By now everyone has heard about Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright and the inflammatory speeches he gave. But before I go on, stop and ask yourself, what have you actually heard?

Did you hear the speeches, or did you just hear that the speeches were racist and proclaimed hatred for America?

Did see the video of the actual speeches or did you hear a bunch of speculation over whether or not Obama has distanced himself enough?

Did you get to read the full text of the sermons, or did you just see tiny, tiny pieces, quotes taken out of context?



My undergrad degree was in journalism, and this case is a good example of why I don’t work in journalism. Here’s a great tool to add to your BS-meter: it’s always very, very suspicious when you hear the same one or two clips played again and again with no context. Especially if you hear it on TV.

So, how can we determine if this Rev. Wright is really racist, if he really hates America?

There’s a story on the Anderson Cooper 360 page that has the text of one of the sermons. My “sensationalist BS” meter picked up on three things:

1. The “chickens coming home to roost” phrase was either a quote or a paraphrase of someone else. Wright is responsible for putting the statements in his sermons, of course, but normally I like to judge people by their own words.

2. In retrospect he was largely right. Some of the points are exaggerated, but most of the people who hate America didn’t wake up one morning and decide to become suicide bombers. Violence does beget violence, and only rarely solves any problems (Hiroshima and Nagasaki are arguably counter cases). Perhaps the primary, most disastrous mistake of the past 7 years is that the administration (and at times half of the American public) have been unwilling to even consider this. How can you fight an enemy if you refuse to understand their motivations? You do it poorly (see Iraq). What happens when you blindly apply violence against violence? You breed more hate and anger (see Iraq).

3. One of this main arguments, the argument against violence, is one of the central tenants of Christianity. Jesus didn’t just say “do unto others” as a pleasant aphorism. In fact, he went further: if your enemy strikes you on the cheek, you don’t just let it slide, you don’t just forgive him. You offer your other cheek. The Christian response to attacks on two World Trade Towers is to offer up two more. Wright doesn’t even go that far. The real surprise is not that one preacher gave a sermon saying that we have reaped what we have sown, but that the same sermon wasn’t heard in churches all across the country. But it wasn’t. Instead we had demogogs telling us that “they hate freedom” and blaming the existence of gays for calling down god’s wrath on us.

As for the “god damn America” quote, I’m having a much harder time finding full text. So I just won’t comment until I do. If you have a link please put it in the comments below.

As for whether or not Obama has properly distanced himself or denounced Wright vociferously enough, I’m not sure I want to start holding people responsible for what their spiritual advisers say. The other argument, that this is useful information for people to get to know Obama’s opinions and beliefs better before deciding to vote for him, would be sound if Obama hadn’t already been speaking in public, on the record for years. If you want to know what eh thinks go get one of his books from the library. Write has also written some books you can check out if you really care what the candidate’s pastor had to say.

Edit: Here’s the whole video:

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