Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you’d stop calling me Sister Sadie
Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You’re all gonna die and die like flies…
I don’t trust you any more…
Alabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
— Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddam”
***
A few weeks ago, Barack Obama had “transcended race.” A few weeks ago, conservative pundits were licking his fundament (whether in earnest or simply to boost the chances of the presumably beatable Democrat one will never know). A few weeks ago, any mention of anything that even suggested that Barack Obama was black got blasted by his camp and his supporters as inherently racist.
But Barack Obama adopted Afro-American culture (that of the American descendants of African slaves) a long time ago. His church and its preacher are very much in the Afro-American cultural tradition. So is his wife. To those of us old enough to have seen our father’s live in fear of being brutally reminded of the weakness of their middle-class purchase, the word “goddamn” slips easily from the lips. The word “America” might even be next to it.
Those of us whose relatives are old enough to have told us stories of long road trips in cars full of food because they knew no restaurant or diner would serve them on the way… for those of us who suffered the damage done to our fathers who grew up knowing that their mothers, their children, could be killed, maimed or just publicly spat upon and there wouldn’t be a goddamned (there’s that word again) thing that they could do about it… for those of us who watched the humiliation of being prey corrode the best parts of men… for us, the words “god damn” are often at hand.
And Obama knows it. That’s what’s been so galling about him to date. Is this the only way a black man can run for President— by pretending not to know what every Afro-American man and woman knows he knows? He knows why his wife made her comment about being proud of America for the first time in her adult life. You see, we don’t divorce America from her crimes. Her triumphs are shoved down our throats from cradle to grave, so we see no need to trumpet them yet again, especially when they so often inherently deny our existence and overtly deny our significance. America saved the world during WWII. Then black veterans returned home and couldn’t live where they wanted to live, couldn’t get work in accordance with their skills, were not treated with the respect due their status as human beings. Pardon me if that taints the glory just a little.
For a long time there, Obama seemed to ride the wind that said we should all just forget the past. Not the past, but our past. We will all, together, he seemed to say, still commemorate the heroes of WWII. We will remember that. But together, we’ll forget what happened when black soldiers came home. That seemed to me to be what Obama countenanced. As long as we did it… together.
Then Jeremiah Wright’s sermons hit the air and the shit hit the fan. “God damn America,” he said, and a lot of white folks had a hissy fit. Nevermind that at Huffington Post, Frank Schaeffer reminds us that his father, religious right leader Francis Schaeffer, “denounced America and called for the violent overthrow of the US government.” For his efforts, Francis was “invited to lunch with Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.” Both Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson agreed that the U.S. “deserved 9/11” as punishment for tolerating gays and permitting abortion. Yet they are not yet stricken from the “respectables” list.
But Obama has been immersed in his adoptive culture long enough to know that the rules are different for black and white—even today—in America. That’s why his preacher is vilified while white ones with equally strident views are not. He has been around Afro-Americans and our culture long enough to know this, but he pretended, at least by omission, that he did not. He pretended that we had “transcended race.”
We have not.
What Wright did for Obama was force him to acknowledge the simple truth. With unusually unstrained eloquence, Obama stated it Tuesday morning. That’s a feather in his cap. I just don’t know if it’s enough to make me forget how hard he pretended that the truth was something different.
Tags: jeremiah wright, philadelphia, race, speech
Remember that Obama laid out the grievances and anger of BOTH blacks and whites, grievances and anger that each feels deeply but won’t mention to the other. To the extent that he did not speak the “simple truth” for blacks early enough or loudly enough for you, neither did he speak the simple truth for whites before — although I’ve never seen any complaints about the latter. I can’t think of any national politician, black or white, who explained both sides of the racial divide so well. Should he have done it earlier? Perhaps. Perhaps the nation can’t yet handle a frank discussion of race during the candidacy of a black man and it should have been postponed. We’ll see.
It’s a minor point, but when you wrote, “That’s why his preacher is vilified while white ones with equally strident views are not,” it makes me wonder what news you watch. (CBC?) The national press vilifies Falwell and Robertson whenever they say something stupid – which seems to be whenever they open their mouths. Of course the religious right won’t vilify them, but then again neither would Reverend Wright’s congregation vilify Reverend Wright, so I’m not sure what your point is on this one.
Obama did not advance by “pretending not to know what every Afro-American man and woman knows he knows.” He pretended that it didn’t define him in the business of politics.
I’m of black and white descent, and participated in a middle class white cultural upbringing. The only Afro-American culture imbued in me is the disillusionment of my black father being systematically denied employment in a white midwestern town. Since college I have been embraced by more of the culture that is implied by my skin. I am aware of my layered history and of it’s determination of my present.
My majority mother regularly listens to Pat Robertson, without fear. She married a black man, and knows first hand that we have not “transcended race.” However, she has her own roadblocks to receiving a potentially angry minority. In December she worried aloud that Obama might have been raised in the “moo-slum” faith. She remained equally vigilant for any inklings of anti-Americanism or black radicalism. She represents many citizens that had to accept Obama slowly, and continue to need reassurance in the face of inflammatory rhetoric.
Imagine nina simone running for president. If her campaign were like her lyrics it would be loaded with power, retribution and resilience. Some of my white friends love her music. Many are made uncomfortable when I blare “Young Gifted and Black,” or “Mississippi Goddamn” with an explanation of it’s meaning. The dissonance of her voice conveys truth and discomfort. She would have received fewer votes than the green party.
It reminds of Chris Rock’s play on old black men and their hatred of white men. It’s real. Do we think they would forget being “put in their place”. You can’t have it both ways land of opportunity and white despair over affirmative action. Any group oppressed by another has to hate to survive. Learn a lesson and see it in Israel and Palestine. White people always think its their due and we don’t have to pay a price. I think Obama had exactly the right nuance but it may cause him the election. We are not use to politicians being truthful.