Does Barack Hussein Obama Damn AmeriKKKa?

Barack Hussein Obama has tried to excuse the inflammatory, anti-America preaching of his Pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In 2003, Wright preached, "The government gives them [blacks] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America 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 congregants cheered lustily, which tells me this is not the first time they have heard such pronouncements and obviously agree with heartily.

Obama compared Wright to "an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with" during a meeting with Jewish leaders in Ohio. Obama defended his continued membership in Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Calling the above remarks "completely unacceptable and inexcusable," he went on to say if they had been "the repeated tenor of the church ... I wouldn't feel comfortable there."

At the same time, Obama attempted to distance himself from Wright whom Obama has called his "mentor" and "spiritual guide" who led him to Christ. "I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue." Wright has resigned from Obama's African American Religious Leadership Committee. Obama's political hacks argue that there should be no guilt by association accusations against Obama. I, for one, am not buying it.

First, if any pastor of mine told my congregation to "damn America" and I was in attendance, I would be immediately out of my seat and out the door. Such words would have left any church I have belonged to or attended in shocked silence, not wild cheers. Because of that, I might stay a member long enough to try to have such a pastor fired. If that did not happen, I would quit a church with such a pastor in a heartbeat no matter how long I had been a member.
However, this was not the first time Wright used "inflammatory rhetoric," a description made by Obama's aides. No, Wright has "a long history" of such sermons. As far back as 1971, Wright asked his congregation, "Are we going to be a black church in the black community, or are we going to continue to be a white church in blackface?"

Quoted in Rolling Stone, Wright spoke at Howard University, "Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run! ... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God ... And. And And! Gawd! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS SHIT!"

Imagine how 9/11 survivors and victims' families must feel to hear Wright's sermon immediately after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost." In other words, Wright considered the 9/11 attacks America's "just desserts." Obama minimized this as Wright just being “provocative.”

The church advertises its Africentrism, calling itself "unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian." The Church's website proclaims, “We are an African people and remain true to our native land, the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.” According to Christian Century, "Bible courses at Trinity emphasize the African roots of Christianity ... In his preaching Wright goes out of his way to describe Moses as 'an African prince' and his wife as a 'raven-black' beauty.” Obviously geographically challenged, “Wright calls the Holy Land ‘northeast Africa.’ He declares that Jesus himself had 'nappy hair' and 'bronze skin' (he cites Rev. 1:14-15)."

Is this why Wright compared Obama to Jesus in a December 2007 sermon? Wright stated Jesus was “a poor black man who lived in a country and who lived in a culture controlled by rich white people.” Wright went on, "Barack knows what it means to be a black man to be living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain't never been called a nigger." [Note: This sermon has brought Trinity United Church of Christ under IRS investigation for violations of rules forbidding non-profit organizations from endorsing political candidates.]

Of course, I cannot fail to mention the honoring of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan with a lifetime achievement award by the church's magazine. Less often cited is Wright's pastor's letter lauding Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy leader of Hamas and a known terrorist, who has a "virulently anti-Israel stance."

Obama's repudiation has been tepid, at best. "Reverend Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor and to seek justice at every turn." Unbelievably, Obama said, "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial." Yet, Christian Century magazine declared, "There is no denying ... that a strand of radical black political theology influences Trinity."

Trinity UCC wrote a statement of its beliefs regarding black economics entitled The Black Value System. On the church's website, they state, "Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System, written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee, chaired by the late Vallmer Jordan in 1981 ... These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered." One section is entitled "The Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness.” It teaches the adoption of a black value system will prevent "warping by our racist competitive society." The evil of "middleclassness," according to the document, includes tools of "captors" such as assassinations, murder, crime, concentration camps, jails, prisons, and hypnotic suggestion of superiority. It warns against "the psychological entrapment of Black 'middleclassness'.”

The document goes on to require adherents to "pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the black community, pledge to allocate regularly a portion of personal resources for strengthening and supporting black institutions, and to pledge allegiance to all black leadership who espouse and embrace the black value system." This harkens back to Marx's Communist Manifesto, which advocates collectivism.

Commitment to the Black Value System will be evidenced if adherents "measure the worth and validity of all activity in terms of positive contributions to the general welfare of the Black Community and the Advancement of Black People towards freedom." Yet, Obama says, "I would be puzzled that they [white critics] would object or quibble with the bulk of a document [The Black Value System] that basically espouses profoundly conservative values of self-reliance and self-help." According to Investor's Business Daily in a January 15, 2008 article, Obama pledged his allegiance to The Black Value System in 1991 when he joined the church. On capitalism, Obama says he has learned to distrust “the idolatry of the free market” thanks to the teachings of his church.

