Wright and the RC

So…the race card (RC). It makes me laugh—only to distract myself from the anger—when people make the claim that someone is using the RC. The reason that this is coming up is because of what should have been a non-incident: Statements made by the oh-so-divisive Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Rev. Wright said some things that would cause the average (ignorantly-pseudo patriotic) person to blanch. While his words may be too incendiary for some—let’s take a brief look at the track record of our country and see how far off he is. I won’t put the key points in a narrative, I’ll make a list—it is your job to check it twice:

- Decimation of this land’s Native population through war, disease, and treaty violations.
- The trans-Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery
- Jim Crow
- Being the only country in the world to ever drop an Atom bomb (hell, the US dropped two) on an inhabited area
- Getting into WWII so late that European Jews were killed in earth-shattering numbers. Earlier involvement could have saved more people
- Having prior knowledge of Pearl Harbor
- The Tuskegee Experiment
- Viet Nam
- The Iraq War

This is just a mild sampling. As you can see, this country has done/contributed to/engineered through inaction some pretty heinous events. But back to the Rev. Do I agree with everything he spouts? Nope. But I do agree with and appreciate his anger, even if it is a bit self-aggrandizing. But the sad thing is that, as a whole, the US population is so intellectually and socially amateurish that they not only want to lash out at Wright, but also want to stick Obama within the rhetorical sphere. While I like Obama, he is not that hard nor is he that brave. In his current position, he can’t be. This country is (and will be for a very long time) colorstruck (with those of darker skin bearing the brunt of this nation’s color issues).

An institution like Bob Jones University can exist (with the President even going there to visit) and there is little to no uproar. Pat Robertson can say things that are truly divisive, but he has been a confidant to many government leaders. But a retired Black Reverend, who has a connection with the only viable Black Presidential hopeful in this nation’s history, is assaulted by a full multimedia attack. One of the most prominent attacks is saying that Wright is playing the RC. While I do believe that many
Black folks scream racism too much (especially if they get caught doing something stupid) racism exists and to call it out is not playing the RC. It’s self-defense.

What’s funny is that the people who are accusing Wright (and other outspoken Blacks) of using the RC…They are doing the exact same thing, but in their (limited capacity) minds, it is okay for them to do so. When bitter, gun wielding, clinging to religion, American-folks scream that someone is playing/using/dropping the race card, they are playing their own as a foundation for their criticism. What it boils down to is this—it is okay to play the race card, only if that card is carte blanche.

This is dedicated any and everyone who has the fire to point to the demon and name it.