Bill Moyers on Wright and Obama

...Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.

Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this ? this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".

Althouse, Ferraro, Race, and Obama

My colleague Ann Althouse is mostly down on Obama's speech, and her very active blog has been widely quoted on the subject. That is not the first time Ann and I have disagreed, sometimes profoundly. She has just posted a response to Obama from Geraldine Ferraro (much offended by the implicit comparison of her to Jeremiah Wright, which I kind of thought served her right).

Many of Ann's fans (from what I can tell, mostly pretty right-wing, at least by my standards) commenting on her blog post go even further in their often tasteless and ill-informed critiques of both Wright (who isn't finding many fans outside the African-American community these days) and Obama (including, but not limited to, his speech on racism in America).

At risk of ruining my reputation among some feminist friends and allies (my long-suffering wife is long familiar with my views on Ms Ferraro), I'll cross-post my comment (with very slight editing, and in more telegraphic and less fully developed form than most of my postings here) from Ann's blog:

Geraldine Ferraro is in deep denial.

I'm not sure she has much of a reputation left, except as a gimmicky footnote to history. Clearly there was little to recommend her, beyond her gender, for the Vice Presidential nomination in 1984 (and can one imagine her as qualified for the Presidency/Commander-in-Chiefdom? What might she come out with at 3am?)

Ms Ferraro would do well to shut up post-haste. (When you are stuck in a deep hole, at least stop digging.)

More generally, I fear that many of the comments on the Rev. Wright show little or no appreciation for the realities of black life in America, or the historic functioning and role of black churches. While I would not choose to defend all of Wright's statements, and they are certainly problematic in the context of a political campaign (where, as Michael Kinsley reminds us, a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth), the nature and extent of the right wing reaction (especially given Obama's own sharply different political and oratorical style, temperament, and clear repudiation of many of Wright's most obnoxious remarks) betrays a willful ignorance of the realities of prejudice and discrimination in American history, including that of our own time.

Obama stated that racism is America's original sin. Those tempted to deny that truth refuse to confront the hard realities of our history.

I would add here that Rev. Wright provides a form of succor for his suffering community. I, and most whites, are not his intended audience, and, I strongly suspect, are ill-prepared to understand the meaning his followers take from his fiery sermons, which may well be more emotive than literal.

As statements from preachers go (I would include some ultra-Orthodox, and ultra-chauvinistic rabbis in their company), I'm not sure the Rev. Wright's are among the most offensive. My G!d does not inflict 9/11 on America in response to gay rights or reproductive freedom, or visit the Holocaust on European Jewry for defects in their mezuzahs or tefillin (or their acceptance of the European Enlightenment). If anything, I, with Lincoln, am more inclined to recognize a G!d whose justice would entail suffering for America's sins of slavery and racism, and for our neglect of the poor.

Obama offers what may be a way out and beyond, toward possible racial healing and reconciliation, and the continued perfection of our imperfect union.

What could be more important?

Who could do it better?

Further Reflections on Obama's Speech

The speech is over, and I am now back from a medical appointment.

By my lights, the speech may have gone on a tad too long, and the middle portion descended from the oratorical heights of the prologue. Maybe a necessary compromise to address some grungy political realities. The end was strong.

The immediate commentaries were idiotic. Wolf Blitzer on how the speech will "play" with this constituency or that, and whether it will solve Obama's Jeremiah Wright problem. Some others calling this an excellent speech, but wondering whether it will make white audiences uncomfortable. The broadcast punditocracy is predictably pedestrian.

But a few voices, mainly from black commentators, recognizing the historic importance of the speech, and of the moment--this speech transcends Pennsylvania, the nomination, politics. Someone has finally talked to America with truth and candor and hope about the realities of our history and our lives

If America does not rally to Obama after this speech, we deserve what we get. This nation twice elected (more or less, sort of) George W. Bush to the Presidency. Are we capable of better?

The Color of Health Care: Diagnosing Bias in Doctors

washingtonpost.com: By Shankar Vedantam

Long before word recently broke that white referees in the National Basketball Association were calling fouls at a higher rate on black athletes than on white athletes, and long before studies found racial disparities in how black and white applicants get called for job interviews, researchers noted differences in the most troubling domain of all -- disparities in survival and health among people belonging to different racial groups. Black babies, according to the federal government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have higher death rates than white babies. Black women are more than twice as likely as white women to die of cervical cancer. And in 2000, the death rate from heart disease was 29 percent higher among African Americans than among white adults, and the death rate from stroke was 40 percent higher.

