Wright a Resentful Egomaniac? (Updated)

Is this a style controversy or a substance controversy?  I see it as the first, but it's being played in the media as if it's the second.

I'm no expert in African-American Christianity, but I think that Wright is right when he says that this controversy is not primarily about Obama or him; it's about the Black Church.  Of course it's about Obama, but it wouldn't be a controversy if the style and tradition of Black preaching was not perceived so negatively by the media and white Americans who are uncomfortable with its emotional and often hyperbolic style.  Wright's sermons are being treated as if they were political speech, and they simply are not.  It's religious speech. It's a prophetic style of speech in a Black idiom. I think that is the point Wright is trying to make when he says that he must speak as a minister of the Church and Obama must speak as a politician.  I don't see that as a put down of Obama, but rather as simply an attempt to distinguish between the two types of speech.

So is Wright throwing Obama under the bus as Olbermann and his Obama-sympathetic crew seem to think?  Is Wright an egomaniac envious of Obama's prominence and is now seeking to push his way back into the limelight that Obama's campaign pushed him out of?  I don't see it--at least not in the clips being shown of his appearances in the last couple of days.

Is what Wright is saying the problem or that he has chosen not to crawl under a rock until after the election? What has he said that is so awful? I didn't hear it. If someone else did, tell me. So I could be wrong about all this, but I don't see it.

***

UPDATE: Apparently political realities are coercing Obama to disassociate himself from Wright. Here's what he said, if you haven't read it yet:

The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.

They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I might not know him as well as I thought, either.

I think it has more to do with whom Wright is playing to.  Dana Milbank sets the stage:

Speaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his view that the government created the AIDS virus to cause the genocide of racial minorities, stood by other past remarks ("God damn America") and held himself out as a spokesman for the black church in America.

In front of 30 television cameras, Wright's audience cheered him on as the minister mocked the media and, at one point, did a little victory dance on the podium. It seemed as if Wright, jokingly offering himself as Obama's vice president, was actually trying to doom Obama; a member of the head table, American Urban Radio's April Ryan, confirmed that Wright's security was provided by bodyguards from Farrakhan's Nation of Islam.

Wright suggested that Obama was insincere in distancing himself from his pastor. "He didn't distance himself," Wright announced. "He had to distance himself, because he's a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American."

Explaining further, Wright said friends had written to him and said, "We both know that if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected." The minister continued: "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls."

I would defend my earlier comments that this is more about style than substance.  But it's also clear that part of the substance of Wright's remarks is grounded in deeply felt anger. We can argue whether or not the anger is understandable or justified, but it's not arguable that Obama cannot allow himself to be associated with it.  It destroys the whole premise of his campaign.

 

Comments

[Mike McG...]

What's so awful?

For starters, Wright's assertion that logical implication of the Federal government's horrendous conduct in the Tuskegee expermients decades ago is more recent deliberate infliction of HIV/AIDs on the African American population. Note the huge leap from an entirely defensible position...that the Tuskegee horror was a precursor to disgraceful Federal inaction re the ravages of HIV/AIDs and Katrina...to the preposterous position that it was *deliberately* introduced.

Then there is Wright's reflexive Farrakhan defense: that this leader's influence has been helpful in regenerating segments of the African American community. Yes...and? It's as if there is a collective inability to handle ambiguity here. Like many demagogues, Farrakhan has simultaneously spread poison and sowed some good seed. How about both/and rather than either/or, Rev. Wright?

Which leads to the incredible tone-deafness. It's as if lefties like Wright are determined to ape their right wing counterparts in cultivating contempt. As if the way to speak truth to power is to heap contempt on those who don't see the world like we the all-knowing. Wright had a huge opportunity here to seek inclusion, to convey an understanding of how some might take offense at the soundbites, acknowledge that some of his words were maladroit and employ this flap as a teaching moment. Not a chance: woundedness confers infallibility.

Look, we've all been wounded. Some of us, disproportionately the African Americans among us, have been deeply, savagely wounded. But Obama is asking us to struggle to move beyond the familiar wound narratives into another way of seeing reality, one that doesn't get stuck in outrage-counteroutrage.

[Jack Whelan]

Mike--

You probably posted your comment before I posted my update, but let's be fair. Wright is going to be Wright, not who we would prefer him to be. We need people like him to stir things up. Jesus himself wasn't a conciliator when it came to the moneylenders in the Temple. Wright's biblical namesake gave us the English word 'jeremiad'. Some behaviors and thinking are truly worthy of contempt. And we need people in our mix who call that which is contemptible what it is.