It is clear that Obama does not get it. Neither does Obama-endorser Oprah Winfrey, another member of Trinity United Church of Christ, according to Christian Century. There are two possible explanations of Obama's defense of Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ.
One is that Obama rarely attends church. Thus, he has not been in attendance often enough to hear the hate Wright preaches. In fact, "I wasn't there" was Obama's first argument. "The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation," wrote Obama in The Huffington Post. However, in his speech on race to answer critics of his association with Wright, Obama admitted he had heard some of Wright's more controversial statements. "Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes." If Obama truly believes "Reverend Wright preached the gospel of Jesus," then it also tells me Obama does not know his Bible.

The other explanation is that Obama agrees with Wright, despite his protests that he does not. One simply does not remain a member of a church if one is in profound disagreement with its teachings. Either Obama is not particularly disturbed by his church's preachings or he agrees with them. His wife Michelle appears to agree when she remarked on February 18, 2008, that "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country." Disinviting Wright from appearing at his presidential campaign's beginning, Obama explained to Wright, “'You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.'” But privately, Obama and his family prayed with Wright just before the presidential announcement. I agree with Brad Blakeman of Freedom’s Watch, “Silence is an admission that you agree with what your spiritual advisor pronounces.”

Obama is hoping he can take cover over the fact that Wright recently retired. "With Reverend Wright's retirement and the ascension of my new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss III, Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good." It may not matter. Moss, described Trinity United Church of Christ, "We're a black church first--one that just happens historically to be UCC." Briefly removed from the church's website, The Black Value System is back like an evil poltergeist. In his Easter service, Moss railed against the "public lynching" of Wright by the media and solicited donations for a "Resurrection Fund" to defend the church from attacks. Moss stated, "The Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s character is being assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe."

Mortimer B. Zuckerman wrote in an opinion piece for U.S. News & World Report: "Pastor Wright was not some cranky old uncle. He was a public preacher, endorsed by Obama with his continued presence. And a senator and now presidential candidate isn't just an ordinary church member. Doesn't such a public figure as Obama have an obligation to denounce anti-American bigotry as well as those who praise bigots? Wasn't he aware that this kind of preaching doesn't just affect adults but infects and exposes a younger generation to precisely the kinds of racism that Obama says he is committed to transcending? Doesn't it undermine his role as a racial healer when he implies that the inflammatory comments of his pastor were somehow made understandable by history? What else could be justified by this logic?"

Sean Hannity on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes correctly points to the racial double-standard in the media's coverage of Obama and his "unashamedly black" church with its "Black Value System." “If you substitute the word black for white, there would be an outrage in this country. There would be cries of racism in this country.” Imagine if John McCain belonged to an "unashamedly white" church with a "White Value System."

Another commentator, Tucker Carlson of MSNBC, described Trinity as having a "racially exclusive theology" that "contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity." Black columnist Erik Rush asks, "Is Obama seeking to be our first black president, or our first stealth black nationalist president?" Rush went on to say this should be as alarming as a Republican presidential candidate "belonging to the Aryan Brethren Church of Christ." This is why I wrote the “Republican Politician’s Fairy Tale” in my previous post.

Sources:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080315/ap_on_el_pr/obama_pastor_17;_ylt=Ag6hUN9EQltILjDRsUgCOQ4E1vAI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1985156/posts
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http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/02/19/cindy-mccain-michelle-obama-in-patriotism-flap/
Nedra Pickler, "Obama Denounces Pastor's 9/11 Comments," in USA Today, March 14, 2008 [http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2008-03-14-3721253854_x.htm]
"Africentric church: a visit to Chicago's Trinity UCC" in Christian Century [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_11_124/ai_n19328537/pg_1]
"The Black Value System"by the Trinity UCC [http://www.tucc.org/black_value_system.html]
"Obama's Church" editorial in The Investors Business Daily, January 15, 2008 [http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=285292746454291]
http://www.firesociety.com/forum/thread/21228/-quot-Obama-s-Church-quot--He-pledged-allegiance-to-something-called-the-Black-Value-System--which-is-a-code-of-non-Biblical-ethics-written-by-blacks--for-blacks./
Lisa Lerer & Mike Allen, "Church Accuses Media of 'Crucifixion'," March 16, 2008 http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9062.html
Ronald Kessler, "Barack Obama's Racist Church" [http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/Obama_Church_Racism/2008/01/07/62285.html]
"Obama Speech in Full: A More Perfect Union," The Drudge Report, March 18, 2008, [http://drudgereport.com/flashos.htm]
Judson Berger, "In Easter Sermon, New Obama Pastor Charges Rev. Wright Victim of 'Lynching'," Fox News, March 23, 2008 [http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/03/23/in-eastor-sermon-trinity-united-pastor-compares-rev-wright-to-jesus/]
Mortimer B. Zuckerman, "Obama's Double Standard on Reverend Wright" in U.S. News & World Report [http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/mzuckerman/2008/03/28/obamas-double-standard-on-reverend-wright.html]
Erik Rush, "Obamination: Barack Obama's Black Supremacist Connection," http://www.therealitycheck.org/StaffWriter/erush022007.htm
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/03/17/trinity-united-church-of-christ-makes-changes-to-web-site/