Note to White People

Its site very good
Good luck! :)

Its site very good
Good luck! :)

Its site very good
Good luck! :)

I get you Professor,

Talk to the people, Professor, some of us get you!

I don't have enough experience with African-American oratorical context to know whether Berlinerblau is correct. He very well may be correct. But I would like him to explain why the oratorical context would be that way and not some other way. I guess that's really a question of why different cultures have different attitudes, which may be outside of Berlinerblau's expertise.

So what if the pastor made these rantings in his OWN church, mind you---what the hell does that have to do with YOU in YOUR daily life? Is what he said hurting YOU at all one damn bit? No it isn't! The big difference bwt Reverend Wright's ranting and the rantings of some white racist church is that the Reverend Wright is not going to tell his congregation to go out and burn a cross on the lawn of the first white family that moves in an all-black neighborhood,or to go and harass a white person every time they see one on the street, or just make their life a living hell just for being white PERIOD. White people have done that s*** to black people ever since they brought us here and just about every other people of color who came here afterwards. ANd some of them are STILL DOING IT. THAT'S THE BIG DAMN DIFFERENCE. The reason why black people are not just going to "get over" racism is because it's STILL around,in more of a subtle form, shape or another---it didn't just magically disappear off the face of the planet when the civil rights legislation was finnaly enacted in 1964. Contrary to what Hillary claimed recently,it was BLACK people who fought like hell--at their own peril---to make LBJ sign them into being--he sure as hell didn't get up one day and come up with the idea all by his damn self.

What kills me is that white folks always act like we as black folks are just supposed to forget the previous 400 years of this country's history and act like everything's all right now, as if that softens the blow,so to speak. What i'd like to know is if race is no longer an issue, why have the Clintons been the ones to bring it up in the campaign and throw it back in Obama's face? Why the hell do white folks in the media keep saying that "he will be the one to bring our country together in racial healing" as if that's his responsibility and HIS alone? Why the hell does it have to be,anyway? I don't hear of any other candidates being charged with that responsibility at all. Obama has been good about totally avoiding the whole racial debate, but this being America,somebody was going to make an issue of it, sooner or later, for their own benefit (the Clintons,who else?)

Also a lot of y'all on this board are tripping over the fact that he said his grandmother was a "typical white person"--I think what he meant was that she a was a typical white person of her day and age---why the hell were white people offended by that? He was simply being real about the fact that his grandma was a straight-up racist,and that his being her black grandson didn't change that one iota. As a black woman, I see and hear a lot more **** that is a hell of a lot more offensive in a racist and sexist way that anything Obama could say about "typical white people". Also there was not ONE damn condescending thing about his speech--it was great,and in it he acknowledged the fears/opnions/thoughts realities of both black and white people on both sides of the racial divide---something NONE of the other candidates have even tried/attempted to do. And Ferraro di not know what the hell she was talking about--I mean being black didn't help Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or Carol Moseley Braun win the White House, did it? HELL NO. She actually had the unmitigated gall to say that all Obama had going for him was his blackness---apparently it dosen't matter that he's a Harvard graduate, a damn good speaker,intelligent as hell (you'd have to be to get throught Harvard). What complete and utter BS--at least she had the good sense to step the hell down off Hilary's campaign after that idiotic outburst. Whatever---I'm voting for Obama because to me, he's just more in touch with real problems of everyday people more than "I'll do/say whatever I have to do/say to make it to the White House" Hillary.

Are you willing to make the same excuses about a "White" church and the racist rantings of a white minister? We didn't think so.

Oh,please---Reverend Wright didn't say anything that black folks haven't been saying in and out of our churches for years. Also,IT'S FREEDOM OF SPEECH--HE HAS THE RIGHT TO SAY WHATEVER THE HELL HE WANTS TO SAY. GET THE HELL OVER IT,WHITE PEOPLE. Also, why the hell is Obama automatically considered racist because of what his pstor said? He is not--I repeat---NOT responsible for what comes out of his pastor's mouth. The funny thing is, I haven't heard one single thing in the media about the right-wing whack job pastor that's endorsing McCain--not a single solitary thing. Nobody's assuming that McCain has similar whack job tendencies just because they're associated. Just so y'all know,we as black folks generally talk about things/issues/problems that affect us in OUR communities---it dosen't have a damn thing to do white folks. Also,these clips are SEVEN AND THREE years old---they made before Obama was even in the race, so what the hell have they got to do with what he stands for now? NOTHING! Not a DAMN thing! It kills me how white folks can't handle the fact that everybody does NOT think y'all are the be-all and end all of everything. Also, I didn't like this article too much---I would rather a white person who's used to being around black folks on a daily basis have written it,because this professor sounds as a if he's talking about some strange kind of foriegn culture he knows absolutely NOTHING about. G9mma break---it's a regular part of AMERICAN culture,dammit.

