What l'affaire Wright tells us about how this country views black people

I wonder if the talking heads of the television press are as fickle in their personal lives as they are about presidential candidates? For months they loved Barack Obama. Then some four-year-old videos of his Scary Negro™ preacher showed up and they became frightened and decided they loved Hillary Clinton. Now it looks like they may be back in love with Obama after he finally threw Rev. Jeremiah Wright under the bus yesterday.

I don't know why Wright had to start in again now that the story had started to die off. I know that it was a supporter of Hillary Clinton who invited him to speak at the National Press Club, and what would serve Hillary better than to give Wright a podium? What would make him not see, or not care, what the impact on Obama's campaign would be? I'd like to believe that this man, who served his country in the Marines and has a 30-year history of service to his community, somehow saw this as an opportunity for racial dialogue, and that he's tired of tiptoeing around the issue of race. But he had to have known that praising Lewis Farrakhan and claiming that AIDS is government-created genocide against black people wasn't exactly going to open up a dialogue. Perhaps he's just a narcissist who just wanted his fifteen minutes to go on longer. Or perhaps he resents that this young whippersnapper is getting an opportunity that the leaders of his generation were denied.

But the ugly fact that the whole Wright debacle has underscored is that in the United States in 2008, Black America still has to answer collectively for the follies of its few in a way White America does not. Just as the John McCain is not being asked to take responsibility for what his "spiritual advisor" John Hagee has said, why should Barack Obama have to take responsibility for what Jeremiah Wright says? If you want to argue that Hagee's remarks about the Catholic church and about Hurricane Katrina being God's punishment for a gay parade have to be taken in the context of a larger framework of spiritual leadership and good works, then why shouldn't Wright be granted the same good faith?

It's because white America still, at its core, has a guilty conscience about slavery. Fear of the Black Man™ is all about what Jon Stewart cheekily asked Barack Obama last week -- the fear that if given power, a black president will attempt to exact retribution by enslaving white men. That these white men are already enslaved by the corporations that outsource their jobs, poison their air and soil, make them work long hours to prove their worth, squeeze their wage structure, and make them live in fear of poverty never occurs to them, because it's all about the image of a black man now being the one to wield the whip.

There are few Americans who can even imagine what it must have been like to grow up as Barry Obama, the tall skinny biracial kid with the funny name who straddled Africa and America in a direct way not even the descendants of slaves do, raised in the heartland and all over the world by a free-spirited white mother, living in a world where even in the post-civil rights era, to be at all black is to be black. It's not difficult to imagine him finding a home -- and a father figure -- in the message of Jeremiah Wright, nor is it difficult to imagine how wrenching it must have been to have to break from him completely yesterday:

At a news conference here, Mr. Obama denounced remarks Mr. Wright made in a series of televised appearances over the last several days. In the appearances, Mr. Wright has suggested that the United States was attacked because it engaged in terrorism on other people and that the government was capable of having used the AIDS virus to commit genocide against minorities. His remarks also cast Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, in a positive light.

In tones sharply different from those Mr. Obama used on Monday, when he blamed the news media and his rivals for focusing on Mr. Wright, and far harsher than those he used in his speech on race in Philadelphia last month, Mr. Obama tried to cut all his ties to — and to discredit — Mr. Wright, the man who presided at Mr. Obama’s wedding and baptized his two daughters.

“His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church,” Mr. Obama said, his voice welling with anger. “They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs.”

The question the pundits are asking is "Will it be enough?" I would ask, "Would ANYTHING be enough?" The mere fact that Obama's loyalty to the country of his birth has been questioned where that of others has not simply over the absence of a cheap made-in-China flag pin; that he is still perceived as being a Muslim despite the relentless flogging of the Wright connection; that there are so many Americans so utterly terrified of the leap of faith that could change this country for the better, tells me that there is nothing that could be enough. It tells me that when push comes to shove, the color of Barack Obama's skin means that his every action, his every word, is going to be scrutinized for "treasonous intent." The association with Islam that his middle name and his childhood time spent in Indonesia add to this fear, but I suspect that if he were a black man named Barry Oscar whose family could be traced back to slave ships, he'd be subject to the same suspicion by a country clasping its collective handbag tighter to its collective chest because of his mere presence.

While the media have been obsessed with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Bush Administration has sent a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf -- a sign that this bunch doesn't plan to go quietly, preferring one last blaze of glory, one last slaking of its bloodlust before going to live off the public purse and rake in millions of dollars in access fees from corporations. When the world is going mad, we have a choice among another Republican with issues about his father who wants his therapy to take place on the world stage, a Democrat who seems to be running as the Republican's running mate as much as for the office herself, and a man who can truly be said to be a citizen of the world, one who promises something different from the same old crap that got us into this mess. Yes, it's a leap of faith, but I for one am willing to make that leap.

Because the alternative is disastrous for all of us -- black, white, and everyone in between.

Digby has more.

UPDATE: Because I am white and female, I'm probably the last person equipped to pontificate on race in America. But I was surprised to hear the often lunatic Coz Carson this morning decrying Jeremiah Wright, claiming that while Wright has every right to his opinion, he does not have the right to sabotage Barack Obama's chance for becoming the first black president. I would have expected Carson to rail against the media's obsession with Wright in the first place. Which shows you what I know.