So there's a place for it, and I will defend his right to speak out as he has done. It's not wrong; it's just part of the mix. Nevertheless, that Obama must disassociate himself from it is also clear.

The only thing that I have personally found weird in what I've heard reported about what Wright has said is about the HIV business. I don't know what the basis for that is. But is it any more paranoid than some of what we hear coming from the Alan Dershowitz faction of the Jewish community who see every criticism of Israeli policy as anti-Semitic?

[Mike McG...]

Jack: I did post before you modified your comments.

Unless we define 'wierd' in very different ways, I'm stunned at your comment that the only thing that you personally find wierd is what Wright said about HIV/AIDS. (His basis for that assertion is the Tuskegee experiments, by the way.) No problem with his apparent comfort with Farrakhan association? No sense that words can inflict harm, that "God damn America" might be harsh and insensitive?

I have not heard anyone assert that Wright has no "right" to speak as he speaks but the resolve to be prophetic does not immunize him from criticism. I find it patronizing to countenance his speech because the pot needs stirring.

Without getting into dueling scripture passages, I submit that Jesus had a rather broader communications repertoire than Jeremiah Wright. I think it mattered a great deal to Jesus that he be understood, that he made strenuous efforts in that direction. And I don't think he lead with reproach.

Perhaps I simply don't understand the 'stick in the eye' prophetic tradition. But I guess it makes sense when the speaker is convinced that he owns the truth, as Wright obviously does.

I'm disconsolate at the spectacle of it all. If Obama distances himself from Wright, he's portrayed as being political and expedient. If he doesn't distance himself from Wright, he's being inauthentic and weak. There is no room for a more nuanced and complicated narrative, one that identifies Wright's lament as *both* entirely understandable *and* fundamentally wrongheaded. My sense is that Obama sees Wright as a gifted and tragic mentor who is stuck in yesterday's narrative, sadly willing to sabotage the birth of a new narrative to justify the legitimacy of his own journey.

[Matt Zemek]

Mike and Jack:

Jack's absolutely right in that Wright has to be a prophetic voice who calls out and names American exceptionalism, identifying it for what it is.

Mike is absolutely right in noting that Wright's gleefulness and tone-deafness--not in accordance with the measured sobriety of a true prophetic figure--are tragically and catastrophically making it oh-so-easy for the media and the larger population to ignore the substance of the message.

Wright is both an incredibly courageous prophetic figure imbued with real authenticity, and also a spectacularly tone-deaf man who should know how to convey his message with the right tone and without the many rough edges he's displayed.

Wright is, ultimately, a very stupid hero, someone with a completely Christian message but the stunning inability to broadcast it properly.

Admittedly, Wright would have been savaged even if he used the proper tone and manner, but not nearly to the extent we're seeing now.

It's such a tragedy. By saying the very things Americans need to hear, but in the wrong way, Wright is allowing his message to be ignored and the Obama (general-election, not Democratic primary) candidacy to be wounded.

It's worth noting that Jesus--for all his communications savvy--got himself brutally killed, but it's also worth pointing out that Rev. Wright clearly ought to have known how a true prophet should conduct himself when presenting the great prophetic challenge to the larger society.

A PS: Had YouTube already been created when Wright gave his "God damn America" sermon in 2003? Either of you know? That's a pretty salient question in all this...

[Jack Whelan]

Wright is who he is. Like most people, particularly the kind of people who have a real impact, he is not the easiest to get along with. So tone deaf or not, he is who he is.

All I'm saying is that there's a place for fierceness just as there's a place for the conciliator. I don't think either is better than the other; they're just different in the functional roles they each play. Both roles are legitimate and are worthy of respect.

Maybe I'm too sanguine about this, but I feel relatively confident that this is a tempest in a teapot. And if it's not, Obama has the resources to survive it. If he doesn't, he probably isn't the person who could have made that much of a difference anyway. If he's neutered by this, he'd be neutered after his inauguration.

I like Wills' analogy. If Lincoln could survive his being associated in the public imagination with John Brown, Obama, if he's the president we need him to be, will survive Jeremiah Wright. It's a test he has to pass if he's to realize the greatness I think is his potential. If he can't pass a test like this, who really cares? If we're doomed to mediocre politics as usual, why not Bill and Hillary?