All I can say is, a lot of what Reverend Wright said was true, it's old news to some of us black folks. So what if he said "God damn America" it's FREEDOM OF SPEECH. HE CAN SAY WHATEVER HE DAMN WELL PLEASES. GET THE HELL OVER IT, WHITE PEOPLE. Black people can say whatever the hell they want in their own churches---if y'all don't like it,don't even bother steping in one. Besides, Revenrend Wright and his church don't speak for or represent ALL black churches--I'm black and grew up in an all-black Baptist church myself---and I rarely heard my pastor say a negative thing about white folks--in black churches, we mainly deal with issues that relate to US, problems that WE have to deal with within our communities---it dosen't have ONE damn thing to do with white people, period. I love this country too, but dammit, I have the right to curse the racism it still chooses to foster and keep us divided. And I will be dammed if somebody tells me I'm just supposed to shut up and act like this country's so damn perfect that it never has ANY problems/I'm never supposed to question anything that I percieved as being wrong with it. Apparently, a lot of white folks have a hard time accepting the fact EVERYBODY does not love them or agree with them,or think they are the be-all and end-all of every damn thing.

Another thing: those clips of Reverend Wright are both SEVERAL years old---they don't have ANYTHING to do with Obama's campaign---this was just a strike on the Clintons' part to damage his credibility and grab Ohio and Texas (which they just did). How is he automatically a racist because of statements made by HIS pastor---not HIM--7 and 3 years ago? I don't see anybody holding McCain responsible for that whacked-out right-wing nut preacher who's endorsing him---or assuming that McCain's obviously a whacko himself for being associated with him. Funny how the media has just neatly sidestepped THAT issue---it's no big deal, apparently.

And yeah,even some black people may make what white folks percieve as racist statements, but you'll never see a black person burning down a cross in front of some white person's home.

Professor,

You are in your environment. You are making helpful comments for understanding the issues. Keep pointing ...

Maybe On Faith needs to revisit their politicking rules to include African-American religious traditions. Many are quite conservative and should not be automatically discounted.

Terry

"The American slave holders (including our "Founding Fathers") were Christians."

On this, by the way, you do understand they *tried* to abolish slavery right from the get-go, but the screaming, wailing, tragic fact of the matter was there'd have been no way to get independence at all that way, cause the Southern landowners would not have been on board. They did leave us the principles to work out.

Well, Ralph, Christianity is a religion that promises great rewards to slaves, even if it's making them... while suppressing any other spiritual connections people may have.

I have always found it strange that Black folks would embrace the Christian religion at all. The American slave holders (including our "Founding Fathers") were Christians. If my ancestors had been slaves, I would hesitate to embrace the "Master's" same religion. In no place in his Bible is the owning of slaves considered evil. Not even words ascribed to Jesus condemn this terrible injustice of man to man. If the Black man chooses to modify the Christian religion a bit to better fit, so be it. Over the ages, the White folks seemed to have wiggled it around to fit them, and there seems to be no lack of argument among them to this day!

" Patrick:

Hillary says she would leave Barrack's church."

Well, of course she would. *She* probably should.

If for some reason I was subjected to that in the name of some authority, and someone said, "Oh, we're just talking," I'd give a pretty cold "I'm just leaving."

But, I'm pretty white, too. Frankly, white Christian clergy will casually speak of advocating my damnation and disenfranchisement on several counts, and it's considered normal, and they don't even apologize about the 'context.'

They make it GOP policy.

