What kind of country do we live in that forces a man to repudiate his father in order to continue to run for President? What perverse rite of passage is this that we Americans have demanded of Senator Obama? A rite in which pundits cheer over disconnection, and caricature, and pontificate about "the right thing" without having listened to anything of substance that has been said by Senator Obama, by black religious leaders, and by Reverend Wright himself? How many white people have bothered to listen to Reverand Wright's entire speech at the Press Club? Not just the Q and A where he had to answer excruciatingly difficult questions, that he could barely hear? How many white people have listened to his sermons rather than the endless YouTube soundbites? How many people watched TV newscasters, not even commentators, opinionate so loudly and hysterically over the Q and A segment that one could barely hear the Reverand speak? Telling us what to think because they were so freaked out over what? That Reverand Wright made a joke that he could be VP? The Press Club is famous for humor. Why could he not have a moment of it without white people literally going crazy? It reminded me of the psychotic racism that James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner wrote of. Plugging in one's ears and refusing to listen to what is being said. Or worse, distorting, charicaturing and demeaning a man's words, and his right to speak. Reverand Wright wasn't at that press club all alone. He was surrounded by people who were distraught at the mockery that was being made. He was there because black religious leaders all over the county have been shocked at how the black church, and he, and Senator Obama have been villified by the pundits, the press, and the (mostly white) public. Many of these leaders were upset that Senator Obama rejected Wright's words at the beginning of his first speech on race.
Senator Obama knew that only soundbites would be picked up from his speech, not the content, not the deep wisdom in his words. So he chose to distance himself from the Reverand in the first line of his talk. Then he went on to say what was truly important. But guess what, it didn't matter that Senator Obama distanced himself from Reverand Wright in his first lines; it didn't matter that the Senator gave a magnificent speech on race, on connections between people, on the importance of staying together with one's family, of reaching out across differences. It didn't matter because no one in mainstream white America was going to listen. They were just going to play the rerums of the old YouTube snippets over and over again. I imagine that the Senator began to truly understand what it feels like not to be listened to, not to be granted the right to be heard. And then Obama started losing his footing a bit. Making awkward remarks, and appearing subdued and distanced in a tremendously important debate. And people said, Oh he's lost his touch, he doesn't have it, blah, blah, blah. And I started to have my own doubts. But now that I see what has happened since, I wonder if perhaps Senator Obama was in the process of wrestling with perhaps the most soul wrenching question of his life. Would he have to repudiate his own "father", the man who married him and Michele, the man who baptized his children, the man whose phrase, "The Audacity of Hope" became the title of his second book in order to continue his run for the Presidency? I imagine that he was being told that is what he would have to do. What an unbearable, and tragic choice. And what a recreation of one of the most horrific legacies of our so called nation. Black families for generations have had to repudiate their fathers in order to get food stamps. Slaves had to give up on families, as they were torn apart and destroyed by rape and other untold forms of degradation. And now this man is being forced, so that he might have a chance to lead this country into some form of hope, to reject his tie to this man who mentored him, cared for him, and led one of the most extraordinarily dedicated churches in America. And what is the value that is being touted? Be tough. Hillary would have gotten rid of someone who was a liability right away, say the pundits. Would she have had to turn on a mother who raised her, or a man who stood in for her father? I doubt it. The rules for white women in this country are tough, but they are not that tough, not that crazy. We have become increasingly a country that thrives on disconnection, alienation, and distraction, cutting of ties, we live on two minute connections. But even worse our racist legacy lives on as vivid and psychotic and malevolent as it was in the 1930's and the 40's and the 50's and the 60's. An acquaintance of mine who is black listened to me when I told him that an Egyptian friend found American preoccupation with our history of racism strange and foreign to her. Too binary. Too reductionistic. And Barack has been saying that too; he has wanted to transend these limits that strangle us all. My colleague said to me, "Just ask a dark skinned immigrant to this country how long they can stay apart from America's history of racism." I have not forgotten those words. And I wonder how Senator Obama is feeling as he has made this impossible choice. If he retains hope, and connection to what is important, and if he is able to pass that wisdom on as the next President, it is because people have stood with him in his darkest hour, and borne witness. Alexandra Woods A white American
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