Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Reverend Jeremiah Wright Breaks His Silence


Jeremiah Wright, in a rare media appearance, told Sirius XM Satellite Radio's Mark Thompson that he understands why Obama distanced himself from him, but doesn't forgive the media the way it covered him.

His reaction to Obama's victory, he said, was a "mixed bag of being proud of him and being blessed to have lived" through the moment, and pain at being "put up by the media" as a "weapon of mass destruction to destroy his candidacy."

Wright, who posed what may have been the deepest challenge to Obama's candidacy, and provoked its most racially-charged moments, is now a footnote to a winning campaign. He opened little new ground, and expressed joy that his former friend was now president, and no remorse at his own role.

The negative press, and the final wave of negative ads, had been particularly painful, he said.

"I sort of never realized how that affects my family, what that does to my kids or my grandkids," he said.

Wright also seemed to dispute the notion that the inflammatory moments that aired on cable television and the Internet were out of character, though he said they were out of context.

"I’ve been preaching the same thing for 40 years," he said, saying that white audiences couldn't be expected to understand a form of worship they'd never seen, and was once practiced in secret.

He also said that Obama's chief political advisor had been the one who pressed for rescinding his invitation to perform the invocation at Obama's campaign launch in Springfield, referring to David Axelrod's "not wanting me to give a public invocation."

Wright also repeated his perception -- which helped convince Obama to cut him off after initially refusing to in his speech on race -- that politics was part of his former congregant's calculus.

"He’s running for the presidency of the United States of America, which is a country where blacks are a minority," he said. "To get the votes that he needs in electoral politics, he has to distance himself from me, because his support would dry up when certain parts of the constituency found out who I was."

His greatest disappointment, he said, wasn't in Obama, but in some of his fellows in the black church, who "just rolled over and played dead while we in the black church continue to be hammered for who we are."


Source

I was angered by the ads that ran in the final days of the campaign because they were gratuitous and harmful. But they didn't work.

God don't like ugly.

7 comments:

SouthernGirl2 said...

The Media tried it best to derail Barack Obama's campaign by running the Rev Wright clips constantly!

LOL..... In your face MSM!

Hey now!

Faith at Acts of Faith Blog said...

Yeah I can think of a few of those Black 'preachers' who stood by the cash register and did NOTHING. Td Jakes, Creflo Dollar and their ilk.

Lenoxave said...

This is still so sad abour Rev. Wright & Obama. Sad that their long friendship is over in such a way. Awful!

Anonymous said...

I just have to say that this was about MORE than style of worship. The last nail in the coffin was Wright's arrogance at the press conference which was immature, out of line, and obscured the importance of and historical nature of liberation theology. When he clowned himself (throwing up Q signs etc he made a mockery of himself AND the Black Church.

rikyrah said...

I'm with Evita.

The Moyers Interview was fine.
The NAACP Speech was fine.

He must own that clowning performance at the NPC.

Craig Hickman said...

Rev. Wright showed his ass at the press club, to be sure.

rikyrah, was it you who suggested he did it because it was the only way Barack would break from him?

LISA VAZQUEZ said...

Hello there!

I know that Dr. Wright was slandered by the white media and he was used in order to incite fear with whites.

It worked!

"Is THIS what the blacks are saying about us?!"

Yes...in many black churches throughout the country... THAT is what is being said from the pulpit. Dr. Wright is not the first to speak harshly about the U.S. government and about race relations from the sacred desk...most of the black preachers do.

Dr. Wright did not say anything about Obama that was not true.

Obama DID have a political motive for distancing himself from Dr. Wright.

The white media wants to DICTATE who black public officials can be friends with and who they can not be friends with...unfortunately...Obama decided to follow their desires.

If a good friend is lynched along the way... a person who lead you to Christ...then oh well...the Oval Office matters more than the principle of standing by the friends who stood behind you.

Right?

Obama...a Hawaiian biracial man... did not have any black cred in Chicago AT ALL until he was associated in the black community as a close friend of Dr. Wright ...who was and still is widely respected. He was happy to be part of the "bougie" black mega church of Chicago where all the movers and shakers attended...when it benefited him politically to do so.

Dr. Wright was not even the pastor of the church when Obama rescinded his membership!! Another leader was already installed.

So...now it is over. Obama won. His ex-friend is still going to be in the media...is still going to be preaching...and his shine has not been dampered at all among the black clergy. I wish more of them would have stood to defend him.