THINKING FOR OURSELVES

Looking for Truth

By Shea Howell

Michigan Citizen, May 11-17, 2008

Many of the events of this past week have been lost under the weight of the attacks in the press on Reverend Jeremiah Wright, labeled as a man whose “incendiary statements threatened serious harm to former parishioner Barack Obama. ” The news media focused on the brief question and answer period that followed Wright’s speech on the history and theology of the African American Church at the National Press Club.

It was this question and answer period that finally forced Senator Obama to painfully sever all relationships with his pastor.

Like many people, I assumed that Reverend Wright must have said something terrible in the question and answer session. I had watched his hour-long interview with Bill Moyers and found him to be a very thoughtful man. Although he quoted the Bible a little too much for my tastes, he talked eloquently of his faith and its imperatives. I also watched his speech at the NAACP dinner here in Detroit. It got rave reviews from all those in attendance and was widely and favorably covered by local media.

Under urging from a friend, I watched the Press Club speech. It is a brilliant, thoughtful discussion about the history of the African American Church and about the limitations of a press corps to whom that church and her traditions have been largely invisible. Wright anchored his speech in three concepts: Transformation, Liberation, and Reconciliation. He also spoke of the responsibilities of people of faith living within an empire.

After hearing the speech, I assumed the question and answer period must have been completely wild. To my surprise, it was rather tame. You can judge for yourself by watching it on CNN or YouTube. But I found Reverend Wright witty, poking fun at the press, refusing to be baited, giving nuanced and sometimes complex and combative answers to questions about his patriotism and his relationship with Farrakhan.

So what is going on here? The double standard being used in the press has been well documented. Many writers have pointed out that the preachers supporting McCain have said terrible things about the Catholic Church, about Jewish people, and about the causes of 911.

This attack is something more than the white press reacting to a black man. This is their necessity, their determination, to bury the message he is bringing.

First, African American theology has always meant looking at the whole of our history. It demands that we not anasthetize ourselves with the myths of our past but wrestle with its reality. It demands that we acknowledge that the wealth and power of this nation were built by stealing land from the native people who lived here. It demands acknowledging that our democracy is founded on the acceptance of slavery. These are hard truths for much of America. The weight of the dominant culture is to ignore them, to accuse all those who dare bring them up to be people who do not love this country.

The price of love is silence about the evil we have done, the evil we are doing every day.

So as the news media dwelt on Reverend Wright, it generally ignored the increasing deaths in Iraq as the U.S. sends hell-fire missiles into a building next to a hospital, killing children, patients and family members. It ignored the release after six years of a newsman from who had been tortured and brutalized in Guantanamo to the point of no longer being able to walk. It ignored the anniversary of “mission accomplished.”