The blogosphere is all agog, and it’s because presidential candidate Barack Obama‘s home church, Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ once adopted a Black Value System that, among other things, disavows the “Pursuit of ‘Middleclassness’.”
Here are their points, written by a committee back in 1981:
- Commitment to God
- Commitment to the Black Community
- Commitment to the Black Family
- Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
- Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
- Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
- Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
- Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”
- Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community
- Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
- Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
- Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.
An article at the oddly misnamed blog Sweetness & Light calls the church “Afro-centric, racist and Bush-hating”, and suggests that the church is “not your everyday Christian parish”. The writer intentionally misspells Obama’s name as “Osama”, so you kind of know where they’re coming from. Anonymous commenters fill in the picture even further:
That’s cute, the way the author capitalizes Black, but leaves white lower case.
Since they’ve “discredited” the story about Obama being a Muslim, they can now demonstrate what a “real Christian” he is today and highlight some of these beliefs. Obama is a racist pig. This “church” is nothing but a bunch of psychotic and intolerant kooks.
Did you notice that this “Church” is just the black Muslim cult with a name change?
If Obama indeed buys into this church’s philosophy, we have a blatantly racist presidential front runner whose first allegiance is to Africa.
Looking for salvation? White people need not apply.
I looked at the website and it stresses the Afro-centrism. CAN OBAMA SERVE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOT ALL BLACK?
If I belonged to a church that was White-centric questions would be raised about my ability to serve ALL the people!
The “Free Republic” conservative discussion forum is equally charming:
I’m not exactly sure what the “Black Value System” is. But I have a suspicion that whatever it is, it’s not too good for White Folks.
Replace Obama with an all-white candidate and change all the instances of the word “black” on this webpage to “white” and we have a candidate that couldn’t get elected dogcatcher in any community in America.
Their “black values systems” sounds divisive and racist.
They sound particularly embittered and that isn’t Christian.
Sounds like these folks have some mighty large chips on their shoulders.
For obvious reasons, I’m not providing a link to any of these sites.
What exactly is this church these anonymous people are so afraid of? Is it really “not your everyday Christian parish”? I’m afraid not. The United Church of Christ (not to be confused with the “Churches of Christ”) is about as mainstream as you can get. They are known for traditional worship services and a historical commitment to social justice.
And Trinity? They are the quintessential black Chicago church. When question came up at another Chicago church about whether there was something racist in the way a particular ritual was being planned, the question asked was, “What do they do at Trinity?” Trinity sets the standard for racially correct behavior.
In a Chicago Tribune piece, Trinity’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, talked about the formation of the South Side church :
Many black Christians were leaving the church for other religious traditions, including the Black Hebrew Israelites and the Nation of Islam, who taught that Christianity was a white man’s religion imposed on them by slaveholders.
“They didn’t know African-American history,” Wright said. “They were leaving the churches by the boatloads. The church seemed so disconnected from their struggle for dignity and humanity.”
Wright set out to show young people how other major religions also participated in the slave trade, how many abolitionists were Christians and how Jesus’ concern for the oppressed related to the struggles of the black community….
Wright sought to build on the black theology of liberation introduced in 1968 by Rev. James Cone of New York, by emphasizing Africa’s contribution to Christianity rather than that of mainstream white theologians.
“To show there is an independent form of thinking there about religion that stands on its own, that’s really more life-giving than what you get from Europe,” Cone said. “Black people who come from that approach have a very healthy understanding of who they are.”
To bolster that pride, Wright takes members of his flock to different African nations every year. Wright also encourages youths in the congregation to attend historically black colleges and universities, sponsoring a scholarship fair each year.
Obama’s reaction to the Trinity’s points?:
…Obama said it was important to understand the document as a whole rather than highlight individual tenets. “Commitment to God, black community, commitment to the black family, the black work ethic, self-discipline and self-respect,” he said. “Those are values that the conservative movement in particular has suggested are necessary for black advancement.
“So I would be puzzled that they would object or quibble with the bulk of a document that basically espouses profoundly conservative values of self-reliance and self-help….”
In his published memoirs, Obama said even he was stopped by Trinity’s tenet to disavow “middleclassness” when he first read it two decades ago in a church pamphlet. The brochure implored upwardly mobile church members not to distance themselves from less fortunate Trinity worshipers.
“As I read it, at least, it was a very simple argument taken directly from Scripture: `To whom much is given much is required,'” Obama said in the interview.
But Obama scoffed at the suggestion that Trinity espouses a value system that seeks to help blacks exclusively. “If I say to anybody in Iowa–white, black, Hispanic or Asian–that my church believes in the African-American community strengthening families or adhering to the black work ethic or being committed to self-discipline and self-respect and not forgetting where you came from, I don’t think that’s something anybody would object to.
So what’s the bottom line? It looks to me like Barack Obama is the only person exercising any leadership here.
Trinity needs to re-evaluate their points. Has nothing changed since 1968? When I returned from the Middle East after 9/11, whites were telling me “everything has changed; ‘they’ are not the enemy any more”. And with increasing numbers of blacks moving to the suburbs, the young have become more intolerant of social separation based on race. But let’s face it, whites know a whole lot more about blacks than blacks know about whites. While no one would argue with the continued need for blacks to strengthen their community, (well, almost no one) it’s time for them to stop being so nearsighted and look to their nation and the world. Has there really been no original black thought since MLK? Are they just going to keep re-reading King’s old speeches, and recycling decades-old ideas, or are they going to do some critical thinking and write some new ones? What have they learned on their trips to Africa? I’m serious. If they can write a “black value system”, they should be able to write a global value system as well. They should be able to devote some small fraction of their energy to providing leadership, not just for their own insular community, but for the nation.
It’s time for Trinity to form a new committee.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Related posts:
Jesus Lite and Victimology at Obama’s Still-Racist Trinity Church
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update 3/19/08: Thank you to everyone who comments here, even the people I don’t agree with. The remarks are original and heartfelt and very interesting. I check them every day even when I don’t have time to write something.
If I were the people at Trinity, I would keep coming back here from time to time to read the new comments.
This is a child friendly site. I don’t want to change what someone else writes here, but if anyone writes profanity or hate speech, I will change that one word to asterisks, and make a comment to show it was edited. The idea is to teach children by example what kind of speech is acceptable.
I wrote here above, and then again in the “Jesus Lite” essay after I visited Trinity, that Trinity has to change. At this point I don’t have any idea how, but I know it has to happen. Like everything else, it will probably be a process. Maybe the comments of readers here can help with that.
Camel's Nose 
September 5, 2007 at 11:50 am
It puzzles me to what great extents people will go to darken anothers persons light. We will read, and watch, but so very seldom do we first change our perspectives before we begin to rifle out rash and outwardly negative comments about other ethnic groups. Its really sad.
I like to think of myself as a pretty fair person. A halfway decent person, oh and don’f forget a Christian. O and I attend Trinity. The puzzling thing about this Church is that every time I go, I fail to see a church that is without representation onf just about every ethnic group.
Now I won’t deny that sometime politics find their way into the scriptures… But, in a extremely segregated City which Chicago without any doubt is, a very opinionated media base composed of predominantly Caucasion writers, (Tribune/ Sun Times) an education system that is as good with schools closed as it is with them open, and the highest Gas prices in the Country. Where does a young black family who is typically socially deprived, financially disabled, physically degraded and undermined go to find answers. Hmmm, maybe Jesse…. na Jesse is a bit expensive, he asks his partons for $50 donations at funeral services (witness). Leaks, well… I find his target audience to be a little to hiphop, well what about Jeremiah Wright?
If you don’t have an avenue to the world such as the internet, you might learn some current events! If you don’t know how you should feel about something, he will definatey provide you some insight in a language that you will feel most comfortably listening to (one you can comprehend) If you have never seen a white person other than you polish land lord, or Albino slumlord (Eastlake Management) you will likely meet some energetic and open minded travelors from different colleges from all over the city. You will probably have to sit all the way in the overflow if you are late. But one thing is promised, he will not make you make your mind up.
I have been to a number of “Churches”, and I am one to take from the lesson which best suits my place in life. If you go digging around in anything long enough, you probably are going to find something you were looking for, wether you like it or not. The truth about any Church is simple. If you leave feeling better about yourself, your decisions, and about your place in this world, and have gained some insight into the world, and How God plays a part in it, then you have acquired something you didn’t have when you walked in the door. If you didn’t gain anything personally, you will seen a feeling of releif for a great deal of people who attend the Church. That alone should make you feel better, if it doesn’t make you happy seeing others happy, then you have your own problems.
As far as Trinity feeling like a cult…. that is such a sad perspective. African Americans have for a long time sat on the heels of MLK, Ill give you that. We make excuses, but why is it that the moment we try and focus on our own self worth, it becomes an issue. There is no Whitecentric, because its a white world. say it loud you’re white and your proud…. so what. You should be proud of all the good your people have done. Really! If whites wouldn’t spend so much time pointing out others flaws we’d likely see what good they have done.
You have to take into consideration the nature of Africans is to be very tribal, and commune. We like to keep shit to ourselves… bad or good. So when we need empowerment, we look for it from eachother. We hoist our values above the values of those who’ve betrayed, overlooked, and casted us aside countless amounts of times. It doesn’t work all the time, but never the less, its not wrong just because it isn’t your way of doing things. Its simply different.
All that just because you think you Know about a Church, what you really don’t. Go to Trinity, and when and if you do, tell them Phil sent you. They won’t know who I am, but they will be greatful you came.
Responses to Trinity
Commitment to God (Must do)
Commitment to the Black Community (The Church is in the hood, it needs help. Most of its patrons are from the area, who should it be helping if not its own community!)
Commitment to the Black Family (Duh no brainer, its the same as above. You have to make sure your house is clean before you go trying to clean someone elses)
Dedication to the Pursuit of Education (Self explanatory)
Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence (Same as above)
Adherence to the Black Work Ethic (Black community has to grow to be more self sufficient, most of us don’t have work ethic. I’m glad this Church outlines our heritage as a people so we can be the best we can be based on our own values. Something wrong with you wanting to bw like your dad if he was a good foundation?)
Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect (We been broken down by ourselves, you’d have to be there)
Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness” ( why should anyone want to be middle class, you should just want to be happy, but many of us see money as our objective. Middleclassness, is simply a limitation that most blacks have found themselves labeled as and trapped in. Class should not be determined by wealth. Thats not me speaking its Pastor Wright)
Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community (we teach eachother what we learn, I’m not seing anything wrong with this!)
Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions (Give to the institutions that will better your own first. If I have cancer, why would I donate to the aids foundation first?)
Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System (Embrace those who embrace what you believe in. You have to know the black value system. Come to learn it, its not unreasonable)
Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System. (Its no different than any other christian teaching, when you give something to someone, you give them clarity enough to feel its worth. If you make it your own you take seriously. Give them a value system that sounds like it belongs to them and they will honor it. Simple word play, this is Tommys trapperkeeper, for Tommy. Look inside it and it’s no different than anyone elses trapperkeeper. Its full of paper)
Oh and If we don’t elect Barack, its gotta be Clinton! If we put another person in office who was alive during slavery, I’ll kill myself.
I’m not going to be the idiot who says I’m anti bush and have the Feds at my door, I will say that he has made some decisions I don’t agree with, and taken as many vacations as I’d like to have. But, who hasn’t made bad decisions, adntho doesn’t like a nive vacation every now and then.
Oh and Just because we have our own value system doesn’t mean we have to share. (Oil in Iraq)
September 6, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Hmm. Why do you need a “black value system” if Jesus already provides a value system for ALL God’s children.
Compare Trinity to, say, the Chicago Temple UMC, which early on made a conscious decision to be a diverse multi-racial and multi-ethnic church, in spite of some initial membership losses.
My gut reaction here is that Trinity needs to re-read the parable of the Good Samaritan, but maybe it’s not fair for me to comment any further until I have actually been there.
Thank you for the invitation. I will try to visit.
October 1, 2007 at 9:59 pm
I recently attended Trinity.
Out of 200 choir members, maybe one or two were white.
Pastor Wright spoke of the Jenna 6 and called it a “fistfight”.
He bashed the white prosecutor. He bashed Rove. He even told a group of white visitors that they were given privileges that they didn’t deserve.
October 2, 2007 at 11:43 pm
I have now made the pilgrimage to Trinity and will blog about it soon.
When someone is continuously beaten after becoming unconscious and loses sight in one eye for three weeks, that is not a “fistfight”. When an underage person does this and is charged as an adult, that is not “justice”.
November 7, 2007 at 9:21 am
What about an underage person that does this and it happens to be his third assualt in less than 2 years.
It is the prosecutors job to get the highest charge possible and the defendants lawyer to barter this charge down.
November 7, 2007 at 11:51 pm
I respect Obama more for staying out of that business.
Not surprising though that Jesse Jackson went down there. The people the Rev. Jackson chooses to defend are not always poster children for impeccably correct behavior. Remember those four students who were about to get thrown out of some university for rough behavior at a game? Rev. Jackson turned them into media darlings, and got them transferred to other schools. One of them got some more media attention a year or so ago when he appeared with Jackson after graduating without further mishaps. I’ve heard some rumors about why you never hear about the other three.
You understand the Jena thing is more about getting the black vote mobilized by finding some artificial issue to rally around–Jackson is hardly a political neophyte.
December 7, 2007 at 12:56 pm
If you get into a fist fight you are likely to get punched in the eye! Blunt trauma to a sensitve organ like the eye is likely to cause your eye to swell up and close. Truth be told, I’d favor my eye being closed than to have the entire nation haunting my family because i am a Racist prick!
The entire situation was wrong, the teacher shouldn’t have sent those kids to the tree (knowing they were some racist lil assholes) the Black kids shouldn’t have went to the tree unless they had friends over there already, and none of this would e an isssue.
Its like a black kid going into a mosh pit for the first time…. You are going to get pushed around, and if your not familiar with the purpose of the pit, your going to take it personal and want to fight.
We all do stupid shit everyday knowing we are crossing bounderies. Some times to open up doors, other times just because we all have a little asshole inside of us.
Jessie has more power unelected than 75 % of politicians, so what vote need he be concerned about.
And you know what, WHITE PEOPLE DO HAVE MORE PRIVELEDGES THAN THEY DESERVE. This country was and still is built on the back of minorities, what makes you think you deserve the house yoy live in more than the person that built it. So that doesn’t make the undeserving, it just means that the playing field is not, has not, and will not, likely ever be fair. Fair is unreasonable in any society, be cause greed creates class, and class creates hate.
December 10, 2007 at 11:31 am
[…] Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4, Source 5, Source 6, Source 7 […]
December 17, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Goodness this is silly. If Africans had not been brought to the United States as slaves, they too would enjoy the knowledge of their ancestry as white Europeans do. History, being different, would allow for churches with names like, the Nigerian Christian Congregation or the Ethiopian . . . and so on as European Christians have with the Greek Orthodox Church, etc. There are many Christian churches that have an emphasis on their European foundations. The Catholic mass was in Latin. The suggestion that a church claiming to be supportive of white values would be called racist is not an apt comparison. Obama’s church mentions Africa and race in the absence of a more complete history of it’s members. Asking Barack to deny that he is black is ridiculous. This is about preserving a cutural heritage, not about separatism.
January 1, 2008 at 5:11 pm
JMPW< good point! The media so has so eagerly sought to creat hype around presdential candidates and have chosen to use Religion as the target as they always have. The sad part is the media has curved society into thinking that making decisions based on spiritual beliefs is bad for our country. So I vote for celeron 5 the next generation of artificial intelligence! The choice we make will always boil down to moral guidance provided by our parents, or life guides. The confidence and security achieved by making bad decisions come from the same place as the good decisions. so if you expect a person to make the right decisions every time, then your not looking for a person, your looking for an all knowing being. Anyone know any all knowing beings? Just vote for the one with the most Charm, the one you like, the cool guy, thats fun to be with. The one that seems more like the guy on the basketball squad that tries to help you get on your game with the subtle “good shot man” or the one who warns you when you got two defenders trailing you. Pick the one you think would actually listen to your conversation and get that lightbulb look somewhere during the conversation. Thats the guy I want for pres. JFK was that dude,Clinton was that dude, Obama is that dude!
And if you got a problem with a church leading a community, then your have a problem with a people being led a group they chose to listen to. Which means you have a problem with government, which means you have a problem with this country, and no matter who is runnig for president you don’t like them because you don’t like the idea of choosing who represents you. So just kill yourself, or run for office. i’m done
January 3, 2008 at 2:52 pm
jmpw,
Many people feel their spiritual needs can only be met if religion is presented in a language they can understand. Their churches are based on language, not on some idea of preserving some “cultural heritage” of skin color.
These churches typically only last a generation. Once their congregations speak English, they tend to merge with other churches with similar religious doctrine.
The Bible has been translated into multiple languages. It has never been translated into “black” or “white” or any other skin color.
January 5, 2008 at 2:14 pm
It’s clear Obama and his “pastor” are racists. This “church” spews racism and division among Americans! Can you imagine if there was a white church like this?? It would be completely condemned (as it should be!). They don’t care about unity and being “American”. Their loyalty is to … as they put it… “Their mother land”. So GO to your “mother land”! You obviously have no allegiance to the U.S. or her people!
You will always find injustices (whether real or paranoia induced) if you are looking that hard to find it!
People need to know about this man’s real agenda. He has been indoctrinated with this cult-“church” and I can’t believe someone could retain credibility in an election (ESPECIALLY the Presidential election) when they are members of a “church” like this!
I’m so sick of black “reverends” using the pulpit to further their political soapbox
agendas! It’s shameful!
Galatians 3:28:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Read the book SCAM! The author Jesse Lee Peterson, commented on Obama’s church, “This is obviously a racist Black church masquerading as Christian. Members of the church even refer to themselves as an ‘African People.’ Obama has been campaigning, saying he wants to unite the American people—he needs to explain his affiliation with this separatist church,”
http://www.amazon.com/Scam-Black-Leadership-Exploits-America/dp/0785263314
January 5, 2008 at 2:17 pm
In the early 20th century, Booker T.Washington had a premonition:
“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs – partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose their grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”
Sounds like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters, and Louis Farrakhan to me.
January 5, 2008 at 10:02 pm
My husband and I were discussing the Holy Family, Bethlehem and having a Nativity scene. Next year, we will have one in our yard because we’ll have a home soon.
Those may years ago, the way the continents were..Nomadic peoples…who’s to say that Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus weren’t black.
I don’t care…black, pink, purple…God doesn’t chose by the color of their skin. Why do people argue about who wrote what book. No one can prove that the bible IS what we truly the higher beings’ teachings.
The “Dead Sea Scrolls” who wrote them, are you willing to let someone just TELL you that is God’s word?
