Jeremiah Wright controversy

Template:Editintrosection The Jeremiah Wright sermon controversy began in March 2008 when ABC News, after reviewing dozens of Wright's sermons, excerpted soundbites which were criticized by some as being anti-American. Wright is a retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ and former pastor to Democratic candidate for President of the United States Barack Obama.

U.S. foreign policy

In a sermon delivered after the September 11 attacks in 2001, Wright made comments after stating he viewed an interview of former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck on Fox News. Wright said:

"I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. Did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox News. This is a white man, and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. He pointed out — did you see him, John? — a white man, he pointed out, ambassador, that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Muhammad was in fact true — America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Wright identified them as taking the country from the Indian tribes by terror, bombing Grenada, Panama, Libya, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, and supporting state terrorism against the Palestinians and South Africa, he concluded that his parishioners' response should be to examine their relationship with God, not go "from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents." Critics interpreted this as saying that America had brought the attacks upon itself. ABC News broadcast clips from the sermon in which he said:

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and The Pentagon, and we never batted an eye... and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Later, Wright continued:

"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y'all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people that we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that."

Anthony E. Cook[2], a fellow black pastor of Wright's and a professor of law at Georgetown University who claims to specialize on the intersections of race, law, and religion in American culture, provided on 22 October 2004 an analysis of Wright's full 9-11 sermon, comparing it with the 9-11 sermons of Jerry Falwell and T.D. Jakes. Through his selection of these particular sermons, Cook sought to provide understanding from a cross-section of conservative, moderate and progressive American religious life.

U.S. domestic policy

Clips from a sermon that Wright gave in 2003, entitled “Confusing God and Government”, were also shown on ABC's Good Morning America and Fox News, in which Wright made statements about God and the U.S. Government. In the sermon, Wright first makes the distinction between God and governments, and points out that many governments in the past have failed: "Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change." Wright then states:

"And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton field, 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 positions of hopelessness and helplessness."

Wright then said that the U.S. government provides drugs to African-Americans and "God Damn America" for killing innocent people and pretending to act like God:

"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, as long as she pretends to act like she is God, and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent."

HIV

Also in "Confusing God and Government," Wright makes statements on the involvement of the United States government with the Tuskegee experiment and the invention and propagation of HIV. These clips were also widely aired in March 2008 on Fox News and later YouTube. Wright states:

“The government lied about the Tuskegee experiment. They purposely infected African American men with syphilis. Governments lie. The government lied about bombing Cambodia and Richard Nixon stood in front of the camera, ‘Let me make myself perfectly clear…’ Governments lie. The government lied about the drugs for arms Contra scheme orchestrated by Oliver North, and then the government pardoned all the perpetrators so they could get better jobs in the government. Governments lie. The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. Governments lie. The government lied about a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and a connection between 9.11.01 and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Governments lie.”

Reaction

The controversy sparked continuous media coverage, on both national media outlets, as well as local sources. More than 3,000 news stories had been written on the issue since early April.

Noting that "many observers argue that Wright's sermons convey a more complex message than simple sound bites can express," the Chicago Tribune published lengthy excerpts in an article, "Rev. Jeremiah Wright's words: Sound bite vs. sermon excerpt".

Obama said to Charles Gibson of ABC News, "It's as if we took the five dumbest things that I've ever said or you've ever said in our lives and compressed them and put them out there — I think that people's reaction would, understandably, be upset." At the same time, Obama stated that "words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialog, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue." Obama later added, "Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church."

Georgetown University sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson states that Wright's comments "have to be read as the bitter complaint of a spurned lover. Like millions of other blacks, Wright was willing to serve the country [in the military] while suffering rejection." Dyson goes on to argue that "Wright's critics have confused nationalism with patriotism. Nationalism is the uncritical support of one's country regardless of its moral or political bearing. Patriotism is the affirmation of one's country in light of its best values, including the attempt to correct it when it's in error. Wright's words are the tough love of a war-tested patriot speaking his mind — one of the great virtues of our democracy. The most patriotic thing his nation can do now is extend to him the same right for which he was willing to die." J. Kameron Carter, associate professor of theology and black church studies at Duke Divinity School, stated that Wright "voiced in his sermons a pain that must be interpreted inside of the tradition of black prophetic Christianity."

