By Scott Helman

Globe Staff / March 20, 2008

CHICAGO - From the moment Barack Obama first inserted himself into black life in Chicago, he bore the hallmarks of an outsider: light skin; Ivy League education; international background; and views on race, history, and country that were at odds with the aggrieved worldview of much of the city's black community.

 

On the streets of the South Side, where the Black Panther movement, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson flowered, Obama was mocked as a dispossessed newcomer who failed to grasp the historical urgency of the black struggle. "The white man in blackface," a political rival once called him.

 

Though Obama would later convince many black skeptics of his commitment to justice and equality, he made clear he would not be bound by their antagonism toward the white power structure.

 

"Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and toward black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us and that white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing," he told an interviewer in 1995, before his political career had begun. "But cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. . . . We've got communities to build."

 

Today, Obama is under attack from the other end of the spectrum, accused of tacitly endorsing the Afro-centrism and deeply critical views of America expressed by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. To those who know Obama and have followed the arc of his career, the charge makes little sense against a man they have long considered a beacon of a colorblind future.

 

But to critics, Obama's decision to associate himself for 20 years with a church that preaches black nationalism - an association that once helped establish his credibility in the black community - prompts serious questions about his patriotism, judgment, and allegiances.

 

The episode, which Obama sought to put behind him with Tuesday's widely broadcast speech on race, has become the biggest challenge yet to his campaign's underlying message: that he is uniquely positioned to write America's next chapter because of his capacity to bridge the divides of race, class, ethnicity, generation, and political party. Wright's fiery rhetoric, including his suggestion in one sermon that "God damn America" was more appropriate than "God bless America," has enraged some voters.

 

Dwight Hopkins, a professor of theology at the University of Chicago and a fellow member of Wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ, said Obama did not fully grasp the "intense anger and resentment" that Wright's rhetoric would stir in voters who consider it offensively antipatriotic.

 

"I think he grasps it now," Hopkins said. "He got baptized."

 

As Hopkins and others familiar with Obama's career watched his speech Tuesday, they were struck by the irony that a politician once considered too beholden to the establishment would now be condemned as such a threat to it.

 

"It's one extreme or another," said Naseem Abdul-Majib, a barber who knows Obama from his Hyde Park neighborhood. "Barack is balanced. Just like he stated in his speech, his story is a story you couldn't find anywhere else but here. It's a success story."

 

Obama first came to know Trinity as a community organizer, not as a committed Christian. It was one of many churches he worked with after moving to Chicago after college to take a $12,000-a-year job helping communities hit hard by steel plant closings.

 

But Obama, at Wright's urging, came to embrace Trinity as a spiritual home. Part of the church's appeal was its deep roots in the black community, something Obama himself lacked - and yearned for - having grown up in Hawaii and Indonesia. In Obama's telling, it was Wright who brought him to Jesus and welcomed him into a faith community that today is 8,000 strong. Wright officiated the wedding of Obama and his wife, Michelle, and baptized their two daughters.

 

When Wright took over as pastor, in 1972, Trinity's congregation was tiny, but it had a clearly articulated sense of self. Its motto was and continues to be "unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian."

 

Over the next 36 years, Wright, who retired last month, established dozens of programs to help parishioners while standing up for HIV/AIDS patients, gays and lesbians, women in the clergy, and the antiapartheid movement in South Africa. His followers know him as "Rev," or "Doc," or "Pastor."

 

Wright was never a Pollyanna about race relations. He railed against white attitudes toward African-Americans and preached self-sufficiency to his black worshipers. Phrases like "God damn America," those who know Wright say, reflected not a fierce anti-Americanism but a deserved, if provocative, indictment of a country that had been hostile to blacks.

 

"This is what I would call the traditional black critique of America, that basically America is flawed on race," said Harwood McClerking, a specialist on race and politics at Ohio State University. "That's a contested premise."

 

Especially in the hot glare of a presidential race.

 

"Do such beliefs translate into a political agenda tailored to African-Americans?" Investor's Business Daily asked in an editorial early last year, when Obama, seeking to distance himself from Wright's views, disinvited Wright from giving the invocation at his campaign kickoff. "Would Obama, despite his agreeably race-neutral and nonthreatening public persona, govern and petition on behalf of one group and not necessarily for the greater good of the country?"

 

Obama's critics have also sought to sew the Wright controversy into a broader narrative about Obama's views on America, raising his decision not to wear a flag lapel pin and Michelle Obama's recent comment that this was the first time in her adult life that she was "really proud" of America. (Obama has said the pin became a substitute for true patriotism; Michelle Obama later said she meant to express pride in all the new voters participating in the primary process.)

 

But those who know Wright and Obama bristle at what they say is a caricature being painted irresponsibly by the news media.