I don't *approve,* of this preacher in Obama's church, but, I understand. I was part of a punk rock subculture that often involved some pretty extreme speech that many liked to call 'Against America,' but to someone who knew the *context,* was really about the profoundest and most honest *patriotism* I've ever seen. *We'd* 'damn' flag-wavers for being racist and calling it 'America,' *we'd* say all manner of extreme things, not for hatred of American ideals, but for *love* of them (even if we wouldn't admit it) ...where we felt they were being *betrayed* in the name of nationalism and the like.

I would still leave, and say, 'I choose to absent myself, because I find this personally-offensive and threatening in my thinking and language,"

But still, we're just *not* talking about a bin Laden here. It's something else. Yes. I don't like it. I believe you say what you mean or you don't say it. 'We' maybe don't get it. Maybe don't much care to. We don't have to. But neither do we pale people get to *define* the context Obama sees it in.

I want to hear what Senator Obama *says,* and *hold him to it.*

This ain't a King we're electing, never mind a religiously-programmable robot. I'm psyched about this guy because he *isn't.*

Hillary says she would leave Barrack's church.

I guess Hillary considers herself better than barack and other Black's that find solace in their own environment devoid of prejudice, but allowed to be free and open about how they feel.

What about what that other preacher said demanding the US kill Hugo Chavez.

Which white politician should take the heat for that preachers words, McCain, Clinton, or all white people?

Patrick

"A definition of racism that I have heard is that racism = prejudice + power, therefore implying that while everyone can be bigoted, not all bigotry is racism. Clearly all bigotry can be dangerous, but to listen to a man expressing frustration and outrage over the impediments that still stand in the way of the African American community - impediments that are a legacy of systematic oppression and disenfranchisement - to equate that to some of the most rabid and vicious forms of racism that have ever existed, that is nonsense."
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This is either dishonest or ignorant of reality or both. Racism from black people hurts white people. You can't say in 2008 that white people are immune from the effects of bigotry by black people. That is simply false, as any white person who has lived in Washington, D.C. or the south side of Chicago knows. I've lived in both of those places for many years, and I can attest to the truth that people who foster, promote, express, and excuse racist behavior are hurting other people unfairly and hypocritically. To deny this is to deny reality. If you believe in black and white people living together in mutual respect and equal opportunity - economically, politically, socially -- then you can't apply different standards of behavior to people of different shades of skin color.

If you were wrong, say you were wrong, apologize for it and move on. Don't make excuses or try to point the finger at me as justification for you being wrongheaded. THAT was Obama's mistake and Clintons current fix with "I was in danger embelishment" and her imediate apology is why I will vote for her.
IT IS ASTOUNDING HOW MSM IS COVERING FOR OBAMA. Its pathetic. It has Rove's fingerprints all over it. Remember Rove wants Obama to win. Stupid liberals see the trap but keep on walking towards it!

Jacques, The AfroCentric Church Service is a well choreographed dance. The movement is one of inclusive subtle line dancing in which the preceptor navigates the congregation thru it's movement. Then he challenges the congregation to a higher calling of truth in the spirit of Christ. This unwavering truth, which is rooted in the fact that the state is the culmination of man’s consciousness which is not infallible. The preceptor always questions the actions of the collective consciousness. Slavery, Katrina, Tuskegee institute experiment and Rawanda took place with the blessing of the collective conscious. Does it mean the state was correct in it’s actions? Does it means the preceptor who’s questions is un-patriotic? Does truth have boundaries and or a Country? Please advise before you or anyone exploit my church my preceptor my history and the raw historical actions of the collective conscious.

Alright white people, get a grip here. Trying to compare the discourse in a black church to the KKK or neo-nazis shows an incredibly cherry-picked, short sided view of history.
A definition of racism that I have heard is that racism = prejudice + power, therefore implying that while everyone can be bigoted, not all bigotry is racism. Clearly all bigotry can be dangerous, but to listen to a man expressing frustration and outrage over the impediments that still stand in the way of the African American community - impediments that are a legacy of systematic oppression and disenfranchisement - to equate that to some of the most rabid and vicious forms of racism that have ever existed, that is nonsense.

Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting. And maybe a little racism and hatred of white America but, hey, it's what they do and, after all, whitey is always the racist but never holy Blacks whose hate-speech may seem jarring to the untrained white ear.

