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Are Mainstream Black Churches Hotbeds Of Vituperative Anti-Americanism?

It may well be that the most disturbing defamation brought to light in the controversy surrounding Rev. Jeremiah Wright was not one of Wright?s many slanders against the United States but what I think is a slander against black churches in the United States by Barack Obama.

Rev. Wright, in case someone just arrived from Mars and doesn?t know, has blamed the United States for the 9/11 attacks, said the U.S. invented AIDS to infect black people, and urged his flock to sing ?God Damn America,? not ?God Bless America.? Most of the recent commentary (including here) has been devoted to parsing Obama?s attempt to distance himself from his ranting pastor, but lost in all this are several statements by Obama that may be far more damaging in the long run than any of Wright?s harrangues.

I am referring to Obama?s several recent statements that, as he asserted to reporters and editors of the Chicago Tribune on Friday, that Wright?s church ?is a very traditional African-American church....? Before the Wright wreck he had told the same thing to a group of 100 or so Jewish leaders in Cleveland last month:

It is a very conventional African American church. If you go to, if you were there at the church, you would be hearing gospel music and people preaching about Jesus. It is very conventional in that sense.

Of course they might also here Rev. Wright denouncing American and Israeli ?state terrorism? against the Palestinians, and that might have made them feel less than welcome.

Fox News has also noted Obama?s attempt to portray his church as just another conventional black American church.

Typically Obama says he has attended the church for 20 years and if one were to go, they?d find a ?very conventional African American church? where you would hear gospel music and ?people preaching about Jesus.? In Ohio just a few days ago, Obama told voters, ?You would feel at home if you were there.?

If Obama is right, and his and Wright?s Trinity United Church of Christ is a ?conventional,? typical, normal, black church, if most black ministers spew the hate that we?ve heard from Rev. Wright, the United States has a larger racial divide than most people realize.

Obama?s assertion is self-serving. If he can persuade people that his church is a simply conventionally black, then any criticism of Wright or his church can be dismissed as racist. More important, many commentators might be dissuaded from such criticism for fear of being called a racist.

I think Obama?s argument is flatly wrong. I don?t believe most black churches in the country are seething hotbeds of anti-Americanism. But perhaps even more striking, I think his argument undermines his own campaign. Insofar as he persuades people that Trinity United Church of Christ is typical of black churches, he will have persuaded many people that they do not want any product of such a church as president of the United States, and perhaps even in lesser offices and positions. He will, that is, have done more damage to race relations in the United States than even a Louis Farrakhan, George Wallace, Al Sharpton, or David Duke could do.

Full post as published by Discriminations on March 17, 2008 (boomark / email).