Get it together people, you’re playing into the insanity of the uneducated radical human beings.
Incidentally, I’m pink with freckles…classify that!
America was formed on freedoms…our history books tell us this. We supposedly teach our children this.
Stop the insanity…we’re self-emploding.
I’ve lived in a “White Bread World” moved to “Redneck Country” and have still not been influenced by all this crap.
I chose freedom from needing to live my life with these prejudices.
Twenty-eight years of working in the education system…kids are always kids and I loved them all.
January 16, 2008 at 7:32 pm
It is time for all of us to reassess the notion of fairness by being able to put ourselves in each other’s shoes. It is time for all of us to rediscover empathy by being able to feel each other’s pains irrespective of any external feature such as race, creed, ideology or gender. If we would not want our own child to be submitted to a given treatment, we should not accept anybody else’s child to be submitted to that same treatment whether we preemptively judge them to be children of privilege or not! Enough with so much self consciousness! Enough with so much self-absorption! Enough with so much intolerance! Enough with so much self-righteousness!
And by the way, this is the reason why I will proudly vote for Obama as the US President come November.
January 18, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I can’t believe these neo-racist black people on this site defending a racist church and its racist church members. The Trinity Church of Christ is a Mugabe / Farakkkhan type hate group. Any non-black person who would dare vote for a hatemongering candidate from that racist church is mentally ill. I understand that many black racist people are trying to hide the fact and are quite embarassed about this situation. This issue will cause a tremendous backlash against the Democratic party come November. What many here don’t see are the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of e-mails in the white, Asian, and Hispanic communities that are spreading the word about the racist and hateful church that Obama belongs to. Its scares the hell out of me that anyone would let someone be elected who belongs to a church that absolutely is just like Louis Farakkkhan and Mugabe put together.
January 18, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I have heard a recording of one of Louis Farrakhan’s local speeches and it was nothing like what I heard at Trinity. Farrakhan started out saying things everyone could agree with–patronizing local businesses, building the economy of black neighborhoods– then about twenty minutes into the speech, when everyone was nodding their agreement, he started in with the hate speech. Trinity is not Farrakhan.
On the other hand, if I belonged to an organization that talked about blacks the way Trinity talks about whites, I would not lend my name to that organization or support it in any way. It’s ugly when whites do it, and it’s ugly when blacks do it.
Please note also that the Church of Christ as a nationwide organization is a very mainstream protestant denomination, not a hate group.
It is also worthwhile to read what Barack Obama himself has said about the church and what their message means to him personally. He speaks quite sensibly. Follow the links to what he said, and read his words for yourself.
Of course, Obama is still a member of Trinity, along with Oprah.
January 19, 2008 at 2:40 pm
This is just another extremist right wing group discrediting Obama ohhhh yeah am sure hes racist maybe they forgot that half his families white. These guys will try their best to discredit Obama but it wont work this guy is probably the best thing to happen to American politics since Ronald Regan, Kennedy. Anyone who reads this blog please ignore these guys are the same people who probably discredited Dr.Martin Luther King jr.
January 26, 2008 at 7:26 pm
This was in a local paper up here in Toronta, Canada, it’s a little unsettling to say the least.
Michael Coren
Sat, January 26, 2008
Start the scrutiny
By MICHAEL COREN
I am not an American and cannot vote in any U.S. election. If I could, however, I would vote for virtually anyone other than Barack Obama. Not because of his colour. Condoleezza Rice, for example, would make an outstanding president of the United States. No, it is because Obama is affiliated with racists and bigots.
Almost 20 years ago he became a member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. There he gave his support to a program the church calls a Black Value System, which has nothing to do with Christianity, but encourages the separation of the races.
At its best the philosophy encourages the empowerment of black America. At its worst it blames white people for every problem in the black community and tells adherents that they must not be “captive” to white society.
Most worrying is the preacher at the church, Jeremiah Wright, who is not only Obama’s “spiritual guide,” but also baptized his daughters and advises him as he attempts to become the most powerful politician in the world.
Speaking of Africa, Wright has said that he and his followers, “remain true to our native land, the mother continent” and Obama’s church has given militant racist and anti-Semitic rabble-rouser Louis Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award.
Click here to find out more!
More than this, Wright actually went to Libya with Farrakhan for a personal audience with controversial Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, who has been linked by some to international terrorism against civilian targets.
Obama frequently praises Wright and Wright frequently praises Farrakhan, who has said that, “Hitler was a very great man,” whites are “blue-eyed devils” and “these false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood. It’s the wicked Jews, the false Jews, that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality.”
He has referred to Asians as “bloodsuckers” and made the most vitriolic comments about gay men and women.
So Obama’s church is hardly the stuff of mainstream Christianity. Obama himself was raised by two Muslim fathers and attended an Islamic school in Indonesia. His Kenyan brother, Abongo Roy Obama, is still a Muslim and has stated that black people must free themselves from, “the poisoning influences of European culture.”
Barack Obama may despise his brother’s opinions, but he has never said so. He may disappprove of preacher Wright’s extreme afrocentrism and close association with a racist madman, but if he does he says precious little about it and continues to praise Wright and to laud the man’s influence whenever he can.
Yet he receives little criticism about all this. Can we imagine Hilary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney or any other candidate being let off so lightly?
What appears to make the horribly inexperienced and lightweight Obama so immune to criticism is, paradoxically, his colour.
As a black man he escapes the criticism so routinely thrown at his white rivals, which is racism.
All people should be treated equally, irrespective of colour, class and creed. For Obama to be apparently allowed such indulgences and so many worrying and worryingly close connections is patronizing and unhelpful.
Perhaps we can only hope that Oprah Winfrey holds a rally or broadcasts a week of shows holding her new friend up to scrutiny and telling him off for being so close to so many nasty racists.
Otherwise we might think that there was a double standard out there.
Surely not!
January 26, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Jim, what else could you expect from a guy who wrote a piece titled “We should nuke Iran”?
Google him. Michael Coren is definitely not the kind of guy you want living next door to you.
January 29, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Many Black people will invite White people to their nice churches in good environments, but Whites will not usually come. When a few come, even if you treat Whites with much courteousy they will not join. Now Whites will many times invite educated Blacks to their churches and the Black people will sometimes join. But the Blacks are only allowed to sing in the choir or be an usher or cook in the dining room. It does not matter how much education they have or how much money they give. No authority or further respect is offered to them. So Blacks feel more comfortable in their black churches. When Whites come to a black church the Blacks will not get up and change everthing that has lifted their minds up. Whites mostly continue to do things to lift up their minds such as a White Jesus, White Virgin Mary, and White apostles or prophets. Whites do not show Jesus with olive complexion. Senator Barack Obama is not racist against Whites or no other people. He loves all the people in the USA with is heart. But Black people need to enjoy equality in religion and all other aspects of life just like White people. Love to all!
January 30, 2008 at 12:18 am
If the purpose of your religion is to obtain authority and dominate people, you really need to crack a Bible.
February 2, 2008 at 3:54 am
black and work ethic now that’s an oxymoron
February 2, 2008 at 3:58 am
What we need to do is stop with all this african-american, mexican-american and just call ourselves americans plain and simple. Enough with all this race seperation bull. I was born in the USA and I’m American, now is that so hard?
February 7, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Is that what they teach you marines down there in Texas, “Deathblow”…or maybe I should say “Mr Scary,” since both comments came from the same IP.
February 8, 2008 at 6:20 pm
If a white supremacist was running for president the media and society would tear him apart (yep even the majority of white folks would). But Obama, whose spiritual advisor and pastor has black supremacist leanings and a publically admitted admiration of anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan, gets a free pass and no scrutiny. Now that’s hypocrisy.
February 8, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Where do you see that Rev. Wright admires Farrakhan? I have never heard of that.
Do you have a link, Tyler Frost, or is that another one of those whisper campaign lies that are being spread around?
UPDATE: Yes, Trinity’s Rev. Wright has publicly praised Louis Farrakhan. Another commenter post ed a link here.
February 10, 2008 at 2:23 am
We do clean up our houses and neihborhoods and then blacks come in and f*** it up to the point of emabarassment. It’s not your color. God made us all. It your culture. I sware I wish we had never brought any of of you over hear now. again NOT because of your color. YOUR culture is pittiful!!
February 10, 2008 at 2:25 am
I only hope who ever runs against obama exposes him and the church for what they are
February 10, 2008 at 2:33 am
Nijma,
Do you think you have heard of everthing? NO. did you cheer when OJ got off for cutting his wifes head off? I bet 99% of trinity church was on there feet. So was did farrakhan. So did you. if you did not then say. dont act o holly. you know 90% blacks hate whites in this country. except for the black men that wants to date white females (that are dumb enough to go along with it, and then find out how badly they are treated) as a status symbols like “wearing a blue tooth”. This is too much fun.
February 10, 2008 at 7:46 am
I try to keep this site child-friendly, although I do occasionally post on adult topics. I have edited Anderson Davison’s first post for profanity (but not for content or spelling).
February 10, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I’m not personally for Qbama but i do think you need to get the facts straight. I went to the church’s website and the 10 points you have on here are wrong. Here are the true points.
The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:
1. A congregation committed to ADORATION.
2. A congregation preaching SALVATION.
3. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
4. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
5. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
6. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
7. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
8. A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
9. A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.
February 10, 2008 at 6:55 pm
How very, very interesting, Lillian.
No, I did not print a lie. The church changed its website.
But thanks to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which crawls the web and records screen shots of websites, it is possible to see what the Trinity Church Of God’s website looked like back on February 2, 2007, a few days before I wrote this post. See for yourself.
February 18, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Shhh. Don’t tell anyone else but they did not totally change their website, they just changed the links. The old page is STILL THERE. Don’t let on you know, or they will remove it forever. http://www.tucc.org/black_value_system.html
Like they did the biblical quote that topped one of their pages: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
~ 1 Peter 2:9 ”
Chosen race??? What race would that be??? The Human Race???
Deborah
February 20, 2008 at 9:04 pm
If African-Americans don’t support and care for each other, please tell me who will. Just because African-American’s take care of members of their community it does not reduce their care for the entire country. Caucasians take care of each other on a regular basis and a word is not uttered…this is not a persuasive tactic…
February 21, 2008 at 10:19 pm
What a racist idea, eibw77.
Is that what they tell you over at Trinity?
Name me one place where I can walk in and say “Hi, I’m white. Now take care of me”. And why would I even want someone to take care of me instead of being self-sufficient?
February 22, 2008 at 6:24 am
hey mr anderson if you forced me from my home took me to your home just to handle all your problems clean up your mess because you are to lazy to do it yourself, and on top of all that you treat me bad as if white is the only race that matter how would you excpect me to act? WOW
February 22, 2008 at 6:36 am
I’d say eny persons who claim to discover a country that is occupied by a coulture of its own and THEN force africans from there country to run your so called discovery of a country that you have taken from INDIANS could not be apart of the human race thats beast mode in human form DING, DING, DING MR ANDERSON IS THAT YOUR BEAST MODE COULTURE IM TALKING ABOUT?
February 22, 2008 at 6:53 am
And heres the sad part all this arguing and bikker about black white this n that and the other its all set up for those of you who will, to turn a blind eye to whats really going on in this world its us against (them) those in power say I. umhuum didnt think so little puppet
February 22, 2008 at 11:49 am
Well looka here, things sure have taken a twist and turn. seems like we have taken Barack Obama, and instead of critisizing the church from which he draws spiritual guidance, turned him into a racist. Now all of a sudden, he’s in a race for god of the world and not president of the united states. Hmmmm puzzling.
Trinity is not racist, I could care less about written values, cause to be perfectly honest, I attend 3 times a month. Never heard the values mentioned. I here criticisms about Bush, and honestly that can be annoying. But I guess its ok when I hear it on CNN from a dozen politcal analyzers. Apparently Bush has a low approval rate so I guess everyone can’t be wrong to say that he was a poor president. But what about Bush’s spiritual guidance…??? IRRELEVANT!
If you discount a presidential candidate because of their Church, isn’t that in a way a violation of the constitution. I thought Church and state were so seperate. Guess not! So vote for McCain McCain more of the same.
If you think I’m racist… which somewhere in here I apparently been accused of, ask my Caucasion mother in law. Or all my friends from A.N. Pritzker class of 93′. Or all my former co workers at Old Navy State Street. Oh and don’t forget my Daddies ancestors (cause he lightskinned)
You have all proven one thing, you are afraid that Barack is going drastically improve this country, and that all the history books are going to say…It took a Black president to do it. You are afraid that your little white children won’t respect their daddies anymore because someone who looks like their daddy isn’t at the top of the totem pole anymore. Guess what folks, its only 4yrs, maybe 8. Some of you are so mad because black men are going to suddenly seem so attractive to white women. You are so scared that all your little power will be sucked away.
Well guess what… We don’t think like you. we have always tried to incorporate you into our. You have always tried to incorporate ours into yours. We like white people. you all have more fun. we learned how to drink and tear up shit from you all. We just got better at it. We admire rock and roll, we just over do it with diamonds.
And so what some of us are lazy, don’t act like I cant drive down south and find a house with 5 million car parts on the
front lawn. Yall can be some lazy destructive people too. Stop being so mean to eachother.
And, so what Jeremiah baptized his kids, he baptized mine too. Does that mean im part of a cult? We don’t leave church and start talking about killing white folks, thats just plain stupid. Yall are safer in our neighborhoods then we are in our own.
February 22, 2008 at 11:59 am
Oh and Condoleeza can’t even keep her hair combed, and she got big teeth! She was nothing but a distraction for black people. Only Black republicans I acknowledge are Jay-Z and Nas!
February 22, 2008 at 2:20 pm
What a small world.
Commenters “nikki” and “anderson davison” seem to know each other personally. Anderson took Nikki from home by force, so what do you “excpect”, and Nikki f*ed up Anderson Davison’s “neihborhood”.
How sweet.
February 23, 2008 at 9:14 am
Nijima, that was actually funny. twisted but funny.
I do have a question for you though. If being white is the dominant race, then is it really necessary for a white candidate to say he is a white supremecist. Its the unspoken, unheard, but omnipresent feeling that you get when you are black and at home watching the Black Lex Luthor in the comics turn into a white Kevin Spacey just to keep the white black conflict to a minimum. Or was it to say that a black man couldn’t be a superwhite man’s arch enemy…sorry off subject
February 23, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Let me think about that one for a while, Phil.
My first reaction is that I don’t know who on earth you’re talking about and that you should turn off the TV and get a good book. My second reaction is that once I google all those people I will probably find that you have opened up a whole bunch of issues that are too complex to explore in one comment. The third reaction is that the “dominant race” is probably green–the same color as the almighty dollar.
February 24, 2008 at 6:54 pm
[…] His church has a stated mission to promote Africa and to promote only "black values": Is Barack Obama’s Trinity Church Racist? Camel’s Nose Is Barack Obama’s Trinity Church Racist? February 18, 2007 — Nijma The blogosphere […]
February 25, 2008 at 3:15 am
Let’s play a little game and subsitute the word “White” for every time it says “Black” and see how benign these talking points sound. Don’t you think a church with THESE talking points would be considered racist?
Commitment to God
Commitment to the White Community
Commitment to the White Family
Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
Adherence to the White Work Ethic
Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”
Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the White Community
Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting White Institutions
Pledge allegiance to all White leadership who espouse and embrace the White Value System
Personal commitment to embracement of the White Value System.
February 25, 2008 at 9:03 am
How can we come together as a country when we are all so divided I do not like Obaba or his wife or Oprah, and guess what, its not cause they are black!! Its because they are bogus and they are the ones who are racist they are not real to this country and they seem to put a feeling of only uniting people they like!! They are so fake especially his wife which whom should not be involved in this , but the spouse does end up being the support for our president, but what a wanna be joke she is just like Oprah!! i dont care how much money she has , Obama is going to be president because we are now run by college students who dont have a clue on life yet, but a voters card hence the big to do on young voters!!! they follow the party!!! and dont forget the Berkley C.a. people give me a break!! lets all listen to them!!! they arent a little weird at all but have a voters card!!! and dont forget our illegal alliens they may not have a green card but they probly found them someway to get them a voters card, in hope some one will get into office that will keep them from having to work or work at least legally!!! Say what you can about me at least i speack the truth unlike the hidden agendas of our Candidates to run this Beautiful Country of ours!! that gives them the right to run for office!! i know what it takes to run this country, it was the backs , and sweat , and lives of people that came before to keep us safe , only here in this country would this happen!!! God Bless America!!, we will be fine we always do , im sure he’ll get into office and then the big picture will hit him !!I think he is a big bull crap fake Martin Luthur King Wanna BE ( which will never happen) Martin had style and grace and you knew his agenda!!! But the next four years should be funny!!! God Help Us All!!!! ( I cant beleive in this whole country, This is all we could come up with for candidates for President!!! How sad!!!) Krissy.
February 25, 2008 at 11:26 am
Is it racist? Yes I believe it is. Do not agree…here it is, judge for yourself.
http://www.tucc.org/black_value_system.html
February 25, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Nijma…..you are correct that the Trinity church changed its website recently to remove the more controversial parts. I also read the original version a couple weeks ago. Makes you wonder doesn’t it?…………You asked earlier for a link in reference to Rev Wright praising Louis Farrakahn..Will this one work? http://www.trumpetmag.com/pdf/nov_dec_feature.pdf
February 26, 2008 at 1:18 am
Perfect, Red.
Trinity Church links to this “Trumpet Newsmagazine” on its website. Here is how it quotes Rev. Wright:
Others have called Farrakhan racist, homophobic and antisemitic.
February 29, 2008 at 12:00 am
Well, i have to say all i can do is to shake my head left and right! I am european actually german and married to a black man for the past 8 years. I cant understand why peopel are racist. I cant understand a church that say white people dont deserve or get special treatment and i cant understand a so highly advanced country who plays world police to be so little to others and i still back in the way of thinking…to me white and black people need to break the bread. the goverment wont change that not obama but we as people at home. I have a 5 year old she came home one day and told me that her friend in school wont play with her because her mommie is white…WTF…them kids are in kindergarten they dont wake up one morning saying i dont like white people…i make this girls parents responsable.
we in germany can go on and rave about hitler and jewish people…we learned our lesson and move on, keep old building to remind our youth it was bad but move on and make peace. America is just dumb…black people need to get over this whole slavery thing, yes i agree it was horrible more than words can express like hitler did 50 years ago i hate both events but we need to move on as humans!
I go through it everyday….young girls in the mall talk behind my back…aaarrgghh that ( n-WORD) just got himself a white bitch so she can do this and that! why be ignorant, love has no color, christ has no color, we should be more colorblind! my husband comes from a family that doesnt want him to be around white people cuz thet evil…WTF
he told his mom as we married: i didnt not chose a white woman mom i chosed a human being who complets me!
