Rusted Sky

When it's constantly being reopened?

It's hard to ignore the good Reverend Wright. The media seems to be in love with the guy, and it's easy to see why. He's slick, self-confident, and very full of bits and pieces that are just SO tasty to a media circus choking on stale Clinton popcorn and bland Obama peanuts.

And it's a tasty mess he's serving up. Rampant racist paranoia. A dislike of America that he can persuade himself is 'patriotic'. Black liberation theology, passed out to the media like ketchup for the spicy fries of hate he's serving up.

I grew up in a simpler age - one where I was led to believe that how a man (or woman) acted was how he should be judged, that the color of his skin was inconsequential. Where bigotry, racism wasn't allowed or condoned.

I've tried hard to bring up the little guy that way. That people are people, no matter the skin. You don't judge people by their color - you judge them by how they act.

And then you get someone like the Reverend Wright. A racist - but that's not bad in itself, there's a lot of folks out there who really dislike those of a different color. Usually you can ignore them - they render themselves irrelevant on anything more than a small scale, poisoning those around them.

But the the pastor of a large church... and though he says his remarks are taken out of context, I'm a bit doubtful of that - has a much wider audience. You hear the people cheering him on in the background - and it doesn't sound like they're hearing this sort of stuff for the first time. It sounds like something they're familiar with... and they like it.

And why shouldn't they? They're being told, by a man of authority, that their failings aren't their fault. That the problems in the Black community aren't caused by the actions of the people within that community - they're caused by the White Power Structure. The white man has caused AIDS, has caused the destruction of the Black family (and you know, with welfare he might actually have something there...) and is still trying to keep the Black Man down. He's getting cheered for that. It means he's right, doesn't it? After all, if your audience is lapping it up and giving you plenty of money for what you're saying, doesn't that mean it's the right thing to say?

I don't believe so.

Is our country blameless regarding racism? No. But it's a hell of a lot better than it was 50 years back. Is slavery a problem? No - because slavery was ended well over a century ago. Is the black man held down by the white? No. But the black man holds himself down pretty well by himself through rejecting education and clinging to a culture that puts the emphasis on drug use, violence, instant gratification and mysogynistic sex, and pretty much rejects the idea of marriage and responsibility... much less planning for the future.

How is any culture like that supposed to prosper?

It's my belief that religion can serve as a stabilizing influence in a culture - rather like a sea anchor - or it can destabilize a culture, like Islam does when it promotes suicidal jihad as the be-all and end-all of a society. For all the Reverend Wright's good works, I find it difficult to believe that his hate speech has been taken out of context. I also find it difficult to believe that Obama could sit in that church, listening to all this garbage about 9/11 and Aids and the like... and NOT be affected by it.

Who stands to benefit by having the wound of racism heal? Society at large does - because people will be able to learn that a man (or woman) should be judged by how they act, not how they look.

Who stands to benefit by keeping the wound open as long as possible - and even making it worse if he can?

Martin Luther King was assasinated because he believed people should be judged by the content of their character - not their skin color.

Rev. Wright gets a million-dollar house for thirty years of preaching Black Liberation Theology and damning the United States.

Who benefits from keeping the wound open?

J.