The irony doesn’t get any better than this.
Barack Obama is supported by multitudes of Americans so eager to demonstrate their “liberal” benevolence that they gave him their votes on faith, before they had any substantial knowledge of who the man really is. Enter into the picture the images of Obama’s beloved minister of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, spewing his hateful venom to his delirious mass of followers.
The consummate racist, Wright last year accused America of being too bigoted to elect a black president. And now that a substantial segment of the American electorate has proved him wrong, the person who will bear most of the blame if Obama’s campaign goes into a tailspin is Pastor Wright himself!
The eggs Wright’s been hurling all these years at the country that gave him extraordinary opportunity and success have now landed right on the face of the first serious black presidential candidate, who just happens to be his disciple.
If this scenario were a Hollywood script highlighting the hypocrisy and self-destructiveness of black racism, it couldn’t have been written any better.
Nobody can deny the horror of the criminal oppression foisted upon black Americans during the era of slavery and for far too long after abolition. But blacks who see the way forward in the hate-filled rhetoric of a Wright and his ilk do more to stymie the progress of the African American community than any white racist ever could.
Clearly, Barack Obama still has a lot of explaining to do, though it’s questionable whether anything he can say will wipe away the realization of millions of Americans that beneath the well-spoken, cosmopolitan veneer lurks a misplaced loyalty to a demagogue who spews hate and racism in the guise of religion. One would think someone of Obama’s intelligence and talent knew better.
The African American community does not lack for heroes and role models in every sector of society – men and women whose laudable accomplishments have been the fruits of their own efforts. How much more sensible would it be for Obama to follow the lead of someone like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who decries the notion that skin color affords entitlement?
Obama’s ears have been filled not with the forward, optimistic thinking of the likes of a Justice Thomas, who blesses America, but with the venom of the likes of a Pastor Wright, who despises and curses America.
America has shown itself to be quite ready for a black president. Not ready, apparently, is Obama himself, who despite his flowery but empty rhetoric seems not to have the slightest idea about what makes this country great – and therefore is not worthy to lead it.
If the first serious presidential candidate produced by the black community is a follower of the likes of Jeremiah Wright, then Wright is correct – America is not ready. But for a black leader boldly prepared to lead the black community out of the clutches of hate-filled demagogues like Wright, America has shown itself to be more than ready.