Sunday, March 16, 2008

The Media Love Apartheid

Ezra Klein nicely summarizes my feelings on the Obama-Wright "controversy":

It's fine to be a Christian extremist in America. It's fine to believe, and say publicly, that everyone who hasn't accepted Jesus Christ into their heart will roast in eternal hellfire, fine to believe that the homosexuals caused Hurricane Katrina and the feminists contributed to 9/11, fine to believe we must support Israel so the Jews can be largely annihilated in a war that will trigger the End Times, fine to believe we're in a holy battle with the barbaric hordes of Islam, fine to believe that we went to the Middle East to prove "our God is bigger than your God." What you can't believe is that blacks have suffered a long history of oppression in this country, that they're still face deep institutional discrimination, and that a country where 100 percent of the presidents have been rich white guys is actually run by rich white guys. More to the point, even if you do believe those things, you certainly can't be angry about it!

I'm much more interested in the question of why the media, and most of America, isn't angry about the country's history of slavery, institutional racism and support of apartheid.

1 comment:

Mike D. said...

I think this whole issue is not as much about the actual words that Wright used (although it is a little) as much as it's about how SCARY he sounds when he's preaching them. I think the media saw this as a slam-dunk mainly because white Americans tend to be scared shitless by angry black Americans. Rational thought has no place in the conversation when you could just play videos of the guy screaming at his congregation.

Also, I always thought Ezra Klein was an old jewish guy....not a 23-year-old. Impressive.