If you read even a little bit about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and if you do so with an open mind, you can’t help but come away impressed. This guy is the “real deal,” a real American hero who served his country in the armed services, earned his degrees the old fashioned way, through sweat and hard work, built his church literally from nothing (82 members to over 10,000 over the span of thirty years), and has never shied away from controversy in the name of serving the underprivileged. As I sat down and read a little bit about the inspirational leadership style he brought to his neck of the woods in Chicago and some of the eloquent messages he has given over the years I came away with a completely different perspective on the man now in the likely position of derailing the candidacy of the one who might have become the first black President of the United States.
What went wrong?
Somewhere along the way Jeremiah the “prophet” couldn’t separate himself from the classic black struggle of the 60’s civil rights era long enough to realize that Obama, his ersatz protégé, had redefined the voice of the black community. Wright can’t reckon with the fact that Obama has managed to connect with an audience that transcends race boundaries in a way Wright himself no longer can, if he ever could.
Wright’s ego has run amok and now Obama is left to deal with the fallout.
Wright is reminiscent of the Sharpton and Jackson style of bombast and conflict more than the new, race-neutral, coalition-building Obama style. Where Obama recognizes and articulates the common pain and plight of all those (of any color) who have been left behind by the wealth train of a narcissistic U.S. economic policy over the past thirty years, Wright dwells on the historic black plight to the point of exclusion of all others. Wright now more resembles the “crazy uncle” sitting in the corner of the dinner party than the motivational leader he once was. He is the guy who says whatever is on his mind whenever he feels like saying it. Times have passed Wright by even if his core message of equality for all hasn’t.
Jeremiah Wright is an old dog that can’t be taught new tricks. He came up in an era when pulpit pounding articulated the anger and bitterness of a race held under the boot of a self-interested majority. Turning down the volume on his rhetoric at this juncture is not just unlikely; it’s improbable. He simply can’t relate to the more subtle, inclusive style of Obama, and now finds himself on the outside of a transformational political juggernaut for which Wright sees himself largely responsible from a historical perspective.
He, and others of his generation, paved the way for Obama. He seems now to resent Obama for downplaying classic race-oriented civil empowerment struggles in the name of a common economic struggle that knows no racial distinctions.
Jeremiah Wright’s thirst for the public spotlight has bubbled to the surface in the most embarrassing and ill-timed way possible. At the very moment when Obama looked like he could finally fulfill the promise of the life-and-death civil rights struggles of the 50s and 60s, Wright thrust his hand upward from the abyss of black anger and latched onto Obama’s leg with a death grip.
Jeremiah Wright must recognize that what is wrong with this country is no longer as race-based as it once was. Race is still a factor, no doubt. One needs look no further than the persistence of racial profiling to know it is. Economic status, however, is the new civil rights struggle of our age. Wright must shelve his ego long enough to realize that his classically black-focused struggle is fading to irrelevance as the country increasingly divides along class lines; lines that transcend color, lines defined not by lineage but by bank account.
Jeremiah Wright’s ego and thirst for public recognition has ironically undermined the very cause for which he has struggled for decades; black leadership that is taken seriously by the nation as a whole.