I hate comments like: another one that took a good black man away from our community…ever thought that there are people being tired of all this community thing?
I never in my whole life experienced so much haterism towards a persons skin color white,black,hispanic,mixed
but the US finally showed me there is such thing. embarrasing! i rather go back to my country with my husband at least nobody ever judged us !!!
Just to bad, that he is the army defending HIS country who is more busy with all non important issues than what really matters…how my husband says: IN BATTLE THERE IS NO COLOR…we all bleed red!
…we need to do some teamwork…COLORBLIND TEAMWORK!…its a start!
Wish you all the best…
the white girl with her black husband and a daughter that combines the BEST of BOTH worlds!
March 9, 2008 at 11:59 am
Farrah Khan…. I don’t really want to touch this issue, but if you read Jeremiah’s comments without the past jusgments that people have had for Farrah Khan, you won’t find anything he said to be undeniable. I hate to admit it.
If you read the last line of the comment he specifically says “His love
for Africa and African American people has made him an unforgettable
force, a catalyst for change and a religious leader who is sincere
about his faith and his purpose.” His Faith, his purpose, he never says our faith and purpose. Farrah Khan just has a list of unpopular opinions, but his effectiveness in undeniable, otherwise, you wouldn’t know who he is or what he stands for. Im not personally a fan, but in my opinion, Jeremiah was made a blanket statement that could apply to a great number of people.
And in response to the person who replaced black with white in the Churches laws…. I don’t see anything wrong with it now either!
Njima, Lex Luthor was supermans arch enemy, and Kevin Spacey played Lex Luthor in Superman Returns.
You are partially right about the Green being the dominant race.. my only comment to that is the fact that the black dollar leaves its community in fewer transactions than any other on earth. So we really don’t have fair stake in the global economy. Columbians don’t even like to sell cocain directly to us…Don’t ask how I know that.
TANJA,
I agree with you on america being dumb!
Krissy- know what it takes to run this country, it was the backs , and sweat , and lives of people that came before to keep us safe ,
exactly whose sweat backs are we talking about? I don’t like Oprah, but I have met Senator Obama’s wife. She is a classy lady! She mostly rolls with white chicks though. At least Obama kisses his wife in the mouth, all the other Candidates cheek kiss which is simply a nonchalant way of saying, I don’t listen to this chick, she is just here for the look.
Njima, thanks for creating this blog. So who are you voting for. Lets Caucus!
March 15, 2008 at 12:55 pm
It is sad that McCain, Clinton and Obama are representing the “best” of America. We really do not have an ideal candidate this time.
However it is our responsibility to choose our president and I know that Obama is definitely NOT the right choice!
March 16, 2008 at 1:49 pm
As of today, the TUCC’s doctrine has been changed. I went to the website yesterday and read the doctrine and almost fell over. Today however, it has been changed. You will notice that the word “Black” is no longer mentioned. Appauling.
March 16, 2008 at 5:27 pm
The “black value system” is still there, Laura. They’ve just moved it to a back page.
http://www.tucc.org/black_value_system.html
March 17, 2008 at 10:16 am
REGARDLESS OF OBAMA’S FAITH SYSTEM, HIS WORKS SHOULD PRECEDE HIM. AND NO I AM NOT A TRINITY MEMBER.
March 18, 2008 at 12:40 am
Shouldn’t the africans be thanking us whites for bringing them to this country. If it was not for us and of course those poor individuals who were initially the slaves of this country, the africans living in the United States now would still be in Africa living in grass huts, killing their own meat, sweating in the jungle, having their babies in the dirt, wearing no clothing, makeup or earrings, etc. Because of the whites and slavery, they now live in this wonderful country and getting free educations and MUCH help from our government and tax payers. Also, have they ever thought of all the white people who lost their lives to end slavery? I am SOOOOOO tired of all of this.
March 18, 2008 at 12:47 am
I bet you wouldn’t mind being kidnapped into slavery, Becker, as long as your great- great- grandchildren got to wear earrings.
March 18, 2008 at 1:31 am
I didn’t think Obama was so bad at first, but boy, does he have a lot of dirt under the rug! Turns out he’s just another crooked, pandering, flip-flopping politician who is against civil liberties for citizens (he voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act), he’s a member of the globalist Council of Foreign Relations (of which Bush, Exxon, the Clintons, et al. are also members), who associates with people who make their living taking advantage of the poor (his 16 year business association with a slumlord) and who has a LOT of baggage and unresolved issues — one being his own race and suspicions of other races.
I say No “good” change will be coming from this man Obama. He can’t hold a candle to Ron Paul for integrity, civil liberties for all and an impeccable voting record.
March 18, 2008 at 1:43 am
To say nothing of accepting money from white supremacists and refusing to give it back. But Ron Paul is wise to the Council on Foreign Relations, to say nothing of the conspiracy to build a North American Superhighway and replace the dollar with Ameros.
March 18, 2008 at 11:51 am
Hope! Change! Here comes Obama to save the day with his sophisticated socialist anti-constitutional agenda, philosophy of total defeat by radical Islam, and an adoration of one of the most racist individuals I have ever seen.
I also find it interesting that Mr. Sophisticated was surprised to find out that his close buddy of 20 years was a radical hate monger. If he wants us to believe that statement’s not a lie, then it forces us to see Obama as being an incredibly naive and easily fooled individual. I don’t care how great of a smile he has, I do not want some idiot who can be easily deceived by 3rd World dictators in the Whitehouse. I don’t want a President whose agenda comes from the programming on Comedy Central.
OK, enough logic. Since I know lefties hate logic, I’ll try to present a leftist argument to discredit Obama:
ur sexists who doesnt want to see a women in the whitehouse so you support osama no matter what beacuase you are sexists and want to be part of the good old boy network because you hate woman and want 2 see them all barefooted and pregnant?
March 18, 2008 at 11:56 am
I say give the whole slavery iossue a rest, Christians were fed to the lions, witches were burned at the stake, its all history lets move on…..
March 18, 2008 at 12:07 pm
issue
March 18, 2008 at 12:39 pm
OBAMA SHOULD NOT BE PRESIDENT! He has CHOSEN to be a member of a racist Church for 20 YEARS! His Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, uses hateful phrases such as “GOD DAMN AMERICA” and the “N-WORD” to edify? the members of his church. Anyone not leaving this church after the first visit is taking their leaving a little too slow. Obama wasn’t able to recognize anything was wrong for two decades! Think about it, he has been sitting in the pews of this church since Jimmy Carter was president! As an individual, he may be forgiven. But for someone who wants to lead our nation this is UNFORGIVABLE! Character and decision making ability are the two most important tests of a good leader. Obama has failed miserably on both counts. The Presidential Race was not about “race”, but Obama’s poor decision making has made it about RACISM. The genie is out of the bottle now, and all efforts to cover his tracks will only serve to divide our nation further. If he ever truly cared about our country, he should step aside now, so America can move forward.
March 18, 2008 at 12:39 pm
OBAMA SHOULD NOT BE PRESIDENT! He has CHOSEN to be a member of a racist Church for 20 YEARS! His Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, uses hateful phrases such as “GOD DAMN AMERICA” and the “N-WORD” to edify? the members of his church. Anyone not leaving this church after the first visit is taking their leaving a little too slow. Obama wasn’t able to recognize anything was wrong for two decades! Think about it, he has been sitting in the pews of this church since Jimmy Carter was president! As an individual, he may be forgiven. But for someone who wants to lead our nation this is UNFORGIVABLE! Character and decision making ability are the two most important tests of a good leader. Obama has failed miserably on both counts. The Presidential Race was not about “race”, but Obama’s poor decision making has made it about RACISM. The genie is out of the bottle now, and all efforts to cover his tracks will only serve to divide our nation further. If he ever truly cared about our country, he should step aside now, so America can move forward.
March 18, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Obama’s church is a prime example of why black Americans perceive racism the way and to the extent they do. I find it personally offensive at how white America is blamed every time a black person doesn’t get what they feel they deserve. And to put the blame for slavery on white America is the biggest travesty of all. Let’s not forget that it was the African’s own people that sold them as slaves to traders that arrived by sea. They were war captives that were sold for goods by other tribes. Why do black Americans not put some blame on Africa instead of embracing it?
It was the United States that spearheaded the campaign to stop the slave trade by sending a fleet of ships to patrol the African coast. The flagship of this fleet, the Constellation, still sits in Baltimore’s inner harbor. Who knows where we would be today if the US didn’t make this stand. Since that time there has been so much immigration to this country that the majority of the current population’s ancestor’s were in other parts of the world at the time of the slavery in America. So the concept of white America being responsible for slavery is the most absurd idea I can imagine.
Racism begets racism and to be brought up in families and churches that propagate this lie is at the heart of the problem in America today! It’s time we start focusing inward and stop pointing our fingers outward!
March 18, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Obama is racist…pure and simple.
March 18, 2008 at 8:15 pm
OBAMA IS NOT RACIST. AND THE U.S. ENDED SLAVERY? HUMMM…. YEAH IT TOOK THEM LIKE OVER 100 YEARS TO FINALLY DECIDE THAT MAYBE SLAVERY WASN’T THE THING TO DO AFTER THEY HAVE EXPLOITED AFRICANS FOR FREE LABOR. NO ONE IS POINTING THE FINGER AT THE WHITES SO PLEASE STOP WITH ALL THIS NONSENSE. I’VE READ THE BLACK VALUE SYSTEM AND PLEASE TELL ME WHERE EXACTLY DOES IT SAY, “THIS IS A RACIST CHURCH”? JUST BECAUSE THEY USE THE WORD “BLACK” MORE THAN FIVE TIMES NOW ITS A RACE ISSUE? MY GOODNESS PEOPLE ARE JUST CAUSING AN UPROAR FOR NO REASON WHAT SO EVER. I THINK THERE’S A DESPERATE NEED FOR AN EYE EXAM. PLEASE GET IT TOGETHER.
March 19, 2008 at 7:02 am
Njima,
Look at this blog now. Well if I have learned one thing, its that people are at least listening to Barack. The most replies in a single day after he gives a speech about improving the one nation concept. Some how this blog went from I Barack’s Church Racist, to Barack is Racist.
God Damn America, wake the hell up. You are not all at home thinking to your self that everything is fair for everyone. God Damn America, you could be so much better than you are. God Damn America, everyone expects the best from you. America is Mad, not just Black people at Church. Up until now, everyone wanted our troops home, now you don’t care, as long as you get to bash the Black presidential hopeful.Suddenly everyone is completely happy with the goverrment. Out of nowhere this is the perfect country. I don’t know where any of you are from, but I live in Chicago, I am Black, i attend Trinity, and I am not racist. But let me tell you who think that white america has changed and that racism is a thing of the past to go to hell. You are full of s***.
And for the historian bringing up that ship the constellation, it wasn’t built until 1854, slavery goes back to the early 1600’s Jackass. How many years of tortured and raped women, destroyed families, and nooses is that. If you don’t think white america was responsible for slavery then who the hell was? Last time I checked, my grand mother was a slave to a White man in Alabama only one life time ago.
Barack is trying to unite us, thats what he says, but you would raather listen to someone who isn’t running for office, and apply his every thought and concious to Baracks. That is simply saying that a mans word is not his own, so whose words are mine?
***[edited for language. Nijma]
March 19, 2008 at 7:14 am
Oh, and if this country was so happy go lucky,and a barrely of roses, why are you all hiding behind screen names. Some of you are so scared to be who you are. If you are a white racist, you not gonna say it, but trust it so heavily implied in what you write. Its sooooo funny how Barack is being blamed for playing the Race Card… But its fine, cause when your friends and relatives return from war 100 years from now, you won’t be here to reflect on the stupid decisions you made. The S*** under McCain, and Hillary’s rug aint no better, you just used to seeing it in WHITE AMERICA (said with Eminem in mind)
[***edited for language. Nijma]
March 19, 2008 at 9:21 am
I find the concept of a “white America” curious. Why choose race as the single defining characteristic? Why not talk about “rich America” or “male America” or Volkswagen-owning America”? Isn’t that in itself the definition of racism, to treat someone not as an individual responsible for their own actions, but judging them on the basis of what they look like? Isn’t that the definition of stereotyping–to judge someone by what they were born with on the outside and not by their own personal choices?
What is everyone saying here about “collective responsibility”?
If a black person robs a bank, say in Chicago, are all black people responsible for that?
What about black people in Miami, are they responsible for that black person who robs a bank in Chicago?
What if a hundred years after that black person robs a back in Chicago, a black person from Ethiopia moves to Chicago. Is that Ethiopian now also responsible for the black person who robbed a bank in Chicago a hundred years earlier?
So exactly who is this “white America” that everyone keeps talking about?
March 19, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I’m tired of the racisim. It will never end. As white people we’ve tried to make up for the past, but black people will not forgive. I’m young, I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t do it. I don’t want to do it. Give us a break. Let by gones be by gones. Obama is not the answer. He is hanging on to the past with his pastor. Someone else step up to the plate. We will listen.
March 19, 2008 at 5:16 pm
bottom line is that it is rediculous that everytime that someone says black automatically it is racist, just for saying black. It does not matter the actual meaning behind the sentence. I am tired of Barack taking the racist card when it benefits him and once it gets turned on him it is a different story. His speach meant nothing, you do not go to a church for that long and become good friends with pastor and now that is shows what his guide lines of beliefs come from it is time to back peddle. If you take the situation between the two canidates make them the same race, gender and now tell me which one you would choose. It would be the experienced one. We all know who that is. In my opinion is that black people are making a difference in the way that life is now for everyone but the race card has got to stop. It is not what it was years ago with slavery we are in a new era, let it go. There are just as many black, hispanic, foreign racism as there are white in this country. As for the black racist out there, don’t forget that it was the black man that brought the black man to America to be sold. Don’t put all the blame on the white man.
March 19, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Obama has thrown in with racists – the good preacher Wright and now the Black Panthers. It is time to move on and look not at race but unite as AMERICANS. Mr. Obama you have disappointed us.
March 19, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Njima,
while it would be rediculous that all blacks be blamed for robbing that bank you were speaking of, it is higly likely that many black people to follow will experience some uneasiness while entering that bank. Strangely enough, it wouldn’t matter if that bank was operated by blacks. either, the smae uneasiness would occur. so maybe that wasn’t a fair analogy. I could walk in that bank with a suit on and if my face is unfamiliar, I will likely get that nod from the branch manager to the door guard.
And for those of you who think black be should let bygons be bygons, we would love to do that, but see we still face a lot of predjudices to day. You may not be the reason specifically, but ultimately while much has changed, much has not. I can tell that many of you don’t bother reading this blog, you just look fo Obama followers to try and discourage them from supporting him. So instead of trying to deminish a persons character ie… a form of racism, why don’t you who think racism is over look to those who suffer the injustices every day and ask us why we can’t let it go. Its because if we both commit the same crime we get different time, its because if we both have the same poor credit score, you will still likely get the loan, or lower finance rate. its because if we get into a car accident and you clearly ran into me, I get a ticket and face the uneasiness of dealing with a caucasion police officer who sees his sons reflection in you and not me. Its because you say Barack is playing the race card when a WHITE person brought the issue to the table as an act of desperation, its because bi racial relationships are still frowned upon, its because your schools have books and mines has copies faxed over from another school, its because you are the slumlords and we are the tenants, its because fairness and equality is a right thats written and seldom excersized. Its because you are more likely to be scrutinized for saying n**** than I am for saying h*****. The only people who can be dissappointed by Obama, are the ones who are satisfied with the callous attacks imposed upon him by his opponents being that he hasnt lashed out with an equal fierceness. If he would, then the media would turn him into a N****, being ignorant and losing sight of his original mission. There is a double standard, I really wish you could see it, but those blue eyes filter it out. Some of my best friends are not of my race, and as close as they are to me, they still get lost in conversations like this. They find it unbelievable still. I have one friend who understands, but it took for a White and black police team to pull us over and tell us we got pulled over because I was black, and I had a white male in the car with me.
****
*****
[edited for language-Nijma]
March 19, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Nijima, Sorry, I have been mispelling your name all this time!
March 20, 2008 at 10:06 am
I for one am glad to be in America. I hear that slavery and all sorts of violence is still alive and thriving there!
March 20, 2008 at 3:13 pm
ok let’s wake up WHITE people!!! now it sure would be nice to love al. but the truth is black people hate us they hate us white people. this is the truth and we all need to realize this truth. the friends you may have that are black what do you think they say about WHITE people when they are with their black friends, well wake up they are not saying white people are great they feel that we are the cause for all their problems their is always a double standard they feel as though they can say whatever they want and if we say what we want,well they want to harm us for it. They try to blame us for racism well why doesn’t the black community wake up and realize that they are causing the racism that they are the racists. How am i to like a race of people who hate my race well i can not. To all the black people I have done nothing to you so why do you hate. To my fellow white people I beg of you to wake up God knows I love my race with all my heart why do we allow this double standard why do we defend a race who hates us PLEASE wake up white people my heart goes out to WHITE AMERICA i love you and I hope this Obama mess wakes up alot of the upper class whites who do not have to live with these people and see what is real. I have to take the bus and i hear the comments like f-ing white boy and other remarks. But don’t get it fucked up im no silly white boy you will not take my things or rob me i will defend myself to the end.
March 20, 2008 at 7:36 pm
this is obsurd. from the get go i never was for obama simply because when he gives speeches, sounds more like he is preaching to us then actually speaking to the people, not only that i did not like the fact of everything you hear about his background, oh wait im being racist? psh. thats what blacks would say, so tired of everytime something happens to blacks, they blame white and call it racist? and everytime the rev. jesse jackson and his butt buddy al sharpton and those damn black panthers then they got to parade around blaming the white, when actually its the blacks that are the racist ones, dont take it out on the white people or white america as you would say its, that some s*** what happend years ago is not our problem anymore, so get over it. cant do nothing about it now, but you seem to dwell so much on it. i think obama is a racist, i dont like the idea of a news report interviweing his people from KENYA and they say and i quote ” we are rooting for barack, we want barack to get it because we want to come to america” HEY OBAMA PLEASE PICK THE COUNTRY YOU WANT TO SERVE! CANT DO BOTH, YOUR SUPPOSE TO BE COMMITTED TO JUST ONE. believe it or not, obama not only has NO experience but there is so much s*** behind him. bottom line is, blacks need to get the f*** over that s*** they got stuckup there a**, and stop attacking everyone but themselves.. oh and oprah.. your just as racist too.
[***Yes, I edited the swear words again. Why do people post swear words here? Do they think for some reason I want to read a bunch of swear words? -Nijma]
March 20, 2008 at 7:37 pm
its discriminating to me to be called a h*****, or something of that, then to call blacks the N word. seriously.. listen to yourself.
