Obama and the Reverend

Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr was Barack Obama’s pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ for almost 20 years. Obama has been forced to distance himself from Rev. Wright and disavow certain statements that Rev. Wright made in his sermons. These statements were discovered in a “best of” series of video tapes and DVDs that were sold by Wright’s church. Below are some of those statements.

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people

We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and the black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yard. America's chickens are coming home to roost.

The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.

Barak Obama has stated that he was unaware of most of Rev. Wright’s controversial statements and was not present in the pews when these statements were uttered.

As I understand it, Rev. Wright served our nation in the Navy and has done a tremendous amount of good work helping poor people in Chicago. I honor and thank him for both. I also can understand why an African-American man born in 1941, who grew up in the 1950’s, and who was an adult in the 1960’s might be angry at America. I am sure he has ample reason to be. Some will argue that he is only speaking the truth, albeit an uncomfortable one. An argument could be made that the U.S. is killing innocent people and that the September 11th attacks were a reaction to U.S. foreign policy. I would vehemently disagree, but the argument could be made. But the statement that the government invented AIDS in order to kill people of color is nothing but a vicious and indefensible slander.

I have no reason to believe that Barak Obama shares these beliefs. He certainly does not come across as an angry man, which is of course a large part of his appeal. Obama is the candidate of hope, a candidate of reconciliation, a candidate that will end the partisan fighting in Washington and unite our country. Ok, I don't believe a candiddate that could end partisanship in Washington could actually exist, but some people feel Obama can do it. My point is I really don’t believe he shares Wright’s views. But at the same time I don’t believe he was as ignorant of these views as he claims.

Wright was not simply the pastor of a church Obama attended. He was a close personal friend and advisor who performed Obama’s wedding and baptized his children. He was also named to an African American religious advisory committee (on which he no longer serves).

So what does this say about Obama? I am really sure what it says about him personally. It might say something about his judgment or perhaps it says something about the fine line Obama has had to walk to appeal to both African Americans and whites. It doesn’t change my opinion of him. I still like him, but I am still not voting for him. But come Fall, I do not look forward to the vicious advertisements that will juxtapose clips of Rev. Wright’s sermons with clips that must exist of Obama praising him. I don’t expect John McCain to run such ads, but someone will. I just hope it doesn’t set race relations back 20 years…