What's so wrong about Wright?

[WRJames]

Please...

We believe in the following precepts and covenantal statements. These White Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Whites are gathered. They must reflect on the following concepts:

Commitment to God
Commitment to the White Community
Commitment to the White Family
Adherence to the White Work Ethic
Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the White Community
Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting White Institutions
Pledge allegiance to all White leadership who espouse and embrace the White Value System
Personal commitment to embracement of the White Value System.

A page from Klan propoganda?

No, it's what the Trinity website looked like when Wright was pastor, with "White" substituted for "Black", before all this broke and someone sanitized it.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070307121338/http://www.tucc.org/about.htm

Your point?

We are so conditioned to the idea that anything that highlights a racial difference is "racist" that this immediately strikes us as dangerous, divisive -- and maybe, ultimately, it is.

When I was in my twenties, as legal segregation was ending, we white "liberals" thought that the world was going to be just like Star Trek -- people of different colors, even different species, all wearing the same uniform, sharing the same values, living together in perfect harmony because, no matter what the looked like, they were JUST THE SAME.

Blacks had been unfairly excluded from the wonders of white society -- well, once we eliminated the barriers we had erected, we would "integrate" them -- they would become "just like us". And if they didn't, if they for some reason rejected or resisted our invitations to join polite society -- well, that was just wrong.

I went through this personally and painfully. I had a black roommate one year, one black in a suite with three other students, and another black friend form the track team living across the hall. And we were so welcoming, so inclusive.

So when the blacks on campus started to get together, when they started to exclude whites from their social circle, we were hurt. We were devastated.

The blacks wanted black history courses. They wanted some of their food in the cafeteria. We had Irish students demanding thatched roofs on the dorms and corned beef and cabbage in the cafeteria. We thought those black students were wrong, just wrong.

So I understand your reaction. To some extent I still share it. But go to the Bill Moyers interview and listen to what he is actually saying. I won't try to paraphrase it. I don't think I could do it justice. But it makes sense.

 

[Darkniciad]

Your point?

We are so conditioned to the idea that anything that highlights a racial difference is "racist" that this immediately strikes us as dangerous, divisive -- and maybe, ultimately, it is.

This isn't choosing a traditional African name, or something that pays homage to same.

This isn't choosing to dress in traditional African costume, or to pay homage to same.

It's not about what you wear. It's not about what music you listen to. It's not about how you talk. It's not about who you hang out with. It's not about what you eat.

It's about claiming that's a superior way of life, which must be adhered to if you don't want to find yourself in Uncle Tom's Cabin. It's about superiority based only on your heritage and the color of your skin.

It's racism.

Rev. Wright is part of the problem, not the solution.

 

[WRJames]

This isn't choosing a traditional African name, or something that pays homage to same.

This isn't choosing to dress in traditional African costume, or to pay homage to same.

It's not about what you wear. It's not about what music you listen to. It's not about how you talk. It's not about who you hang out with. It's not about what you eat.

It's about claiming that's a superior way of life, which must be adhered to if you don't want to find yourself in Uncle Tom's Cabin. It's about superiority based only on your heritage and the color of your skin.

It's racism.

Rev. Wright is part of the problem, not the solution.

Are the Amish racist because they have chosen a different way? What about Hassidic Jews?

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Your point?

We are so conditioned to the idea that anything that highlights a racial difference is "racist" that this immediately strikes us as dangerous, divisive -- and maybe, ultimately, it is.

. . . So I understand your reaction. To some extent I still share it. But go to the Bill Moyers interview and listen to what he is actually saying. I won't try to paraphrase it. I don't think I could do it justice. But it makes sense.

Here's the model: The ethnic pride that Americans with various European heritages celebrate to varying extents - Italians, Irish, Poles, etc. Cuisine, cultural artifacts and celebrations, a kind of "style" of living and being. Nothing to an extreme, though - all proudly define themselves first and foremost as "Americans," the only country in the world that was founded not on ethnicity or geography, but on a set of enlightened principles. And it is our committment to those principles that are appealed to when a downtrodden group seeks justice in this country - not some mythical "racial ethic."

What Wright said in the Moyers interview may "make sense," but it is not the path we have chosen. As I said in my first post in this thread, as a nation we chose to embrace the gospel of King - integration and reconciliation - rather than that identified with Malcolm X - separatism and never-ending resentment. The latter path leads to Bosnia, Rwanda, etc. The former to a society that judges people by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin. Wright and those like him need separatism, because their livelihoods depend on it. That's what's wrong with Wright.

 

[Pure]

note to dark

from the same website for Wright's church whose url you gave, you omitted to reproduce the following:

• To have a church whose theological perspective starts from the vantage point of Black liberation theology being its center, is not to say that African or African American people are superior to any one else.

• African-centered thought, unlike Eurocentrism, does not assume superiority and look at everyone else as being inferior.

• There is more than one center from which to view the world. In the words of Dr. Janice Hale, “Difference does not mean deficience.” It is from this vantage point that Black liberation theology speaks.

• Systematized Black liberation theology is 40 years old. Scholars of African and African American religious history show that Black liberation theology, however, has been in existence for 400 years. It is found in the songs, the sermons, the testimonies and the oral literature of Africans throughout the Diaspora.

===
I suppose it doesn't fit with the ax you are grinding.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070328222151/www.tucc.org/talking_points.htm

 

[Pure]

note to rox

[America] the only country in the world that was founded not on ethnicity or geography, but on a set of enlightened principles.

let me think, now, US founders' principles:

The rich deserve political power but not the poor.

Rich white males should be running the country.

Women are inferior and should not have a vote.

Women should not serve on juries, or have rights to custody of their children.

Blacks are inferior and deserve slavery, if captured.

Blacks have no rights of fair trial, and cannot serve on juries.

Whites can have fun fucking black slave women, since the 'mixed' offstpring will still be "black" slaves and cannot create embarrassment.

It is dangerous to elect the highest officials by direct democracy, i.e. counting votes: this applies to Senators and the President.

Native persons are non persons.

Native persons may be killed as convenient.

Native person have no inherent rights to lands they've lived on.

God blesses our land and the above principles, which are rooted in Christianity and the Bible.

 

[WRJames]

What Wright said in the Moyers interview may "make sense," but it is not the path we have chosen. As I said in my first post in this thread, as a nation we chose to embrace the gospel of King - integration and reconciliation - rather than that identified with Malcolm X - separatism and never-ending resentment. The latter path leads to Bosnia, Rwanda, etc. The former to a society that judges people by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin. Wright and those like him need separatism, because their livelihoods depend on it. That's what's wrong with Wright.

Well, I think Pure did an excellent job of pointing out that Wright certainly does not stand for "neverending resentment."

As for "separatism" -- is integration -- read as assimilation and homogeonization -- the only acceptable path in our nation? Are we really a free country if we demand that everyone share exactly the same values, dress the same way, raise their children exactly the same way? Is what leads to "ethnic cleansing" the fact that we have different ethnic groups, or the intolerance of any difference, however innocuous, from the "norm"?