[*****Epithet for whites edited by popular demand. -Nijma]
March 21, 2008 at 11:46 am
So if I understand everyone right, Black people are racist, we blame whites for everything, we hate white people… did i miss anything.
So what is it the White people are doing all the while this anger is boiling in the black community? are they all h*****dory and peachy king. just existing with rainbows following them everywhere they go. Cardigan sweaters, and wrinkle resistant khakis? Ignoring black people?
It would seem so, typically when you give a rebuttle to a statement, if the original statement has a valid point then you would address that point first then counter it with a stronger point. So when I made numerous comments of how black people are treated unjustly, how come no one said… while some of those things may be true….
Its because you either don’t believe them to be true, or you don’t think they matter and just ignore them.
Oh if discrimination is not a factor, the why did H***** get printed and N**** get edited???????????NIJIMA lol
[*****oh, all RIGHT already, I’ve edited the epitaph for Caucasians as well. All the nasty words on here are getting to be a royal pain. –Nijma]
March 21, 2008 at 11:59 am
You know what, don’t vote for OBAMA.
Your vote won’t matter anyway, cause he will get cheated out of office, and you won’t have to worry about it. McCain will win cause he is a veteran, he’ll send us all to iraq and everyone will be dead by 2011 just intime for my car note to be completly paid off. we will fall further into recession, which will lead to higher crime rates, everyone will already be homeless because of bloodsucking lenders. Or Hillary will get tired of being ignored by countries who think less of women and she will launch an attack on Russia, China, and N. Korea at the same time while she is having hot flashes and start World War 3, either way we will all be dead by 2011. Or 3rd Senario, Obama gets elected and gets shot in the head causing an uproar in the black community who will all go Nat Turner and start killing all white people on sight with machede’s (<— spelling?)
All because I go to a racist church! Sorry Jeremiah, your not raping little boys, but you cetrainly can ruin a presidential race.
March 21, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I rather liked this editorial about The Speech:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oew-meyers20mar20,1,5615767.story?track=rss
I felt sort of let down by Obama’s speech, myself, maybe because I have high expectations for him. It seemed to focus too much on petty political squabbles and not enough on vision. I mean, let’s face it, Ferraro is right, even if she’s irritating. Nobody wants Obama for his resume–there’s plenty of people with more impressive resumes. They want him for his personal uniqueness, but race is only a small part of that, in spite of Trinity’s one-note-tune preoccupation with race.
And what’s with the stuff about the “hot flashes”, Philander. Are you a woman-hater? Do you know the meaning of the word “stereotype”?
March 22, 2008 at 10:16 am
What people are leaving out of the whole ‘Pastor Wright’ issue is the Anti-American sentiment. No one has ever been elected president who is not Patriotic. He needed to strongly denounce and disassociate himself from Wright. When these sentiments are put together with Michele Obamas anti-American statement, he is not electable. Our only hope is that Clinton somehow wins the nomination(not that she has that great a shot in the General), or else the Republicans are a shoo-in.
March 22, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Well, I seen this coming a couple of months ago. I was watching “Out in The Open” with Rick Sanchez, and he had Jessie Jackson and another black man on the show. The other black man (wish I could remember his name, sorry) said that Obama told him that when he becomes president that he has “years of oppression to make up to the black man.” I felt sick to my stomach! Then, is when I understood what Obama’s agenda was, and it didn’t include any white people! We can’t be fooled by this fraud!
March 22, 2008 at 2:30 pm
If a white man would have said what he said he would have been called a racist. That is the plain truth.
March 22, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Alicia, the only thing I can find on this is a CNN appearance on Rick Sanchez “Out in the Open” sometime in January 2008 with Jesse Jackson, Baratunde Thurston, and Michael Washignton on Thurston’s blog, where he has a video and a transcript posted.
It opens with a film of a 70-year-old black man saying,
The plan for black men is talked about later when Thurston says,
Later on, Jackson mentions:
I’m not sure why Jackson thinks those are black problems and not problems for everyone, but that’s what he said.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. and also Rep. Danny Davis on the west side are very involved in trying to clean the records of black men who have problems getting a job because of their prison records.
March 23, 2008 at 11:10 am
Of course Wright is not racist. Only whitey can be racists. What is racist about hundreds of blacks gathering every week in “churches” to cheer their pastor’s remarks about how all evil in the world is the fault of the white man? That’s racist? C’mon get real.
Obama’s church is Africa-centric, and America-hating. The foundation of his church is a parochial ‘Black Value System’ which vows to only help and celebrate other blacks. Is that racist? No way.
90% of all American blacks support Obama. Is that evidence of black racism? Of course not.
No actually, Americans are sick of the blatant hypocrisy of watching some white guy’s career being destroyed because he made a silly joke about someone being “nappy-headed, while ‘pastors’ like jerimiah wright celebrate racists like louis farrakhan with honorary awards.
We’re sick of watching when honorable folks like Trent Lott have their careers ruined for speaking highly of Strom Thurmond, while Democrats, who constantly brand conservatives as ‘racists’, put former KKK Kleagle Robert Byrd into the fourth most powerful position in the U.S.
We’re sick of watching the majority of blacks give a pass to wealthy murderers like o.j. simpson, just based on the shade of his skin.
We’re sick of watching “churches” like LA’s African Methodist Episcopal, and congresswoman maxine waters encourage and apologize for the thugs who rioted, murdered and burned down Los Angeles in the wake of the Rodney King fiasco.
We’re sick of watching ‘reverend’ jesse jackson shake down corporations for money to protect them from his phoney charges of racial discrimination.
We’re sick of seeing folks like President Bush being ripped as a ‘racist’ for once visiting Bob Jones U. because they disapproved of interracial marriage, yet giving Obama a pass when he applauds the bigoted pastor wright who spouts racist and Anti-American rage for 20 years while Obama and his hate-filled wife sit approvingly in the pews, or even join him at the pulpit.
The perfect punishment for Wright and his congregation of Africa-worshippers would be to deport them to Africa and let them actually try to live there the rest of their lives Maybe send them to dusty centers of starvation, corruption, and rampant AIDS infestation like Uganda or Ethiopia. If they are lucky they could just go to Kenya where Obama’s Muslim cousin lost an election to turn Kenya into a Marxist utopia and in response, his supporters rioted and murdered about 1,000 folks. These America-haters would be begging to come back to the good old ‘US of KKK’ within 10 days or less.
Obviously Obama and all Wright’s adoring fans are racist, if the word “racist” has any meaning whatsoever. If Obama is elected, I guarantee that the primary ‘change’ you will have is: America becoming more like Africa, which Obama worships every Sunday. As senator, the ONLY bill Obama sponsored which became law, was one to shovel American taxpayer money into the African Congo.
I am glad that America is finally having this discussion. It is time for Americans — ALL Americans — to be judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
March 23, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Here’s a part of a great article I’ve read that sums up exactly what’s going on here:
by Robert Jensen
It may seem self-indulgent to talk about the fears of white people in a white-supremacist society. After all, what do white people really have to be afraid of in a world structured on white privilege? It may be self-indulgent, but it’s critical to understand because these fears are part of what keeps many white people from confronting ourselves and the system.
The first, and perhaps most crucial, fear is that of facing the fact that some of what we white people have is unearned. It’s a truism that we don’t really make it on our own; we all have plenty of help to achieve whatever we achieve. That means that some of what we have is the product of the work of others, distributed unevenly across society, over which we may have little or no control individually. No matter how hard we work or how smart we are, we all know — when we are honest with ourselves — that we did not get where we are by merit alone. And many white people are afraid of that fact.
A second fear is crasser: White people’s fear of losing what we have — literally the fear of losing things we own if at some point the economic, political, and social systems in which we live become more just and equitable. That fear is not completely irrational; if white privilege — along with the other kinds of privilege many of us have living in the middle class and above in an imperialist country that dominates much of the rest of the world — were to evaporate, the distribution of resources in the United States and in the world would change, and that would be a good thing. We would have less. That redistribution of wealth would be fairer and more just. But in a world in which people have become used to affluence and material comfort, that possibility can be scary.
A third fear involves a slightly different scenario — a world in which non-white people might someday gain the kind of power over whites that whites have long monopolized. One hears this constantly in the conversation about immigration, the lingering fear that somehow “they” (meaning not just Mexican-Americans and Latinos more generally, but any non-white immigrants) are going to keep moving to this country and at some point become the majority demographically.
Even though whites likely can maintain a disproportionate share of wealth, those numbers will eventually translate into political, economic, and cultural power. And then what? Many whites fear that the result won’t be a system that is more just, but a system in which white people become the minority and could be treated as whites have long treated non-whites. This is perhaps the deepest fear that lives in the heart of whiteness. It is not really a fear of non-white people. It’s a fear of the depravity that lives in our own hearts: Are non-white people capable of doing to us the barbaric things we have done to them?
A final fear has probably always haunted white people but has become more powerful since the society has formally rejected overt racism: The fear of being seen, and seen-through, by non-white people. Virtually every white person I know, including white people fighting for racial justice and including myself, carries some level of racism in our minds and hearts and bodies. In our heads, we can pretend to eliminate it, but most of us know it is there. And because we are all supposed to be appropriately anti-racist, we carry that lingering racism with a new kind of fear: What if non-white people look at us and can see it? What if they can see through us? What if they can look past our anti-racist vocabulary and sense that we still don’t really know how to treat them as equals? What if they know about us what we don’t dare know about ourselves? What if they can see what we can’t even voice?
I work in a large university with a stated commitment to racial justice. All of my faculty colleagues, even the most reactionary, have a stated commitment to racial justice. And yet the fear is palpable.
It is a fear I have struggled with, and I remember the first time I ever articulated that fear in public. I was on a panel with several other professors at the University of Texas discussing race and politics in the O.J. Simpson case. Next to me was an African American professor. I was talking about media; he was talking about the culture’s treatment of the sexuality of black men. As we talked, I paid attention to what was happening in me as I sat next to him. I felt uneasy. I had no reason to be uncomfortable around him, but I wasn’t completely comfortable. During the question-and-answer period — I don’t remember what question sparked my comment — I turned to him and said something like, “It’s important to talk about what really goes on between black and white people in this country. For instance, why am I feeling afraid of you? I know I have no reason to be afraid, but I am. Why is that?”
My reaction wasn’t a crude physical fear, not some remnant of being taught that black men are dangerous (though I have had such reactions to black men on the street in certain circumstances). Instead, I think it was that fear of being seen through by non-white people, especially when we are talking about race. In that particular moment, for a white academic on an O.J. panel, my fear was of being exposed as a fraud or some kind of closet racist.
Even if I thought I knew what I was talking about and was being appropriately anti-racist in my analysis, I was afraid that some lingering trace of racism would show through, and that my black colleague would identify it for all in the room to see. After I publicly recognized the fear, I think I started to let go of some of it. Like anything, it’s a struggle. I can see ways in which I have made progress. I can see that in many situations I speak more freely and honestly as I let go of the fear. I make mistakes, but as I become less terrified of making mistakes I find that I can trust my instincts more and be more open to critique when my instincts are wrong.
March 23, 2008 at 9:38 pm
“a white-supremacist society”?
You’ve got to be kidding, Lisa. What does this guy base his premise on? You notice he doesn’t give any details, reasons, examples, you know, that academic stuff that makes something believable and not merely in the realm of fantasy.
So what is it I’m supposed to be able to get just for being white, and where do I go to get it?
This guy sounded pretty weird, so I googled him. Turns out he’s a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. According to wikipedia, University of Texas President Larry Faulkner has called Jensen “a fountain of undiluted foolishness on issues of public policy”.
March 23, 2008 at 10:08 pm
This man is not a talk show host, he is running for president. His remarks about whites and his association with that “church” are a disgrace to U.S. politics. Public speaking 101– do not offend your audience (F). I admit; he almost had me fooled, but there’s no way I will be voting for THAT to represent me…
If he was a white talk show host, he would unemployed by now
March 23, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Whatever makes you feel good.
March 23, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Robert Jensen perfectly describes above, the white guilt and fear which is built into the liberal mentality, and which is arguably the most important factor driving Obama’s success up to this point. But Jensen is wrong to project his soft-racist feelings onto all “white” persons. It is primarily liberals who are wracked with the envy and fear which distorts their world view.
Folks with idle inherited wealth, those who married wealth and then coast through life, those with wealth from cushy government jobs, those watching the clock in closed-shop union jobs, shyster ambulance-chasers, et al may indeed be enjoying wealth which they have not earned and deserve to feel guilty.
But folks who worked long at part time jobs and studied hard are not embarrassed by their own academic achievements and career success which results. They do not believe that their success resulted from exploiting the lazy ones who jeered at their hard work while themselves strutting about trying to get laid and posing on street corners practicing being cool, getting fat and looking for easy money.
Successful people regardless color want to keep and control what they have worked hard to earn; pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right endowed by our Creator according to the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Winners welcome everyone who wants to play the game, work hard and become successful in life, but they don’t want the rules to be changed for people based upon skin color.
Fair minded folks don’t want to see affirmative action used to punish whites and Asians while giving special benefits to some government-protected minority class. Honorable folks are disgusted when they watch black ‘leaders’ question whether other blacks are ‘authentic’ blacks or rather have become ‘Uncle Toms’ when they are successful and reject the pathetic religion of victimology used to prey on gullible losers by the ‘reverend’ jesse jackson and other despicable race merchants.
Productive people contribute to society at least as much as they take, and have no reason to feel guilty. Rather than guilt, a productive person feels pride because his level of success is a direct reflection of his contribution to society.
What liberals fail to grasp is that the very nature of each transaction in a free market, is that both parties to the transaction benefit and wealth is created in the process. No one ‘exploits’ anyone who is a willing party to such a transaction.
Failure to grasp this fundamental economic fact is a characteristic of almost all liberals. Failure to recognize this truth is why such losers resent and demonize high achievers in any society.
This allows corrupt leaders to manipulate the resulting grotesque emotion of envy which becomes the basis for class warfare found at the root of most of the worst blood baths and destruction of prosperous civilizations throughout history.
The powerful dark force of envy is what drove French revolutionaries to behead all the nobles then move on to anyone else they could find; it is what allowed hitler to create a mass movement to exterminate the successful Jews; it is how lenin mobilized an entire people to murder millions of successful farmers and business people to form the Soviet Union; it is how pol pot was able to persuade an entire country to seek out and murder people just because they wore glasses; the ugly force of envy is the reason why the National Guard had to be called out to protect Los Angeles from being burned to the ground during both the Watts and Rodney King riots.
This hideous emotion of envy is what is cultivated by cynical race merchants like jerimiah wright to cripple the minds of anyone who will listen every Sunday.
Obama’s willing embrace of this sick leftist victim philosophy while rejecting the values which made America great, is why he will never be President, but you can watch the liberals blame white racism or voting machines made by Diebold.
March 23, 2008 at 11:48 pm
It’s not a question of feel-good, Lise. It’s a question of truth. Any one can make assertions, but are they true?
Whenever someone starts talking in stereotypes–you know, all black people are like this, all white people are like that, all short people are…you get the idea….they’re judging people on the basis of what they look like, without bothering to find out anything about them as individuals.
You haven’t told me yet what it is I’m supposed to be able to get just for being white, and where I can get it.
March 24, 2008 at 12:12 am
I am more than disappointed, Chris, I am appalled at Obama’s language in the last couple of days. It seems he only opens his mouth to exchange feet.
Obama has been representing me for years though, and quite well, too.
As far as this blog, it’s not about wanting a certain person to win or not win. It’s more about what’s behind the issues.
What Obama has been saying is certainly offensive, his pastor even more so. But how have they come to act this way? They aren’t saying this stuff in a vacuum. Wright doesn’t make this stuff up by himself. He is drawing on a body of theological work called “liberation theology”.
Obama didn’t get where is is now without white support. He was elected by a coalition of blacks and progressive whites. He will need white support to be able to continue. This “liberation theology” is not just damaging his candidacy, it’s racially divisive. But what to do. Whether or not it costs Obama the election, it is clear a solution to this destructive theology needs to be found.
March 24, 2008 at 12:37 am
Freedom Fan, what about trying to make up for past patterns of discrimination? Or trying to create a diverse student body? Are those valid reasons for giving a person of one race an edge over another?
Condoleeza Rice is one beneficiary of such a program. Harvard has also been known to aggressively pursue qualified blacks with some serious money. Of course, Obama’s Harvard records have not come to light.
March 24, 2008 at 1:03 am
NIJMA, innocent kids should not be punished to correct alleged past wrongful discrimination by university officials. Harvard had black graduates such as Richard Theodore Greener as long ago as 1870.
What is really at work is the liberal goal of equality of outcomes, where the something as superficial as skin color is used to define “diversity”. Diversity of minds is much more important, yet university thought police enforce ‘hate speech’ codes to ensure that conservative ideas are stifled and undesirable guest speakers are disinvited.
Perhaps it is just cooincidence that liberals also argue for equality of outcomes in economic activity, while eagerly sacrificing individual freedom and stealing private property.
March 24, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I served on a UCC church council in Pennslyvania and let me tell you this church is far from status quo or conservative Christian. My church and serveral others in Pennsylvania left the UCC three years ago when the started trying to force churches to become “Open Churches” in which they could remove any pastor who at anytime preached anything considered to be “anti-Homosexual.” – despite homosexuality being explicitly stated to be an offense to God. Regardless of the context however, trying to restrict preachers and / or congregations is blantantly against God.
So please, as you all ingest this information realize the UCC is far from a truely Christian organization in more ways than just this and it’s disugsting and immoral leadership has devided homes, families, and communities in Pennslyvania and other states.
March 24, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Who says homosexuality is an “offense to God”–this is part of the UCC dogma? I always thought UCC ordained openly gay ministers. At any rate, doesn’t Trinity have a supportive environment toward gays, like all the HIV testing stuff.
Whether it is immoral to restrict ministers, I can’t say. My church restricts pastors from performing homosexual marriages or even giving a blessing at a civil service. There are certainly some who would prefer to do it, but no consensus over what is correct, so the rules won’t be changing just quite yet. I don’t understand how the UCC can destroy families and communities, though. That’s a pretty sweeping statement.
