Have you ever gone on a family vacation – husband, wife and maybe two kids – with everyone excited about the trip except for one of the kids? A suggestion is made to stop at McDonalds, but the disgruntled one wants to go to Wendy’s. How about a movie? All think it’s a great idea, except for the one who is pouting. Why don’t we see a comedy? “I want to see a thriller.” Let’s go to breakfast at 8:00 a.m. “That’s too early; I want to go at 9:00.” No matter what is done to make him happy, he continues to pout and spoil the trip for everyone else.
This analogy, I believe, describes the attitude of a significant segment of black people with respect to the rest of American society. No matter what is done to demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of Americans have no tolerance for racial discrimination, this segment just won’t take accept that premise. They mope, pout and complain that no one likes them, and that everyone is out to get them. Some believe that a return to slavery is just around the corner, assuming you can convince them that it ended at all.
In all of the discussion about Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his relationship to Senator Barack Obama, the political implications of the discussion about their relationship have caused us to ignore a far more important question: How much of the racial garbage that Wright delivered in his sermons is embraced by “the black community?”
Reverend Wright peddles a philosophy that is anti-America and anti-white and represents the most hardcore view of race in American life. His views about race are dangerous and terrifying, and evidence a level of racial paranoia that is deeply troubling, especially when paraded out in public for the consumption of young children and others who are equally vulnerable. But, our focus should not be on Jeremiah Wright; it should be on “the black community.”
When Reverend Wright urged God to damn America, his congregation responded with excitement. When he was introduced at a recent convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, he was greeted with a thunderous standing ovation. Were Wright running against Obama for president of black America, with only blacks voting and based on the professed views of each of them about race and about America, I believe the smart money would have to be on Wright. If this assessment is accurate, then that says as much about a significant segment of black as it does about Wright himself. And, that is the issue that needs to be confronted by the American people, especially by blacks.
I frequently appear on college campuses throughout the nation to discuss the issue of race-based affirmative action. It is fair to say that, perhaps, 90 % of the black students at these events express strong opposition to my belief that race preferences are wrong-headed and ought to be abandoned. When asked to explain the basis of their opposition to my view, the general response is that America is the land of the Ku Klux Klan, that our nation is “institutionally racist,” that white males are in control of every lever of American life, and that they cannot be trusted to be fair to women and racial “minorities.”
No matter what I say or how much evidence I produce to substantiate that considerable racial progress has been made over the past twenty years or so, the typical collection of black students at these events will respond by calling me a “sellout,” “naïve,” and a “tool of the oppressor.” The views expressed by black students at these events are Jeremiah Wright writ large. These students are typically very negative about their country and don’t want to hear anyone say positive things about the American people.
During his well-publicized March 18 speech in Philadelphia, Senator Obama artfully identified life in America from the relative perspectives of blacks and whites; and clearly, as he noted, there is a decided difference between those two perspectives. Obama stopped short, however, of taking any position with regard to those two perspectives. For the sake of our nation, however, it is not prudent for the rest of us to ignore the issues that haunt us about race.
Disciples of Jeremiah Wright are to be found all across the land. Some are white and liberal, while most are blacks from all walks of life. They are not typically radical, in a political sense. In fact, most are “mainstream” people who just have no confidence in their country’s capacity for fairness.
I don’t suggest for one second that all racism has ended. It has not (although no group has a monopoly on prejudice and discrimination). But, if the political success of Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton tell us anything at all, it should confirm the character of the majority of the American people and their willingness to judge others not by the color of their skin but by “the content of their character.” We are not a perfect nation by any means, when it comes to our “racial” differences, but we will never get beyond the issue of race if we can’t start trusting our fellow Americans to be fair. I just wish more black people would abandon their anger and paranoia and enjoy the trip with the rest of the family.