Martin E. Marty, an emeritus professor of religious history explained Wright's perspective by basing the comments on his church: "For Trinity, being 'unashamedly black' does not mean being 'anti-white.'" Marty also asserted that Trinity's "members and pastor are, in their own term, 'Africentric' [African-centered], and that this should not be more offensive than that synagogues should be 'Judeo-centric' or that Chicago's Irish parishes be 'Celtic-centric'." Marty went on to criticize the "incomprehension and naiveté of some reporters who lack background in the civil rights and African-American movements of several decades ago".

While discussing the same theme of Wright and the jeremiad, James B. Bennett, an assistant professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University, describes how Wright follows in a "rhetorical tradition" that has "a long history in the speeches and writings of African-American leaders who are exalted by black and white Americans alike". Bennett says Martin Luther King, Jr. shared similar feelings with Wright concerning some US activities, saying, " 'the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government,' " and that " 'America was founded on genocide, and a nation that is founded on genocide is destructive.' " Michael Eric Dyson notes that Martin Luther King Jr., on the Thursday he was assasinated, was working on his Sunday sermon entitled "Why America May Go to Hell." Cultural critic Kelefa Sanneh also traced Wright's theology and rhetoric back to Frederick Douglass, analyzing his 1854 reference to antebellum US Christians as "bad, corrupt, and wicked."

Wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ, criticized the media coverage of his past sermons, saying in a statement that Wright's "character is being assassinated in the public sphere.... It is an indictment on Dr. Wright’s ministerial legacy to present his global ministry within a 15- or 30-second sound bite."

Jeremiah Wright's reaction

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright publicly discussed the controversy in depth in an hour-long interview with Bill Moyers on April 25, 2008. This included longer clips of his sermons, along with his explanations of what he was saying. There were also clips of his ministry and parishioners at various points in time since he became pastor in 1972, showing what Trinity stands for and has accomplished. Wright stated that his comments were "taken out of context" and that "the persons who have heard the entire sermon understand the communication perfectly." He went on to say: "When something is taken like a sound bite for a political purpose and put constantly over and over again, looped in the face of the public, that's not a failure to communicate. Those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they want to do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic or as the learned journalist from the New York Times called me, a "wackadoodle"... The message that is being communicated by the soundbites is exactly what those pushing those sound bites want to communicate."

On April 27, Wright gave a keynote address at a fundraising dinner for the Detroit-chapter of the NAACP. In front of nearly 10,000, Wright gave a speech in which he discussed the controversy, saying, "I am not running for the Oval Office," referring to Republican attempts to make the controversy part of the campaign. Earlier that day, he delivered a sermon to 4000 at the Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas. Earlier still he had spoken to the National Press Club, where he discussed the Black church.

Effect on Barack Obama

When Wright's comments were aired in the national media, Obama denounced them. Obama also said the remarks had come to his attention at the beginning of his presidential campaign but that because Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of Obama's strong links to Trinity, he had not thought it appropriate to leave the church. He begun distancing himself from Wright when he called his pastor the night before the February 2007 announcement of Obama's presidential candidacy to withdraw his request that Wright deliver an invocation at the event. A spokesperson later said, "Senator Obama is proud of his pastor and his church, but... decided to avoid having statements and beliefs being used out of context and forcing the entire church to defend itself." Wright attended the announcement, prayed with Obama beforehand, and in December 2007 was named to the African American Religious Leadership Committee of the Obama campaign. The Obama campaign released Wright after the controversy.

