All-Purpose PastorGate Rant

[Plaid Adder]

Since the Father Pfleger threads are still showing up, and since it's entirely possible they will dig up some new palpitating pulpit panic between now and August, I provide free of charge the last response I intend to make to this kind of @#$!. Enjoy.

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I'm going to regret this. Nevertheless. Two points:

1) This is a tape of Pfleger preaching at Trinity. Hard as it is for people to believe, Trinity has its own existence and identity independent of Obama's campaign for president, and the community that has been worshipping there since before all this shit started has been invaded by the national media, dissected under a microscope by pundits who have no idea what they're talking about, and so on. They are no doubt angry about this and at based on their website they appear to be fighting back. Pfleger may be an Obama supporter, but he wasn't there for Obama; he was there to support Wright, who he believes (as he has said on camera before) has been grievously misrepresented. Though he may well be batshit crazy (see point #2 below), Pfleger's not the only white clergyperson who thinks Wright got a raw deal. I know a few people in ministry, and all of them are very angry about the fact that this controversy has basically destroyed Wright's legacy, and turned 15 minutes of video into a coffin within which to bury 20 years of good work done in a part of the city that desperately needs it.

So, my point is: what happens at Trinity is not all about Obama. Trinity existed before he became a star and it will no doubt exist after his political career is over. No doubt a lot of people at Trinity support Obama (despite his public 'divorce' from Wright), and no doubt Clinton is very unpopular there. But that's not the main reason that the kind of argument Pfleger's making--which is not so much about Clinton per se, but about white entitlement and white privilege--would be warmly received there. The main reason for that is that Trinity is in the middle of an intensely depressed and heavily African-American region of one of the most segregated cities in the country, and for the people who live on the south side of Chicago, racism is still very much alive. Now, you can complain about how unfair it is for them to blame all their problems on white people; but I'll tell you, that's not the most unfair thing going on on the south side.

All the bullshit in the media about Obama as an "elitist," IMHO, simply masks the real fear that Obama's support comes not from effete latte-drinking* white intellectuals such as myself, who can talk Marxism all they want but are essentially harmless because we all know that if the revolution really came we would nto be able to afford lattes any more ,but from African-Americans who are outside the boundaries of the middle class and who now for the first time see a reason to give a shit about a Democratic primary. I think there's a lot of fear, even among Democrats who realize that they need to grow the base and are supporting Obama because that's what he's doing, of what will happen if all these non-white, non-middle class voters actually start to set the party agenda. But I digress.

2) Religious leaders say some crazy shit. I just watched "For the Bible Tells Me So," which is a documentary about Christian families coming to terms with their gay and lesbian children, and was treated along the way to many choice clips of crazy homophobic shit coming out of the mouths of Rev. Dobson, Jimmy Swaggart, and so on. Some of our guests required two bowls of ice cream to sustain them through this ordeal. Though I do not spend as much time montoring the activities of progressive evangelicals (they do exist, though you hear little about them), I am sure some crazy shit comes out of them too. To them, of course, it's not crazy shit; it's inspiration. And that's why you can't call up a guy like Wright, or a guy like Pfleger, or a guy like Hagee, or a guy like Parsley, and say, "Guys, you're not helping, could you tone it down?" Well, no, you can; but they'll just say, "Yes, I know, I'm sorry, I hope it won't do you too much damage," and then next Sunday the spirit will move within them and out will come even crazier shit.

So, you know, by all means get pissed off at all the crazy shit; I certainly do. But do not expect people who make a living by standing up in front of a group of believers and working them into a lather to conduct themselves in accordance with the rules of polite and rational conversation. That's not their job. And that is why you do not want a religious leader as a president. It is also why you do not want a president who governs as if he *were* a religious leader--such as the @#$! who currently holds the office. And that is why I get pissed off at all this stuff. I'm not going to vote for Wright, or for Pfleger, or for a guy whose campaign message reiterates their crazy shit. I'm voting for a guy who, be the reasons sincere or cynical, has taken great pains to articulate an understanding of race in 21st century America which is very different from theirs.

We certainly have a right to expect our political leaders to speak more moderately and to govern more justly than most religious leaders would, and we certainly have a duty to punish them when they exploit the crazy shit that the religious leaders on their side have been spouting, as most of the Republican party has been doing since Pat Buchanan's convention keynote back in 1992. But it's just insane to expect them to be able to *stop* those religious leaders from saying crazy shit. And this is essentially what Obama seems to be expected to do, since apologizing for/denouncing/rejecting the crazy shit and its purveyor never seems to be enough.

But of course none of this is really about what's right or wrong; it's about tactics. Way back when, as Obama went through the time-honored ritual of distancing himself from Farrakhan, my partner observed, "Ah, Farrakhan. The classic trap for Black politicians." It's a trap because the politician who walks into it is going to hurt himself either way. If he denounces (or rejects, or rejects AND denounces) Farrakhan, he looks like he's caving to white pressure, and that hurts his African-American support. If he doesn't, that finishes him with white voters. Whether it's reasonable to suppose that he personally would support or implement the Nation of Islam's agenda is never the point; the point is that the trap works regardless, so people keep setting it. The Wright stuff is the same trap with slightly different bait. You all will therefore forgive me, I hope, for viewing most of the all-caps, n/t outrage poured forth over this as strategic rather than genuine.

OK. I have now pissed away my allotted amount of GD: P time. Carry on.

The Plaid Adder

*I do not actually drink latte. In fact, I really think the "latte" talking point needs to be retired. You can get a latte at Dunkin @#$! Donuts now. Dunkin Donuts, where they're such a bunch of elite intellectuals that they just pulled one of their ads because some nutcase on a right-wing blog thought the scarf Rachel Ray was wearing in it looked vaguely like something they remembered once seeing on Arafat's head. Fancy coffee has gone mainstream, people. Update the database.