Academic

Father Michael Pfleger, Barack Obama: Chickens of Truth Coming Home to Roost

By Boyce Watkins

Father Michael Pfleger called me two weeks ago.  I was busy, but I stopped what I was doing to talk to him.  I respect Father Pfleger, for he is willing to do more to fight for racial equality than most African Americans I know.   Michael Pfleger doesn’t just talk, he acts.  Pfleger has worked most of his life, in the south side of Chicago, against drugs, violence and all the other vices that plague humanity.  If African American scholars and religious figures were as courageous and active as Father Pfleger, our country would transform before our eyes.  It appears that this election is becoming more racialized everyday, as Barack Obama’s key political liabilities have all come down to those who speak directly on race.  Father Pfleger is the latest in a long line of “too black for comfort” campaigns being used to deal with Senator Barack Obama.

 For those who want to see Father Michael Pfleger in action, here is the video.  For those who want to see what I have to say on this issue, click here.

I am honestly not a religious man.  But given that these are men of God being consistently demonized by the right wing, it seems that the appropriate question to honestly ask is:  What would Jesus do?  Would he stand on the side of Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger, or would he be on the side of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly?  Did 400 years of socioeconomic exclusion of African Americans play a role in the fact that nearly all American institutions (media, corporate, educational) are controlled by whites? If so-called “mainstream media” were not controlled by white America, would these right wing attacks by uneducated draft dodgers (Hannity and Limbaugh, as patriotic as they claim to be, never finished college or served in the military) on Pfleger, Wright and Obama be so potent or even taken seriously?  I find myself wondering out loud….even on a Friday night.  Perhaps that’s why I’m not married.

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Full post as published by BlackProf on May 31, 2008 (boomark / email).