Some critics found this response inadequate; Mark Steyn, writing in the National Review, stated: "Reverend Wright['s] appeals to racial bitterness are supposed to be everything President Obama will transcend. Right now, it sounds more like the same-old same-old." Politico made a similar comment: "Obama’s cross-racial and even cross-partisan support has been driven by a belief that he is a new-era politician, not defined by the grievances and ideological habits of an earlier generation", and quoted an "expert": "Wright is a “huge, huge problem... The new information, especially about his minister and his twenty-year association with this church, really undermines the message he’s been delivering for the last year, it completely undercuts it". Steve Adubato of MSNBC said, "Wright’s comments don’t have to be put in some 'larger context.' The argument that the media is taking short excerpts out of a much larger rhetorical framework is a crock. He said these terrible things, and Obama has been part of his congregation for two decades... Obama’s pathetic initial response when pressed by the media that he hadn’t been in church the day Wright made some of these comments is painfully lame. The fact that Obama did everything he could to avoid making a speech about Wright and the larger issue of race doesn’t make him look good. Obama’s powerful rhetoric about the possibilities and hope of what this country could be has inspired millions... But he seems confused."

On March 18, in the wake of the controversy, Obama delivered a speech entitled "A More Perfect Union" at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the course of the 37-minute speech, Obama spoke of the divisions formed through generations through slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow laws, and the reasons for the kinds of discussions and rhetoric used among blacks and whites in their own communities. While condemning the remarks by the pastor, he sought to place them in historical context by describing some of the key events that have formed Wright's views on race-related matters in America. Obama did not disown Wright, whom he has labeled as "an old uncle", as akin to disowning the black community or disowning his white grandmother, Madelyn Dunham. The speech was generally well received. Obama said that some of the comments by his pastor reminded him of what he called America's "tragic history when it comes to race."

Impact on polls

During these events, Clinton briefly took the lead in the Gallup national tracking poll, ahead of Obama by 7 points on March 18. By March 20, Clinton's lead decreased to 2 points, a statistically insignificant amount. The same day, John McCain took a 3 point lead over both Democratic candidates in hypothetical General Election match ups, with a 2 point margin of error. By March 22, Obama had regained his lead over Clinton and was up by 3 points.

A CBS poll taken from March 15 to March 17 found that sixty-five percent of registered voters said it made no difference in their view of Obama, while thirty percent said it made them have a less favorable view.

At the end of March 2008, as over 40 states had already held their Democratic primary processes, Barack Obama built on his national Gallup daily tracking poll results to become the first candidate to open a double-digit lead since Super Tuesday, when his competitor Hillary Clinton had a similar margin. On March 30 the poll showed Obama at 52% and Clinton at 42%. The Rassmussen Reports poll, taken during the same time frame, showed an Obama advantage of five points. These polls followed weeks of heavy campaigning and heated rhetoric from both camps, and another late-March poll found Obama maintaining his positive rating and limiting his negative rating, better than his chief rival Clinton, even considering Obama's involvement in controversy during the period. The NBC News and Wall Street Journal poll showed Obama losing two points of positive rating and gaining four points of negative rating, while Clinton lost eight points of positive rating and gained five points of negative rating.

In an interview with the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on March 25, 2008, Hillary Clinton commented on Obama's attendance at Trinity United Church of Christ, stating, "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend." Later the same day, during a press conference, Clinton spoke on her personal preference in pastor: "I think given all we have heard and seen, [Wright] would not have been my pastor." A spokesperson for the Obama campaign said Clinton's comments were part of a "transparent effort to distract attention away from the story she made up about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia" the prior week. Weeks later during the Pennsylvania debate in Philadelphia, Clinton said, "For Pastor Wright to have given his first sermon after 9/11 and to have blamed the United States for the attack, which happened in my city of New York, would have been just intolerable for me."

Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain defended Obama when it came to allegations of guilt by association, saying, "I think that when people support you, it doesn't mean that you support everything they say. Obviously, those words and those statements are statements that none of us would associate ourselves with, and I don't believe that Senator Obama would support any of those, as well.