Wright Again

While sitting in a surgery clinic's office for a routing and time-consuming procedure (which is by way of suggesting why I haven't posted much), I read a Time magazibe. In it was this defense of Rev. Wright.

It was one of the better efforts I'd seen. It picked up on an Obama quote on patriotism that I also liked. And put it in a historical context:

It is easy to see why the words of black critics and leaders, taken out of context, can be read as cynical renunciations of country. Abolitionist and runaway slave Frederick Douglass gave a famous oration on the meaning of Independence Day, asking "What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim." But instead of joining the chorus of black voices swelling with nostalgia to return to their African roots, Douglass stayed put. Poet Langston Hughes grieved in verse that "(America never was America to me) ... (There's never been equality for me,/ Nor freedom in this 'homeland of the free')." But his lament is couched in a poem whose title, like its author, yearns for acceptance: Let America Be America Again.

And it correctly distinguishes nationalism from patriotism, which is something that ought to be done more. [It's one of history's odder threads, how Americans, always so famously patriotic and nationalistic themselves, tend to overlook those qualities in other people. We always thought Canada would welcome being part of our empire. And we are as surprised by China's fierce popular nationalism today as we are by China's leaders art in manipulating and cultivating it.]

But overall it left me flat. Not just because the sneers at "the 'My country, right or wrong' credo, which confuses blind boosterism with a more authentic, if sometimes questioning, loyalty" seemed to veer into -- there's that word again -- elitism. It chronicled Rev. Wright's military history, and that does matter in the equation. But then it devoted far too much space to an unstated version of the old chickenhawk argument, comparing Wright to Dick Cheney on that score.

If it comes down to Obama vs. McCain in the fall, I wonder if that chickenhawk will come home to roost?

By the way, when you go for surgery, they make you strip down to a garment they give you that's about the size of a pillowcase and doesn't even have snaps, much less pockets. Then they let you put your street clothes and valuables in a locker. With a key. Where are you supposed to ....

Wright and Wrong

The Rev. Wright says (with obvious irony):

“It’s to paint me as something — ‘Something’s wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with this country … for its policies. We’re perfect. Our hands are free. Our hands have no blood on them,’” he said.

Creating a false dichotomy that elevates him to the pinnacle of truth by reducing to a simple evil a complicated land full of people well aware of the conflict and contradictions in its past and present. I had this nagging sense I had heard his sort before, though in radically different garb. Now I remember where.

Two Thoughts on Obama

1. What a great day for white Americans! The man who is about to break a historic barrier, and could become the first black president, is half white. So much for us to be proud of. Another first for the white community!

Which is tongue in cheek (I'm talking to you, Greenwald) but does reflect my notion of the artificiality of race in America, however authentic the consequences of people's belief in its reality.

Now the serious thought. I've been wondering why l'Affair Wright doesn't make me go ballistic, the way it does some people who generally are in my camp.

For years I lived and worked in a region just north of the Mason Dixon Line, with two historically black colleges and an established black community with powerful churches. The colleges were rapidly degenerating, but they had been, in living memory, in the black Ivy League -- Thurgood Marshall was a graduate of one of them -- and the older professors were worthy of that tradition.

Obama is roughly my age. When he talks about the gap between the old and the young among politically active blacks, I know what he means. I got to cross paths many times with that older generation, while living with the younger in a mostly deracinated social life. One man in particular stands out: A gray-haired chemistry professor whose name I suspect "Reader" remembers (though she may not share my judgment of him). He headed up a community race-based organization and fought his battles there, in the university where he worked, and anywhere he found them. I covered several long lawsuits he brought, some of them hopeless case, some of them necessary ones, but all firmly and equally rooted in his sense of justice. He led, for instance, the fight that overthrew a ward system that deliberately diluted the black vote in the county seat.

I thought he was wrong in many cases and quixotic in others. In retrospect, he was more right than I realized, but I was young. He was firm in his convictions. He did not suffer fools patiently, black or white. But he was patient in explaining himself to those, black or white, who were listening. He used the right word, always. He never gave up. His mere presence commanded enormous respect. I doubt he ever knew my name, but I consider him a personal hero.

The men such as him were occasionally intemperate in the language they used in their crusades. They often seemed obsessed with the last fight, not the next one. Yet I would not have wanted that community without them. They were a necessary irritant.

Others among them I found more congenial. Generally they were not community leaders. In researching the history of that community (including the black history) I got to know the janitor at the historical society. He would take me into his "office" (a glorified and windowless closet) and tell stories and show me his own collection of clippings and artifacts. He was as proud as the professor, but he had a deep human kindness that the activists often lacked. I realized his perception of the community's past was richer and more nuanced than that of the librarians -- or the board of directors. He should have been running that place. Instead, he was sweeping up the plastic cups after the corporate fundraisers in the galleries. I dedicated my first book to him.