24 March 2008
An Appalling
Silence
--by
Mike Murray
In his campaign for the presidency,
Barack Obama often invokes the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As did King
before him, Obama urges us to bridge our cultural “chasms” of misunderstanding and mistrust, to dedicate ourselves
to healing our nation’s racial wounds.
Obama’s entreaty is
nothing short of a clarion call to – as Abraham Lincoln put it – follow “the better angels of our natures.” It is hard to resist such a noble endeavor.
The cause is compelling; the time right.
Much of America is ready,
it seems to me, to earnestly pursue improved relations between disparate groups. There
are many who desire an end to the destructive conflicts that divide races, generations, ethnicities, and genders.
Still, most people are realists. They understand that, while the goal of achieving harmony is a worthy one, a genuine
state of national nirvana will never be reached. Few expect that we will one
day join hands and sway to the rhythm of any singular, uplifting hymn. Nevertheless,
many do seek a way to at least tamp down the tone of angry discord.
Not the extremists, though. At the far ends of the political spectrum, demagogues reign. Such creatures fan the flames of fear and resentment. They
know full well that, were peace ever to break out between competing factions, they would be rendered irrelevant. And so they whip their followers into emotional lathers.
It is against this backdrop
that Barack Obama enters the political stage. To many, he is just what the doctor
ordered: a person capable of leading us out of the darkness of distrust, a person
willing and able to guide us into the light of understanding. Many of his supporters
are so hungry for the change he promises that they have elevated the man to messiah.
Obama’s rallies often
reach spiritual heights. Barack’s rhetoric (often borrowed, without attribution)
soars. Throngs of believers, deep in the throws of rapture, stream tears of joy
down hopeful cheeks. An uncritical press corps joins in the celebration. Seasoned journalists genuflect at Obama’s feet.
Then came Jeremiah Wright. Although an integral part of Obama’s life for 20 years (“he’s like
a member of my family,” gushes Barack), the media has only recently taken proper notice.
Wright is Obama’s “spiritual advisor.” But Rev. Wright
is no Martin Luther King Jr. In many ways, he is King’s polar opposite.
Where King advocated understanding
and reconciliation between races, Wright foments hate. King sought to bring whites
and blacks together; Wright aims to divide them. Don’t take my word for
it. Scan the Internet for transcripts of Wright’s preachings. Better yet, purchase DVDs of his sermons. Decide for yourself.
Obama and his political advisors
recognized the problem posed by Wright long ago. Scheduled to give the invocation
at Obama’s campaign kickoff last year, Wright was suddenly “disinvited.”
Obama would not have been able to explain away the presence of a man like Wright – a person who proclaims that,
rather than bless America, God should instead “damn” her.
The anxiety among Barack’s
strategists (regarding the fallout that would have attended the revelation of Wright’s scurrilous messages) was well
founded. Consider that, on December 25th of 2007, Wright preached
a vulgar sermon that attacked political rival Hillary Clinton – by way of her husband’s infamous fling with a
White House intern. Wright simulated, in raunchy fashion, a graphic sex act for
all of his congregants (children included) to see. On Christmas Day.
On one of the two holiest
days in the Christian faith, this “man of God” turned his sermon into a campaign speech. Even worse, he resorted to guttural words and gestures – on the day meant to celebrate the birth
of his religion’s savior.
When videos of Reverend Wright’s
deplorable behavior reached the Internet (they had long been available to members of a disinterested media), a firestorm erupted. Millions wanted to know: How could Obama
have so closely embraced – for so long – such a man? Exactly how
did Wright’s inflammatory and divisive pronouncements square with Obama’s message of racial reconciliation?
How could Obama, who has
led his followers to believe that he is the embodiment of all that was good in Martin Luther King Jr., take spiritual guidance
from a man like Wright?
In an effort to quell concern,
Obama gave a speech. The speech.
You know the one. The one that was hailed by many in the press as
the defining discussion of “race relations in America.” A primer. A manifesto that needs to become must-reading for
all of our children. The most hyperbolic of reviewers claimed that Obama’s
words on the subject were the most important in at least a half-century, ones that will guide future generations of Americans.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulis,
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera – all marveled. As
a guest on a late-night talk show, Rivera went so far as to defend the hate speech of Jeremiah Wright. He said that to the “untrained ear,” Wright’s words “might sound a little rough.”
