Ruminations of an Expatriate

Last Night I watched the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright address the Detroit Chapter of the NAACP at its 53 annual “Fight for Freedom Fund” dinner. The reverend addressed the theme of the dinner “A Change is Going to Come.” To its credit, CNN broadcasted Rev. Wright’s speak in its entirety; and CNN commentators Soledad O’Orien and Rolland Martin, present for the address, I think provided thoughtful commentary.

This morning, though I missed Rev. Wright’s address to the National Press Club, I did watch the question and answer session which followed.

The guy is brilliant, affable, and was often quite funny in derisively answering some really insipid questions tendered by members of the National Press Club audience, not members of the working press at the moderator hastened to point out. There were also, I should note, some very thoughtful questions offered up. A number of times he preceded his answers to questions, obviously induced by what the questioner had seen in the YouTube video snippets of a sermon, by asking if the questioner had heard the entire sermon.

He noted that in his “the chickens have come home to roost” comments, during a sermon in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, he was quoting a former USA ambassador to Iraq. Exapanding on the subject, he indicated that the USA government cannot reign terror on other countries and then to not expect such will be reciprocated and noted that the USA had sold biological weapons materials to Saddam, during the Reagan years (a sale facilitated by none other than Rumsfeld and Cheney) for use against the Iranians.

One questioner questioned his patriotism, as have many media talking hairdos. He answered that folks who question his patriotism have not heard his sermons and do not know him. He indicated that he spent six years in the military and asked “how many years did Cheney serve?” Responding to those who have referred to him as a “divider” he indicated that he is a “describer” not a divider.

Rev. Wright’s address to the NAACP fund raising dinner repeatedly returned to the themes of “A Change is Going to Come”; and that our differences in race, religion, and culture do not mean that one group is deficient to another, only different. “In the past, we were taught to see others who are different as deficient, and that anybody not like us was abnormal.” “But a change is coming because we no longer see others who are different as deficient; we just see them as different.”

Making the point that no one in the USA, other than British residents, speak English, he imitated Kennedy’s New England and Johnson’s Texas dialects while noting that no one suggested they did not speak proper English, as is often suggested of African-Americans.

Addressing the subject of his church, Wright said “We just do it differently, and some of our haters can’t get their heads around that. I come from a religious tradition where we shout in the sanctuary and we march on the picket lines.” and “The African-American tradition is different. We do it in a different way.”

Wright indicated that “Many of us finally are committed to changing this world that we live in, so our children and our grandchildren will have a world in which to live in, to grow in, to learn in, to love in and to pass on to their children.” And, in closing, he remarked that a change is going to come on how we treat, and mistreat, each other; and enumerated that folks of different faiths will change how they think of and treat those of other faiths, those of a particular race will change how they think of and treat folks of other races, that straight folks will change how they think of and treat gay folks. Different not deficient.

Wright was eloquent and seemingly not the least bit intimidated by the talking hairdos who have derided him. In fact, I suspect that many of those pundits will rue their acts in moving Wright to center stage of the national discourse, as he is entirely capable of, and seemingly not the least bit reluctant in, publicly exposing their vacuity. Nor does the reverend seem reluctant to confront the racism which pervades USA society and its media; and now that he is retired from the pulpit, I suspect we’ll being a lot more from him.

Here is a transcript of Rev. Wright’s comments to the National Press Club.