What did Rev. Wright say that was racist or bigoted?

[Joshua N]

I have asked this to a few posters but have gotten no response, so I thought I should make a separate post to address the question.

Frankly, I do not know what he said that was racist, so everyone out there who thinks Wright made racist comments please respond with a quote.

His comment about America's foreign policy was not racist.

His comment that Hillary has never been called a n*gger was not racist.


People have been on here condeming Wright's comments as racist and bigoted, but no one has pointed out what comments they are referring to or explained how those comments were racist. I hate to continue to stir this issue up but I want to know what you are thinking.

[billbuckhead]

1. For starters, saying nasty things about Natalie Holloway

Defend that! Oprah quit this church several years ago, Hillary's opponent should have also quit this church if he really believed in racial harmony

[Joshua N]

4. What did he say about Natalie Holloway?

[billbuckhead]

10. "One 18-year-old white girl from Alabama gets drunk on a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and 'giv

"One 18-year-old white girl from Alabama gets drunk on a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and 'gives it up' while in a foreign country, and that stays in the news for months!"
<http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Obama_s_pastor_disses_Natalee_Holloway>

[Joshua N]

15. What is racist about that? Nancy Grace is always airing about the next dead white woman. I think

that is what is racist. And sexist. Apparently only beautiful, young, single white women matter when it comes to individual tragedies. It is even better when the killer is a black man.


This comment is, however, incredibly incredibly insensitive. Thanks for pointing it out.

[billbuckhead]

17. Incredibly insensitive? It's called blatant sexism

It doesn't matter about the two Georgia girls killed at NC state and Auburn because they're successful white women?

[Joshua N]

20. Yes it does matter. I did not say it didn't.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

43. nothing, Right wingers seemed to have forgotten this:

[WinkyDink]

53. Well, for one thing, Americans tend to care about Americans; it just works that way.

[napi21]

2. I don't know about racist or bigoted, but he certainly was promoting

hate. THAT'S My problem with his sermons. I believe leaders, especially religious leaders, should promote peace, love, & understanding. It's easy to rehash and remind people of how they're been used & abused and promote the anger they feel about it. It's more difficult to encourage happiness about the successes that have been accomplished and how to promote more that has to be done.

[Joshua N]

8. I have to say I disagree with you about your conclusion. In college, my

freshman roommate did not know who Hitler was. It was truly frightening.

History is important and should not be forgetten. It is easy to talk about success when you are not having to deal with the problems. Black people are still used and abused in a lot of ways. Unfortunately we have not had that conversation as a country because most white people do not want to hear what black people have to say.

I do agree, however, that his tone could have been more conciliatory and that his words could have been chosen more carefully.

[napi21]

35. I agree that black people are still used and abused. So are others.

I'm not sure we haven't had the conversation because white people don't want to hear what blacks have to say though. I know I wouldn't have any problem having open and honest dialogs. I hate to blame the media because they get blamed for everything, but where else is a conversation like you speak of going to take place? I think Barack did a great job with his speach today. He talked about both sides of our racial arguments. That's at least a good start to beginning a discussion.

I want to understand why a safe quiet neighborhood changes to a violent unsafe one when it changes to mostly minority occupied. Why is it when I hear the nightly news almost all of the violent crimes were commited by blacks? If it's media bias, let's expose that. If it's not, we need to find out why there seems to be more violence in minority communities, and what needs to be done to change that.

[Joshua N]

50. I know that others are used and abused . I do not know why you felt the need to say that.

I will not presume why, but I will ask you to think about why you said that.

Like I said, I do think that the conversation has not happened because white people do not want to hear what black people have to say and black people do not want to expose themselves to the hurt they are likely to receive from opening up. This is not every white person (i.e. you) or black person (i.e. me) but it is a generality which I feel holds true.

Case in point: I say in honesty that this conversation on race is passing us by, and you say that "others" are "used and abused" besides black people. If you made the same point about another discriminated minority (i.e. "I agree that Gay people are used and abused. So are others.") it would be roundly condemned.

Most black folks do not want to deal with that, so although yes we are integrated and work and live together we do not talk to one another about how we really feel, for instance your question about the safety of neighborhoods. I think that is a good point of conversation.

