Its
amazing that Hillary Clinton of all people would try to capitalize off the flap over Obama. She acts like she's never been friends or been
around folks who have not said or done questionable things.
While she is busy condemning Pastor Wright, she's been slow to condemn her own Pastor William Procanick who is up on charges for in-appropriately touching a 7 year old girl. With respect to Obama's Pastor Jeremiah Wright Hillary should keep a few things in mind.
First, like him not Pastor Jeremiah Wright is enormously popular both within and outside the Black community. His popularity has not and will not wane. He is much much more then his out of context remarks. This means if she wants to start drawing off the mark conclusions about him she will be putting an even bigger wedge between her large numbers of of the Black community who are church goers.
Second, if anyone does the research you will find something very interesting which is there aren't too many Black churches that the Hillary and crew can go to in America where Pastor Wright has NOT spoken or at or been embraced.
What does that say about her support or supposed lack of support for 'hate speech'?
Next time I see a Hillary or her supporters come to our church here in Oakland seeking support (and they have in the past) Perhaps, they should be reminded that good ole Jeremiah has spoken here on numerous occasions to standing room only audiences long before we even heard of Barack Obama, hence maybe she should go elsewhere to seek support. After all, Hillary shouldn't want the support of people who like someone who she compared to an imbecile like Don Imus.
If I like Pastor Wright does that make me some sort of twisted individual who needs to be shunned and condemned the Bill O'Reilly-Sean Hannity crowd? Is Hillary now a part of that crowd?
Hillary should be careful because there are lots of other preachers who are relentless with their criticism of America. In my life time I've heard a number of sermons where Pastors have said some controversial and provocative things. I've heard pastors say that AIDs was punishment from God. I've heard preachers say that gays are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord while holding up their Bible.
I've been at churches where women aren't allowed to be in the leadership, much less speak from the pulpit. I've also heard preachers both Black and white talk about the wickedness of America and how God was frowning upon her because of our immoral behavior which ranges from infidelity in marriage to our love of certain types of music to us talking with people of other faiths. Lots of things get said from the pulpit.
Hearing about 9-11 and the chickens coming home to roost type speeches were and have not been unique to Pastor Wright. A number of Black churches talked about this in fiery tones. The reason why it seems like such a shock now is because anyone who had an opposing voice right after 9-11 were shut out of mainstream media. Take a look back at 9-11 and you'll see everyone from Jesse Jackson to Al Sharpton to other popular ministers who were unafraid to bite their tongues were never invited to sit alongside the throngs of generals and flag waving patriots who deemed anyone and everyone a traitor if they weren't riding hard for George Bush.
It was 'an either you with us or against us' type of attitude being bantered about on our television and radio airwaves.
The fact is many did speak out and every once in a while you caught glimpses of that.
Here in the Bay Area former San Francisco Supervisor Rev Amos Brown made remarks that questioned our foreign policy as being a possible cause for 9-11.
In NY on ABC's 'Like It Is' with host Gil Noble he had a number of Black clergy who raised those questions right after 9-11. The list goes on.
Lastly Hillary needs to really be careful cause I'm sure we can go back to the 60s and 70s when 'counter culture', free speech, anti-war and Black power were the order of the day. There were a whole lot of folks running around saying 'God-damn America' I'm sure if we look far and hard enough we'll find them.
Davey D
Yesterday Hillary Clinton spoke publicly about the controversy surrounding the remarks of Barack Obama's
longtime pastor, Rev.
Jeremiah Wright, telling the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.
" She also brought up Don Imus, saying:
"You know, I spoke out against Don Imus, saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that. I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving.
"
Imus was eventually fired from his gigs as both a radio and television host last April after referring disparagingly to African-American members of the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to speak out on the Imus matter, calling for his dismissal while NBC was still deliberating on the matter.
Obama told ABC News:
"I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus, but I would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude.
"