Leave it to Rivera to attempt
to inject ethnic machismo into the discussion. But, as usual, Rivera got it wrong. It isn’t that those of us who are offended by Wright aren’t tough enough
to handle his words. It’s that we are too decent to tolerate them.
I won’t go here into
my central objections to “the speech.” Interested readers can consider the arguments made in my essay Pretty
Prose, available at www.emmeffemm.com/id119.html. It is enough for this discussion to boil my concerns down to this: Obama didn’t take responsibility for even minor misjudgment (much less major misconduct) for his
two-decades-long embrace of Jeremiah Wright.
Obama has claimed to be unaware
of Wright’s most “controversial” statements. That, too, is
disturbing. Either Barack is lying when he makes that claim, or he’s way
too clueless to guide our nation from the Oval Office.
Subsequent to “the
speech,” Obama has become even more tolerant of Wright’s hateful words.
In a follow-up interview on a sports-radio talk show, he characterized
Wright’s preachings as being merely “off the wall,” and “out there.” That’s very gentle criticism – if it’s criticism at all.
(An “off-the-wall, out there” comment would have been one that suggested that any of the lowest-seeded
teams will prevail in the NCAA basketball tournament.)
Contrast Obama’s kid-glove
treatment of Wright with what he had to say about his own grandmother in the same interview:
he stated that she is “a typical white person,” with racist tendencies “bred” into her. And only a few days earlier, he claimed that her sometimes less-than-kind racial and
ethnic comments (uttered in private, not from a pulpit) make him “cringe.”
Enamored members of the media
bought the blather. The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd described the
demagogic Wright in gentle terms, calling him merely a “whackadoodle.” (Can
even more benign characterizations, such as “zany” and “off-beat” be far behind?)
Fawning reporters say that
we shouldn’t hold Obama accountable, in any case, for the actions of others. It is apparent that they’ve never heard of the sin of omission. Dr. King certainly had.
Although Obama and his admirers
in the media profess deep admiration for the late Rev. King, one wonders: Have
they really accepted his teachings? King espoused the message of Edmund Burke,
who wrote, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
Borrowing from the sentiments
of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (and also from the Parable of the Unjust), King revealed his disapproval of people who –
while refraining from saying and doing hateful things themselves – nevertheless fail to confront the venomous words
and deeds of others.
Paraphrasing Niebuhr, Rev.
King said that it was not so much the vitriolic speech of the bad people (the Children of Darkness) that troubled him. It was, instead, the “appalling silence” of the good people (the Children
of Light) that deeply disturbed.
It was not the acts of obvious
racists that most saddened King; it was instead the inaction of professed moderates that disheartened. It was not the sins of commission on the part of scoundrels that most bothered him. It was rather the sins of omission, on the part of good people, those who “knew better”
that took the wind out of King’s sails.
So when defenders of Obama
say that we shouldn’t judge him by the actions of others, that we shouldn’t declare him “guilty by association,”
they leave me cold. I can no more condone Obama’s 20-year refusal to disown
the hateful Wright than I can whites who continue to keep racist company.
I wholeheartedly agree with
Dr. King: It is not enough that we merely refrain from embracing evil. Decency compels us to confront it.
It is, therefore, insufficient
that Obama has (so far as we know) never repeated the hateful sentiments of Jeremiah Wright.
It is damning enough that Obama never bothered to condemn them – until forced to by political necessity.
There is no way to reconcile
Obama’s lofty campaign pronouncements with such a personal failure. No doubt about it: Barack “talks
the talk” with the best of them. But I see precious little evidence that
he “walks the walk.” His rousing rhetoric aside, I see no proof (yet)
that he is sincerely one of the Children of Light.
Barack Obama is a man of
considerable eloquence. He often repeats the inspiring words of remarkable people
such as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. I wonder: Does he truly embrace them?
And, if so, why has he been
so appallingly silent – for so very long?
Copyright ©2008
Michael F. Murray All rights reserved.
