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I Still Don't Get It
I keep reading accusations that Rev. Wright is a hateful racist. Will someone please quote anything Rev. Wright has said or otherwise done to demonstrate he's a racist. And please, stick to facts.
Thanks!
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Comments (10)
I don't know about racist, but he says that the US was intentionally behind the AIDS epidemic; that he has complete respect for Louis Farrakan, (a black supremacist), that black brains are different than white brains, and therefore they learn differently. Frankly, I don't care about any of the above, because he can think whatever he wants to, and I don't think that he expressed those views on a daily basis to Barack Obama, and even if he did, I just don't care.
What bothers me about Wright is that he is such a narcissist that his own camera time seems to be more important than a 20 year friendship. He intentionally portrayed Obama in the worst possible light, saying he does what he does because he is a politician. Why? To draw attention to himself, and to exact retribution for Obama not inviting him to speak at some event.
What bothers me is that I can't get it out of my mind that even all of that isn't enough for him to betray Obama, and so I conclude that he has decided that if we elect our first black president, Wright's entire thesis -- black folks don't get an even break here in the US -- will go down the toilet.
His biggest "sin" in my book is pure selfishness.
May 2, 2008 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wright said black and white brains are different. Whites are left brained and logical, analytical, and object oriented. Blacks are right brained and creative and intuitive. Blacks express their emotions. Whites are emotionally controlled. He then began to imitate an uptight white person in mocking manner.
For years liberals, both white and black, have fought against these ideas as they have been used to hold blacks back academically. These memes have been part of what has been know as the soft bigotry of low expectations. Saying that blacks and whites are different in these ways but not deficient does not make them acceptable ideas.
If any white person had stood up and made such a speech he would excoriated and rightly so. This is no different then those who have tried to spread the meme that women's brains are different then a man's, i.e. that women are emotional and intuitive and men think logically
May 2, 2008 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are confusing things. The soft bigotry of low expectations is based on the idea that some children can't learn, not that they learn differently. Failure to recognize how they learn differently is what led people to think they could not learn. There is also a difference between cultural differences and biological differences, which I think both you and Rev. Wright are confusing. Identifying or discussing differences between races is not inherently racist (as discussing differences between genders is not inherently sexist). Oh, and lots of white people (specifically researchers in the field of education) have stood up and said just that.
May 3, 2008 12:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, I'm not confusing things. Wright used his nonsense about the difference between the left brained white children and the right brained black children to explain why black children can't learn from books, not being logical and object oriented.
All these reasons that Wright discussed where used years ago to discourage or at least not encourage black children to excel academically. Just put them into sports, music, or vo-tech, they don't have the type of brain that can learn through books or think logically
I realize that there are right brain left brain differences but to suggest that whites are left brained and blacks are right brained is rediculous, and racist.
May 3, 2008 2:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Assuming for a minute that his statement was correct, suggesting that whites are left-brained and blacks are right-brained is not racist. Adding to it that left-brained people are smarter than right-brained people (or the opposite) would be. Is suggesting the blacks have more melanin than whites or that African Americans are more likely to have sickle-cell anemia racist?
Now...that does not mean that I think Rev. Wright is correct when it comes to this particular biological difference (I said as much in my post, please read it again). I think he was confusing cultural differences with biological ones, as I said. Despite the fact that he was confusing things, I don't think he ever said that black children can't learn from books. He said that they learn better in other ways. There is plenty of research to back up the fact that many children, especially children from non-majority backgrounds, learn better in ways that aren't books (as representative of traditional pedagogical approaches that favor white, middle-class males).
Ignoring differences in the way people (black, white, brown, female, young, old) learn and teaching them all as if they were middle-class, white males is what is ridiculous and racist.
May 4, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ok, I have to disagree with this.
First of all, the exact quotes of the commments you are referring to can be found here, in the full transcript of his speech to the NAACP.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/28/wright.transcript/
May 2, 2008 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I had similar thoughts. I found little of Rev. Wrights comments to racist, per se. You would not know that from the vitriol on the media and blogs.
May 2, 2008 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Secondly, the theory of neurological differences between the genders is not a meme. There have been numerous academic studies that have shown that there are in fact differences.
What needs to be pointed out is that this does not imply one is superior to the other.
The problem that used to exist with this argument is that it was used as "evidence" that women were inferior.
From the Society for Neuroscience:
http://www.sfn.org/index.cfm?pagename=brainBriefings_genderAndTheBrain
May 2, 2008 10:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to keep posting these as separate comments b/c we're only allowed a few links per comment.
Here is another:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Health/story?id=424260&page=1
May 2, 2008 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find nothing racist on the aspect of right brain thinking at all. As a matter of fact people in the arts have to be careful in bestowing their creativity as superior because of this. The more developed your right brain the process of creativity is easier.
Examples of this is to paint upside down, doing monochrome works, contour drawing, simultaneous color painting, and abstract drawing, etc.
There are five basic intelligences (someone correct me if this number has be reclassified) and Wright only explained two. He explained the ones that maybe be more predominate because of cultural influences. WHICH people have always argued the "rote" style of learning from the ones that promote learning curiosity.
May 2, 2008 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
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