In defense of Wright and Obama's patriotism
A story I was told in history class:
During the Kennedy administration, when the civil rights marches were just getting started, Bobby Kennedy went south to meet with black civil rights leaders. He was to convey to them that the Kennedy administration wanted to help but ask if they tone down their rhetoric and marches because they were making the US look bad and there was a cold war on.
Black leaders responded angrily and made a lot of anti-American statements, saying why should they care about America's image in the world. It wasn't their country anyway.
Bobby Kennedy -- a true blue patriot -- left the meeting and went back to Washington, mad as hell.
But reportedly, a couple weeks later, he called one of his senior aides into his office and said something to the effect of, you know, if I'd been treated the way they have, I might feel the same way about this country.
From then on, the Kennedy administration fully supported the civil rights movement.
In regards to Jeremiah Wright and Michelle Obama's comments, I think we should trust the American people to be just as fair minded.
The truth is that most of them haven't thought about this from the other side. Like Bobby at that time, they've just not put themselves in the other person's shoes.
We need to remind the American people that America first enslaved blacks and then forced them to live under a descriminitory set of laws and the unbridled rule of lynch mobs.
Even President George Bush recently said, in regard to whites in the south hanging nooses out of their trucks, people need to remember what blacks have been through.
And we need to ask all those people, given that history, how would they feel about a country that had treated them that way or their relatives -- many still alive to remember it -- that way?
Would the fact that the country had finally stopped treating your people badly but only after being repeatedly pushed to do so, assuage you? Would you look upon 30 years of affirmative action as enough to make up for 400 years of oppression -- oppression witnessed by a generation of people still alive today?
I personally am not surprised by the notion that there's a fair amount of anti-American feeling in some quarters of the black community, but I sense that most Americans of African descent WANT to believe in this country. There's a desire to love America and be proud of it, but there's the fear that America maybe won't return the favor.
If Obama is elected doesn't it say, more powerfully than anything else could, that those fears are unwarrented and that Americans of African descent can rest assured that they are full members of this country. Does it not offer the potential to change once and for all how Americans of African descent feel about America? It has already apparently changed how Michelle Obama feels. What is the impact for our country if that change in feeling becomes universal? If you're concerned about the lack of patriotism of people like Jeremiah Wright and other cynics who say America is a racist nation, isn't the best response to show him he's wrong about the country?
You don't have to do that by necessarily electing Obama president, but you do have to do it by giving Obama a fair shake and by being understanding of the history that blacks have faced and the necessary attitudinal consequences of that which make it impossible for a black politician not to know and even be friends with someone of Wright's views regarding America.
The trouble is that this may not be an argument that a black person can make to whites as successfully as another white could make it to whites. Maybe someone like Senator Byrd or someone a little more conservative, who has credibility with more conservative elements of the white population?
During the Kennedy administration, when the civil rights marches were just getting started, Bobby Kennedy went south to meet with black civil rights leaders. He was to convey to them that the Kennedy administration wanted to help but ask if they tone down their rhetoric and marches because they were making the US look bad and there was a cold war on.
Black leaders responded angrily and made a lot of anti-American statements, saying why should they care about America's image in the world. It wasn't their country anyway.
Bobby Kennedy -- a true blue patriot -- left the meeting and went back to Washington, mad as hell.
But reportedly, a couple weeks later, he called one of his senior aides into his office and said something to the effect of, you know, if I'd been treated the way they have, I might feel the same way about this country.
From then on, the Kennedy administration fully supported the civil rights movement.
In regards to Jeremiah Wright and Michelle Obama's comments, I think we should trust the American people to be just as fair minded.
The truth is that most of them haven't thought about this from the other side. Like Bobby at that time, they've just not put themselves in the other person's shoes.
We need to remind the American people that America first enslaved blacks and then forced them to live under a descriminitory set of laws and the unbridled rule of lynch mobs.
Even President George Bush recently said, in regard to whites in the south hanging nooses out of their trucks, people need to remember what blacks have been through.
And we need to ask all those people, given that history, how would they feel about a country that had treated them that way or their relatives -- many still alive to remember it -- that way?
Would the fact that the country had finally stopped treating your people badly but only after being repeatedly pushed to do so, assuage you? Would you look upon 30 years of affirmative action as enough to make up for 400 years of oppression -- oppression witnessed by a generation of people still alive today?
I personally am not surprised by the notion that there's a fair amount of anti-American feeling in some quarters of the black community, but I sense that most Americans of African descent WANT to believe in this country. There's a desire to love America and be proud of it, but there's the fear that America maybe won't return the favor.
If Obama is elected doesn't it say, more powerfully than anything else could, that those fears are unwarrented and that Americans of African descent can rest assured that they are full members of this country. Does it not offer the potential to change once and for all how Americans of African descent feel about America? It has already apparently changed how Michelle Obama feels. What is the impact for our country if that change in feeling becomes universal? If you're concerned about the lack of patriotism of people like Jeremiah Wright and other cynics who say America is a racist nation, isn't the best response to show him he's wrong about the country?
You don't have to do that by necessarily electing Obama president, but you do have to do it by giving Obama a fair shake and by being understanding of the history that blacks have faced and the necessary attitudinal consequences of that which make it impossible for a black politician not to know and even be friends with someone of Wright's views regarding America.
The trouble is that this may not be an argument that a black person can make to whites as successfully as another white could make it to whites. Maybe someone like Senator Byrd or someone a little more conservative, who has credibility with more conservative elements of the white population?
