Charles Krauthammer: I Like My Blacks to Not Talk About Race
Shorter Charles Krauthammer: Barack Obama should have slapped Jeremiah Wright in the face the minute the words "damn" and "America" were put in the same sentence together, instead of passing the collection plate around and singing hymns.
Krauthammer proves, much like Michael Gerson, that he doesn't get "the race thing" or "the religion thing."
Sigh; here we go again.
Let me say it one more time: Rev. Wright was not the first, nor will he be the last, person of faith to claim that God has damned or smote or punished America. If you read the Old Testament, God did his fair share of punishing and damning nations. In fact, he flooded the entire planet. From this context, Rev. Wright was following a script of "The Fire and Brimstone Preacher" moreso than "The Angry Black Man." Not that I'm surprised; the older generations are still stuck in Put-Every-Black-Person-In-The-Same-Basket-Mode.
And if Krauthammer did any research on Rev. Wright, he'd know that one of his "controversial" sermons was quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force.
Krauthammer argues that Geraldine Ferraro's comments were delivered in a fashion that didn't "incite, enrage and poison others" like Rev. Wright's. I believe that someone who goes on talk shows for a week has a larger viewing audience then someone who gives a sermon in one church on one Sunday (or even four Sundays). Then, Krauthammer shows confusion with Obama's comparison between Wright and his own grandmother; to him a black man saying "God damn America" is obviously more egregious than a white woman calling black people the "N-word." I guess because white racism has been so overt for so long, it's more acceptable than the occasional outburst from a "Frustrated Negro." Oh, wait...it's because what Grandma said was private! I forgot; anything that's said and done in private is a OK in Conservative America! But that's the problem: private feelings become public actions way too often, especially with race.
And then there's this equation: "context = history = white history with racism." Krauthammer must have been watching "Roots" and not the speech, because he's acting like Obama was giving a history lesson. Let's go to the speech and see what he said:
See? "Remind." As in, "a reminder." As in, "let me give you a brief review instead of a history lesson." I don't remember seeing anything about hoses, attack dogs, lynchings, forced breeding, plantation revolts, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the rise of the KKK, the Assassination of MLK and Malcolm X or anything else that's associated with racial injustice. And that's because instead of reciting everything, Obama was simply reminding us.
Wrong again. Obama said himself that he knows that his campaign won't be the deciding factor in "How America Finally Got Off This Race Kick:"
D'oh! Next time Krauthammer should read/listen to the whole speech, and not stop and get pissy when someone pokes fun at the Reagan Era or conservatism (which is the real reason these guys are going ape-shit over Obama).
Speaking of noticing things, I see that Krauthammer (and Gerson, BTW) neglected to comment on Obama's "Ashley" story; I'll take that as acknowledgement of how powerful it was.
Krauthammer's pooh-poohing of words may also have to do with the fact that he was Walter Mondale's speechwriter for a time, and we all know how Mondale's career went. But who knows?
Krauthammer proves, much like Michael Gerson, that he doesn't get "the race thing" or "the religion thing."
Obama condemns such statements as wrong and divisive, then frames the next question: "There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?"
But that is not the question. The question is why didn't he leave that church? Why didn't he leave -- why doesn't he leave even today -- a pastor who thundered not once but three times from the pulpit (on a DVD the church proudly sells) "God damn America"? Obama's 5,000-word speech, fawned over as a great meditation on race, is little more than an elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justification of that scandalous dereliction.
Sigh; here we go again.
Let me say it one more time: Rev. Wright was not the first, nor will he be the last, person of faith to claim that God has damned or smote or punished America. If you read the Old Testament, God did his fair share of punishing and damning nations. In fact, he flooded the entire planet. From this context, Rev. Wright was following a script of "The Fire and Brimstone Preacher" moreso than "The Angry Black Man." Not that I'm surprised; the older generations are still stuck in Put-Every-Black-Person-In-The-Same-Basket-Mode.
And if Krauthammer did any research on Rev. Wright, he'd know that one of his "controversial" sermons was quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force.
His defense rests on two central propositions: (a) moral equivalence and (b) white guilt.
Krauthammer argues that Geraldine Ferraro's comments were delivered in a fashion that didn't "incite, enrage and poison others" like Rev. Wright's. I believe that someone who goes on talk shows for a week has a larger viewing audience then someone who gives a sermon in one church on one Sunday (or even four Sundays). Then, Krauthammer shows confusion with Obama's comparison between Wright and his own grandmother; to him a black man saying "God damn America" is obviously more egregious than a white woman calling black people the "N-word." I guess because white racism has been so overt for so long, it's more acceptable than the occasional outburst from a "Frustrated Negro." Oh, wait...it's because what Grandma said was private! I forgot; anything that's said and done in private is a OK in Conservative America! But that's the problem: private feelings become public actions way too often, especially with race.
And then there's this equation: "context = history = white history with racism." Krauthammer must have been watching "Roots" and not the speech, because he's acting like Obama was giving a history lesson. Let's go to the speech and see what he said:
We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country.
But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist between the African-American community and the larger American community today can be traced directly to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools. We still haven't fixed them, 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education.
See? "Remind." As in, "a reminder." As in, "let me give you a brief review instead of a history lesson." I don't remember seeing anything about hoses, attack dogs, lynchings, forced breeding, plantation revolts, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the rise of the KKK, the Assassination of MLK and Malcolm X or anything else that's associated with racial injustice. And that's because instead of reciting everything, Obama was simply reminding us.
But Obama was supposed to be new. He flatters himself as a man of the future transcending the anger of the past as represented by his beloved pastor.
Wrong again. Obama said himself that he knows that his campaign won't be the deciding factor in "How America Finally Got Off This Race Kick:"
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. And contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle or with a single candidate, particularly...
(APPLAUSE)
... particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
D'oh! Next time Krauthammer should read/listen to the whole speech, and not stop and get pissy when someone pokes fun at the Reagan Era or conservatism (which is the real reason these guys are going ape-shit over Obama).
Speaking of noticing things, I see that Krauthammer (and Gerson, BTW) neglected to comment on Obama's "Ashley" story; I'll take that as acknowledgement of how powerful it was.
Krauthammer's pooh-poohing of words may also have to do with the fact that he was Walter Mondale's speechwriter for a time, and we all know how Mondale's career went. But who knows?
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