Whether these troubling statistics are best understood in terms of physician bias is an open question, although bias--both intended and unconscious--almost certainly is part of the explanation.

Obama and the 'They' Sayers

washingtonpost.com: By Eugene Robinson

Are white Americans really, truly prepared to elect an African American president?...

One of Barack Obama's principal tasks in the coming months may be convincing African American voters that this whole phenomenon -- a black candidate with a well-financed campaign, proven crossover appeal and a real chance to win -- isn't just another cruel illusion.

I hear from African Americans who are excited about Obama's candidacy but who suspect that somehow, when push comes to shove, "they" won't let him win. It's unclear who "they" might be -- white voters, the "power structure," the alignment of the stars -- and it's unclear how "they" are going to thwart Obama's ambition. The point is that, somehow, he'll be denied.

This anecdotal evidence finds some empirical support in the polls, although it's far from definitive. ...

"What I see is a lot of press fascination with a black candidate who does not yet have 100 percent of the African American vote," Obama said yesterday in a telephone interview. "It's fascinating to me that people would expect that somehow I would be getting unanimous black support at this stage of the campaign, when probably only about 50 percent of black voters know much about me at all."...

Asked about fatalism or resignation among black voters, Obama said, "I'm sure there's some of that going on. The way to solve that problem is to win."...

I have no special sources of insight into how Barack Obama is seen within the African American community(ies), and don't expect to devote much blog attention to that issue--there are other and better sites for that purpose. I do see Obama as offering the best hope of my political lifetime to take us beyond the most divisive aspects of racial block voting, and to establish a new model for American politics and leadership, and a new vision of America in the world--one we desperately need after the depradations of the Bush Administration.

Attending a Black College Seems to Lead to Higher Earnings for Black Men, Study Finds

Chronicle.com:

Black men who attended historically black colleges and universities in the late 1970s and early 1980s enjoyed higher lifetime earnings than those who attended other four-year colleges and universities, according to a study released on Thursday by two Virginia Tech researchers. ...

Mr. Mills and Mr. Mykerezi did not find similar results for black women in the same age group as the men studied. Over the long run, women who attended historically black colleges and universities earned about the same amount as those who attended other four-year institutions. The researchers said their study did not explain why that is so. ...

"HBCU's are particularly effective in matriculating black males from relatively poor areas with disadvantaged backgrounds and providing them with the tools to overcome their initial disadvantage in the skilled-labor market. This gateway allows them to eventually earn wages that are statistically no different from those of black men with more advantaged characteristics who attended other four-year institutions." ...

A study released in April by Roland G. Fryer, an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, and Michael Greenstone, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that the economic benefits associated with attending a historically black college declined from the 1970s to the 1990s, perhaps because traditionally white colleges were doing better than before in educating black students.

A Voice Raised in Chicago

New York Times: By Bob Herbert

“I asked to come here because I wanted to talk with you about the spate of violence that’s been robbing the city’s children of their future. In this last school year, 32 Chicago public school students were killed, and even more since the school year ended. This past week alone, two teens were shot in a South Side schoolyard. ...

“In one Chicago public school,” said Mr. Obama, “a teacher was calling attendance, and when she got to the name of a particular student who wasn’t there and had missed a lot of classes, she asked if anyone knew where he was. And the answer she got was, ‘He’s dead.’ ”...

Over the past school year, Mr. Obama said, the number of public school students killed in Chicago was higher than the number of soldiers from the entire state of Illinois who were killed in Iraq during that period. ...

He said governments need to do more to combat gangs and gang violence and invest more in after-school programs that provide an alternative to the streets for vulnerable youngsters.

But he added, “There is only so much government can do.” There is also a need, he said, “for a change in attitude.”

The senator talked about the young men and boys who have gone down “the wrong path.” And he said one of the main reasons they are wreaking havoc and shooting one another is that they had not received enough attention while growing up from responsible adults.

“We’re not reading to them,” he said. “We’re not sitting down with them and talking to them. We’re not guiding them. We’re not disciplining them.”

In a conversation yesterday, he stressed that the plight of young people struggling in tough environments demands both governmental attention and a heightened sense of individual responsibility. Both are essential. ...

He also noted that there was tremendous grief across the country when the massacre at Virginia Tech happened last April, “and rightfully so.” But with 34 schoolkids dead in Chicago since the beginning of the last school year, he said, “for the most part, there has been silence.”

Think what it might mean to have this man as President.