Understanding, not condemning
Demographically, I belong to Hillary’s constituency. I would love to see a competent woman in the White House. But Barack Obama proved once again on Tuesday that he is so different, so right for our troubled time, that he’s won my vote.</p>
<p>His speech made me weep. I came of age in the 60s, and I have been waiting since then for a politician gifted with the wisdom and courage (let alone the eloquence!) to address the problems of our society honestly.</p>
<p>I’m mystified when I hear so many whites complaining that they can’t understand how Barack Obama can repudiate Rev. Wright’s remarks but not the person, wondering how Obama could possibly feel close to someone capable of “spouting such hate.” Didn’t they listen to what he said? Or did they just hear the soundbites and the pundits? That Obama refuses to abandon or ostracize a close friend and mentor of 20 years, the politically expedient thing to do (for white voters, if not for blacks) is precisely what makes him so attractive to me. He has the maturity to understand that people, like him, are neither all black nor all white, all good or all bad. People are complicated, as are the issues confronting us. We can’t, for example, abruptly abandon the Iraqis after ripping open the fissures in their society, nor can we stay there indefinitely.</p>
<p>Obama has the integrity to stand firmly for what he knows is right and the courage to reveal to the American public what African-Americans say among themselves. He is truly positioned with one foot on each side of the racial divide. He explained with great clarity the anger and resentment harbored by both. He acknowledged that “the anger is real; it is powerful.” Even more important, he knows that “to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”</p>
<p>Given the historical context of the Tuskegee Experiment, in which poor black men were deceived by the U.S. Public Health Service into volunteering for a 40-year program whose purpose was to study, but not treat, the effects of syphilis as the men suffered and died, not even when penicillin was found to be a cure, Wright’s claim that the same U.S. Government invented HIV/AIDS as a means of genocide becomes somewhat less outrageous.</p>
<p>Jeremiah Wright is not the only American intellectual who saw the WTC attacks in a nuanced light. Susan Sontag was vilified for writing, “Where is the acknowledgement that this was not a ‘cowardly’ attack on ‘civilization’ or ‘liberty’ or ‘humanity’ or ‘the free world’ but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed super-power, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?” Both Sontag and Wright voiced the uncomfortable truth that the U.S. is not universally beloved, that by maintaining a military presence in so many places across the globe we are viewed as an imperial power, resented, and even hated. We Americans have to confront Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, Hiroshima, Columbine, slavery, native Americans— we have to acknowledge and work through the complexities of our national character, not dismiss them, if we are “to form a more perfect union.”
<p>His speech made me weep. I came of age in the 60s, and I have been waiting since then for a politician gifted with the wisdom and courage (let alone the eloquence!) to address the problems of our society honestly.</p>
<p>I’m mystified when I hear so many whites complaining that they can’t understand how Barack Obama can repudiate Rev. Wright’s remarks but not the person, wondering how Obama could possibly feel close to someone capable of “spouting such hate.” Didn’t they listen to what he said? Or did they just hear the soundbites and the pundits? That Obama refuses to abandon or ostracize a close friend and mentor of 20 years, the politically expedient thing to do (for white voters, if not for blacks) is precisely what makes him so attractive to me. He has the maturity to understand that people, like him, are neither all black nor all white, all good or all bad. People are complicated, as are the issues confronting us. We can’t, for example, abruptly abandon the Iraqis after ripping open the fissures in their society, nor can we stay there indefinitely.</p>
<p>Obama has the integrity to stand firmly for what he knows is right and the courage to reveal to the American public what African-Americans say among themselves. He is truly positioned with one foot on each side of the racial divide. He explained with great clarity the anger and resentment harbored by both. He acknowledged that “the anger is real; it is powerful.” Even more important, he knows that “to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”</p>
<p>Given the historical context of the Tuskegee Experiment, in which poor black men were deceived by the U.S. Public Health Service into volunteering for a 40-year program whose purpose was to study, but not treat, the effects of syphilis as the men suffered and died, not even when penicillin was found to be a cure, Wright’s claim that the same U.S. Government invented HIV/AIDS as a means of genocide becomes somewhat less outrageous.</p>
<p>Jeremiah Wright is not the only American intellectual who saw the WTC attacks in a nuanced light. Susan Sontag was vilified for writing, “Where is the acknowledgement that this was not a ‘cowardly’ attack on ‘civilization’ or ‘liberty’ or ‘humanity’ or ‘the free world’ but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed super-power, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?” Both Sontag and Wright voiced the uncomfortable truth that the U.S. is not universally beloved, that by maintaining a military presence in so many places across the globe we are viewed as an imperial power, resented, and even hated. We Americans have to confront Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, Hiroshima, Columbine, slavery, native Americans— we have to acknowledge and work through the complexities of our national character, not dismiss them, if we are “to form a more perfect union.”
