The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, in a 2006 sermon at Howard University, declared: "Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!"
Of course, Wright has said quite a few other, shall we say, "colorful" things about America before and since those remarks. Jeremiah Wright's America is a nation founded on and still committed to racism and greed. And he sees very few redeeming qualities in America.
In the course of this year's presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Barack Obama has tried (with mixed results) to distance himself from Rev. Wright, his 20-year spiritual mentor. One effort to do so was a famous speech on racism and America's legacy that he gave in March. In it, Obama said that the Constitution of the United States (and America overall) was "stained by this nation's original sin of slavery." Lindsey Shuman posted a link to the speech (and a few comments) at the American Revolution Blog site back in March. You can find it here.
Conservative author Harry Jaffa, a Distinguished Fellow at the Claremont Institute, has written a response to Wright and Obama. It's titled (appropriately) "God Bless America." (Those familiar with Rev. Wright's more controversial remarks will understand). I recommend you click here to read it. And then let us know what you think.
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4 comments:
Basically, I am supportive of Obama and I think this whole race controversy is manufactured to cast a negative light on him.
Lindsey, Rev. Wright has said some pretty outrageous things - like AIDS being a US govt conspiracy. Stuff like that. If it's been "manufactured," Wright manufactured it. And then made it worse.
By "it" I mean "controversy" and not "AIDS." Just clarifying.
Obama was surely referring to the 3/5ths clause. I think many northerners at the time would have agreed with him, although in most cases probably less because they cared for the slaves than because they didn't care for the slaveholders and their system. It was one of those things the southerners had to have in order to get them to agree to the union.
In the sense that it acknowledged and seemed to condone the existence of slavery, it doesn't strike me as too unknind to call the 3/5ths clause a "stain." Thankfully, it is a stain that has been wiped away thanks to later amendments.
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