March 27, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Nijima, of course I’m not anti women…. I love women, don’t care much for Hillary though. And I was purposly setereotyping, but I can assure you I wasn’t the first person, and won’ be the last person to say that Hillary may have an emotional and irrational reaction while in office…
I am disturbed however that this sound byte of Jeremiah Wrights sermon, which I was present for has suddenly turned into his sermon for 20 years. Pretty rediculous. Fact is, he seldom mentioned political issues, and this was the only time I have heard him go as far as he did. He is a Bush Basher, but who isn’t. I can assure you that greater than 80 percent of his sermons however have no political threads underlining, and therefore to suggest that Obama has been attending a racially driven Church is utterly rediculous and a sad and stereo typical statement if you ask me. Talk about judging the whole by the few. And how radical is the idea that If go to a “Racist” church I’m a racist. If I go to a baseball game am I a baseball? what if I go to listen to the piano player, am I still a racist? Thats kinda stupid don’t you think. And somewhere the idea that being for black people is being against white people. So what if Obama wants to restore respect to the black male and his role in society. Anywhere in that statement is he destroying the white male, or even neglecting him for that matter. Obama is a role model for a great number of people who haven’t had one for a lifetime, as is Hillary. they may not be your heroes, but to many thats exactly what they are.
Whoa to the guy who wants to send all black people back to Africa….If that aint worsening the racial divide I don’t know what is.
Lastly, for those of you who are human, it is and can be more difficult for some people to discard a lifetime of friendship for the sake of people that don’t care if you live or die. Denounce this, discard that, he wouldn’t be my preacher….uh duh. You want’ someone who is loyal to the country, but can’t be loyal to his friends/relatives. You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your pastor….uh maybe the substance of Obama’s religious relationship stems a little deeper than political stance. Maybe GOD is in there somewhere. Maybe, just maybe GOD was a little more important than you or I or politics. I consider what he did to be loyal and just. Some of us put influential people in our lives higher then we do our own families. He made a decision to stand by a man that told him to put GOD first. Who do you stand by?
We have discussed how judgmental Jeremiah Wright was for his comments in a sermon, but who are you to judge anybody. You don’t know him! You know a 2 minute clip of a persons entire lifetime and you think because he got emotional and felt hardpressed to say his true feelings about an issue he is a terribla person. So let me ask this question. Since Hillary Clinton’s pastore defends Jeremiah Wright, should Hillary discard her pastor?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/25/pastor-of-clintons-forme_n_93418.html
March 28, 2008 at 2:19 am
And how radical is the idea that If go to a “Racist” church I’m a racist. If I go to a baseball game am I a baseball? what if I go to listen to the piano player, am I still a racist? Thats kinda stupid don’t you think.
-The Philander
What’s stupid would be for anyone to believe that someone, who attends the moral equivalent of a david duke rally for twenty years, is not a racist. But good luck with that.
It also warms my heart to watch your fellow parishiners applaud wildly when wright encourages them to kill whitey and hate America. Yeah, no racism or America-hatred there. So hey, enjoy next Sunday.
March 28, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Pfranklin: “so what if Obama wants to restore respect to the black male”. That’s the problem, the issue with race is hot and everyone tip toes around it but women who make up 52% of the population continue to take a back seat to all other “minorities”. Minority in quotes because we are not a minority but are treated as such (gender apartheid?). Black MEN got the vote 50 years before any woman in the U.S. 16% of the senate is made up of women. Sop whining and get on with it. We can’t change anymore laws we have to deal with what we’ve got and get along. We can’t leave it up to the politicians anymore. Stop moaning and do your part.
The American public should wake up. Stop listening to the media and do you homework on someone before you vote., Obama’s (as was Bush’s) position is clear if we ignore the rhetoric and look at family life, voting records, and the people that surround a person. All this was no surprise to me.
March 28, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Laura Lee, I completely acknowledge women and their role in society, and I was simply responding to a comment mentioned prior. However as I my statement made very clear about the white man not being neglected, the same stands for white women, or any nationality. Technically, Obama strengthens the perception of himself without passing any law. Consider the great number of individuals who have lost their right to vote because of crimes they have been convicted of, even if afterwards they have been cleared of a crime, their rights aren’t restored.
Who is whining? lol, I find that funny. And what eactly can I discern from looking at the family life of Barack Obama? I have been a member of Trinity an excess of 10 years, and I have only seen hime there 2 times…. I’ve seen Angela Bassett and earth wind and fire there more often than Obama. My fiance works with Michelle Obama at the University of Chicago. I am a whole lot closer to them than some many will ever be, and I still don’t see there family life. All I can see is that he loves his wife and kids. I can tell you that isn’t for show.
I never claimed to be an Obama supporter, though I guess it appears that way. But remember, this blog is not about Obama, its about his Church.
Freedom Fan… David Duke… do you really have enough ginuine information about Jeremiah Wright to make such an unjust statement about a person. I wonder about some of the things you talk about in private, and how they would be perceived were you running for office.
Just had dinner with my mother in law at calypso in Hyde Park… oh she is White. Love that lady too! She can cook some soul food!
March 28, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I meant to say Barack Obama strengthens the perception black men have of themselves without passing any laws.
March 29, 2008 at 12:28 am
Freedom Fan… David Duke… do you really have enough ginuine information about Jeremiah Wright to make such an unjust statement about a person. I wonder about some of the things you talk about in private, and how they would be perceived were you running for office.
-PFranklin
Why would you suggest that I would say something “in private” that I wouldn’t say to you directly on a blog? Do I sound shy or evasive? Why would anyone’s anonymous thoughts be fake?
As for my genuine information, here is one of many racist quotes from your buddy:
“Black men turning on black men – that is fighting the wrong enemy. You both are the primary targets in an oppressive society that sees both of you as a dangerous threat.”
-jerimiah wright
Does this sound like a man of God, spreading the love of Jesus?
No partner, wright is a vicious bigot encouraging bitter young hoodlums to focus their rage only on white victims, because they deserve it anyway.
I admit I don’t know much about david duke, but I doubt even he has said anything so vicerally disgusting.
March 29, 2008 at 4:58 am
This is sad, this church promotes hate and Obama is the canidate of hate, racism, and all that is wrong. Typical white person? God Damn America? Grow up idoits. Racism is boring.
March 29, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Obama and his repulsive wife have a track record of being close friends with racists and America haters. Just wait until the election gets closer, assuming he does get the Dem nomination, and more about this slickster will come out.
Just read some of the writings from his book, if you don’t believe it. It is evident that he is nothing more than a white-hating, militant punk.
April 1, 2008 at 12:13 pm
lol…. yall so funny on this blog.
Freedom Fan
Why would you suggest that I would say something “in private” that I wouldn’t say to you directly on a blog? Do I sound shy or evasive? Why would anyone’s anonymous thoughts be fake?
Your absolutly right about being open while anonymous, what I’m more curious about is what people are saying when they don’t have a computer screen to hide behind. And as far as the quotation from Jeremiah you mentioned…. is there anything in there that says or implies that by not fighting eachother he means fighting white people? And I am legitimatly asking the question because it is an excerpt… and I don’t want to take it out of context!
Here’s a David Duke Comment for your records… and please comment on it if you will.
“Our clear goal must be the advancement of the white race and separation of the white and black races. This goal must include freeing of the American media and government from subservient Jewish interests.
David Duke”
Heres another “The Jews are trying to destroy all other cultures – as a survival mechanism – the only Nazi country in the world is Israel”
Please apologize for putting my retired pastor in this boat…he hasn’t gone that far. Implications are one thing, but actual statement of jeremiah don’t push the envelope off the desk like duke does.
Otto Says:
March 29, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Obama and his repulsive wife have a track record of being close friends with racists and America haters
Do you mean me? Because I take offense to that.
You are all free to feel how you feel, but insults make you less than the man you try to discredit. Many of you have your minds made up abbout black people before you begin to speak about them. Many of you think that becasue you have a clean slate with black people, that you don’t fundamentally have anything against them. But let anyone of you move to harlem and I bet you’ll be using the n bomb in no time. I don’t want you to be angry at yourselves because you have a core so deeply rooted in racism that you yourself don’t realize it until its been tested. I’m not gonna be mad if a N does something stupid and offends you and you call him out his name. I do it all the time, just don’t be shocked if you have a Negro moment yourselves at some point in your life.
And don’t be so offended when someone says this country sucks. You know you have thought it at one point or another…its okay, everytime I think about paying $97 dollars to fill up my Tahoe I get that feeling. Just let the black people take the wrap for not knowing when they should and shouldn’t open their big mouths. Have a blessed day.
Oh and the Chickens coming back to roost was a Malcolm x quote…..but I’m sure you knew that reference point because you all think Muslims are all terrorists. Honestly, when I get on the plane with one sometimes I get uneasy… but you know what, so do they so I guess its fine. I just sit by them and start talking about white folks and before you know it we are best friends because we hate you all…lol kidding. But it makes my flight easier.
Hey Margaret.. told you they were serious on this blog!
April 1, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I am white. I remember black and white drinking fountains. I remember blacks sitting in the back of the bus and in a separate waiting room. I remember black forced to sit in the balcony of the theatre separate from whites. I remember blacks sitting at the snack bar in Woolworths and being refused service.
In 1956, my family went to MASS. to see my sister. On the way back, an elderly black couple got on the bus in New York. At Richmond, VA, a white man took their sit and when they returned to the bus, he told them to get to the back of the bus where they belonged. My mother stood in the man’s face and said, “They’re old and tired, you get in the back of the bus”. The man let them have their sit.
When I was in the Army in 1964, four of us were transferred to Ft. Gordon in GA. We were taken to the bus depot in Columbia, SC. There, while waiting for our bus, we went in to a restaurant to get something to eat. One of us was Black The waitress came to take our order but did not take the Blank man’s order. I complained and she said, “We don’t serve niggers here.” We all left without eating. When we arrived at Ft. Gordon about 1 am, none of us had had anything to eat.
I am appalled at a church that is so exclusionary. I am appalled at a presidential candidate who act as if nothing has happen in race relations in this country in the last 50 years, Shame on him. I believe he and his church are racist and I believe he has opened a can of worms that all of us will pay for. Jesus is not pleased with Obama’s church. My church has mostly white but some blacks and all are welcome. Do you actually think our Heavenly Father is going to separate us when we get to heaven. I think not.
April 2, 2008 at 4:22 am
What I find incredibly curious, is that everyone is taking his pastor, relationship and all, and transferring EVERYTHING onto Barack’s shoulder.
Am I to understand that I cannot disagree with close friends or even family? Am I to understand that by being a member of a church, that means that we don’t POSSIBLY disagree or question or ANYTHING, certain viewpoints?
For the past several weeks I have attended a church with a good friend of mine. And while I have enjoyed going to the church, I do not agree with a lot that their pastor has said. I take the message and I apply it to my own understanding. I take what I can from the message. Am I to understand that being a member of a church means I cannot disagree with anything my pastor says??
Regardless of what church he attends, or what the pastor says, those are not Obama’s words. Having sat and watched speech after speech after speech of Obama’s, It is plain to see (in my opinion) how Obama feels about the black community. But it isn’t a spirit of separatism. I would like someone to deny that ‘the hood’ and those who live in it, couldn’t benefit from standing up and following the ‘black value system’. It just seems ridiculous to label it racist, when it isn’t saying that blacks are better than whites, or that whites are better than blacks– It is merely a guideline for a predominantly black community! So what if it says the word ‘black’ repeatedly! SO WHAT! Are we freaking out on the NAACP too? Are we going to get angry at the scholarship opportunities set aside specifically for black students? No! Why? Because we can be adult and acknowledge that there SHOULD be opportunities open for people of economic hardship or socio-economic situations set-aside. If we are going to get angry at that, then we better get angry about jobs and scholarships that are set aside just for women for being sexist.
I know I am off on a tangent at this point.
My point is this. If you are going to judge someone, it should be for their works, their deeds, and their words. If you disagree with what OBAMA says, with what his mission statements are, with what OBAMA is lobbying for~~ Then by ALL means, don’t vote for him! But don’t seriously write him off as a racist just because he has a friend that you consider a racist.
My question is this. I keep seeing people replace the word Black with the word White. Why don’t you try replacing it with the word Mexican? What kind of emotional reaction do you get from that?? And what does it matter?
April 2, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I haven’t seen anybody claim Obama has exactly the same views as his pastor, Butterfly.
Would you accept the corollary, that anyone who sits in on KKK meetings for twenty years cannot be said to have the same views as that organization?
April 3, 2008 at 12:44 am
What I find incredibly curious, is that everyone is taking his pastor, relationship and all, and transferring EVERYTHING onto Barack’s shoulder. Am I to understand that I cannot disagree with close friends or even family? Am I to understand that by being a member of a church, that means that we don’t POSSIBLY disagree or question or ANYTHING
-butterflyxlife
Folks join a church because they believe in the principles for which the church stands. All members recite a common creed which defines what they believe. Christian churches exist to celebrate and follow the loving wisdom of Jesus and his goodwill toward all people.
Obama’s church was founded on Black Liberation Theology, a religion specifically created to encourage and reinforce hatred of whites by blacks. According to its founder, James Cone:
Spreading hatred like this is not without consequence. How much murder and violence in the Chicago area was inspired by jerimiah wright?
During 1992 in Los Angeles there were bloody riots in the wake of the Rodney King verdicts. A truck driver named Reginald Denny was pulled out of his truck, beaten stomped, and had his head crushed with a brick by a racist thugs. Another fellow, in my neighborhood going to help a black friend, was pulled off his motorcycle and shot through the head. Hundreds of shops owned primarily by Korean-Americans were burned to the ground, and anyone trying to fight the fires were shot.
All the while the local African-Methodist-Episcopal (AME) Church, and congresswoman maxine waters excused and encouraged this barbaric behavior. Eventually the National Guard was called in and the rioting stopped after six days of mayhem. In all 53 people died, there were 2,383 injuries and $1 billion in property damage. Something similar happened in Watts in 1965, during which 34 people died and 1,032 were injured.
Does someone have to believe in the “supremacy” of his own race over that of another in order to bash someone’s brains in with a brick? The precondition for a belief in “supremacy” would appear to be superfluous.
I submit that simply loathing someone for the color of his skin is adequate to identify someone as a racist. Therefore jerimiah wright and anyone who becomes a cheering member of his hate-filled ‘church’ is clearly a racist.
The test is simple: Would the leaders of a Christian church enjoy someone saying about them, what they are saying about other people, not for anything those people have done, but merely for their skin color? This obviously fails the Golden Rule principle which is the very foundation of Christianity.
Next watch for the hypocritical liberals to brand anyone as a ‘racist’ who dares to object a ‘church’ which is specifically dedicated to spreading racial hatred.
April 3, 2008 at 7:33 am
IF THE BLACKS ARE TO GET OUT OF THE “RUT” THEY CLAIM THEY ARE IN THEN THEY MUST STOP PRACTICING RACISM THEMSELVES! EXCUSES FOR YOUR SO CALLED “LACK OF SUCCESS IN A WHITE WORLD” WILL ONLY KEEP THE BLACKS IN BONDAGE LONGER! IN OTHER WORDS YOU ARE KEEPING YOURSELF IN BONDAGE IN YOUR OWN MINDS! MANY BLACKS HAVE LET GO OF THE BITTERNESS THAT EATS THOSE AT TRINITY CHURCH, REV. WRIGHT AND THE BARAKS, AND THAT IS WHAT SETS THEM FREE! IT IS DELUSIONAL FOR SOME BLACKS TO THINK THEY ARE THE ONLY HUMANS SUFFERING! GOD TELLS YOU TO GIVE YOUR WORRYS TO HIM AND SOME BLACKS REFUSE TO DO THIS WHICH PERPETUATES YOUR MIND INTO THIS CYCLE OF SELF-HATE, WHICH YOU OUTWARDLY CAUSES YOU TO FIND SOMEONE TO LASH OUT AGAINST WHICH=WHITES! PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO REPENT AND ASK GOD TO HELP YOU LOOK AT THE CUP HALF FULL INSTEAD OF HALF EMPTY! THIS COUNTRY HAS MORE SCHOLARSHIPS FOR BLACKS THAN FOR ANY OTHER RACE! THERE IS NO LONGER ANYONE HOLDING YOU BACK BUT YOUR OWN MINDS!
April 3, 2008 at 9:51 am
I am a Caucasian female from New Orleans that voted for Obama during the primary election. Unfortunately I discovered only too late what a hateful, blatantly racist man Obama still to this day considers his “spiritual adviser.” If I were to attend any event during which an individual spoke of blind hatred towards any ethnic or racial group, I would never return for fear of extreme bouts of nausea. If Obama has been able to stomach Mr. Wright’s servings of hatred for 20 years, in my opinion Obama has never been nor will he ever be disgusted by that pathetic man’s words. I’m sorry but in my book, that makes Obama a racist. He is no better than the man that spews from his mouth such divisive, illogical filth. I don’t think that many individuals would find it necessary to return to subsequent speeches by Hitler on a weekly basis for 20 years to convince themselves that his words make them sick.
I can honestly speak for myself and 17 of my closest friends (according to their opinions as of 4/2/08) that if we were allowed to revote in our democratic primaries, Obama would absolutely NOT be our choice. Moreover, if Clinton is denied the Democratic nod, which in our opinions would be based on primary results that no longer reflect the view of the people considering the information recently uncovered about Obama, we would still head to the polls in November as expected, but instead quickly cast our vote for McCain.
I am so disappointed and I feel deep sadness for our country right now.
April 5, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Anyone who thinks Obama’s speach was anything other than a political mop job is dillusional. His TWENTY YEAR mentor was finally exposed for the crackpot racist he is, not by the mainstream media mind you – no the mainstream media waited until it was all over You Tube before they really addressed this obvious issue. Can you imagine if McCain had a mentor for 20 years saying anti-black garbage on a weekly basis to thousands of loyal listeners? Once again the double standard.
Once Obama was caught, he HAD to say something. Somehting that sounded very much like what he said. NOW after 20 years of following this racist pig and using him to help get elected to the senate, and AFTER the pig is exposed Mr. Obama wants us to not be DEVISIVE????!!! How rich is this irony people?? No, Mr. Obama, you had 20 years to tell that pig Wright, your mentor that and you NEVER did. You stood by him and the thousands of other racist blacks that eat it up every Sunday. Thruoughly disgusting! Yet, legions were moronically “moved” by his speach? He’s an empty suit and those who follow him are simpletons who are either voting race b/c they are black or are voting race b/c they are white and believe every bit of guilt blacks and our liberal media shove down their throats – they want to show blacks they can vote for a black candidate and don’t care to examine the man.
April 5, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Larken, you only discovered it AFTER your primary vote b/c the mainstream media IGNORED it until they were forced to cover it. Remember the San Diego debate when the charge of kid gloves toward Obama was raised. Tim Russert after the debate laughed that notion off. Yet you’ll notice that when the issue of Obama’s hanging with racists was brought up, Russert cleverly asked the question pointing to Farakahn which Obama could easily distance himself from, BUT, he GLOSSED over Wright. ALL the media knew about Wright, yet only Fox and some randum websites covered it. Russert chose to ignore it right then and there and proved the point that Obama gets treated differently. Had the mainstreamers investigated this like they would for any other candidate, YOU and scores of others would never have voted for Obama. I even struggled and as much as I dislike Hillary, voted for her b/c I had seen (on a site) some of Wright’s comments.
