woody's character, Alvy Singer, is having a flashback in which he is nine years old encountering an old guy at a family event. The old guy's character is Joey Nichols who goes through a bunch of embarrassing stuff to impress upon the young Alvy that his last name can be remembered by thinking of the five cent piece. Joey Nichols even puts the coins on his own face. After Alvy turns away he mutters to himself, "What an asshole". That was my continuous thought last night as I watched on CNN Reverend Jeremiah Wright speak live and unedited to a large gathering of the NAACP. I also thought there goes Indiana.

How could Barack Obama have listened to this moron for twenty years? If I had heard this before the New York presidential primary, would I have voted for Obama? I cannot imagine the Pope sounding like this, nor even a Catholic parish priest. Maybe the problem is that Protestant clergy in many cases are independent operators. If a parish priest had spoken with the prideful ignorance, smugness, arrogance, and disdain of Jeremiah Wright, the priest would have been called in by his pastor and reprimanded and possibly punished or reassigned. If the pastor had done it, his bishop would have taken action. As mentioned no pope in my memory has ever spoken this way. If someone must shout at the audience, then he must not have much to say. Even Black Muslims would have disciplined a rogue speaker as they did with Malcolm X.

But it appears that Jeremiah Wright is not as much of a rogue as we might first think. Black commentators immediately made excuses. Black members of his congregation do not appear to have been upset in the past. Some white Protestant groups also approve of their clergy engaging in sectarian speech from the pulpit. Americans have the right to free speech and free religion but should the two be combined when American clergy are receiving free tax exemptions? When will blacks become embarrassed by guys like this? When will they have the social ability to express their embarrassment? Part of this is style and part is substance. Preening jackasses seem out of place in the pulpit and it is difficult for a preening jackass to say anything worth listening to. So what the heck was Barack Obama listening to ... for twenty years? Why did Obama feel compelled to bond with his American blackness in this way? And why did Obama not bond with his American whiteness in a similar way?

Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not going away. He has a book planned for release this year. Before election day? This nobody is having his day in the sun and it's all about him. He could care less about how he impacts Barack Obama's candidacy or the aspirations of millions of young American blacks who must be embarrassed by Wright and just want him to go away. Immediately and completely. It's time for a new generation of Americans, black and white. Please.