What about his reference to the KKK of America?
Just hyperbole, rhetorical excess. Part of the homiletic tradition, part of oral tradition, is telling stories in grandiose ways. Hyperbole is a tool that is used to give clearly defined story lines where there are clearly articulated enemies, clearly articulated friends and foes, clearly articulated allies for justice. As is the case throughout the biblical record, there are clear demarcations between good and evil.
What about his statement about -- and he repeated it again on Monday -- about the U.S. government putting the AIDS virus in the African-American community?
Some may regard that as a trope for known, unjust practices, unjust medical practices against people of color.
Such as in Tuskegee?
Such as the Tuskegee experiments. Or America's complicity in Agent Orange. Or the American government's longtime denial of Gulf War syndrome. So that kind of becomes a rhetorical trope which is a heuristic shorthand for all of that -- for a failed healthcare system in America and failure to do anything about it. And while people may viscerally disagree with Rev. Wright's claim there, and while it may be clearly undocumented and unfounded, you're also talking about a man who had an HIV/AIDS outreach ministry to African-Americans, as well as gays and lesbians, in the 1980s, when the president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, wouldn't even say the word in public.
But at the National Press Club, he knew that he was on national television, he knew that that comment was one of the things that was making the loop about him. Yet he repeated it again.
I do not know. God only knows. I don't even want to try, and I've probably already tried to explain it too much.
A lot of the criticism of him is not really about black liberation theology at all, it's about him and his personality, that he's bombastic, he's self-aggrandizing, he's narcissistic. Has this become about him, about his personality?
It isn't about him. He's a pawn. If it wasn't Jeremiah Wright, somebody would be going to find some 6-year-old that went to school with Obama.
But do you think Wright himself created more news with how he undertook his public appearances over the past several days?
Did he play into it? Maybe. But I would also say that Wright's been Wright. He has been himself and he's going to be himself.
So what we saw on Monday, that's him?
That's him, especially in front of a crowd.
He does enjoy the performance.
He's a preacher, he had his crowd before him. That is the performative aspect of preaching; it's coupled with the thoughtful aspect. We saw very thoughtful sides of him to begin with, and then the more the crowd played to him, the more he got energized.
Do you think he took it too far?
What you can do in one context, maybe we could be more perceptive of, the way that would be perceived in another context.
Given that he was at the National Press Club.
The fact that he was at the National Press Club. Maybe he could have been more mindful of the ways that it could have been perceived by others in that context, because he wasn't inside the walls of his church. But then again, maybe he didn't care. Maybe he said, I'll be me, this is what I'd do anywhere, and I'll do it here. If it's good enough for Trinity, it's good enough for the National Press Club.
What about how Obama said, This isn't the man I knew?
I don't know Obama, I don't know what's in Obama's head.
The New York Times in its editorial Wednesday talked about Wright's racism and paranoia. And his embrace of Louis Farrakhan has taken a lot of heat. Do you see him as racist and paranoid, and how do you view his embrace of Farrakhan?
I view his embrace of Farrakhan as similar to John McCain's embrace of Jerry Falwell. That is to say, we may not agree with everything, I may not agree with you on everything. Obviously we don't agree with each other theologically, we're of different faith perspectives, but we have a shared constituency. That's what John McCain would have said to the late Jerry Falwell, or did say -- we have a shared constituency. We don't agree, but hey, we care about the same people. And thus, I embrace you on that level. And it seems to me that's what Jeremiah Wright was saying. I'm acknowledging that Louis Farrakhan is like [the] E.F. Hutton [slogan]: When he speaks, people listen.
But he said he was a great man, one of the great leaders of this and the last century.
For his constituents, for the persons on the South Side of Chicago, that's what they would say. That's what many on the South Side of Chicago would say.
What do you make of the Times saying that Wright exhibited racism and paranoia?
That's their right to say, they can say that. But many who look to Rev. Wright for leadership find in his voice, no matter how boisterous that voice can be, there are many who find courage and boldness embodied in his voice. He represents them. And so the New York Times may say that he reflects racism and paranoia -- well, they'd also have to say that about the many, many persons in the African-American community who look to him and find hope in his message. So whether there's truth or not to what the New York Times is saying, I'm not here to say. I'm not here to defend or denounce. But Wright's worldview clearly resonates with a critical mass of folk.
About the writer
Sarah Posner writes the FundamentaList, a weekly roundup of news about the religious right for the American Prospect Online, and is the author of "God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters" (PoliPoint Press, 2008).
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