 

"Out of that supposedly racist, nationalist, hateful church comes a man who has done more to pull people together, to talk about unity, give people hope, cause people to be inspired and patriotic like I haven't seen in my lifetime," said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, the outspoken white pastor of St. Sabina, a largely black Roman Catholic parish on Chicago's South Side.

 

Gathering for a small prayer service at Trinity yesterday, about two dozen worshipers expressed pride in their church and their former pastor. The Rev. Barbara A. Heard, an associate pastor, urged them to have faith that the church will emerge from this rocky period.

 

"They didn't know when they would come out of slavery," Heard said, using a historical analogy to remind the faithful of God's power. "But they knew who would bring them out of slavery."

 

They ended the service with the hymn "Victory Is Mine."

 

For his part, Obama is now reorienting his campaign for the critical weeks ahead after what he acknowledges has been a major distraction. Obama used his Tuesday speech to again repudiate Wright's most inflammatory remarks but also to reassert his faith that Americans of all creeds and colors want to get past the divisive politics, racial and otherwise, of the past.

 

"I would not be running for president if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country," he said. "This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected."

 

"What more do you want a person to say?" asked Obama's barber, who goes by one name, Zariff. "Let's get back to the business of getting the country back on track."

 

 

 

 

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles...on_race/?page=1

Obama was one of the people calling for the firing of Don Imus (ABC, April 11, 2007), saying that he himself would not permit anybody on his campaign that talked about people of any creed in the way Imus referenced the Baylor women's basketball team.

 

"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. He didn't just cross the line, he fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two young daughters are having to deal with today in America."

 

Rev. Wright is far worse than Don Imus, and totally unapologetic. Maybe Obama only meant if a white person made such a comment...

Obama was one of the people calling for the firing of Don Imus (ABC, April 11, 2007), saying that he himself would not permit anybody on his campaign that talked about people of any creed in the way Imus referenced the Baylor women's basketball team.

 

"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. He didn't just cross the line, he fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two young daughters are having to deal with today in America."

 

Rev. Wright is far worse than Don Imus, and totally unapologetic. Maybe Obama only meant if a white person made such a comment...

oh come on man, thats ridiculous...everyone who has ever been to any church or temple has had a religious leader say something that a bit extreme...it doesnt mean that we are extremists for having listened to it...pure absurd BS

Rev Wright doesn't work for Obama....and Obama openly disapproves of what Wright said.

Rev Wright doesn't work for Obama....and Obama openly disapproves of what Wright said.

And what would you expect Obama to do, be openly approving of what Wright said? He is running for President after all. That aside, the article in this post did more for me and my view of Obama than anything Obama could say in a speech. It was well written.

Politicians say many things in speeches and after all these years of listening to them, it is difficult to see why anyone takes speeches at face value. Listen to them, analyze them and add them to an information base to make a sound and hopefully good decision come election time. And no one should fool themselves, Obama is a politician. He knew who to align himself with very early in his career.

Who says Obama is not a politician? And why is it relevent to point it out? I agree that he is a politician (I mean, only politicians run for office, right, so that goes without saying). From my perspective, he's a different kind of politician. But it's not like I don't expect him to be political.

He stood by Wright for 20 years. I think it's obvious he now disapproves of Wright out of political necessity. If you take politics out of it, I think Obama would be right there next to Wright.

He stood by Wright for 20 years. I think it's obvious he now disapproves of Wright out of political necessity. If you take politics out of it, I think Obama would be right there next to Wright.

 

 

 

 

Pure speculation.

 

 

I'll go ahead and speculate that in the majority of predominantly black churches there is an underlying theme of the oppression that blacks experienced anything pre-1970's. A theme that white America surely can not wrap around their heads.

 

Lets face it, this story is the predictable "what can we do to completely destroy this guy's chances of getting elected". It's almost desperate. I am by no means an Obama fanboy but to condemn this man for his preacher's antics is laughable.

Very well said Don.

 

 

 

 

He stood by Wright for 20 years. I think it's obvious he now disapproves of Wright out of political necessity. If you take politics out of it, I think Obama would be right there next to Wright.

 

"right there next to him", meaning what?

 

Have there been any articles of Obama making those kinds of comments in the past? No.

"right there next to him", meaning what?

Right there next to him in terms of values and beliefs.

 

There's some who think Obama was a 20-year member of Wright's church not because he agreed with the church's positions but out of political necessity to establish himself in local Chicago politics. That could be the case as well but I don't think so.

This whole 'controversy' really makes me angry. There are so many more important issues that are not being addressed in this campaign, and now this is going to overshadow the rest of them.

 

I mean, he has already said more than once that he does not agree whatsoever with his former pastor's statements. It's also not like Rev. Wright has been speaking on his behalf for this campaign. That would be a much different story. I think the posted article shows how Obama has no links to this pastor intellectually, which was what I believed beforehand.

