Call me biased, I don’t think the Rev. Wright story is going to be that damaging. Wright represents a mainstream black church, and blacks are getting mainstreamed in this campaign. As I’ve argued before, even his extreme statements are in the continuum of leftwing critique re the U.S. and the world; and the great news is that the leftwing is coming in thru Obama. That’s what the Obama movement is all about, dummy: an insurgency by leftwingers and centrists over the fact that leftwing ideas have been marginalized–much in the way that Wright has now been marginalized.
An interesting parallel from the news. In 1963 (two years after Obama’s birth) the FBI decided
that Martin Luther King was the most "dangerous and effective Negro
leader" in the country and began tracking him and wiretapping him (at RFK’s impetus.) These efforts represented the
conservative bulwark of American leadership at the time. They saw real
trouble ahead, and they were right. Great shocks were in store for the
old order, including the Freedom Riders, Philadelphia, MI, the Civil
Rights Act, Watts, Muhammad Ali… Today I hardly need to say, streets are named after MLK, his name is
invariably invoked by political leaders, prize-winning biographies are
written about him, etc etc.
I.e., what we are talking about with MLK is
not political change so much as change in national consciousness, and I believe we’re on the threshhold of another one today. Pundits like Tucker
Carlson, Tim Russert, and Ryan Lizza who bewail the extremism of Rev.
Jeremiah Wright fail to understand that Obama’s movement wants America to be viewed again as a model for social justice
and freedom in the world. Whether Obama wins or loses is
largely irrelevant to this change in consciousness. Young progressive
multicultural Americans want it; and unlike the neocons and
Clintonites, they have history in their hands. The old order is Bull Connor. We’re John Lewis.
Also, note the pushback on Wright. Last night on Hardball I saw Rep. Chaka Fattah of Philadelphia defending Wright, a former Marine (which is more than you can say for most of the people attacking him as an extremist). And look at Alice Walker’s piece on Obama in the English press:
[W]e are up to the challenges of our time, one of which is to build
alliances based not on race, ethnicity, colour, nationality, sexual
preference or gender, but on truth. Even if Obama becomes president,
our country is in such ruin it may be beyond his power to lead us to
rehabilitation.
A little Wrightlike, wouldn’t you say?