[Mike McG...]

Jack:

Please tease out your 'he is who he is' argument. McCain is who he is. So is Hillary. What's the yardstick by which some get nailed for outrageous speech and others get a pass?

Please say more about the Farrakhan and Dershowitz comparison. Truly equivalent?

Finally, if the Wright repudiation was, as you say, 'coerced,' what does this say about Obama? Isn't it at least possible that Obama genuinely finds Wright's discourse appalling, a contradiction of both the Obama public persona as well as the Obama personal core?

Matt:

We agree on tone but I'm not sure I can sign on to an unqualified endorsement of the prophetic label for a man who so unambiguously aligns himself with a notorious anti-Semite. Doesn't this call for a bracketing of 'courageous' and 'authentic'?

[Matt Zemek]

Jack:

Just to be very clear, I'm 100 percent for fierceness. I simply think that Wright could have and should have been smart enough to be fierce in a more effective way.

Mike:

I did not sense that Wright was wholeheartedly and completely embracing Farrakhan the way you feel. Then again, a merely substantial (not necessarily complete) embrace of Farrakhan can appear to be more than enough for many to write him off. In that regard, the mere association with Farrakhan--with all its lightning-rod qualities--was and is something Wright should have taken care to avoid.

But that's the realm of political association and imagecraft. It is not belonging to the truly prophetic realm. The prophetic realm deals with entrenched power, and as such, Farrakhan lies outside that focus.

As a somewhat but not completely related side note, it's worth saying that Farrakhan is--his extremism notwithstanding--a lot like Bill Cosby in terms of demanding that blacks clean up their own house. In this respect, Farrakhan is in sync with white America.

But similarly to what I've said elsewhere, it's notable how certain religious figures so immediately and dramatically acquire certain labels and underlying connotations. Reverend Wright and Pope Benedict XVI are not that different in terms of what would widely be seen as social justice issues, especially issues of war, peace and (non-)violence. But because of their places in the geopolitical cosmos, their media treatment and public perceptions are 180 degrees different. Farrakhan does not and ought not enjoy such stature, but even then, he is and has been a puffed-up figure in much the same way that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have come to be, with a media-fed reputation that exceeds the scope of both his accomplishments and misdeeds.

I need to ask you this: how much of a burden should fall upon a black religious leader with respect to denouncing (or not denouncing) Farrakhan? Phrased differently--and this is a very difficult question to answer for you, me, Jack, or anyone else with white skin--how much of a burden should fall on major black figures to both speak and politically maneuver in ways that will be palatable and unthreatening to middle- and upper-middle class whites?

[Mike McG...]

Matt:

Points taken.

We agree that African American leaders should be forced into repeated ritual denunciation of Farrakhan. Here in Chicago, where much of this plays out, a strategy of distancing without denunciation is broadly accepted. So my problem is two-fold: the refusal to distance and the implicit message that anti-Semitism isn't really all that important. It is important to note that Wright made a choice to play this drama out on the national stage knowing full well how toxic the Farrakhan association can be.

Jesse Jackson's conduct in a not entirely unrelated controversy years ago is instructive. When challenged about calling New York City "Hymietown," Jackson initially temporized but ultimately apologized and, in a moment of grace, said "God isn't finished with me yet." This acknowledgement of a slip accompanied by a resolve to do better took the sting out of a very ugly comment. Would that Wright had followed Jackson's example.

[Jack Whelan]

I find it hard to square the impression I got from the man I listened to for an hour on the Moyers show with the buffoon he's being depicted as in the MSM. If the latter is more correct, and it might be, then I defer to Mike.

But I suspect (I don't know for sure) that the reality is more complex. Wright sees himself all his life in opposition to the political machine, and he refuses, for better or worse, to be political. He's a prophetic temperament, and that kind of man speaks without regard to consequences. He's a 'let the chips fall where they may' kind of guy. But the media is holding him to a politically acceptable standard, and that's where the trouble begins. He refuses to be contained within those restrictions--apparently he bridles at it.

I am willing to give the man I met on the Moyers show the benefit of the doubt. It could be that he is an egomaniac. Or it could be that his flaw is the relatively minor one of refusing to give in to his being politically pigeonholed. He must realize at some level that he forced Obama's hand, but that's what 'let the chips fall where they may' people do.