Thanks, Trinity, for giving the Republicans their latter day Willie Horton. Thanks for four more years of Cheney and McCain and his "insurgency that will go on for years and years." As a white male who was going to first vote for Hillary (until her sniveling Rovian campaign), I wanted to vote for Obama but now thanks to to Trinity and it's Black hate mongers, I'm not so sure.

Religion is the root of all evil.

"Whatever the reason for the statements, and however couched - the fact remains that, generally speaking, Americans are offended by people ordering the damning of America."

Hey, I admit it's offensive, however you slice it, but, hey... If I went around looking for a candidate who had a perfect record of objecting when someone's preacher damned *me,* I'd be fresh out of candidates.

Obama's actually got a much better record of being supportive of diversity, even such as mine, than just about anyone just lately.

Frankly, I think the media is playing this preacher's clip over and over to *try and drown out* Senator Obama's actual voice. Which says something very different, whatever the 'context' of that preacher's words.

The key is CONTEXT, placed in capitals befitting its prominence as a concept, similar to GOD, in other CONTEXTS. Now I understand. These people assemble in church to "jus talk." Their Gentile embellishment, their oratorical fecundity, their "over the top" blather is for their own amusement! It was a "black face" show, some hand jive and "bumping for jesus" no white person could possibly appreciate. What a novel use for a church of GOD, or should we make that a church of CONTEXT?

The problem with this statement and the other apologia out there is that they all fail to recognize where the outrage emanates from. Whatever the reason for the statements, and however couched - the fact remains that, generally speaking, Americans are offended by people ordering the damning of America. They are offended by people tarring the whole of the country as being one with the KKK. They are offended when it is suggested that America brought 9/11 on herself and that Aids is a government plot.

They are offended - deeply offended. Because such hyperbole is directed, not at the government, but at the country and they - we are the country. God damn us? And we're not supposed to be offended?

And then we're supposed to vote for someone who did not think enough of such statements to express his disapproval in a way that is unmistakable. But he's still supposed to be believeable in representing us?

It's simple - words matter - statements matter - character matters - such language, no matter how or why it is uttered is expressly hurtful.

I have done no harm to the Reverend Wright, nor any of his family or friends or acquaintances. I have done no harm to people of any ethnic group that I know of, yet 'I' am railed against, my country is derided, my ethnic background is sullied - to vote for a person who cannot see how wrong such statements are could be seen as nothing other than self-hatred. And I do not hate myself.

-Cerebus

The problem with this statement and the other apologia out there is that they all fail to recognize where the outrage emanates from. Whatever the reason for the statements, and however couched - the fact remains that, generally speaking, Americans are offended by people ordering the damning of America. They are offended by people tarring the whole of the country as being one with the KKK. They are offended when it is suggested that America brought 9/11 on herself and that Aids is a government plot.

They are offended - deeply offended. Because such hyperbole is directed, not at the government, but at the country and they - we are the country. God damn us? And we're not supposed to be offended?

And then we're supposed to vote for someone who did not think enough of such statements to express his disapproval in a way that is unmistakable. But he's still supposed to be believeable in representing us?

It's simple - words matter - statements matter - character matters - such language, no matter how or why it is uttered is expressly hurtful.

I have done no harm to the Reverend Wright, nor any of his family or friends or acquaintances. I have done no harm to people of any ethnic group that I know of, yet 'I' am railed against, my country is derided, my ethnic background is sullied - to vote for a person who cannot see how wrong such statements are could be seen as nothing other than self-hatred. And I do not hate myself.

-Cerebus

White People Don't Understand Black People

And they rarely even try. They'd rather condemn.

(Henry James is a white man)

Ouch...
Your point is well taken.
You must be catching the other commentator on a bad night.

Damning a country that has offered you the choices that it has Rev. Wright and the rest of us has nothing to do with religion and certainly does not need a discerning mind to understand. Nor does boxing people in a group, by race or anything else, need any understanding. You are correct they are "words" but isn't this the same language we are asked to pay reverent attention to in our churches as well as in Mr. Obama's plan for change?

Joe-

Have you read Pat Buchanan's 3.21.08 column?
Are his numbers right?

A Brief for Whitey

"Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing."

