Reverend Wright May Not Be So Wrong

It drives me crazy whenever I hear people skewered publicly based on a brief, possibly out-of-context quote.  Or a bunch of them.  So all these brief clips of Jeremiah Wright, followed by condemning him as racist, paranoid, anti-America, and so forth, have really been driving me crazy.  And I wanted to find the context in which he made these now infamous remarks, to hear the whole speeches, before I made any judgement on the man. 

Here's what I found so far.

I should say here that the only clip of him speaking that I caught any part of on TV was a brief clip a couple weeks ago, when he was being questioned about the quote that the US government created AIDS to kill black people.  He asked "did you hear the whole speech?" and the reporter had to admit not.  He explained that he was describing how there are many people who believe that the government created AIDS to kill black, and he continued that we cannot assume that there is no truth to this, given other abominations the government has committed, and he cited the Tuskegee "experiment" in which black men with syphilis were studied by government researchers while being kept from the antibiotic treatment that was widely available and known to cure the otherwise fatal disease, so the researchers could learn more about how untreated syphilis symptoms progressed.  (The subjects all died extremely slow and painful deaths.)  I can understand how events like this can lead people to be reluctant to assume that our government means no harm to them.  I wish I could tell you exactly where and when I saw this, but my friend, who was holding the remote, flipped to another station, and we could not find it again.  I have tried, without success so far, to find a video or transcript of that specific sermon.

But I found this clip on youtube of the infamous 9/11 sermon.  It's about 10 minutes long, and not the entire sermon, but it really gives a good sense of what he said and how he said it.  The brief clip that we all heard was "America's chickens have come home to roost!" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ

Here's the infamous "God Damn America" sermon (about 7 minutes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbEzHdV24AU&feature=related

I watched a few others too, and I have to say if this is what his sermons were typically like, I can understand why he has such a large following.

Not only are his comments in the brief clips we hear replayed endlessly taken quite out of context, but he is a very intelligent and though-provoking man.

I would also contrast his sermons with the preachings of some of our well-known fundamentalist ministers.  Remember when, right after 9/11, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson concluded that the attacks were caused by America's "tolerant" attitude toward homosexuals and feminists (I think there was another group they blamed, but I forget who)?  Why weren't we hearing this kind of stuff about any politician who ever embraced them as mentors?

What is the point of going to church (or temple or mosque or whatever) if you are not challenged to think about your beliefs and values, reflect on social injustice, and consider how you can be a better person?  Is attending a service just a time card people punch to score enough brownie points to get into Heaven (or their own faith's afterlife expedition)? 

Comments

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timo...the prologue of Dr Horowitz book was written by W.John Martin, M.D PhD. who served as the director of the Viral Oncology Branch of the FDA's Bureau of Biologics, the government's principal agency in charge of human vaccines. Admittedly not a kgb agent, but never-the -less, I consider him to be more expert on the qualifications of Dr. Horowitz than most state journal bloggers