I want this Jeremiah Wright thing to go away, I really do. But Don Wycliff at Commonweal touches a nerve with this qualified defense. I don’t have time to address all of it so I’ll limit my response to the passage on Farrakhan:
Nobody at the press club took Wright up on his invitation to name another person, black or otherwise, who could get 1 million people out on the Washington Mall. As Wright said, when Farrakhan speaks, black people listen—whether in the end they agree with him or not. (And I think I can say with a pretty high level of confidence that most black people do not share Farrakhan’s expressed anti-Semitic views.) No black pastor on the South Side of Chicago could afford to ignore Farrakhan or deny his importance there and that of his organization.
There’s a big gulf between ignoring Farrkhan, or denying his importance, and calling him “one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century,” as Wright did. Wright did not merely acknowledge Farrakhan as a bulwark against inner-city blight and such — he praised him unreservedly and papered over his bigotry. This is a popular argumentative tack, and Wycliff swallows it.
Much as Wright and others want to paint Farrakhan’s antisemitism as something other than what it is, or old news from 20 years ago, here is what the great minister
said in 2006:
These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood that is seeding the American people and the people of the world and bringing you down in moral strength … It’s the wicked Jews the false Jews that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality. It’s wicked Jews, false Jews that make it a crime for you to preach the word of God, then they call you homophobic!
[…]
And the Christian right, with your blindness to that wicked state of Israel … can that be the holy land, and you have gay parades, and want to permit to have a gay parade in Jerusalem when no prophet ever sanctioned that behavior. How can that be the Israel, how can that be Jerusalem with secular people running the holy land when it should be the holy people running the holy land. That land is gonna be cleansed with blood.
Not just unrestrained Jew-hatred, not just an endorsement of theocratic rule, but also arguably an open call to violence against gays and lesbians. It’s been said that, compared to many African-American preachers, Jeremiah Wright is uniquely gay-friendly. If so, he wouldn’t take such visceral delight in declaring, “Farrakhan is not my enemy.”
As I’ve also
noted, Farrakhan has a despicable record as a supporter of totalitarianism in Africa. It’s interesting to recall that trumpeter Dave Douglas, on his remarkable 2001 album
Witness, has a piece called “Sozaboy” memorializing the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was hanged by the regime of Sani Abacha in 1996. Farrakhan supported the Abacha regime to the hilt and is
on record making light of
Saro-Wiwa’s death. “So what. How many did you hang?” he said in response to American critics. Progressive? On Nigeria in the ’90s, Farrakhan was on the same side as Shell Oil.
Barack Obama said that Wright’s remarks on Farrakhan, among other things, “were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate.” Predictably, Obama is taking heat from some on the left. “An amazingly Bush-like turn of phrase!”
scoffs Glen Ford. Spare me.
Wycliff describes Wright’s comments as “vicious truths.” But painting Farrakhan as anything less than an antidemocratic bigot is a lie.
[PS — Wycliff states that “most black people do not share Farrakhan’s expressed anti-Semitic views.” He’s right of course. And that’s exactly why Farrakhan is so brilliantly insidious. He has figured out a way to command widespread respect in spite of his ravings. Christian intermediaries like Jeremiah Wright are crucial in this regard.]