If I'm right about this, I'm sure it pained Obama to renounce him, but he was speaking the truth when he said that the person he saw in the video was not the man he has known for the last twenty years. That person is a media caricature, and unfortunately that caricature is the political reality. Obama is a political man, and so he has to do what he has to do--he had to renounce the political caricature.

So in political reality, this is Obama's Sistah Souljah moment. It may even work in his favor. That's the sad tragic thing about the way we humans are made. But in the end, all shall be well, and all men and women of good will shall be forgiven their flaws. And Wright is fundamentally a man of good will, as is Obama.

[Matt Zemek]

Mike,

Entirely agreed.

Jack,

The agonizing thing about Wright is that if he had done just a few bits of detail work, a few small degrees of tweaking in manner and gesture, he would have avoided a large measure (not the full amount, but still something quite substantial) of the fallout he has caused for himself and Obama.

And as I've said, a true prophetic temperament--while, indeed, unconcerned with political consequences--should be more somber.

I would cite your own writings here on ATF, Jack, such as when you said that if you felt--like Bonhoeffer with Hitler--you felt you had to do something forceful or unlawful to prevent a massive injustice/loss of life/supreme evil from happening, you would do the act... and then turn yourself in, falling upon the mercy of the law and the larger society.

You would do the act, but only with the greatest sorrow and the most profound acknowledgment of your limitations and, moreover, your moral uncertainty about the merits of your actions measured against moral and ethical benchmarks.

That is a fully prophetic stance.

Wright is fundamentally prophetic at his core--powerfully and beautifully so.

But because he left out this one small but significant slice of the pie (say, 15-20 percent of the overall prophetic vocation; he's mastered the other 80-85 percent which flow from his message, whom he confronts, and whom he comforts with his prophetic call), Wright is sabotaging his and Obama's efforts.

I don't hold anger toward Wright, given his prophetic temperament. But I am deeply pained at how this situation--so rich in potential and opportunity--is only having the most negative and corrosive effect possible.

All the forces we're seeing here make it that much more likely that Obama's convention speech--which is and will be his ultimate chance to speak to the whole country in an unfiltered and direct way--will be a cautious speech, not a transformative one.

Then the Republicans will have their convention, and the race to the bottom will quickly escalate.

Fierceness, Jack, is less likely to come from Obama's mouth with each passing moment of this Wright controversy. Stepping away from Wright might very well have short-term benefits, but in the long term, it puts a muzzle on Obama's mouth.

That's a very bad thing for the country.

[Mike McG...]

"That's the sad tragic thing about the way we humans are made. But in the end, all shall be well, and all men and women of good will shall be forgiven their flaws. And Wright is fundamentally a man of good will as is Obama."

Wow, Jack. Beautifully said. Thank you.

[Jack Whelan]

Matt--

I'm not arguing that Wright is without flaws, but that he is fundamentally on the right side of things. I think the tragedy lies in that this fundamentally positive force is being depicted as a hate-filled buffoon, and I just don't see him that way.

You could argue that he brought it on himself, but I think getting lost here is that what in reality is minor defect has become major because of the media's Howard Dean effect, which so magnifies and distorts minor defects into unfair caricatures.

My basic point is that we are unfair to Wright to the degree that we hold him to some politically correct standard. I don't think it's patronizing to try to accept him on his own terms. There's a difference between Wright saying anti-Semitic things, which as far as I know he has not, and his befriending someone who said them (twenty years ago?). He might have good reasons for not distancing himself from Farrakhan. He's not a politician. His loyalties are shaped by different criteria than worrying about public perceptions. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that count or at least hear him out. What he said on Moyers about Farrakhan seemed reasonable to me, but I just don't know.

We can give Wright the benefit of the doubt, but obviously Obama can't anymore. I hope for both their sakes they patch things up between them on a personal level, if in fact there has been a breach on that level.

[Matt Zemek]

Jack,

I'm in virtually complete agreement; I'm a full-throated admirer of Wright and what he's doing, and I'm all too aware of how his prophetic words are being manipulated, twisted and seen in the light of political considerations and politically correct frames.

My only lament (and I use that word purposefully, as opposed to "outrage" or "anger") is, again, that Wright could have done a very small amount of tweaking and yet preserved, even enhanced, his prophetic message and effort. That he didn't makes this a profound tragedy.

But it's still to his immense credit that he's doing what he's doing and saying what he's saying.