Wednesday, March 19, 2008

God Damn Amerika.....part 2

Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright are in hot water. Newspapers and news stations across the world have been reporting on Wright’s “inflammatory rhetoric” (as Obama’s campaign is calling it) in 2003 when he called upon his Chicago congregation to reject the hymn “God Bless America” and instead shout “God Damn America.” Wright denounced the United States for historically advocating terrorism for its own purposes, for refusing to offer help to the hopeless, and for oppressing minorities. “God damn American for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” The re-surfacing of these comments has led Obama and his camp to scramble. They are now distancing themselves from Wright and, in reaction, some African Americans feel betrayed by Obama.

What is striking, historically, is that there is nothing new in Wright’s sermon and how often African American perspectives on so-called American Christian nationalism are ignored. It seems that each year, at least a handful of books come out trying to discern whether the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.” Most recently, this can be seen in Steven Waldman’s Liberating the Founders. But so often historians have approached the topic from the perspective of elite whites, and not the people who were building the nation from its foundation, hoeing the fields and raising the cotton, washing the clothes and preparing the meals. (One exception to this is David Howard-Pitney’s wonderful The African-American Jeremiad.) If we look closely at African American perspectives of Christian nationalism, we find Reverend Wright firmly in a long oppositional and rhetorical tradition.

Good stuff eh? read the whole thing.....here

4 Comments:

At 3/20/2008 6:57 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

I am not an African American or a Christian. As you know. Allow me to suggest a book "Out of America" by Keith R. Richburg, as an alternative view of the black experience in America.

If you really want to wallow in it, i will be glad to send you the MS of my latest book, "A Cakewalk Down the Color Line; the Black White interface in American Music."

The research for that book taught me that everything i thought i knew about race in America was pretty much wrong, at least as it applied to music.

Just send me an email for a file, or post your address on my blog for a hard copy.

 
At 3/20/2008 11:41 AM, Blogger Paul said...

Steve, my thoughts in regards to my recent posts pertain most specifically to the atrocities committed by the US with the implied sanctions of the church.
Whether or not the Reverend Wright is a racist is another debate entirely, and I would be happy to discuss race, racism and other isms in general in another post yet to come.
I am using the opportunity that Reverend Wright has afforded me to expound upon the concept that christian citizens of the US are hypocrites. I think it is high time they shit or get off the pot on their high and mighty attitde that WE can do no wrong in the eyes of this supposed god they all refer to.
I know the bible can and is interpreted in many ways, usually to suit to speaker, but the truth of the matter is that the words handed down directly from god to moses state specifically......
"Though Shalt Not Kill"
I think the time has come for these great christians to either live by the words or reject their god as an anachronism, no longer relevent to this world as we know it.

 
At 3/20/2008 1:08 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Moses was not a Christian either. And the Black Liberation Theology does not care much about foreign policy either, except as it relates to Africa and Israel.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/31079.html

I'm not defending America's foreign policy, i just think you are using the wrong stick to beat that dog with. There is no need to piss people off with "god damn America," when the majority of people want to get out of Iraq, and probably a large minority want to stay farther away from Israel.

My red neck buddies always support the troops, reflexively, but they also say, "Those people been killing each other for thousands of years, none of our business."

For example, McCain's weakest point is his support for the war. That's where to attack him, imho, not by raising people's hackles with recycled Black Marxism.

But i'm just suggesting tactics, not disagreeing with the goals.

Those three words cost Obama millions of votes, and may have cost him the election. Time will tell.

You want those same words to be used to help continue the war?

 
At 3/20/2008 3:22 PM, Blogger Paul said...

Steve, I'm saying what I feel and if that pisses people off, I'm sorry. But if what I'm saying is true, then things need to change and how's that gonna happen if I shut up?
I don't think any of the candidates will get us out of Iraq.
McCain sucks at economics too. And the different tribes in Iraq actually were peacefully co-existing before we invaded.

 

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