What the FUCK was Jeremiah Wright talking about? I finally got a chance to read the transcript from his speech at the NAACP dinner and I can't make heads or tails of it. I certainly am not one of those people who think Senator Obama is less qualified to be president because of his affiliation with Wright, but I do have to wonder why Obama even gave this man as much credit as he has for all these years?
I don't disagree with Wright's basic premise that white folk is crazy, but so is he. While Obama's speech on race was calculated and targeted despite being bland and boing, Wright's speech was a bunch of gobble-d-gook.
It sounded like this:
"vn[hvo[vnronbononvmwro ovnrkovnrkojvomeofhnoemfklew blah blah and uhhuh hwiobceibnvknrv...xokncnvirbvionvom I think that nvdrornverkonv[wonio and just like whenniokndkoneo vname drop name drop shout out can I get an amen anvikvhpenbpknbpoknebopn;nkb."
He belongs right up there with Sharpton and Jackson. The theme of the evening was change. Wright begins by talking about his critics, then says he won't bother defending himself against his critics. Then does some name dropping. Then he talks about religion's role in civil rights movements. Then he name drops some more. Then he talks about differences and seems to go on ad naseum:
"I believe that a change is going to come because many of us are committing to changing how we see others who are different. In the past, we were taught to see others who are different as somehow being deficient. Christians saw Jews as being deficient. Catholics saw Protestants as being deficient. Presbyterians saw Pentecostals as being deficient. Folks who like to holler in worship saw folk who like to be quiet as deficient. And vice versa. Whites saw black as being deficient. It was none other than Rudyard Kipling who saw the "White Man's Burden" as a mandate to lift brown, black, yellow people up to the level of white people as if whites were the norm and black, brown and yellow people were abnormal subspecies on a lower level or deficient.
Europeans saw Africans as deficient. Lovers of George Friedrich Handel and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart saw lovers of B.B. King and Frankie Beverly and Maze as deficient. Lovers of Marian Anderson saw lovers of Lady Day and Anita Baker as deficient. Lovers of European cantatas -- Comfort ye in the glory, the glory of the Lord -- Lovers of European cantatas saw lovers of common meter -- I love the Lord, He heard my cry -- they saw them as deficient."
So after laying a thorough foundation on differences and defiency, he starts talking about education and how D&D affects how Black students learn. Now, what this has to do with change doesn't make sense to my Black cognitive processes, which according to Wright who is not a psyschologist or neurologist or educator, are more right brained and relates well to subjects not left-brained things like math and science.
I could swear that is sort of thinking is used by people who day girls learn/think differently than boys, thus making them less intelligent. It is the sort of thinking that can be used to justify discriminatory practices in education.
But maybe I'm reading into this all wrong what with my right brain and all.
He then starts talking about linguistics and pronounciations and tempos. No, I'm serious. Then he fiiinaaally brings it back to the theme about change and how he believes in change.
Then informs people that Arabic is a language, not a religion. Then talks about how change is hard, but that it can be accomplished. It was very Obama-esque of him.
That's it in a nutshell, though I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing for yourself if you haven't already.
Yet another great moment in American Black History.
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There was much local coverage of the event as there was national coverage of it. First of all, anyone that requests an Amen doesn't deserve it. If something deserves an Amen, people will give it. There's no need to request one. That's like asking for an Oscar after finishing filming a movie. You just don't do it.
Second of all, the Detroit chapter of the NAACP needs to cut the games. First a funeral for the "N word" then this. It's like they're just perpetuating the same old boring crap that isn't going to get shit done. In the immortal words of someone very wise, "get in the soup kitchen." And I'm sure they do that, but their large publicity events are always these giant clusterfucks that don't do them any good.
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