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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Unfiltered: I will be there!!!!!

Jeremiah Wright has been demonized by the white nationalist media. He remains very popular in the African America community. At the 80th !! birthday party for Maya Angelou, Reverend Wright he was greeted with a standing ovation. Detroit has the largest and longest running NAACP Freedom Fund dinner will have as its keynote speaker the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The news story below is self explanatory. I plan to be there and to give y0u a first hand report of the event.

Unfortunately, we are going to have to deal with the caricature of Wright throughout this campaign. Barack cannot and should not abandon Wright. How arrogant of "them" to question the relationship? Reverend Wright is a very important figure in the struggles for justice and equality. We cannot allow the white nationalists to define him. Much of white America has chosen to reject or be impervious to the racist and white nationalist characterizations thrown at Obama recently by both the media and the Clinton campaign. That speaks wonders for America.

Bill Clinton got Reverend Wright's support during the Monica Lewinsky fiasco. But now that Hillary is "playing the race card," she says he would have been her pastor. It was not only Wright but a community of black pastors who were at the forefront of Bill's defense. What Wright and ministers like him stand for is a more just society.

We must stand by Wright and the just world he stands for. We must not allow the white nationalists to define him. Jeremiah Wright is not a racist. He insisted that one of this black congregants not abandon her marriage to her white fiance based upon race. Barack is no "racist" and they know it. But maybe they don't. Maybe they choose to be just that ignorant.

Mort Zukerman on the "McLaughlin Group" compared Jeremiah Wright to the Klan. Lies like this must not be allowed to stand!!! To compare liberation theology to being the equivalent of the Klan is grotesque. The record of the Klan in their history of performing terrorist deeds for the purpose of maintaining white supremacy was a disgraceful history that speaks for itself. But to compare black liberation theology's asymmetrical response to the oppression as being the same as that oppression is at best disingenuous. (I could be wrong but I think I saw Zukerman as a signatory for a letter of support for Rev. Paul Hagee in the New York Times based on Hagee's support for Isreal.)

Much of this election is based upon what America is supposed to stand for, on the one hand, and what it has stood for in the last 30 years, on the other. In my lifetime, I have been the product of a changing America. The promise of the civil rights and black power movements were about making a new America and new Americans. Their purpose was to change the historic relationships that found their basis in white superiority. Out of that spirit was a recognition that in addition to racism there were other "isms" like sexism were problematic, as well.

That Wright is a well-regarded in the black community cannot be ignored and he should not be distorted, if this discussion about race is going to have any value. That some whites oppose the civil rights agenda does not mean that all whites oppose the civil rights agenda. Injustice is a violation of democracy. Wright, the spiritual leader, not the Fox News distortions, is an extension of the earlier movements whose missions have been cut short. As an extension of the Movement, black liberation theology must not be marginalized and exploited for divisive purposes. The maintenance of white nationalism must be opposed. The Obama campaign embodies a more tolerant America, a more unified America.

I can only assume that the NAACP had such a rationale in mind when they invited Reverend Jeremiah Wright. As I said, I plan to report back to you about the dinner. RGN

NAACP in Detroit to host Obama's embattled ex-minister Wright
He's to speak at Freedom Fund dinner
By Suzette Hackney • Free Press Staff Writer • April 10, 2008

Controversial minister Jeremiah Wright will speak at the Detroit branch of the NAACP 53rd Annual Fight for Freedom Fund dinner.


Wright, the former minister of presidential candidate Barack Obama, has been under fire for remarks he’s made during his sermons about race relations, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and black separatism. He recently retired as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, a 10,000-member megachurch located in Chicago.


The Fight for Freedom dinner, which annually attracts about 10,000 people, will be held April 27 at Cobo Hall. The gathering is a key fund-raiser for the Detroit Branch NAACP, and is billed as the largest sit-down dinner in the country.Over the years, speakers of the Freedom Fund dinner have included Obama, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. The Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner began in 1956. The event’s first speaker was civil rights lawyer and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

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