Safe quiet neighborhoods do not change to violent unsafe ones when minorities move in. That is a stereotype. The town I grew up in has engaged in white flight for 30 years, but the neighborhoods that are most recently black and the current mixed ones have no higher rate of violence. The highest rate of violence exists in the oldest black community where the poorest people live and can not leave. Personally I feel more comfortable in a Black neighborhood over a White one. But police presence is higher in black neighborhoods. Black people get pulled over more, are searched more, and go to jail more. Black people are 15% of America's drug users but make up over 40% of the prison population for drug offenses. This is all oversimplified, but frankly there are books upon books by sociologists which recognize the root causes of poverty and lay out the impact of racism in America today, but books like that will never make the news.

And this is not some abstract concept or issue. I have been pulled over for Driving While Black and there is a concerted effort in my city to target the black neighborhoods for traffic offenses. My brother, who drives an Impala with 12" speakers, has been pulled over 6 times over the past year or so with other cars about him going the same speed. And it's not just the police, it's every system black people have to deal with.

I need to stop now because I do not want to ramble, but I hope I have come to the tip of the iceberg of something leaning towards meaningful dialogue. Thanks for commenting.

[napi21]

51. Thank you for your honesty and for not getting angry with me.

I really am serious when I say I'd welcome open and honest dialog to at least TRY to improve race issues. What I've found in the past is if I even broach the subject, I get verbally attacked as a racist, so I shut up and go away. If I have racist feelings they aren't intentional, and maybe I'm just to dumb to recognize them.

From what I've seen & heard as a white woman, most of the discrimination against blacks comes from older people. (Yea I'm old too!) Most younger people seem to just view all people as people, including blacks, gays, latinos etc. Maybe time is the only thing that will improve things. FWIW, my mother once told me "You can date anyone you want but DON'T ever bring an Italian into this house". I asked "WHY?" She said "They're ALL part of the Mafia!!!" I'm 64, and she told me that when I was 15. I THINK that attitude is mostly gone now, what made it go away was time and the anti YOU'RE NOT LIKE ME attitude has only gone away because the people who thought like that died. Maybe that's the ONLY cure for racism too.

[Joshua N]

58. Just a few days ago I had an 8 year old call me a nigger.

Later, I literally wept -- not because what he said hurt my feelings, though it did; I wept because at 8 years old the infection of racism was already within him. It infects us and seeps through our pores like osmosis.

It is a common mistake to look at racism as intention. Racism has almost nothing to do with intention because even the most obvious racist or bigoted people feel like they are doing a moral and righteous act. It is better to look at racism as a result. Was someone hurt in this process, whether individually or systemically? Were they isolated? Were they empowered or did they lose power? Did they gain a voice or were silenced? etc.

Getting angry with you or mstreating you would be only be counterproductive. Unfortunately we did not listen to MLK well enough to realize this.

I must say that in many ways the status of racism in America has improved greatly. However, it is in a context of a place where the situation before was astonishingly archaic. To think that only 40 years ago it would not be approved for you and I to even have a conversation beyond a superficial one. Right here in the city I am currently living in Colored signs had to be reluctantly pulled down after young black college students gave their bodies to beaten to expose the shame of racism. Honestly, most white people have always thought that things have been 'equal' or 'just fine' between the races since the end of slavery. It has always taken a group of race conscious black people to calmly insist, despite insult or injury, that this was not the case. Things have come a long way, but remember that I, even I, a college educated black man about to receive a masters, have to deal every day with the effects of racism. So you must be careful and sensitive, because even a comment like "racism seems to be pretty much over" can ultimately be a manifestation of racism because it encourages the silencing of my voice as one who is suffering from racism. I am not saying this to offend you, only to share information in a way that I feel is helpful in regards to the sort of dialogue that needs to occur which has yet to happen in a serious or in depth way in this country.

Though I am young I have enough stories to share regarding race and racism if you are willing to hear them.

One of the basic conversations that has never happened is "what is racism?" When one is not experiencing it becomes hard to have a nuanced definition of it and, unfortunately, this sort of thing is not taught in class rooms around the country.

Please feel free to respond to me, and thank you for your honesty. That is what is needed at this hour. That, and good hard thinking (as MLK put it).

