I’ve been thinking about your post for the last week, anton, and I think it should be said that Wright and many African-Americans are not willing to give up all this "race talk" because it is part of their history. It is, unfortunately, an identifying characteristic. We cannot tell Jews to just forget about the Holocaust and what was done to them, to quit talking about "anti-semitism". That is their history, their narrative which informs who they are and who they are trying to become.
It is much easier for a white person whose grandparents or great-grandparents chose to come to the U.S. and who had the help of other wealthier or more established fellow Dutchman or Germans or Irish or whatever, who are not victims of generations of forced family broken-ness to apply a Protestant work ethic to their situation in the U.S. African-Americans did not come here with the same set of opportunities, with the same situation.
I don’t believe race is the sole reason for the problems of the urban ghetto, but for those who Rev. Wright spoke to at Trinity Church, it is a palpable enemy. Wright’s task as a pastor was to help support and train leaders in his church to work in the community to reverse generations of wrongs. It makes sense that he would remind people of the wrongs committed in the past and in the present, racist acts, so that people are aware of what they are battling against. As recent as the New Orleans disaster, we are reminded of the poverty besetting former slaves in America. As long as the consequences of racism are still visible in the urban ghettos of this nation, racism is worth talking about, is worth naming as an evil.
grant
Apr 14 2008
02:50 pm
I’ve been thinking about your post for the last week, anton, and I think it should be said that Wright and many African-Americans are not willing to give up all this "race talk" because it is part of their history. It is, unfortunately, an identifying characteristic. We cannot tell Jews to just forget about the Holocaust and what was done to them, to quit talking about "anti-semitism". That is their history, their narrative which informs who they are and who they are trying to become.
It is much easier for a white person whose grandparents or great-grandparents chose to come to the U.S. and who had the help of other wealthier or more established fellow Dutchman or Germans or Irish or whatever, who are not victims of generations of forced family broken-ness to apply a Protestant work ethic to their situation in the U.S. African-Americans did not come here with the same set of opportunities, with the same situation.
I don’t believe race is the sole reason for the problems of the urban ghetto, but for those who Rev. Wright spoke to at Trinity Church, it is a palpable enemy. Wright’s task as a pastor was to help support and train leaders in his church to work in the community to reverse generations of wrongs. It makes sense that he would remind people of the wrongs committed in the past and in the present, racist acts, so that people are aware of what they are battling against. As recent as the New Orleans disaster, we are reminded of the poverty besetting former slaves in America. As long as the consequences of racism are still visible in the urban ghettos of this nation, racism is worth talking about, is worth naming as an evil.