His address in Philadelphia was a brilliant and eloquent response, and one that should be discussed and remembered long after this campaign season ends. As The New York Times editorial on Obama’s speech so aptly put it, “it was as powerful and frank” on the topic of race “as Mitt Romney was weak and calculating earlier this year” in his attempt to justify his Mormonism to the religious right. Speaking across the street from the hall where the Constitution was signed, Obama followed in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, by describing the struggle against racism in American society as a continuing battle to realize the goals and principles of the founding. Obama gave one of the most cogent analyses of the bases of racism that I have ever heard; it derives, he contended, from a misplacement of blame in reaction to legitimate grievances. The ultimate solution, he quite correctly suggested, was for Americans, individually, to stop conceiving of race relations as a zero-sum game between different groups, but as the unified striving of deeply connected fellow Americans who happen to look differently and come from diverse historical and cultural experiences. Ultimately, I believe, this speech will be remembered for Obama’s call to the American conscience, exhorting us to face the future, not as a divided confederation of ethnicities, as visualized by some at the extremes of our political spectrum, but united behind the principle that “the children of America … are our kids,” defined by a common identity as Americans, rather than the superficial one of skin color. I cannot conceive of a more worthwhile message, and Obama’s decision to turn political embarrassment into a forum to advance this larger goal speaks to the fact that he is, indeed, no ordinary politician, but a public figure of uncommon wisdom and foresight.
This leads me to my second reaction. The principles articulated in Obama’s speech embodied all that is good in the American liberal tradition. However, the quality of his argument throws into even sharper focus the need to utterly exorcise the illiberal underside of the American Left, as represented by the hate-spewing, bile-filled Reverend Wright. While it was, in one sense, gratifying to listen to a politician give voice to the everyday dichotomies of our individual social lives—that we can reject and abhor an individual’s stated views or comments, while recognizing the attractive part of their personality that makes us still wish to associate with them—that analogy does not apply in this case.
Wright is not a generally benign figure who suffers from the flaw of bigoted verbal diarrhea in private. His sermons are not, for example, comparable to Obama’s grandmother admitting shamefacedly to her grandson her lingering prejudices against black people, views that she knows she shouldn’t hold, but which she just can’t shake. Wright’s diatribes were public hate speech directed against white America, which he has labelled the “U.S. of KKK-A.” He unabashedly told bald-faced lies about America’s deeds, the most egregious of which accuse this country of purposely spreading the HIV virus in the developing world “as a means of genocide against people of color.” He has all but justified the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, declaring that “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” To openly proclaim such despicable sentiments goes beyond any pale of acceptability, and the words of this man far exceed the uncomfortable personal racial biases that many of us deal with. There is a moral obligation to quarantine such sinister opinions, and isolate the man who voices them so loudly and proudly.
Similarly, the good works in which Wright has involved his church do not give him a free pass to spew forth hate from the pulpit. Radical Islamist mosques provide social services, so too do those most intolerant of Christian churches that engage in bigotry against gays. The fact that they perform acts of charity does not excuse the hideousness of their views. The words of religious figures carry particular weight with the faithful, who assume that they come from one who is attuned closely to the divine. For Reverend Wright to utilize this platform to tell lies and denigrate his fellow Americans represents a betrayal of the highest principle of Western monotheism, the idea of respect for one’s fellow human being. Whatever community activities Trinity sponsors cannot hope to compensate for the minds that Wright has poisoned with his vicious rhetoric, and his use of the worship environment to articulate such abominable sentiments is an affront to people of faith everywhere. It is not too much to ask for a pastor to behave like a Christian behind the lectern, as well as in the neighborhood.
Wright’s statements also make him a blight on black America. Indeed, Obama’s claim that he can “no more disown him than … disown the black community” is a facetious one. Certainly, Wright represents a stream of thought in black America, one he shares with such luminaries as Louis Farrakhan. Similarly, former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and white supremacist crackpot David Duke articulates the views of a sector of the American white community. Just because certain views exist does not mean that they must, or should, be legitimated. White Americans are expected to anathematize the ideologies and personalities of the Klan and its racist ilk, because hatred of blacks and other minorities is wrong on principle, and against what our nation stands for. To acknowledge them or their beliefs implies that, on some level, racist views are minimally acceptable. Why, then, should Wright not be held to that standard? Rejecting a man who preaches to his large flock that white America is, universally and unchangingly, the enemy of black people is not an abandonment of the black community. It is a de-legitimization of a poisonous stream of racist thought within black America, and the recognition that black racism is as pernicious in principle as the white variety. All of Obama’s boasts—and those of liberal America—on the subject of racial unity are belied if they cannot make the distinction between the extremists in a given race and the vast majority that seeks interethnic harmony.
Consider, for a moment, an alternate scenario, with racial roles reversed. If Hillary Clinton or John McCain attended a church whose preacher attacked blacks with anything approximating the venom with which Wright has calumniated whites, would liberal-minded Americans accept any less than a full condemnation of the preacher, and a total severing of ties with the church? Would they see the matter in shades of gray, recognizing that, while the hypothetical minister’s stated views were abhorrent, he did provide the white candidate with a meaningful religious experience, and was generally a nice guy? No, they would demand, rightly and almost unanimously, that a candidate to lead our country divorce himself completely from a religious figure who is on the record advocating something as patently evil as blind intolerance. Indeed, this sort of moral outrage already characterizes the liberal response to Republican dealings with gay-baiting religious figures, and appropriately so. It is fair to request this same sort of reaction from Obama, and of other black leaders, in response to Wright. Let us refuse to give this venomous preacher a free pass based on the color of his skin, and instead judge him solely on the content of his obviously lacking character.
This affair is a crucial test for Obama in particular, and for the black and liberal communities as well. Obama has passed the first part of the challenge with flying colors. Instead of skirting the race issue with cheap political tricks, he addressed the topic head-on, in a remarkably fair-minded and cogent speech that spoke to the best of our national tradition. The real challenge, supporting those words with actions, remains un-met. Does Obama have the courage to openly cut all contacts with his sinister, bigoted “crazy uncle,” recognizing that while Uncle Jeremiah was a valued mentor in the past, his proud public intolerance makes any further association between the two an abandonment of the candidate’s deeply held and articulated principles? Will he commit to shunning Wright until the latter at least apologizes for his outlandish remarks? Will moderate, open-minded black Americans stand foursquare against black on white racism, and its practitioners, with the same vehemence with which they remain vigilant against the more historically prevalent white on black variety? Will liberals and academics join in boycotting Wright and his kind, realizing that he challenges their values as surely as white supremacists do? If these things happen, we have a chance of truly advancing the cause of racial understanding in this country. If not, if Obama again takes religious guidance from a man whose mouth is tainted by the filth of racism, if academic institutions continue to invite Reverend Wright—as Amherst so embarrassingly did last year—to speak as a legitimate voice of black Americans, it is difficult to see how anything meaningful can be accomplished.