[againes654]

40. You have only seen a small %

of what actually goes on at that church, and what Rev. Wright says. I assure you that if you look hard enough, you can find peaceful, loving words from Rev. Wright's mouth. We are only seeing what the MSM wants us to see right now.

There was a DU'er here the other day that downloaded an ENTIRE service, and said it was one of the most beautiful things they had ever heard.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

46. Its time for the Gay Mafia to out some more Gay Republican Preachers

isn't it?

They have short memories.

[Rageneau]

3. I don't know anything either Clintos said that was racist either...

but that didn't slow dow the accusations that they were.

[Joshua N]

9. Bill Clinton's use of Jesse Jackson's victory of SC was racist and condescending. But that is

another story.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

22. that was debunked

[Joshua N]

23. How was it debunked? If I may ask.

[merh]

39. You will become accustomed to the tactic

You make a point and someone will come along and say "that was debunked" and post no link or explanation.

They think it works.

Welcome to DU and thank you for posting your OP. :hi:

[better tomorrow]

5. he used

the "n" word in that sermon and I think that struck a nerve with some. (The media kept bleeping it out so maybe you missed it) He said something like Hillary will never know what it is like to be called a......you take it from there. Just saying and trying to answer your question. Please no one else take offense.....

[Joshua N]

11. Read my post. I referenced that. It is not racist that he used that term, he was making a point

about the stinging reality of the derogatory word. Again, it seems as though "not being racist" means not talking about problems and tension in regards to race.

If you remember MLK's "fierce urgency of now." When it comes to race relations, I feel like we have missed it. It will take a miracle to go back and have that discussion. Now we seem to just be content to be in one another's presence (at work, school, even at church) but not actually engage one another.

[better tomorrow]

25. Oh, I agree, Wright was not being racist when he used it but

for some people, that word stirs emotions and they become racist because of it, that's all. Peace.

[Joshua N]

27. And Peace Unto You, Friend.

[better tomorrow]

32. my apologies....I guess I didn't read it....now I see your reference.

I just read the caption and skimmed (a big problem sometimes I know) and it caught up with me. But, at least your thread opened up another discussion on AIDS. And, any discussion is good....especially when the younger generation doesn't know the history of some of these things like Tuskeegee and the origin of AIDS....

[BuyingThyme]

6. Most of the people saying that are just projecting but

the thing that sparks the debate in my mind has something to do with "I know who my enemies are..." (Paraphrasing.)

[panader0]

7. Pastor Wright said nothing that almost all members here at DU

haven't said at one time or another. That America is fucked up. That our history has major flaws and our current policies have major flaws. My air force dad used to say that this country was going to hell in a handbasket. Hell=Damnation. He was a white,decorated vet. Was he wrong too?

[Joshua N]

12. I agree. You hear the same things here often, but when Wright said it, it was racist. If Wright

did not have hope in America he would have moved. If he did not have hope or love for "America" he would not critique it.

[JeffR]

14. You make a very good point there.

As a collection of liberals, progressives, leftists, dissenters and Democrats, railing against the status quo and all that's wrong with it has been our lifeblood on DU and in the streets. Sad to see so much discomfort and hostility aroused here just because an old African-American preacher hits on the same themes.

Wright wasn't wrong, and neither was your dad.

[merh]

33. You probably will find this article interesting

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/obamas-minister-committe_b_91774.html?view=print

[GoldieAZ49]

13. have you heard Wrights comments on a variety of topics?

try using google or youtube, if you cannot understand what is offensive, or hear the race baiting and anti-semitism in his remarks go to your favorite public gathering spot and repeat them, loudly, nothing like getting an education first hand.

[Joshua N]

16. Jesus was killed for speaking publicly, and he is my hero. Most of the things posted here would be

ridiculed in public. That is not a litmus test for good or bad. If you have a quote, however, I would like to see it.

[GoldieAZ49]

18. don't worry, no one will mistake you for Jesus n/t

[Joshua N]

21. That comment was unnecessary and mean spirited. I did not compare myself to Jesus.

[trashcanistanista]

19. I'm not seeing it either. I agree with the Reverand and

don't see anything he says as being racist. He spoke the truth. It's just not the truth most Americans will admit to.

