Sound Bites Bite!

Sound Bites Bite!

"God damn America!" This sound bite from a sermon by Reverend Wright, pastor and personal friend of Senator Barack Obama, could be the single most damaging evidence in the case against Obama for President. This is a case where, if you are one who is willing to be open minded and look deeper into the meaning of the words of Reverend Wright, even the most patriotic American might agree with him, but those three words are so distasteful that one can only refuse to agree with the sentiment. When I was young and did something wrong my Mom would say to me, "What you did was bad! You are not bad. What you did was bad." I think Reverend Wright was condemning some of the policies of America not all Americans.

Reverend Wright is Black; only two generations removed from slaves. He lived for thirty plus years through the oppression of free Blacks by White America before Civil Rights. He feels the discrimination that still exists in America and he believes that God would damn the oppression of an entire race of people by any nation that supports and does not stop such practices. God damn America. Open your heart and your mind. Look deep inside. Can you condemn someone who says this? I can't, but most White people seem to feel that Civil Rights Legislation passed about forty years ago changed everything for Blacks and absolved all Whites of any complicity in the oppression of Black Americans. "How dare he say that?!" Blacks today are still oppressed in many ways and still suffer discrimination.

A man who leads a law abiding life and at some point commits one crime can be damned by society and sent to prison. Can't a nation that serves the greater good for most of its citizens be damned for wronging so many? How many good works and how many apologies after the fact does it take to insulate a nation from damnation?

I went to a "Black Church" once. Being one who has attended many "White Church" services, I can tell you its wild! It is a kind of controlled chaos. Shouting, screaming, singing, chanting, and flaming rhetoric from a Preacher who feels the pain of Jesus in his people. Sermons are not simple admonishments to follow the word of God, they become fiery tirades against oppression of people, supported by the word of God!

Barack Obama caved in to White America and politics when he condemned Reverend Wright for those words. If America could be damned for anything it ever did, it could be damned for its treatment of the Black People. A true and honest debate can never happen in this country because it could literally result in a new civil war. Some will read this and call me unpatriotic. They couldn't be more wrong. I am a true patriot who believes in our country but believes it is imperfect. A true patriot uses his Constitutional Right to speak out and fight within the system to make our nation better and more free for ALL its citizens. We must admit when we have failed and accept condemnation. We must exalt when we succeed and prove to the world that we are the greatest nation on the Earth because we are free!

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