Rev. Jeremiah Wright Strikes Again

I’m wondering if Rev. Wright is trying to sabotage Obama’s campaign. Wright is now a national celebrity and I think it’s gone to his head. He is embarrassing himself, Obama, and maybe the African-American community by what he’s been doing recently.

I thought he was very reasonable in his interview will Bill Moyers last Sunday, but then he went and made some offensive statements this week. As a white European-American, I’m getting sick of being blamed for slavery and expected to apologize for it just because I’m white. My ancestors were still in Europe killing each other when there was slavery in the U.S., they never owned slaves, they never traded slaves, and they never even lived in the south. Yet I’m supposed to grovel and beg forgiveness just because I’m white. What ever happened to forgiving and moving on?

Sure, slavery was an abomination, especially when you think that the slave traders and slave owners were supposedly “Christians” at least in some sense of the word. Rev. Wright made a good point on that one, but that’s ancient history. Christianity didn’t promote slavery – it was individual Christians who did (unlike the “official” persecution of Jews by the Roman Catholic Church, which does owe Jews an apology).

As a human being, I’m sorry that slavery ever existed, or continues to exist in various forms today. I’m also sorry for all the attempted genocides (including the one that took place against the native peoples in the USA), the wars, the man-made famines, the persecutions, the discrimination, the anti-Semitism, and all of the other terrible things that have happened in this sinful and fallen world. But I wish Rev. Wright would look forward and not backward. He’s doing everybody a disservice with such divisive talk, just at a time when an African-American has a shot at the White House.

Although I feel bad that Obama’s pastor is creating problems for his campaign, I also agree with Hillary in that Obama should have changed churches when Wright starting saying provocative things in his sermons – unless, of course, Obama didn’t think they were provocative or offensive. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it?