[Fredda Weinberg]

24. Did the US government create HIV for the pupose of genocide? Get real n/t

[Bad Thoughts]

26. Definitely Tin Foil Hat, but Racist? eom.

[better tomorrow]

28. maybe not but there was the Tuskeegee experiment

that was well-documented...regarding syphillus.

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jul/tuskegee/

[better tomorrow]

29. Presdient Clinton apologized in 1997 for it....

snip

At the start of the study, there was no proven treatment for syphilis. But even after penicillin became a standard cure for the disease in 1947, the medicine was withheld from the men. The Tuskegee scientists wanted to continue to study how the disease spreads and kills. The experiment lasted four decades, until public health workers leaked the story to the media.

By then, dozens of the men had died, and many wives and children had been infected. In 1973, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed a class-action lawsuit. A $9 million settlement was divided among the study's participants. Free health care was given to the men who were still living, and to infected wives, widows and children.

But it wasn't until 1997 that the government formally apologized for the unethical study. President Clinton delivered the apology, saying what the government had done was deeply, profoundly and morally wrong:

"To the survivors, to the wives and family members, the children and the grandchildren, I say what you know: No power on Earth can give you back the lives lost, the pain suffered, the years of internal torment and anguish.

"What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say, on behalf of the American people: what the United States government did was shameful.

[Joshua N]

30. Not a racist comment, and after the Tuskegee experiment, can you blame him?

Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_experiment

This lasted into the '70s, folks.

[better tomorrow]

31. Aids started in Manhatten but here is where the theories begin....

entire article at Political Gateway...http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read.html?id=5420

As part of President Richard Nixon's "War on Cancer, " genetic engineering of viruses became an integral part of the now largely forgotten Special Virus Cancer Program, conducted under the auspices of the NCI. Nixon also transferred part of the Army's biological warfare unit at Fort Detrick, Maryland, over to the NCI, thereby allowing secret biowarfare experimentation to be carried out under cover of bona fide cancer research.

All this virus transfer and molecular manipulation was a biologic disaster waiting to happen. What would happen if one of these highly dangerous genetic creations escaped from the laboratory into the public sector? This culminated in a historic conference entitled "Biohazards in Biological Research" held at Asilomar, near Pacific Grove in California in 1973. Despite the biologic dangers, it was decided to continue this research.

By the late-1970s the War against Cancer and the Virus Cancer Program proved a bust with no cancer-causing retroviruses found in humans. The Program was winding down in 1978, at the exact time when government scientists were also enrolling thousands of gay men in New York City to serve as guinea pigs in the hepatitis B experiment that took place that same year at the New York Blood Center in Manhattan. In 1979 the first cases of AIDS in gay men were reported from Manhattan. Coincidence? I think not.

Five years later, Gallo, who had worked for the Virus Cancer Program (VCP), "discovered" the retrovirus that causes AIDS; and Duesberg, who also worked for the VCP, continues to declare that HIV is harmless.

[Joshua N]

34. Damn. I have never heard of this information. It deserves its own thread and discussion.

[better tomorrow]

38. go ahed and start it....

I already posted three and can't get in yet....

I'll look up more info if you post.

[better tomorrow]

41. Here is something that will also blow your mind....

http://www.boydgraves.com/timeline/

Here is an excerpt for those who require the Cliff notes version.

In 1921, lead eugenics philosopher, Betrand Russell, publicly supported the “necessity for “organized” plagues” against the Black population.

In 1931, we secretly tested African Americans and we tested AIDS in sheep.

In 1946, the United States Navy hired Dr. Earl Traub, a notorious racist biologist.
A May appropriations hearing confirms the existence of a “secret” biological weapon.

In 1948, we know that the United States confirmed the endorsement of “devising a scheme” in which to address the issue of overpopulation in certain racial groups. State Department’s George McKennan’s memo will forever illuminate the eugenics mendacity necessary for genocide of millions of innocent people.

In 1949, Dr. Bjorn Sigurdsson isolates the VISNA virus. Visna is man made and shares some “unique DNA” with HIV. See, Proceedings of the United States, NAS, Vol. 92, pp. 3283 - 7, (April 11, 1995).

