Obama's Race Speech

Yesterday, Barack Obama gave perhaps the most honest speech on race in America that I've ever read.  And The Rob wrote a sublime summary and analysis of Obama's speech over on his weblog. 

Michael Gerson's Post op-ed entirely missed the point, of course.  He says, "Yet didn't George Bush and other Republican politicians accept the support of Jerry Falwell, who spouted hate of his own? Yes, but they didn't financially support his ministry and sit directly under his teaching for decades. The better analogy is this: What if a Republican presidential candidate spent years in the pew of a theonomist church -- a fanatical fragment of Protestantism that teaches the modern political validity of ancient Hebrew law? What if the church's pastor attacked the U.S. government as illegitimate and accepted the stoning of homosexuals and recalcitrant children as appropriate legal penalties (which some theonomists see as biblical requirements)? Surely we would conclude, at the very least, that the candidate attending this church lacked judgment and that his donations were subsidizing hatred. And we would be right."

No, Michael: you'd be wrong.  Like many members of the white majority in America, Gerson fails to understand that a white man speaking from a position of political power is completely different from a person not in power expressing the same views.  As an analogy to the view he expresses here, let's use an extreme example: apartheid South Africa. 

In apartheid South Africa, blacks were the majority, but they held no power.  Some members of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress -- including Nelson Mandela himself, before he went to prison -- advocated both non-violent protests and violence that some consider terrorism.  He did so in order to gain freedom, equality and independence for black South Africans.  If you haven't read Mandela's autobiography Long Walk To Freedom, he writes about this stuff.   It's no secret.

Does this mean we should universally condemn Nelson Mandela, and harshly judge everyone who ever listened to him?  Did Mandela, who later became South Africa's first freely-elected president, "lack judgment?"  Did Mandela's supporters "subsidize hatred?"

If Gerson tried making this argument today, people of all colors across the world would look at him like he was crazy.  And they'd be right. 

You might say that Obama's pastor is no Mandela, and you'd be correct.  But the views of Mandela's supporters and Pastor Wright aren't nearly as different as some might like to think.  As for pastors in general, people all over America listen to pastors that spew invective along these lines.  There are two big reasons why their views don't get the attention that Wright has recently. 

One is the undeniable fact that a large group of white people, including some very powerful and influential ones, sympathize with the views of politicians like Pat Buchanan, David Duke and their pseudo-religious partners in prejudice.  The other is that the sight and sound of a black man spewing Wright's brand of venom taps into the deep-seated fears and stereotypes white America maintains.

Somehow, the media gives Falwell and Buchanan credit for being complex, nuanced individuals who are neither all good nor all evil.  But when a black man expresses similar radical views, columnists like Gerson immediately pigeonholes him as "dangerous" and compares him to a member of the KKK.  Apparently an angry black man who has little in the way of real power in this country is far scarier to Gerson than angry white men like Pat Robertson and Buchanan who actually wield some mainstream influence. 

The reality is that it's absurd to even compare the two given their respective positions in the power structure.  Wright's supporters aren't going to agitate for violent revolution, nor are they going to push a president to introduce constitutional amendments banning abortion or gay marriage.  Wright's money will be spent not on convincing others that America gave AIDS to black people (which stands as Wright's most baseless claim), but on helping his community overcome concrete problems like joblessness and poverty. 

There are some damn good reasons for voting against Obama in the primaries and/or the election.  His racial identity and his pastor really don't count among them. 

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