Disappointed in Obama

Barack Obama is denouncing his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. I have heard nothing in Rev. Wright sermons that are remotely bigoted. Obama does know what it is like to be a black man in a country controlled by rich whites. How can anyone deny that???? Who could look at the Fortune 500, look at Congress or the Supreme Court???? LOOK AT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!!!!!!! These institutions are full of rich white people. Gee, I don’t think that it is a big stretch to state that Hillary Clinton has never being called a n*gg*r.

America has a long history of dehumanizing people of color. The idea that Native Americans were ungodly savages was a primary justification behind Manifest Destiny. Books touting the biological, moral or intellectual deficiencies of African Americans still top the New York Times best sellers list.

The media is spinning that Reverend Wright’s comments about Hiroshima and Nagasaki as anti-American and anti-Semitic. The Japanese did use ruthless brutality in an effort to establish an empire, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets. Footage of the aftermath of these attacks was censored for decades. I saw them recently and it was one of the most horrific things I have ever seen. Even Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the nuclear bomb, denounced its use. Why were Japanese Americans were forced to give up their homes, business and land when we were also at war with Italy and Germany???

The state of Israel does have the right to exist but so does the state of Palestine. American foreign policy is very biased in this area. The patron saint of the conservatives, Ronald Regan supported the apartheid government in South Africa. The President who turned the Southern Strategy into an American patriotism saw nothing wrong with racist Afrikaans government. No federal sanctions were put in place against South Africa while millions of American dollars were spent to enforce Palestinian displacement.

Reverend Wright did not impugn the victims of 9/11. He questioned the fact that American foreign policy has alienated us from the rest of the world. American and Russia used countries in the Middle East, Africa, Caribbean and South America to fight the so called “cold war.” For people who lived in countries where the American government supported one side again against each other (Iran-Contra Scandal, anyone???) the cold war was very, very hot.

We put the guns into the hands of the pre-cursor to the Taliban when they were fighting the Soviets. Afghanistan has been target of colonization for centuries. We knew that the Mujahadeen were religious fundamentalists who had no desire for Soviet communism or American capitalism/democracy. The culprits that attacked my beloved home town were from Saudi Arabia, so why are we in Iran????

An hour ago I watched Keith Boykin of BET-J and a Republican strategist, Cheri Jacobus debated this topic on MSNBC. Mr. Boykin indicated that Reverend Wright’s comments are not that different than what is said in most black churches every Sunday and that a large proportion of African Americans would agree with what he said. This woman stated with absolute conviction that this was not the opinion of the majority of African Americans. Could she be more arrogant??? Has she ever been to a black church??? Has she ever been to the South Side of Chicago? What gives her the right to define the experiences of millions of people in one flippant statement???

African Americans are the one of the most potent reminders that this country has had a shaky history as the home of the free. How can mainstream America be shocked by Reverend Wright’s rhetoric when so much of our story is not included American myth making. Someone may read this and call me Anti-American. I would say to them people who look like me have only had constitutional rights for 44 years and they have been chipped away since 1964. I thought that we had free speech in this country, even when we point out that America has not always been beautiful or the fact American has damned people that within it’s confines with centuries of non-citizenship.