I think it’s hard for minority leaders to walk the line between resentment of majority white oppression and subserviance to majority white leadership. Obama is trying to walk that line by being patriotic and grateful to his country, but also aware that his country still has a way to go. He is trying to offer himself as the leader who can best take the country further down that road, not by stoking resentment, but by emphasizing both unity and commonality.

Obama’s relationship with Wright is interesting in that it shows that Obama really can work with, and have love for, people who don’t share all his views. Obama was attracted to Wright’s church because it was trying to approach Christianity without betraying the African roots of the people in the parish. It’s not so much afrocentric as afro-ethnic, the same way that many Catholic Churches are Italian-ethnic, and many Orthodox Churches are Greek or Russian-ethnic, with all the consequent cultural roots and traditions. Obama was attracted to the possibilities and hopes this offered. It didn’t mean that he agreed with all the various notions that came up in the course of the parish’s efforts to work this stuff out. Clearly, he disagreed with quite a few things, but stuck with it because he believes in the central premise and effort to make a Christian Church that is loyal to its own african-based ethnicity. Remember, of course, that Obama’s own father was born in Africa, so it’s not some long-separated nostalgia, but a very real family matter to him.

I think you are partly right that much of the language of some of the more vocal minority leaders in America is about power. And Wright seems infected with that resentment of power himself, at least at times. But certainly it wasn’t the only thing he ever talked about, and these extreme moments depicted on the videos now circulating seem to have been rather rare. The real point is that Obama was willing to work within this church to help evolve past this stuff, rather than to quit in a huff and find something more narcissisticaly reflective of his own views. And it’s clear that he doesn’t share Wright’s political views, nor do a lot of people in his Church. Wright was just a very powerful, charismatic personality without whom the church would not exist, but now that he’s retiring the second generation people who are taking over are, like Obama, far less resentful and alienated, and far more interested in developing in the direction of unity and gratitude – which was always a part of Wright’s approach, even though he could go off into the resentment line at times.

This is the worst thing about someone like Wright and the dominant language of minority grievance: it completely ignores the striking nature of white America’s efforts to help blacks. It was whites who lost half a million men in a war to end slavery. It was whites who ultimately acquiesced and in many cases fought for civil rights laws, welfare reform, prison reform, etc. And it is only because whites had a just and Christian standard of values that placed a premium on our equality before God that blacks were able to speak a common language and appeal to a common, transcendent standard in fighting against excess and unjust conditions of “white power” such as slavery and Jim Crow. But just because these excesses were indeed excesses, does not mean that the traditional white majority had no virtues and has no right to pride of place and pride of ownership over institutions like Harvard which it generously (and in some cases ridiculously) opens up to underprivileged minorities. It is silly that it is done for folks who can’t really take advantage of the unique academic atmosphere it provides, but, even so, someone like Obama and his wife should be less alienated and more grateful for what the Ivy League has done for both of them in giving them an education in an old institution designed by whites and suffused with high WASP civilization.

Of course, the language of most minority leaders in America has nothing to do with gratitude and justice and everything to do about power. Just by way of example, whites are always worrying about children in Tibet or Darfur or Guatemala and black kids in Compton and Harlem and opening up charities and opportunities in private schools to assist these groups. When has a prominent black leader or black group ever done anything for a cause that wasn’t essentially enlightened self help to advance blacks as a group? In today’s multitcultural America, eveyone can think tribally and as a group concerned with power except whites. And when whites engage in minimal self-defense it is denounced as racism indistinguishable from the genuine racism that lay behind slavery and Jim Crow.

(As opposed, say, to getting caught with a hooker, which is the sort of thing that ends campaigns, and careers).

Let’s set aside some of the more inflammatory remarks about AIDS and 9/11 which I don’t think anyone not already predisposed to dislike Obama thinks he believes, and focus on some of the racial remarks. Now I think it’s fair to say that most of us, whatever they may think about those views (I have more sympathy for them than perhaps most people on this board), aren’t exactly surprised to hear them from a minister from the south side of Chicago.

But some Obama supporters … well, let me start here: among the predictable blog comments – people who wouldn’t support Obama in any event condemning the minister, Obama supporters defending Obama, Clinton supporters shouting “unelectable,” etc., there seem to have been some Obama supporters genuinely shaken up by the remarks. Now, I happen to think Obama is pretty sincere about a lot of his post racial rhetoric (though skeptical that America is quite ready to really put racial issues behind us). But a lot of Obama supporters seem to … how to put this … they not merely want to believe the post racial rhetoric, but they are perhaps a bit … naive … about the real state of race relations in America. Whatever one’s position regarding race in America, there is a heck of a lot of anger out there. And to be surprised that some of Obama’s close associates might share that anger … well, as I said, it seems naive.

Naive or not, I can see it puncturing some people’s cartoon views of what Obama is about. I think he is a lot more complex (for better or worse) than a lot of people want to acknowledge. And I guess it’s possible that some of his supporters may not end up being very comfortable with that.

OTOH, if there are a bunch of earlier videos out there along the same lines (not inconceivable) the Huff Post statement may end up being pretty problematic politically.

