by E. Manning

Created on: April 30, 2008

When I was growing up, I was told that everything had to be a certain way. Everything was supposed to be uniform and nothing that was good varied from the norm. Life was predictable and dependable. Over the years, I learned that I had lived inside of a lie; a carefully concocted idea that all was well because it was somehow under perfect control. Any variance from the norms of life was somehow freakish and unacceptable. I learned to live the lie that many Americans grew up with. I learned to be controlled in a "white man's world" and to ply that control on others until I discovered the lie that I was living.

America has a man that speaks his mind and the truth that I discovered, "Different, but not deficient." As a white guy, Linda Ronstadt's song "Different Drum" comes to mind. Dr. Wright is a man, like Martin Luther King that doesn't fear of being different. Millions, just like him, are different too. Undoubtedly, many African-Americans have learned the hard way what it was like to be on the outside; to be different, enforced by the color of their skin.

Jeremiah Wright has been maligned and misunderstood by the media as well as misunderstood by highly sensitized and self-protective people that are still trying to live the lie that they have learned from the past, the delusion of social control that they learned as children. Old national habits and attitudes die hard.

Dr. Wright has not troubled himself with the need to be politically correct. In fact, his lineage makes him the opposite of correctness. He is a man, like many that has been educated by his circumstances. Like MLK, he is a preacher, not a politician. Study what MLK said and strip away what everyone else says about what he ever said. You will find that he spoke as a preacher, not as someone's political mouthpiece for political advantage. Some of MLK's words have been strangely twisted into someone else's dreams for political advantage to work for the political needs of this country. That period of history, led by my cousin LBJ was the beginning of a forced and uneasy national alliance.

Jeremiah Wright doesn't make the claim to be a perfect man. He sometimes speaks over the top to make a point and he doesn't worry about being misunderstood. He doesn't ask you to agree with him. People of like mind understand what he says. Like many Americans, he already knows that making a difference, let alone making a change isn't comfortable for everyone. While speaking to the NAACP, Dr. Wright was talking about

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