This column was published on Saturday, May 24 in the East Valley Tribune as “Wright sermonizes about an America many don’t want to know.”
The column was actually written three weeks earlier–closer to the latest Wright controversy–but as Obama appears the likely Democratic candidate, the issue will continue through the Fall. Popular perception has Tucson’s Raza Studies program as “racist,” and Rev. Wright is considered a black separatist and unAmerican–though very few have actually read their materials. Two books that opponents of Raza Studies criticized at a House hearing in April, I looked at and could find nothing reflecting their critical comments, though one can see that they were written from either an indigenous or Latino standpoint–but not in the strong advocacy/hateful/separatist tone they were criticized for.
Likewise, anyone who has actually looked at the larger segments from sermons or read/viewed the Bill Moyers interview and the National Press Club appearance would hardly recognize the man being portrayed as some kind of unAmerican radical, Rev. Wright. Yes, he’s wrong on points of fact in a couple cases–government bringing drugs to cities and bringing HIV/AIDS. Yes, his language in sermons may at times seem over the top, but he’s made it his life’s work to try and improve the inner-city African-American community in Chicago and the social services work of his church on that speaks volumes.
That’s why I think this column remains important.
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“Columbus traveled with five Americans,” read the first line of a section of my fifth grade daughter’s Christopher Columbus report. I was puzzled. Where did she get such a notion? Read the rest of this entry »