Funny thing is....no matter how much people here try to compare any black group with the Klan or Neo-Nazis....black people do not go out into the streets and attack people because of these speeches. We do not bomb churches or burn crosses in the front lawn of a family because of any sort of racial hatred. All WE do is try to band together and TRY to fight to better ourselves. Of course, there are a few bad apples in everybody's bunch, but you never see black people (if so, very rarely) randomly killing whites because of their race....or because of some inflammatory speech. What you do see is blacks being unfairly targeted and or murdered (still) by the police....if we've attacked whites, as in the Rodney King version, there was a DIRECT reason where tempers boiled over due to continued oppression over hundreds of years. Yet and still, people want to fake like Wright was inspiring people to overthrow the government. I sometimes think white people live in their own reality and openly ignore the world we live in today.

Funny-

Berlinerblau attempts to whitewash blacks..

“Don’t worry Jacques. We just talking.”

As others have so quickly pointed out already, this little light-hearted phrase does not play as well when one changes the scenario to a Klan rally. I don’t care if many folks left that “church” with joy and laughter in their hearts - racism was the source of their amusement. It's just flat out wrong. Trying to explain it away as some sort of cultural misunderstanding is foolish, if not insulting.

"The problem is that the GOP and FOX News were just listening. And while Obama’s argument about taking these words in context was, in and of itself, valid, it does not in any way neutralize the advantages that will accrue to those who take them out of context."
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No, Jacques, the problem is not that the GOP and Fox News were listening. The problem with those comments is that people DO take them seriously and act upon them. How do I know that? I've lived in predominantly black communities in Chicago and in Washington, D.C. for decades, and I know people act toward me as if they have absorbed these sermons and lessons and live by them. That's why they are as dangerous as any racism and anti-Jewish bigotry. People do believe this stuff and internalize it and act on it- whatever their race.

Umm! Now, let us use the classic argument component reversal stategy to verfify if Mr. Berlinerblau's logic holds true.

'The KKK is only talking.'

"The neo-NAZI's are only talking.'

Oops. Nothing true here.

But is it truly Christian?

To continually go making excuses for Barrack Obama. In his very much over rated trite mediocre condescending speech, Obama was the one being divisive. There was no humbling of himself. No. He told us. He lectured us. Playing on white liberal guilt. He stooped to a all time low in using his own grandmother's remarks about black men. While ignoring the same complaints by Jessie Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, and Bill Cosby. Instead of apologizing for the racist statements made by Rev Wright. Obama blamed America for the bitterness and pride of this "Christian" Pastor. He brought up past slavery. What does this have to do with the republican party or the Reagan Administration? He said whites men were angry with "immigrants" saying their anger was because they "looked different". That white men feared "immigrants" were here to take their jobs. Playing on words. Because no one is angry with legal immigrants. Just what color description fits legal immigrants entering the US through the front door?

One divisive thing after another. No letting go of the past. Martin Luther King spoke of healing and reconciliation. Obama and his Anti American racist pastor still hold on to the past. Living in the past. There is nothing Christian about it. The black Man's burden is always going to be a burden if black men like Barrack Obama and his racist Pastor Rev Wright does not get rid of that chip on their prideful shoulders. Still holding on to the past. And it's a burden on America. Because with or without them America moves forward. America is the best country in the world.

Danny

My face is as brown as Obama's face too.

The “theology” that Wright teaches at his church is nothing like Christianity as most people understand it. The brand of theology which Wright has been teaching Obama and the others at his church is called “black liberation theology.” Wright admits this and it is stated on the church's website. Black theology is based upon the premise of the white oppressor against the black oppressed. This is why, for example, that Wright refers to Jesus as black, and his killers as white. This is the only way the story of Jesus fits within this brand of “theology.” Rev. Wright cites James Cone, another proponent of black liberation theology, as his theological inspiration. Here are just a couple of James Cone's quotes: (1) “To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people." (2) "While it is true that blacks do hate whites, black hatred is not racism." (3) "All white men are responsible for white oppression." (4) "Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man "the devil." (5) "If there is any contemporary meaning of the Antichrist, the white church seems to be a manifestation of it." (6) “Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community … Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.” *** These teachings are fundamentally racist and divisive. Obama has chosen to belong to this racist church for 20 years, and now because of exposure by the press, he tries to fool the American public once again.