I truly wish Obama was more substance than talk, and that he wasn’t a racist but anyone who can listen to that garbage for 20 years and choose that crackpot as a mentor proves he’s a biggot too – or at least is sooo tolerant of it that he’s willing to ignore it in faovr of getting assistance from this pig to help him win a Senate position – pathetic.
April 6, 2008 at 12:17 am
Butterflyxlife you need to go to school. Learn som e logic. Try to digest this. If you don’t find what Wright said objectionable and stupid then you are racist and not a student of history. Mr. Wright calls this country the USKKK. Ok, the KKK is investigated and monitored by the FBI constantly and by all accounts has a nationwide membership of a few thousand. There are about 200 million white people in the US. So why does Mr. Wright lump all of white america in with a fringe group of racists like the KK who have no power or influence to speak of in this country for at least the last 20 years?? B/c Wright is a fear-mongering biggot. Now, we all disagree with our Priest, Pastor, Rev., etc. now and again, and with some a lot. HOWEVER, IF my priest’s comments were ever sooo objectionable as to be completely biggotted or soo crazy as to proclaim Pearl Harbor made up, I WOULD leave that church. And if all those around me were AMENNING left and right to those moronic surmons, I couldn’t be around them – I’d leave. YET EVEN if I stayed – Even if, I WOULD NEVER decide that this hate monger needs to be MY MENTOR!!!!!!!!!! Don’t you get it?????!!!!!!!!!! Wright was Obama’s idol and someone he was modeling himself after. That is more than disturbing on SOOOO many levels.
Now according to your logic, as long as David Duke was giving the hate speaches , we shouldn’t hold him accountable for going to KKK meetings or if he were to pick a racist as his mentor??? Don’t think so. Just like in countless other scnarios black people want different rules for themselves. That is not equality and not american. And the amazing irony is that Obama has the nerve to tell all of us to not give in to devisiveness????? Pot, kettle. Mr. Obama YOU went to a COMPLETELY DIVISIVE chruch for TWENTY FREAKIN YEARS, a church whose doctrine is by definition divisive and you chose that biggot as your mentor , and NOW YOU’RE TELLING ME I shouldn’t act divisely??? HOLLY S-it!! How stupid are we??
April 6, 2008 at 12:25 am
Pfranklin, All anyone has to know about Wright is what we’ve heard him say on You Tube. I don’t care what ANYONE says in private – we all have skeletons, and Wright is no different. HOWEVER, Wright has screamed enough disiveness and biggotted garbage just on those clips to cover me for a lifetime. Remember, he’s a preacher. He’s trying his hardest to be persuasive. This isn’t off-the-cuff biggotry. These are prepared sermons, designed to persuade and move people in frankly a horrible direction. Oh, and don’t tell me about how he does this and that for good – being good 90% of the time and preaching hate even 10% of the time is NOT ACCEPTABLE! It ceratinly shouldn’t be someone Obama calls his mentor!
April 7, 2008 at 3:14 pm
This next comment touches on Philander Franklin’s early opinion. I don’t think it is too tangential a topic because I do believe Mr. Franklin was allowed to state his sentiments and they do relate to Mr. Wright’s messages of hatred. I’m quoting Mr. Franklin’s first comment: “And you know what, WHITE PEOPLE DO HAVE MORE PRIVELEDGES THAN THEY DESERVE.” Is it just me or is it painfully obvious that both these individuals have severely warped versions of “logic?”
My skin color is a yellowish light tan, yet would be categorized (as we humans tend to do) as a white female. Therefore I must say that I take deep offense to this opinion, even if it is in all “caps”. (I guess this person thinks that this form of punctuation is more likely to convince people of the statement in the same manner as shouting directly to another individual.) Due to the fact that Philander has neglected to point to any specific “white” individuals as examples that would statistically constitute a valid majority of the “white” population throughout the world, I’m therefore assuming that this person is referring to all “white” individuals worldwide. Wow.
Mr. Franklin you have no idea of what most others’ lives have entailed, especially mine. If you want my advice – please seriously rethink your opinion and this time without the obvious blind anti-white sentiments. I can assure that you are grossly incorrect on so many levels, not to mention a racist for that comment by most standards. If I actually had the time (I work more than 80 hours a week) and the desire to formally debate you on this matter, I could guarantee that I would have you checkmated in seconds. What you may perceive as “priveledges” might actually be examples of you coveting another’s rewards for hard work their entire lives. These individuals might have suffered more than you or any that actually think like you could even imagine in your worst nightmare. The fact is that you do not know. Several of these “rich whites” could very well have come from poverty, have a rare and life-threatening disease they deal with on a daily basis, yet excelled in school paid for by academic scholarships they received from inherent abilities and diligence. (I don’t think that in the US there are actual scholarships for “whites” like those that exist only for “blacks.”)
Perhaps something deeper is at work within you and Mr. Wright – Maybe you see a “white” person smile on the street and assume he/she is happy because they are white or have hefty bank accounts. Maybe they are simply just happy and more likely than not of moderate financial means. Maybe they are of Asian descent and have just received a promotion at work allowing them to help family members or their children. Why not search for the reasons you are so unhappy (if that is the case) within yourself and stop looking for your fellow human beings to blame? We as human beings have enough problems dealing with pathogenic disease attacking us from all angles to concern ourselves with such hateful distractions as “Who has more than me and why.” I believe this is how wars begin. The issue is that I don’t know you well enough to make any assertions concerning your motivations, but I do know that your opinion is illogical. Just rethink, just rethink, just rethink…………….
April 12, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Blah, blah blah. Same old bs from blacks, their own worst enemy. Stop blaming White people for your laziness, lack of morals, criminal inclinations and lack of hygiene.
April 12, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I am white. Always have been. I have never – EVER said nor THOUGHT “XXX people do this” or “YYY People are this” – the only time would ever – EVER said “BLACK PEOPLE ARE” in a sentence would be to say that “BLACK PEOPLE ARE BLACK PEOPLE” – then I come to sites like this, or listen to sermons like those at Trinity and think – my god – what in the HECK did I ever do to these people?
April 12, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Paradoxical, isn’t it, that those who do not wish to be stereotyped themselves can be so quick to stereotype others.
April 14, 2008 at 12:22 pm
“White people have more priveledges than they deserve”
Jayson,
Let me apologize for making such a blanket statement. It is not rational to apply a belief to a people as awhole, as it is illogical to assume that everyone in the entire group is in agreement. Not hard for me to apologize for the statement because I can still draw references to a hundred more specific personal life experiences which have given birth to that personal opinion. I still can and won’t intentionally apply that opinion to people I don’t know, so I guess thats an apology to Jayson or anyone else who felt I was making a hate filled generalization. Let me ask a few questions to you though. Is my personal projection of privelege onto white people a blunt or in anyways to be received as I don’t like White people because they are priveledged? It would appear that you are reading in between the line of an opinion you wrote in your own head rather than the one I stated. Me saying White people have priveledges does not mean I don’t like white people. Your interpreting that says to me that you have heard the statement a million times before, and you are generalizing the statement and applying your interpreted opinions about the people who have said the statement before and applying them to me. So I guess you owe me an apology as well.
Secondly, you said that you don’t think there are any white only scholorships… there are quite a few..google it.
What you may perceive as “priveledges” might actually be examples of you coveting another’s rewards for hard work their entire lives. These individuals might have suffered more than you or any that actually think like you could even imagine in your worst nightmare,
I come from the bottom, and had more fun being broke. To me wealth is not determined by what you have, but by what you don’t need. I’m very wealthy by definition.
Success breeds success, and I could care less about what someone else has because I can only be defined by me. I don’t measure myself against the successes or blessings that another has. I don’t covet my neighbors…or playa hate in todays terms.
I appreciate you pointing out the generalization that I made about Whites, it was wrong to toss you in a bucket and say its easier when your white. Its hard for everyone. but no matter how we fractionalize the statement, at its core there are many statistics that support the statement. For eample the fact that Blacks get a 2-1 longer jail sentence for identical crimes as whites. Doesn’t mean I hate white, just means that its unfair, and there fore a bias. Or perhaps the fact that non blacks are more likely to be considered for a reasonable home loan than a black with an equal credit score. Doesn’t mean that I hate White, just means that it aint fair.
Don’t call me a Racist. Oh and Jasyon, Mc’Cains pastor made worse statements about people and the press made a big fuss about it when he first ran for office. The press is just leaving it alone. So am I, because I could care less. Everyone knows most politicians are playing Golf on Sundays…not in Church. (kidding)
April 14, 2008 at 3:19 pm
PFranklin, you don’t say what “privileges” you think whites have. Everyone keeps referring to it, but no one has been able to explain it. This makes me think blacks are just repeating something they have been told without thinking about it.
Someone please explain, what are these privileges that whites are supposed to have?
No, there are no scholarships restricted to whites only, at least at any of the schools I ever went to. In fact, there are so many special scholarships that are reserved for minorities, and especially for Hispanics, that there are very few scholarships that even include whites.
April 14, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Roger Williams college, alabama state are a couple that I know of…White scholarships. And being that whites consist of a stew of groups as far as blacks are concerned, to us it consists of just about anyone who aint us. The only nationality we typically disassociate from Whites are Asians, Hispanics and people of Arabic and Indian Descent. So that leaves obviously agreat amount of ethnic groups, Jewish, Polish,Italian, Greek, German, Russian,Irish, most of which have scholorships made available to them.
Most people shy away from using the term Aryan would you agree. Try googeling nsm 14-88 scholarship
Perhaps priveledge is the wrong word. How about favoritisms. Does that better suit the message that I am trying to convey. Jayson, you are welcome to email me directly if you wish. I think that there is a lot to gain from conversing with you. This can very easily turn into a back and forth, and I wouldn’t want to tie this blog up with a debate because people are not going to read the whole thing, but instead jump in and out making rash statements.
April 16, 2008 at 5:47 pm
The reverend jerimiah wright appears to be a racist black man. However, he also appears to have far more white than black ancestry. So his apparent racism could be an attempt to distance himself from his own predominantly white blood.
Now we find that wright has hypocritically skipped right past warnings to his flock against pursuing “middle-classness”. Obviously he doesn’t want his congregation to become prosperous because successful folks wouldn’t need him and the other race merchants. But wright himself embraces the life of a rich upper crust elitist, who is having a nice little million dollar mansion built, courtesy of the flock he fleeced.
So perhaps wright’s many decades, of sowing the seeds of vicious racial hatred from the pulpit of his “church”, was merely a cynical scam by a predominantly white man to milk gullible blacks and harvest their own racism by raking thousands of dollars of welfare checks from the collection plate into his own pocket.
Now we have some interesting news that wright’s “church” solicited big bucks to rescue victims of hurricane Katrina, yet their website seems to have no record of any contribution from Trinity United Church. I suspect that money also ended up in wright’s pocket or went to build his adorable mansion.
To review, wright a “man of God”, encouraged his congregation to believe that all their problems are caused by other Americans who happen to have different skin colors. He convinced his congregation to hate America enough to believe his worst possible conspiracy theories, such as how we created AIDs and distributed crack cocaine in order to kill blacks. He exhorted his congregation to celebrate the Islamists as other “people of color”, who murdered thousands of their own countrymen, because that barbaric act was justified as “America’s chickens coming home to roost” for our own wicked deeds. Damn those whitey crackers and their racist three strikes laws.
So I don’t feel any sympathy for the marks who were played by wright. Anyone that bitter and stoopid deserves to get soaked by this “black” charlatan. His flock are so stoopid that they will now angrily defend their own stupidity, as wright laffs all the way to the bank.
So wright is moving to a part of town which is 98% white (like him), courtesy of some gullible, racist folks. But don’t worry, I’m sure he will drop by from time to time to visit the ghetto … at least whenever he is running short of cash.
Obama used these bigots to advance his own political ambitions, just like wright milked them to enrich himself at their expense.
April 17, 2008 at 8:16 am
Freedom fAN,
GO KILL YOURSELF….
Trinity’s contributions were distributed through a collective effort on part of Clear Channel. Nearly 25 eighty foot trucks were filled by local churches, businesses and people who wanted to show their support. You are such a hypocrit to insult people when you haven’t done the research.
Secondly, the man built a church which ministers to an abundance of people. From aids victoms, to H.S students, homeless, to wealthy people who don’t know how to contribute anything other than money. He took a church of very small members and was able to preach a gospel that compelled people to cheerfully give to the community. Enabling the church to grow, and build schools, and community centers. He has personally help to scholarship 10- 20 new college students through college, one of which is my nephew.
A million dollar home is not a lot, considering he built a church of 300 people to a church of 8000 members or so. His 30 yrs 12 months x 52 weeks X 3 sermons= 56k if he got a dollar per sermon.
Nobody cares to mention his military commitments, so lets.
read this artical
In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F.
Kennedy’s challenge to, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but
what you can do for your country,’ gave up his student deferment, left
college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines.
In 1963, this man, having completed his two years of service in the
Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman. (They provide
medical assistance to the Marines as well as to Navy personnel.)
The man did so well in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian
and became a cardiopulmonary technician. Not surprisingly, he was
assigned to the Navy’s premier medical facility, Bethesda Naval Hospital, as
a member of the commander in chief’s medical team, and helped care for
President Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery.
For his service on the team, which he left in 1967, the White House
awarded him three letters of commendation.
What is even more remarkable is that this man entered the Marines and
Navy not many years after the two branches began to become integrated.
While this young man was serving six years on active duty, Vice
President Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as the Marine/ sailor,
received five deferments, four for being an undergraduate and graduate
student and one for being a prospective father.
Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger
than the African-American youth, used their student deferments to stay
in college until 1968. Both then avoided going on active duty through
family connections.
Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies
to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who
beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice
something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?
After leaving the service of his country, the young African-American
finished his final year of college, entered the seminary, was ordained
as a minister, and eventually became pastor of a large church in one
of America’s biggest cities.
This man is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the retiring pastor of Trinity
United Church of Christ.
He Earned the right to speak, just in case you may think that being an
American is not enough!
April 17, 2008 at 10:07 am
pfranklin: Fine. Where is the Katrina money dude? Have you ever seen an audit of the church books? Prove me wrong and I will publish a public apology.
April 20, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Your public apology won’t make a difference. Nobody finds relevence in blogging. I just do it cause its so darn addictive. I can only speak for what ive seen, trinity made a very significant donation of food and water to katrina. I’m not a member of the finance dept to speak on their taxes…I am curious to know what people think of Wright given his military back ground.
April 20, 2008 at 11:24 pm
PFranklin,
His military record is nice. The U.S. military is one of the least racially-charged environments on the planet. People of all races live in the same barracks and it is common to see interracial married couples all over the base.
I also served in the military, but so did that slug, timothy mcveigh. I care more about someone’s career after leaving an honorable tour of duty in the military. In wright’s case the picture isn’t very pretty.
So you want us to believe that Trinity United asked for cash donations, then loaded up a truck with food and water in Chicago and drove it down to New Orleans? Does that make sense to you from a logistical standpoint? Why wasn’t the money just spent near New Orleans for a fraction of the cost? Perhaps the truck full of goodies was just for show.
Otherwise why is there no record of any contribution from Trinity United Church
?
Do you care that you and your fellow parishoners may have been ripped off to enrich wright and help build his million dollar mansion, and that he proly doesn’t give a damn about the folks suffering in Katrina or anywhere else?
In wright’s superficial little world, good and evil are instantly apparent by observing a person’s skin color. Gee that’s so easy! Why did he need to get a doctor’s degree for that? But when the facts don’t fit this neat little formula, then wright simply changes the facts: Presto … Jesus was not really a Jew, but rather a black man who was persecuted by the white Romans, etc., etc.
What a crock of horse-shit. Can wright’s church really be comprised of such hate-filled, cheering, little imbeciles jumping up and down? Are you proud of yourselves?
I guarantee that what the majority of decent folks will remember about wright are his hateful sermons on youtube, not his military service. Wright’s repulsive racial hatred is his legacy. That will proly be the factor that sinks Obama’s campaign for President. No intelligent person wants a President who adores a shameful bigot like jeremiah wright.
Congratulations, rev wright; you are a Godsend … to the Conservative cause.
April 21, 2008 at 10:54 am
Commitment to God
Commitment to the WHITE Community
Commitment to the WHITE Family
Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
Adherence to the WHITE Work Ethic
Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”
Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the WHITE Community
Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting WHITE Institutions
Pledge allegiance to all WHITE leadership who espouse and embrace the WHITE Value System
Personal commitment to embracement of the WHITE Value System.
— gosh, when you change the word BLACK to WHITE there is a big difference… When black is written in these points, it is somehow acceptable. When white is exchanged in the place of black, it is racist. How can one be racist and not the other?
FYI I do not advocate the insertion of any race or color in these sentences, deleting both leads to a more unified approach towards establishing a “whole” community.
Any church espousing such points for white people would be viewed as “racist”. I would never attend a church like this. This type of talk breeds hatred from the older generation to the newer generations.
I wonder what Jesus thinks of this? My guess is that he is crying and the devil is laughing merrily.
April 21, 2008 at 10:20 pm
I don’t see anything wrong with replacing black with white to be honest with you. And, while I have calmed my tone you have flagrantly burst into insults. Are you Hillary Clinton?
I said Trinity made food and water contributions, I never said the spent the money they collected to purchase the food and water. The people of the church dropped things off at the church which was then transported to Operation Push ( I said clear channel because they advertised and supported the collection…my mistake).
People will always be remembered by those whove unfairly persecuted them. Just as a judge will remember who they give the death sentence to. Fortunatly, Wright doesn’t have to be concerned with the judgements people pass upon him, but by Gods judgment. His legacy exists in the lives whom he have positively impacted which I dare to say will likely outweight you and your contributions to society. And quite frankly, I think he deserves a million dollar house. If he pout you through college you might feel the same way. Wright expressed personal views of this country. He does not speak for us all on his political values, as it pertains to the gospel, he preached a clear message of love for everyone. I could care less about his political opinion about a company he used to work for. I go to church for spiritual enlightenment and restoral from the moral wounds everyday causes. For that, he met my expectations and those of many more. It is clear to me that your lenses are dirty, I’ve whiped mine. While there are definitly questions to be raised about Wright, you passing judgment on he and his parishners calling us imbeciles…you are clearly more interested in dividing people than growing your understanding. In addition, you seem like a greater jerk rather than a visionary. And coming from the military, please tell me that you loved it every day. Entertain me with that B.S. You hate The US right now….admit it. You think we shouldn’t have any of the candidates running, you don’t think any of them wil help the country, your want america to do a 180 and go in a different direction don’t you. You don’t love it right now either. Tell the truth. How do you feel about the current status of this country?
