by Julie Pierce

Created on: April 22, 2008

I think there is something important missing from this discussion. Rev. Wright has been a pastor for decades. In these decades he has given hundreds, if not thousands, of sermons and commentaries. Why is it that suddenly snippets of out of context statements from sermons appeared on Youtube and in the Media?

Clearly it is because the Clintons were ( and still are) pulling out the kitchen sink. They are trying to play the race card in the worst possible way. They are stoking the flames of fear within America.

One thing that became very clear to me from the whole "crisis" is that the debate within White America about race is patently different from the debate within Black American about race. And clearly the two do not mix enough to see eye to eye. I, for one, heard about the "crisis" from a friend.

She sent me a hastily composed email with a link to where I could read some of Rev. Wright's statements since I could not open Youtube at work. She told me that people ( read: white people) were up in arms about his comments. SO I braced myself to read them.
And then I read them again.
And then I read them again.

And then I emailed her that she must have sent me the wrong link because there was nothing false or incendiary in the link she sent me. After all the Bible pretty explicitly says that any country that builds itself on the backs of slaves, abandons its widows, doesn't feed the hungry, tortures people (need I go on?) will be damned.

Then she wrote me back that she did not send me the wrong link and that apparently it is news to white people that the Bible says this? I was flabbergasted! Especially since, when you read the complete sermon, it ends with a call to action, a call to self improvement? What could possibly be wrong with examining your own shortcomings before calling someone else to task or judging them?

Apparently everything was wrong with it! But most of all, I believe the media frenzy began because they took his comments out of context.

But who knew that his words would cause such a furor?

Mrs. Clinton did?
And how did she know? Because she spent time with Rev. Wright. Because this is the pastor that SHE turned to in her time of need. This is the pastor that she had visit the white house. This is the pastor that she credited with helping to save her marriage.

And suddenly she is ready to judge him? To urge Senator Obama to renounce and denounce him? Perhaps she paid as much attention to what Rev Wright was actually saying as she did to the information that was available to her before she and her counterparts gave George Bush a blank check to attack the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.

She should go back and re-read it or listen to what he said. The basic gist of what Rev Wright was saying was this: clean up your own house before you try to go change someone else's.

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