In 1951, we now know our government conducted its first virus attack on African Americans. Crates in Pennsylvania were tainted to see how many Negro crate handlers in Virginia would acquire the placebo virus.. They were also experimentally infecting sheep and goats. According to author Eva Snead, they also held their first world conference on an AIDS-like virus.


and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Now, a thread?

[cboy4]

42. Sure it does.

NOT.

You may have missed the very good series PBS did with FRONTLINE last year.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/

If you want to learn about the disease, including its origins, I highly recommend it.

[better tomorrow]

45. I don't take anything Frontline says as truth.....

and they start in the 70's. What about the time way before. Anything could be possible. But, in any event, perhaps Rev. Wright is getting his info from documents like me. Someone is whistleblowing somewhere....still worth discussing.....

[cboy4]

49. Well if you don't take anything Frontline says as truth,

then that means your mind is closed.

Right?

Did you even watch the series?

All of those scientists and doctors were plants?

Frontline is as a secret governmental project?

Instead, all you believe are your "documents?"

What you consider worth discussing sounds very far-fetched.

[Stephanie]

47. I remember in the '80s this was a prevalent theory.

And at the time I was answering the hotline at GMHC so I remember it well.

[LostinVA]

52. AIDS didn't start in Manhattan -- it started in Africa DECADES ago

[trashcanistanista]

48. HIV was not immediately addressed because the initial

victims were gay men. This is well documented in the book "And The Band Played On". Thousands died before research money began to flow, so yes, dragging their heels on this issue caused genocide. That is a fact. It was not until gay activists gained political clout AND the combination of HIV being discovered in the straight population that anything was done. People with visible aids were discriminated against, fired from their jobs, evicted from apartments and kicked out of grade school. These are facts.

[The_Casual_Observer]

36. Ask Obama.

[woolldog]

37. It wasn't racist

If you watch extended excerpts of that sermon you see Wright's genius.

His point wasn't anti-white. His point was that Jesus can relate to what it's like to be a poor black man, that he (Jesus) can relate to many of the parishioners who are present. Wright is, in essence, telling them that Jesus understands their pain. It is NOT a commentary on whites! He is NOT saying that whites are bad people! It is not a knock on Hillary Clinton either!

His point about Hillary fitting the mold and Obama not fitting the mold is that Hillary is an extension of the dominant power structure. Obama comes from outside that structure. Jesus was outside that power structure (as a "black man" living under the white Romans). He is making an analogy between Jesus and Obama. Controversial analogy? Yes. But I think his point is not political so much as it is an attempt to draw a parallel between something modern and something ancient, to make the latter more relevant.


Please listen to the entire sermon and you'll understand:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4805737136221962023

[Stephanie]

44. It's not racist. But can you take 20 seconds out of context and exploit it? Sure.

You can take ten seconds - look at the Dean Scream. A hoarse candidate, a solo mike that's not picking up the ambient sound, and with an endless loop of those ten seconds you can make him look like a nut. This time it almost worked. But Obama's smarter than they are.

[Rex_Goodheart]

55. "His point wasn't anti-white. "

High comedy.

[WinkyDink]

54. Perhaps you ought to define what you would call "racist" first.

[Rex_Goodheart]

56. US of KKKA, as just as an example

I could explain to you why several of the things Wright says in his videos are racist, but we'll start with "US of KKKA", ok?

Wright's implication is that our entire population of white people are closet members are at least endorsers of the KKK. If you don't consider that racist then the term has become completely warped to you.

What's funny here is that Geraldine Ferraro couldn't mention anything racial without being attacked as a racist, but Obama supporters are defending a man who constantly rails against "white people"'s greed as though greed, itself, were not the real issue.

[Rex_Goodheart]

57. Cool, looks like I ended the OP's naive thread.

[EFerrari]

60. Kick

[Joshua N]

59. My thread is not naive. Your assumptions about Wright's comment is incorrect.

His "AmeriKKKA" comment is not racist. He called out the fact that America is racist. You assumed that he meant the entire population. If it is not you, then that is great. Stand with him and condemn the racism that is prevalent in America today and has been since before its birth.