Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] Rev Wright and Hatred

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Robert Walton" <waltonrp AT gmail.com>
  • To: vdjor AT yahoo.com, homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Rev Wright and Hatred
  • Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:40:52 -0400

> Was there a twenty year history or was this a one time or occasional
> outburst? I remember a quote that this hatred was not a large or integral
> part of Wrights preaching. Don't really know I'm just asking the question.
> Van Dell

Depends on how you look at it. I think that his theories on the world
have developed over the years, like most people's. Of course, taken in
context, I did not find his words hateful or far from the truth with a
few exceptions.

His infamous "God Damn America" sermon is a good example. Wright was
sermonizing that governments fail but God does not fail.

"And the United States of America government, when it came to treating
her citizens of Indian decent fairly, she failed. She put them on
reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese decent
fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it
came to treating her citizens of African decent fairly, America
failed. She put them in chains. The government put them in slave
quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put
them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in
scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them
outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist
bastions of higher education and locked them into position of
hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs,
builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to
sing "God Bless America." No, no, no. Not "God Bless America"; God
Damn America! That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God
Damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God Damn
America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is
supreme!"

If you take the time to read and comprehend that paragraph from the
sermon, it does ring true in some ways. (I don't agree that the
government gives "them" drugs).

I don't think that this quote got any air time:
"Long before there was a Red White and Blue colonisation, the Egyptian
government was doing colonisation. They colonised half the continent
of Africa, they colonised parts of the Mediterranean. All colonisers
ain't White. Turn to your neighbour and say "oppressors come in all
colours." Hello, hello, hello. But while the Government of Egypt and
Pharaoh ran it, they don't run a thing today, and why? Because
Governments change."

>From the same sermon. Not a racist statement.

I really think that Reverend Wright was not displayed fairly. He's on
a different planet than me, he's out there, but I didn't find a lot of
what he said to be hateful. I think that in some instances, the truth
hurts.

For a time in my life I went to Southern Baptist and Assembly of God
churches. There were lots and lots of sermons about how America will
be damned for her evil ways. Of course, racism and oppression of
people was not the evil they targeted. Same sermon, insert different
words.

So back to your question, my answer would be in the form of a
question: Did he spew hatred?

Google transcripts of the sermons sometime. They are interesting. What
I find incredible is that the same people that are accusing the media
of being biased in reporting on their pet issues taket the media
reporting on Rev. Wright as truth.

Rob - Va




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page