April 26, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Obama is a damn filthy racist black man, the worst thing that could ever attempt to be president. He is liar too, what he doesn’t know id that this country will not allow him to be president, even if all the blacks voted for him 10 percent of the US is not enough to make it to be the president. Period. The pols show 90% of blacks voted for Obama, if thats not racist, i dont know what is. This is horrendous and a perfect example that African Americans are racist, will only vote for a candidate because he is black. Sick Sick Sick. Obama is filth and garbage. We will not stand for a black racist man for president. Ever. To all black americans, do not continue to vote fort this man simply because he is black, if you feel that he is qualified, then vote for him. But take your vote seriously. I say this not because i worry he will be president, but because in good conscious, we must all be true to ourselves in life. If you can do that, then DONT VOTE.
And to those still in denial about what his pastor/minister said, Jeremiah DID say the racist remarks, i don’t know why you Africans cannot fathom this, or perhaps its that you are holding a grudge against all white people and somehow think that obama will enslave the white man who knows. Please let that damn grudge go, and realize that if it wasnt because of slavery you would never be here. Thin about that for a minute.
Screw Obama, and his racist books and minister.
April 28, 2008 at 9:44 pm
More devisiveness….well 90 percent of Black people vote for who they want to be president and its a problem…i guess the only point you are making is that you shouldn’t pick because of color. Okay, well since color shouldn’t matter, this blog shouldn’t either. Barack should not be judged by his color, or his church, but americans should choose the candidate on their political principles. It is clear that a great deal of Racists view and comment on this blog. “We should be happy…if it wasn’t for slavery we wouldn’t be here” the erased the validity of anything you said. You should be happy we started civilization or you *** wouldn’t have an existance.
April 28, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Ok guys, i posted before but after reading and listening to rev. wrights story on CNN…i had to write you guys again.
Well he said, and thats so funny that europeans learn by Objects aka BOOKS..and Black people by watchings others aka ACTIONS…well, i must be black like my keyboard right now because in school i was never able to understand a darn thing that was written i needed to see,feel and test it and this is actually a very important part in EUROPEAN EDUCATION…and i have a geographical question to black people: DO you honestly believe that you and everyone else came from africa? wouldnt it be sad if only one place had black people hundreds of years ago?
Also i have to say that i see a huge difference between white americans and white europeans and also white americans who are able to to be opend minded to others parts of the world.
I have to agree that a lot of uneducated white people are racist or which have been raised to see america as the ONLY valid country on this planet, yes those EXTREME patriots…but those who are able to see outside this country are less racist.
and one more thing about this damn N-WORD
This word no matter if you write with an er in the end or an a its the same meaning. I dont understand why its okay for black people to say it but not for whites?
I mean you here it rap videos, Cd’s, written in Magazines targeted to mostly black readers. I think if black people feel so offended by it – lead by example and dont use it!
but not only black people have that issue whitey’s too…
well, i’m not american and moved here with hubby who is in the army to Oklahoma…i quickly got a hold of what they call those cowboys over here..Hicks, crackers…etc
well, one day i was at walmart and this WHITE COUNTRY LOOKING LADY in front of us was talking about how such a beautiful girl could put herself so low to date a black guy looking at me..hubby was about to get mad and i said:
Baby thats just some ignorant country a** crackers and they just dont know that you keep their white butt safe so they dont get sliced up by some terrorist…
That lady turned red and looked at me with: how can u say cracker? you not supposed too ? WTF another short story from an european living in the states. BTW ask a couple non american but europeans living here what they say when things like that happen i bet they answer is always
ONLY IN AMERICA !!! where it counts more to report that a fireman rescued a cat than to report that there are soldiers living on food stamps..and yes my husband hourly rate is $2.34 after tax for risking is damn butt for some idiots who are more busy talking about racism than. People if you all so concered about the army…put your money where your mouth is…I know freedom aint free but the average civilian received a coupon from a soldiers so you wont have to endure 18month without a husband sleeping with cellphone and home phone on the couch with the yahoo messenger on 24/7 and going nuts when the phone rings between 8am and 10pm cuz this is when the goverment calls to let you know something happend to your dearest.
Yes, this country has way more issues than rev. wright, obama and so on..but i see how can you tackle an army if you cant even agree on a simple fact that there is the past and we only can move on if we shake hands admit and make it better!!! change we can…BS… i believe it when i see it but for now…i pray that the army wont tell my hubby in the next 48 hours to leave since our daughters birthday is coming up…yes i suggest each and every single racist Motha*BLEEP* needs to endure 18 month iraq – just waiting believe me after that RACE WONT FUC**** matter anymore – ITS LIFE…and thats more important because no matter if you white.black,mixed, asian, hispanic, green, purple whatever we all have ONE !!!
Thanks Tanja from germany living in the states…lol
P.S. I am disgusted by this goverment to LABEL people
black, white etc….get rid of this BS, america is the ONLY country that lables people. If the german goverment would label people jjjeeezzz ya dont have a clue what we would hear from america..remember somewhat 50 years ago…
ITS FREAKING ILLEGAL TO DO THAT IN EUROPE, but its okay for the states, if my hubby wouldnt be in the army and we here i would say AMERICA NEEDS TO LEARN IT THE VERY VERY HARD WAY TILL THEY WAKE UP but watch CNN..when do you honestly hear some from overseas, in europe we know all about it whats going on in the US, and yes the coverage in europa about iraq it totaly different…i heard in the german CNN that they attacked in 04 fallujah in iraq they bombed they whole city to the ground yes my husband was there and they lost some but after that its was quiet and fine….USA CNN….not one correct damn comment and yes in 04 they were short on ammo,tanks etc even water and food mostly closed to the iranian boarder..where fallujah is…i know i had to send my husband food and water !!! Yes, how could i ever trust this president, how could i trust someone who is more busy dividing people than bringing them closer and Hillary who well…a whole other story like a leafe in the wind and mc cain yes yet another 4 years of little bush.
They all need a wake up call BADLY !!! we talking more about a damn rev. wright and his obama connection than about what matters more….daily war spending is $150 million..hey from that money we could give every single person struggeling a helping hand, bring the economy up and pay down the goverments debt so we all can have health insurance and dont need to eat ramen noodles for month so we can pay a doctor for a broken leg!
HOW DUMB IS THE GOVERMENT REALLY ?????
well, i hope some of ya had a wake up call !!! thanks guys it was a true glimps of how america thinks !!!!
April 28, 2008 at 11:42 pm
About the April 26 comment: WordPress just introduced a new feature to advertise blogs to each other based on keywords. Anyone who had a discussion about race on their blog got hit by this type of commenter that crawled out of the woodwork. I have disabled the feature.
April 29, 2008 at 10:48 am
Tanja, thanks fro your perspective. Personally, I never really think of other countries when it comes to racism. Thas a good point, I usually think only in America too, but, I am not very well travelled as it pertains to outside of america’s so I dare not to comment. As far as that German comment….that was a hell of a point. If another country started singling out people within their own confines…we would probably be all in their.
Jeremiah Wright flipped his wig the other day at the National Press conference. while he did speak to a lot of biblical facts, his demeanor, was completely overboard. He was on defense and those who were supporters, and part of the audience only made it worse. They had him up there showing out. That isn’t the Jeremiah I know. He can act a fool, but he was blatantly arrogant. Key word Arrogant, I don’t think he said anything that would suggest Racism… other than saying the govern,ent introduced aids to kill black people. I know people are going to jump and say that he said white people made the virus, but he did clearly say the government is capable of doing anything. He may personally believe that the government did it, and he is entitled to his own opinion, even if it has no valid source. I really hope Barack gets elected now, just to see if= jeremiah is going to go at him like he does Bush. If he did anything by defending himself and “the Black Church” it was to seperate himself from Barack. If you think anyone other than Wright is that obnoctious just because wright is then your are being predjudiced. Underlining all that Wright has said and done over the last few days, I don’t think there are too many of his parishners who think he is doing the right thing. It is one thing to defend yourself, but if you are driving people away from the hope they see in someone else, you are being a playa hater. Wright….stop playa hating.
He is entertaining though….lol
April 29, 2008 at 6:36 pm
This is so darkly funny:
It so happens that Wright’s sinking of Obama’s campaign was quite purposeful. His successful three-day mission to break Obama was arranged by Clinton supporter, Barbara Reynolds.
She figured quite rightly that the way to defeat Obama and help Hillary was just to let Wright speak — the more the better. She was right.
So the cunning Wright happily sold out Obama, just like he sold out his own congregation by encouraging them to distain “middleclassness” and become bitter, resentful failures, while he gouged them at the collection plate as they hollered “Amen” and whooped themselves into a frenzy.
Reynolds has now removed all content from her web site in an attempt to hide the dirty deed.
Meanwhile Wright is laughing all the way to the bank. I wonder if she paid Wright directly for his help, or whether Wright wanted payback for being snubbed. Regardless, he obviously is a hot property on the talk circuit. Plus if Obama were elected, that would kinda take the wind out of Wright’s race-hatred scam.
What a bunch of brain-dead suckers “worship” at Trinity United. But this couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch of loons.
April 30, 2008 at 6:30 pm
The diabolically clever Ms. Reynolds proposed Wright’s name as a speaker TWO YEARS AGO, before anyone was running for president. Then she held a gun to Wright’s head and made him say all those words.
April 30, 2008 at 6:55 pm
This dude feedom….It is so typical of a biggot like you to jump on the jerk rail. You are such a racist, and divisive jackass. I take your comments about the church goers especially personal, because you are suggesting that because we go to the church we are mindless zombies. Trinity hosts some of the most successful individuals white, black, hispanic in Chicago. You carelessly throw insults and make derogatory comments about people whic only proves that you are nothing but a distraction to people who actually have something meaningful to say.
I’d suggest your pompass, purposeless, pennyminded as to read the transcripts of jeremiah’s comments. Take away the flash and glitz that the camera captured and actually read what he said. Sure you as were many were upset with the arrogant body language and pure presence the man has in front of a crowd. His presence alone would void your total eistance on a national stage. Its no surprise that he has commanded so much attention. He has you all listening, but you are too afraid of posture and appearance ot actually listen to what he says. He made a lot of valid points, not to suggest that he didn’t go off the edge on some things but for the most part, he didn;t say too much of anything that doesn’t warrant attention on a national stage. I truthfully think that Wrights actions slipped from the proper medium during the question and answer phase. up until that point, there wasn’t much that you or anyone else would have to disagree with. However, when the “invited guest” and I quote…. started hyping him up, he got into star mode, and didn’t care what anyone thought or him….which he still shouldn’t. It was bad from the perspective that he is dampening the Obama campaign, but ultimately, it works for Obama, because now he gets to go at Wright, and seperate himself in a way that is more satsifactory to a bunch of media Zombies who don’t exercise individual reason but hang on the lips of cable network commentators.
Obama will win, and the hatred that you are attempting to spread will only prove pointless. You never answered my question….What are your feelings about this country???
April 30, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Ooooh, someone who finds inspirational rapture listening to jeremiah the pariah, thinks everyone else is racist. What a surprise.
April 30, 2008 at 9:19 pm
As far as FF’s post from April 20, our church also sent several truckloads of goods for Katrina relief, as well as a couple dozen people as work crews. We are not on the list either. There were a handful of Lutherans down there, some Red Cross, and dozens upon dozens of volunteers from UMCOR. We also saw Chicago city vehicles and cherry pickers on the road.
If you want to read or see Wright for yourself, here are some links for both the transcripts and the videos.
Here is an interesting view of Wright and “black liberation theology”.
April 30, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Thanks Nijma,
Here is another interesting perspective on Mr. wright.
May 1, 2008 at 7:01 am
Too funny, FF. The guy uses it to argue for a conservative political philosophy, though, and I don’t buy that. Too often conservatives take their own religious beliefs and try to turn them into law for everyone else, not just the people who belong to that church or believe the way they do.
The National Press Club speech with all the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam getting rowdy in the background has gotten the most attention, but I find the NAACP speech scarier. In that speech Wright seems to be saying racial differences are biological and not cultural with all of that “right brain-left brain” phrenology. He seems to be arguing that black children have to be taught separately (in segregated schools?) with a “holler and whoop” system because of brain differences.
In other words, we have to lower our expectations for black students. That’s why parents in Evanston went nuts a few years ago over standardized testing and “dumbing down” the math curriculum. As far as I can tell, Wright himself went to predominantly white schools.
May 2, 2008 at 2:29 am
Interesting. My take is quite the opposite. Conservatives try to keep traditional laws from being twisted into chimeras to accommodate the Liberal “religion”.
For example, Conservatives believe that Roe v Wade is unconstitutional since the Constitution is silent on the matter, so abortion legislation should remain within the jurisdiction of the states, consistent with the tenth amendment. Also they also don’t believe that gays should have their lifestyle choices stroked by redefining the traditional meaning of marriage — the very foundation of the family and society.
On the contrary, it is the left in many western countries such as Canada and U.K., which has outlawed “hate speech” –any speech deemed to hurt the feelings of a government protected group. In Canada, such hate speech is prosecuted by 14 “Human Rights” Commissions which have now targeted mainstream magazines and popular columnists.
That dark place is where the U.S. also is headed with its campus speech codes, “hostile work environment” lawsuits, and other examples of politicially-correct fascism.
Also, I have found that to a large extent Liberal bloggers embrace jeremiah wright’s anti-American, socialist and racist views. The left will not allow racism to fade because they need it to support wealthy lawyer’s fees and race-merchants’ extortion schemes, and to keep minorities down on the Democrat plantation.
The human cost of shacking millions of folks’ minds with this crippling victim theology is deeply cynical and outrageously immoral. ‘Yes we can’ hoodwink and bamboozle ’em.
Some have observed that Conservatives are the ones who hold traditionally liberal views and support for freedom; whereas Liberals try to force their group-think religion, Marxist economics and identity politics on the world.
May 11, 2008 at 12:40 pm
When you define any group by race, you are in effect being racist. I believe by specifying “Black” community, “Black” values, etc, it can be justifiably argued that there is a racist bend to it. If a site did the same thing and stated “White” community, or “White” values, it would instantly be catagorized as racist. I dont think Obama could sit in a church for 20 years and not adhere to its beliefs. If a white candidate had an affiliation with a white separatist church, he would not be a viable candidate. I am so sick of blacks who cry racism while espousing it in their culture. I am convinced that most black people are against racism directed against blacks, but racism aganst other races like whites is fine. This is a double standard that will keep racism alive forever. Take the whole issue of the “N” word. If a white person utters it, he is a racist, yet there arent too many rappers who arent in love with the word. That is seen by many whites as hypocracy. For racism to end, it must end against ALL people. We have to stop calling ourselves Black or white or yellow and start to adhere to the idea of simply “human” and simply “human” rights. To identify rights with race is racist in itself. There should be inalienable human rights for everyone.
May 29, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Hello I am a white American. 31 years of age. I grew up in a lower middle class home and would consider myself now and upper middle class. I really must say that I have grown up in my generation with many friends of all colors and creeds. I have fortunately had a loving family that never taught me race as an issue. I know that I am only one white on this planet but I know that with each generation we have become more tolerant and the past of slavery and all that came with that are slowly moving into the past. We must continue this type of mentality. Yet the voice of the trinity Church is not one of true Christian values. A 40 year old philosphosy that stems from an African and Slavery based value system is not the Black man of today. Condeming whites at the pulpit is not acceptable. This is no way to move on…this is no way to teach forgiveness…this is just reverse descrimination at the worsed level. This is teaching the next generation of black americans to hate instead of Love thy brother….These are not the ideals of Christianity…nor the ideals of the average white American. And I truly do not believe this is what the average black American thinks either. I hope and pray that people of all color and all creed condemn this racial talk and put the real issues on the table. Its only then that we shall be free. Its only then that MLK’s dream will be reality. MLK is probably rolling in his grave when these type’s of sermans are protrayed.
June 3, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I am soo tired of hearing about Black people suffering in history. You do not wear the crown on suffering. Every race has suffered hardships in the past. White people as well! I am a historian and if anyone has ever researched history you would know. The Irish, Polish, Greeks, Russians and every European society lived under a class system that wasn’t fair! Millions left Europe to make a go in a better place. English men and women were transported out of England for stealing a loaf of bread. They were transported to Australia and they were not allowed to return to England. Being sent to Australia in the 19th Century was like being sent to Mars! The Turks in the and the North Africans kidnapped 4 to 5 million Europeans in the middle ages to be sold as slaves in markets in Cairo and Istanbul! Blacks were also taken by Arabs until the Europeans in the 1830’s put a stop to that. Ancient Romans and Greeks had mainly white slaves as every society. I think it was worse being a slave in Ancient Times than it was in 19th Century South. Slaves in America were to me like the peasants in Europe. Southern plantations owners were like Lords of the manor of their time! 90 percent of the slaves were not kidnapped but they were sold to American traders by their own African kings who made money off of enslaving their own people. Some African kings had so many wives and slave concubines! The first people to stand up against slavery that was an international insitution were the abolisionists who were White Christians from the US and England. They first got the European Empires to end slavery in the 1830’s but slavery still exists and guess where? African and some parts of Asia and they do not like the Western countries to tell them what to do about that. They tell us to but out. Did anyone research Russian history? The people in the 19th century were serfs and they were treated like slaves. They had less rights than peasants in Western Europe. Instead of using cattle and other beasts of burden like other countries, the Russian ruling class used serfs to build cities like St Peterburg Russia and tens of thousands in the 18th Century died in the conditions they were working in. Irish in America? The slaves and the Irish immigrants in the South were building railways together. They paid the Irish and they had to look after themselves while the slaves had their owners. Slaves were investments. Most of them were being teken cared for because slaves costs money even though they were slaves but they were still valuable. Some slave owners were terrible but I think most did not treat their slaves terribly because if they did, how could they run a plantation well? They needed them to be taken care of well so they can have a well runned plantation! The Irish, since they had to get paid were put in the worst spots of the railway building and many have died on the job! They were no pensions and they did not look after their families then. They died, they died. They looked at it this way, If the Irishman dies on the job, they do not have to pay them but slaves weren’t being paid! When slaves were given their freedom, do you think most of them wanted to leave their plantations? You would think oh yes but no, most of them wanted to stay but the plantation owners now had to pay them wages and only some were able to stay but most of them had to fend for themselves. That’s if the plantation owners were able to stay. Did anyone know that some freed slaves owned slaves and the few that did, owned brothels! They made good money off of that. Research that one. They treated their slaves terribly. Abraham Lincoln before he got assasinated was going to have a speech before congress to see about sending the feed slaves back to Africa because he felt the nation owed that to freed slaves but he got shot and he never got to say that speech. The new south did not want that! They wanted to keep the newly freed slaves for cheap labor since they were there already. They did not want to have new immigrants from Europe. They felt they didn’t need it. Germany? 17th Century or the 30 years war. Catholics and Protestants battling over Germeny killed 75 percent of the peasant population because they were either one religion. England and their English Civil War under Cromwell killed 1/4 of the population or many of them died from disease. Cromwell went to Ireland and killed 3 quarters of the Irish population in the 1650’s because so many of them were Catholic. He also said Catholics were not allowed to own land except in the Far West of Ireland with the worst land. Polish? It seemed everyone was getting killed. So haven’t white people suffered as well?? Read History. Look at Black African history, there was an utopia there before the white man arrived. They were mostly a tribal society fighting each other etc! Research everyones History!