But he did, I think, pass your loyalty test (at least, to the extent he realistically could without completely kissing his campaign goodbye).

“…the various gifts white society gave to him, most dramatically in letting him into Harvard.”

Seems to suggest that its the white power structure that chooses who does and doesn’t get into Harvard, which would affirm the existence of a white power structure.

So Wright advocates apparently a black-power agenda, which necessarily contests white-power. Why is his agenda worse than yours?

While I don’t agree with everything that Rev Wright says, there are plenty of white people who share his political beliefs (and they are not necessarily called racist)

Do you honestly believe this to true; that a high profile white person who advanced the same claims about blacks that Wright does towards whites and others would not blasted as a racist by the entirety of the media and political establishments?

I’m certain that Don Imus and Fuzzy Zoeller (amongst others), both of whom were excoriated by the great and the good for a one-time offhand puerile remark, rather than years of venomous statements, would beg to differ with you.

You don’t go to a church for years that you hate and disagree with, so I don’t buy this “he’s not his pastor defense.” It’s not like this is a Church with any life outside the pastor, such as the Catholic or Orthodox Church. It’s a black nationalist racist anti-white Church that sprung up under and around Jeremiah Wright and anti-white black extremists. Some of these extremists got good jobs and suits, but they still want to keep it real, so they go to this nutty church. For blacks, the ghetto and “hate whitey” defines authenticity. It’s apparent in almost every successful black, even Haley Berry and her wacked out acceptance speech at the academy awards. And this idea that we need to respect “cultural differences” in what is plainly an anti-American and anti-white black power agenda is the real icing on the cake. In other words, commit a crime often enough and it’s just the way it is.

Look, his vaguness and rosy generalities are obvious. We’ve seen the clove hoof. His racist anti-white leftist agenda is plain. It’s plain from his first book. It’s plain from his support of racist affirmative action policies. It’s plain from his rejection of his white identity. It’s plain from his rejection of Farrakhan’s anti-semitism (necessary in the Democratic Party) but silence about his anti-white racism. It’s plain in his choice of wife. It’s plain in his messianic rhetoric. And even if certain self-hating whites endorse him, he and his agenda are still objectively anti-white and anti-American. He talks of Jena, but you’ll never hear him talk about these two beautiful promising girls gunned down by black criminals in Durham and Auburn, yet this is the real problem in America, not some scourge of nooses.

Like I said above, this guy is Al Sharpton with a better haircut and a gift to gab. He’s very dangerous.

First, yes, I have argued and would still argue that it is legitimate for people to include a person’s religious beliefs in deciding whether or not to vote for the candidate. I assume that many people will take Obama’s association with this church as a significant reason not to vote for him, and that is a legitimate response to make. Expecting the candidate to abandon his own church or condemn his own pastor is unreasonable, and no one would expect that of anyone, not even Romney.

There would be nothing wrong or “sinister,” as someone people have described anti-Mormon sentiment, in holding Obama responsible for *his* decision to join this church. But what we are talking about is different. The demand to reject Wright would be akin to having Romney turn on the LDS church on account of its past restrictions on non-whites, which some journalists tried to get him to do. Maybe I didn’t give him enough credit at the time, but Romney refused to do that, and in this he was right.

Rep. Paul did take responsibility for the newsletters. The issue ought to have died once Paul repudiated the most objectionable views published in them, but in fact it was kept alive for weeks after that.

I think it is fair to call on Obama to clarify what he thinks, and it would be wise for him to do that anyway. Obviously, I agree that his agenda is profoundly wrong for the country, or else I wouldn’t spend as much time on it as I do. To the extent that his church makes journalists pay more attention to Obama’s relationship with the far left, this story will have served some useful purpose in focusing more on his record and his choices.

Further, while I am not going to criticise Obama about his ties to Wright it is inevitable that there will be tremendous pressure on him to reject Wright. How he responds will tell us a lot about him.

It appears that your comments lend inadvertent proof to Jeremiah Wright’s assertion that this is really “White” America.
And to state that Obama has rejected his mother and grandparents is luducrous. In case you haven’t noticed, if you look black in this country, you are treated as if you are black. I have a friend who is biracial, and she “passes” as white, while her sister looks black, and they have had very different experiences in their lives.

While I don’t agree with everything that Rev Wright says, there are plenty of white people who share his political beliefs (and they are not necessarily called racist). And when he speaks about the racisim in this country, he is not that far off. It is painful for many people, black AND white, to look deeply into how slavery, jim crow laws and racism has affected everyone in this country. There is still alot of healing and understanding that needs to happen.

– from an American who happens to be white.

If you believe that his views mirror his minister’s views, despite the facts that (1) he has explicitly disavowed those views, and (2) those views are inconsistent with hundreds of speeches and other communications over the years, well, then, clearly you aren’t going to be voting for him. But then, you probably weren’t anyway. His voting record … is what it is. Left of center, certainly., But, if anything, even more proof that he does not share the minister’s views.

His response to the controversy thus far has struck just the right note. Clear disagreement, without pushing the man under the bus.

There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Obama. But for those people disposed to vote for him in the first place – whether enthusiastically or, like me, reluctantly – there isn’t anything here that should or will change minds.