 

Meanwhile, John McCain has been cozying up to some of the most extreme Evangelical preachers in the country, from Pat Robertson (saying that gays, abortionists, lesbians, feminists, etc. were responsible for 9/11, and then Katrina) and John Hagee (called Catholicism 'the great whore', and had some disgusting remarks about women), to Rod Parsley (who has openly called for a holy war against Islam). Because clearly, in a time where the US has never been more involved in the Islamic world, we need a President who's 'spiritual advisor' says we need to wage war against Islam, because that's what this country was founded on. You have to be kidding.

well said future gm, anyone who focuses in on this needs to just stop paying attention to fox news

Right there next to him in terms of values and beliefs.

I'm going to ask if you have any basis for saying that, but I already know the answer.

Who says Obama is not a politician? And why is it relevent to point it out? I agree that he is a politician (I mean, only politicians run for office, right, so that goes without saying). From my perspective, he's a different kind of politician. But it's not like I don't expect him to be political.

You said absolutely nothing. Where, oh where, anywhere is it said that you were saying Obama is not a politician. And what is wrong with the relevance of making a statement-because you think it bolsters your point of view by indicating that you do not think my comment is relevant? How simple it is to discount your own points by asking what relevance is it that you think he is a "different kind of politician". And what does that mean? Followed by you "don't expect him not to be political". I just had to repeat your remarks-they are funny. You don't expect him not to be political, but probably in a different sort of political way. Doublespeak and triplespeak.

Right there next to him in terms of values and beliefs.

I'm going to ask if you have any basis for saying that, but I already know the answer.

This is my opinion based on that I have a hard time believing anyone could be a member of an organization engulfed with so much anti-americanism and racism over such an extended period of time and not share the organization's core values and beliefs.

Right there next to him in terms of values and beliefs.

I'm going to ask if you have any basis for saying that, but I already know the answer.

This is my opinion based on that I have a hard time believing anyone could be a member of an organization engulfed with so much anti-americanism and racism over such an extended period of time and not share the organization's core values and beliefs.

 

I didn't realize you had attended this church for 20 years and have been witness to so much anti-americanism and racism. It couldn't be that you are judging the entire history of the church by one 20 second video clip.

Who says Obama is not a politician? And why is it relevent to point it out? I agree that he is a politician (I mean, only politicians run for office, right, so that goes without saying). From my perspective, he's a different kind of politician. But it's not like I don't expect him to be political.

You said absolutely nothing. Where, oh where, anywhere is it said that you were saying Obama is not a politician. And what is wrong with the relevance of making a statement-because you think it bolsters your point of view by indicating that you do not think my comment is relevant? How simple it is to discount your own points by asking what relevance is it that you think he is a "different kind of politician". And what does that mean? Followed by you "don't expect him not to be political". I just had to repeat your remarks-they are funny. You don't expect him not to be political, but probably in a different sort of political way. Doublespeak and triplespeak.

 

It is not doublespeak and triplespeak, it is called nuance, which apparently you don't have the ability to comprehend.

Very disappointed that Obama has chosen to associate himself for 20 years with someone so consumed by hate

Very disappointed that Obama has chosen to associate himself for 20 years with someone so consumed by hate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOLZ!!!!!11111

well said future gm, anyone who focuses in on this needs to just stop paying attention to fox news

 

Fox News?

Does anyone here have any racist friends? How about coworkers? Class mates? Does anyone here have anyone in their close group of people that have ever said anything offensive? If you say no, you are a liar.

Does anyone here have any racist friends? How about coworkers? Class mates? Does anyone here have anyone in their close group of people that have ever said anything offensive? If you say no, you are a liar.

Exactly.

Does anyone here have any racist friends? How about coworkers? Class mates? Does anyone here have anyone in their close group of people that have ever said anything offensive? If you say no, you are a liar.

 

Exactly my point. This is what I asked someone repeatedly in the other thread who was getting his panties in a wad over nothing and I never received an answer. It is convenient to attack others, but when you look in the mirror you might realize you're being a hypocrite.

Does anyone here have any racist friends? How about coworkers? Class mates? Does anyone here have anyone in their close group of people that have ever said anything offensive? If you say no, you are a liar.

 

It's one thing knowing a racist and another thing to freely go and listen to a racist talk. That's the difference. If I had a racist friend who I hang out with, I still would not listen to him preach about race and God. Big, big difference.

well said future gm, anyone who focuses in on this needs to just stop paying attention to fox news

 

Fox News?

this is the kind of crap that fox news lives for...and well said bobbob...everyone knows racists...everyone hangs out with racists...it doesnt make them bad people...just a bit misguided