June 4, 2008 at 8:37 am
Dan, what does any of this history have to do with the horrors of African slavery in the United States?
Except, of course, that you try to use history to deliberately minimize that institution at every turn. For instance, you claim that most slave owners didn’t treat their slaves “terribly,” because they needed them to be efficient workers. While that’s certainly true, it doesn’t say anything about being a prisoner for life, being whipped and beaten routinely, being denied a family, having children taken from you, and so forth. It only says that owners generally tried to keep their slaves in reasonably good physical condition, as long as it was profitable to do so.
Likewise, it’s ridiculous to claim that Irish workers, who were often paid low wages for dangerous work, were the equivalent of slaves. Naturally, it was hard for most people to eke out a life in the 19th century. The choices made by immigrants to the U.S. were often hard. But those workers were free to choose what they did, they were paid for their work, they could quit at any time, and they were entitled to have personal lives and families.
You raise a large number of excellent historical issues, including the vital point that U.S. slavery was hardly unique in the world. But I can’t imagine what would motivate you to focus so much attention on minimizing the horrors of a monstrously evil institution, rather than simply putting it in its proper context.
June 4, 2008 at 7:00 pm
James,
I am saying the blacks do not have the gold medal on suffering. Anyone can claim it. Slaves wre investments and I do not think they were beaten every single day. I never said it was wonderful either but I do not think it was all that worse than peasant farmers or tenants were treated in Europe. Look who helped to make slavery outlawed first. It was the western world in particular the US and England led the way. I teach that when I am in school. I tell the kids all races have suffered. We must come together. Re read what I stated. I really firmly believe in my perspective and anyone I come in contact with agree with my side. I know slavery was terrible but so was serfdom in Russia and peasantry in Europe or how East Asians teated their people and still do as in Africa today!
June 5, 2008 at 9:09 am
I do not think it was all that worse than peasant farmers or tenants were treated in Europe.
I find this statement difficult to believe, given that peasants and tenant farmers were generally free to live their lives, to marry, raise families, worship, and spend their time as they wished. Agricultural labor may have been hard, but no overseer was watching them, much less beating them, as they worked in the fields.
More importantly, though, why is this relevant to this discussion? Unless you believe that slavery just wasn’t all that bad? These people were captured, sold into slavery, transported in cargo holds across the ocean, and raised as property for generations, with no rights and any exploitation which would increase the owner’s profits. This was a monstrous crime.
Of course, all races have suffered. But this is hardly an excuse for shrugging off wrongdoing. Did Congress tell the survivors of concentration camps for Japanese-Americans in the western United States that all races have suffered? No, they offered them and, when deceased, their descendants $1.6 billion in reparations, because the U.S. government was responsible for authorizing those camps.
The least we owe, in my opinion, is to look honestly and respectfully at the truth. Yes, that means keeping history in perspective, but it also means not minimizing the horrors of those historical events of particular significance to the U.S. and its citizens.
June 5, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Here is the photo of the African slave trader Tippu Tip that upsets Chicago’s South Side African American professors so much.
https://camelsnose.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/180px-tippu_tip.jpgJune 5, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I have looked into it in a historica point of view. Every group has suffered! Read Read more about what happened in history! Slavery is still going on today! Where???????? Africa and Asia! Do not tell me that every single slave owner was a tyrant. Look at the Romans and they kept white slaves. All our ancestors were slaves! White, Black, Brown and Yellow! Ancient times treated their slaves much worse than US Slave owners. I said slaves were an investment in the old south. You want to keep healthy slaves! Healthy slaves made a better run plantation! This was a fact. Peasants were treated awful too. White people have suffered in history as well. Stop thinking only black people were the only ones that suffered when they were slave owners as well and they sold slaves to the white men. Many black people still say they were glad that they were sold into slavery because they live now in the USA instead of Africa. Many Africans not all are not blaming the West for all their ills in Africa, they are actually taking responsibilty as well. You cannot keep blaming otheres for your problems. 90 percent or more of African slaves were sold by African kings! I have talked and met with African Americans who are in their 60’s and 70’s that know their history. Many with light skinned talked about their grandparents living on plantations as a house slave. They loved living in the house. They were made apart of the family. When slaves were given their freedom, many of them didn’t want to go. I am glad they were given their freedom but many for some reason( I suppose the reason was they were not educated!) wanted to stay where they were. Some field slaves also felt that their slave owing families treated them well. Again, they were not educated to know that their circumstances could have been better. Most families were not Uncle Tom! Peasant and serfs. Look up serfdom! They were not allowed to leave their lands. Peasants right up to the 18th Centuried always had to ask permission their landowners to leave their land. The landowners had the right to say no! If they did, they can get into so much trouble that they violated their landowners wishes. If they got caught, their landowner could throw them into Jail and the jail was usually a debters prison. Debters prison’s usually through the who family in jail for years. Do not tell me that is not awful. They lived under their landowners will. The 19th Century in England and Ireland with the Industrial Revolution, the technology changed that they didn’t need tenants on their land. So, they raised up the rents that many of their tenants could not afford, They usually through the family off their land and burned down their houses so they couldn’t come back. They had no place to go but it was the law then. This happened soo much in the 19th Century all over Western Europe. Many people moved to cities and to America to work mostly where? Factories! They called the whte people in the 19TH Centuries that worked in the factories White Slaves. They showed comparisons to southern slaves on how people were treated. Factory conditions in the 19th Century was soo terrible. Many people including children got killed by accidents. The companies then did not give familes compensation for their loss. They thought too bad then! If you were sick, you do not get paid. If you got into an accident, you did not get paid and people worked in terrible conditions. Early 20th Century, they had a horrible swaet shop in New York. They had mostly immigrant women and girls as young as 12 working there. They worked under terrible conditions but the workers felt they had to go because they had no other place to go. They were soo happy to have a job. They had terrible people watching over them to work. They were abused like in many factories. The owners of the factory went so far to lock the workers in until their work was over. They locked the windows as well. One day, they had a fire and most of the women and girls died because they couldn’t get out. Mostly Italian, Irish and Jewish immigrants. The law changed and they condemned the factory owners. Workers in factories 100 to 150 years ago worked 12 to 16 hours a day, 6 days a week. They only had off on Sundays and Holidays. There was no vacation or sick days. Southern Slaves worked from sun up to sun down on a farm. They were looked out for an cared for. Some plantations had terrible landowning or some had nice familes but awful overseers but most took care of them. You do not work you slaves to death! Factories, if their workers died then, well they can easily get someone else to take their place but our country has come a long long way to protect everyones rights! Please read the history and research. All I am saying all races have suffered so much in history equally. I know many African Americans today that are doing so well and feel this country has given them soo much if you just try! We should all feel that way! Before the 160’s and the civil rights movement, most Americans(white) ignored Black America. The majority lived in the south then. I suppose they ignoresd them because America was 90 percent White and 10 percent of the country was Black and others. Not too many others them. At that time 60’s and before, about 75 percent to 80 percent lived in the south. Mostly in southern states that were ignored by the media and other mainstreem people. I know old people from New York and they said they hardly ever seen black people in NY back in the 40’s and before because NY only had 300,000 Black and others then. Now the whole Metro Area has 3.2 million. Big changes from Black people moving to the North in the 60’s and 70’s! New York by then thought they were the capital of the country along with Chicago. The civil rights movement had brought channges to say that Minorities are here and NY had a growing minority community along with Chicago and Philly. The media grew in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s to include the rest of the Nation. Immigration changes brought more changes to show there were other people here in the country. I think in this country and anyone with any ethnic and religious background if they work hard and do well in school, can make it in the country. Many Black people have shown this as well. We all have come a long way. I think all races suffered in history equally and we have come a long way. One thing is that there are problems in places but many people are being born to ignorance to all races and blackground. We can all go back to the depression days on the 30’s and we can say all of us have come a long way but too many people make excuses for their problems for all backgrounds.
June 5, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I have looked into it in a historical point of view objectively. Every group has suffered! Read Read more about what happened in history! Slavery is still going on today! Where???????? Africa and Asia! Do not tell me that every single slave owner was a tyrant in the old South..
I do not condone it but I do think slavery in the Ancient Times and the 19th Century America cannot be compared. THe Ancient Times was a lot worse. Roman and Greeks, they had mianly all white slaves 99 percent were all Western or from the Middle East, Europe and North Africa.
June 6, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Our Country will not pay for reparations! I won’t! I dare you all to try it then people will wake up all over the country. Where sould we draw the line? Should the Irish sue England for reparations for injustices in the past. Should the immigrants descendants of Europeans sue their ancestrial homelands as well? I do not believe in reparations for African Americans. You should be thankful to be living in a country that has been wonderful to all of us. African Americans all over the country have made it. If they did it, so can others! The rest like I say to all people, get up and do something! We can all make it if we want to! I believe in that firmly. 100 percent. Stop making excuses for conditions today for some people in some communities. Anyone can make it if they are commited. If you do not think it is a fair country, than leave! See if it is better in African Countries. So many of the people there are trying to get out! They play the blame game there too. Europeans tried to help them and exploited in other ways but I believe the Colonial empires helped more than hurt. After they got their independences from Europe, they ran through civil war and other thing etc blaming Europe and other countries for their problems but now Africans are starting to realize it isn’t Europe to blame but maybe themselves that they should stop blaming others for their problems. Look at Asia, they are prospering by hard work!
June 7, 2008 at 12:32 pm
What’s the matter with you people, of course Obama is a racist!!!! –
I don’t care what he says in his public speeches – He’ll say ANYTHING! to get elected – Thats his job.
Wait until he’s elected and – You will not believe how bad its going to be for ordinary workingclass Americans.
June 7, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Bill, I think the same as you do but so many people will make so many excuses for him. I just hope people stop drinking the cool aid and wake up.
June 10, 2008 at 4:19 am
Here is a list of vaulues that would be looked at as a KKK type skin head group shut down by the Goverment
Commitment to God
Commitment to the White Community
Commitment to the White Family
Adherence to the White Work Ethic
Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the White Community
Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting White Institutions
Pledge allegiance to all White leadership who espouse and embrace the White Value System
Personal commitment to embracement of the White Value System.
June 19, 2008 at 5:37 pm
First off I would just like to clarify something since I am a major comic book nut, and know the lore of Superman and other fictitious super heroes quite extensively.
Lex Luthor was never in the history of DC Comics or the canon of Superman, black. He was never had any ancestry leading back to Africa. He has always been of caucasian persuasion. Lex Luthor made his first appearance in Action Comics #23 in 1940 and was portrayed as a man with red hair and fair skin. One year later he was later portrayed by an artist having a bald head by accident. Mistake or no mistake, the original creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster liked the look so much they adopted it.
In the Warner Brothers animated version of the man of steel that aired between 1996-2000 Director and artist Bruce Timm modeled Lex Luther after actor Telly Savalas’ interpretation of Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”. Do to Telly Savalas’ greek heritage, the animated Lex Luther naturally had a more tan complexion. Added note: Lex Luthor was voiced by actor Clancy Brown.
Being an artist like Bruce Timm I understand the direction he wanted to take. Telly Savalas had that “look” of villainy in many of his roles, and was of course an amazing actor who could play a hero as well. When you are an artist you pull from all kinds of influences. You pull from your won experience, you pul from what you see, what you interpret, and what the different histories tell us. I am not sure how that is necessarily racism. Since racism is defined as the following: 1.
a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2.
a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3.
hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
IN all honesty I am so tired of racism, talk of race, praise of race and whining and moaning about race. I’m of Irish, Jewish, and Italian decent… woopty freakin do. So Fahrakan and Wright hate me because I have dirty Jewish blood… I only have this to say to Wright and any others that attend or prescribe to this segregating doctrine: Christ called us to two commandments. Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as you would love yourself. Love is defined in the bible in 1 Corinthians 13 which reads:
1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
When we practice that, we have become a journey of living a Christ-like life, and have begun to act as God has called us to act. Anything outside of that scripture is outside of the nature of God. God IS love.
Does God see color? I am pretty sure he does. He sees it, loves it, and seeks to have a relationship with all the colors of man, after all he made all of them, all of us, in his image. Not his physical image. Genesis is not a literal book, poetic in nature. He made us in the image of his being. We are creative, we are curious, we are loving, we seek relationship, and the list can go on and on. Our nature was modeled after his. We are flawed, he is divine. Our life’s journey is to be more like him.
Do I see color? Yup. I see all kinds of color. I see color in the trees, in the animals and in the people God created. From an artists view “Black” people aren’t even black. I remember being a young Child and asking my friends dad why people called him black when he was dark brown (you have to love kids!) I’m not sure where where the term black people came from, most likely some pretty ignorant Europeans, or the creators of African-Slavery, the muslims. To me it doesn’t really matter, black people aren’t black, and Obama well he is more 15 cyan 61 magenta, 79 yellow, 2 black. For those who don’t understand CYMK, CYMK is the base color for print design. Designers take cyan, yellow, magenta, and black and mix them together to create an unending array of colors. So…. with the logic of a graphic designer Obama is predominately yellow? hahaha so does that make him Asian? Oh yeah… call me racist, thats funny and you all know it!
The major problem with Obama, his church, Jeremiah Wright and this whole world is that we lack the ability to Love. Jesus had it right first, John Lenon got it later on. All you need is love.
So in short, yall need to shut up, do what Frankie Goes to Hollywood says… relax, learn to laugh at life, Richard Prior and Eddie Izzard come to mind, and learn to love one another like Malcolm X learned in the later days of his life, and what Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, and Christ taught.
and seriously everyone needs to shut up, laugh and have a sandwich. Life is to short, we need more joy, less sorrow!
June 19, 2008 at 5:57 pm
What I find a little humorous as well is that is was mainly the Democratic Party, save a small few, who were pro-segregation, pro-persecution, and pro-hate against blacks in the 1940′-1970’s.
The point?
I’m not sure, its just funny and sad.
Some more funny things:
White rich valley people who tan themselves.
African Americans think they invented pierced ears.
Rock and Roll was started by blacks, yet its largest consumer is white people.
Blacks who solely think Rock-n-Roll is a black creation with no influence from european string music at all…
Black rappers sample white music.
The black stereotype of liking fried chicken and kool-aid, I mean, come on, who the hell doesn’t like fried chicken and kool-aid, its damn good!
Kanye West dresses like a preppy white guy.
Eminem dresses like a black gangster.
I could go on. Seriously look at how silly all of this is. We are all flawed. This country, this world, everyone in it. We borrow from each other, we envy one another, we want to have sex with one another!
If I had my way I would create an island and gather 2 of every race, then I would begin the New Jow Division and create the true master race!!!!!! A mix of all the races into one!!!! and you know what? If that did happen, if we did have one race that was a pure mix of all the races, we would find something to fight about!
More laughing, less fighting!!!!!
Crap happens. People got shot, people got stabbed, people were owned, worked, and traded. Africans were, Irish were, Jews were, Chinese. someone somewhere was wronged.
Stop crying, stop sucking your thumb, get up, stand up, and learn to LOVE!!!!!
I love you all, even if you hate me! But how could you? I am so pretty!
June 19, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Sean, just to clarify, the Democratic party in the southern states–“Southern Democrats”–used to vote as a block with the Republican party.
Not sure why you cite Paul for the teachings of Jesus. I much prefer the story of the Good Samaritan to illustrate “who is my neighbor”.
June 20, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I cite Paul for his clarification of what love is. Jesus taught us to love one another. Paul furthered his teachings.
To learn how to love one another we must first understand the true meaning of the word. I am not sure that in today’s society, there is a true understanding of what love is. Its apparent with how we treat each other, talk about each other, and argue with each other.
Paul’s teachings are nothing more than a continuation of the teachings of Christ, just in greater detail. Sure he was only a man, but he was called and led by God to do so. We can learn a lot from both the teachings of Christ and Paul.
September 29, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Sorry…but no one goes to any religious congregation for 20 some years, unless they AGREE with whats being being taught from the pulpit. How can Obama say he NEVER heard his good friend and pastor say anything against Whites and Jews?
Thank goodness this pastor of hates sermons were posted on YOUTUBE for all to see.
October 11, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Sean….ur the bomb dudem and thanks for the clarification on the superman thing…I sincerely bow down.
October 27, 2008 at 8:20 am
Hello all, I would like to address the issue of race, and what I see as reasons for the perpetuation of racial division in our country. Those who harbor feelings of anger toward the ‘white’ race because of historical injustices are ignorant of the fact that there is so much ethnic diversity in this country, that many of the ‘white’ people who currently occupy this country did not have ancestry here in the days of slavery. Historically, many injustices have befallen many ethnic groups around the world. Jewish people were severely persecuted, tortured, dehumanized, and killed 60 years ago. The remnant of the jewish population which remains in those previously Nazi occupied countries are not dwelling on the subject. These individuals who witnessed these events first hand will certainly never forget, but most of these individuals harbor no hate neither try to encourage separation from the majority populations in those areas. If we are to truly become an undivided nation, we must attend good churches, not black or white churches. We must attend good schools, not black or white schools. Race has very little to do with behavior, and success or failure in this time of the world. It is when we constantly try to remain different, and focus on these differences that we, as a people, do not flow together in harmony. Many black names are strange to me, as a whole, and I see this as a way to identify these individuals as ‘black’ before ever having seen them. My father had a very good black friend as I was growing up, who came over almost daily. He was adopted by a white family. He was well spoken, and from a phone conversation one would not be able to identify him as a black man. He became a successful business owner and has done well in this free country. It is the raising of the children, and perpetuating these differences in culture that divide black and white. The average black man probably sees it as surrendering to the ‘white’ man to speak proper english, and to display certain mannerisms, when it is not a ‘white’ language, but rather the ‘english’ language. When you can pick up a phone and call random numbers in the phone book, and not be able to distinguish the race of the other party based on speech, then we will be closer to being unified as a country. People who still harbor ideas of segregation, even though voluntary, I cannot support.