March 18, 2008Recommend (5)

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. is wrong. But Barack Obama, his most famous parishioner, has it right.

Videos snippets of Wright's sermons have surfaced in the last week, sound bites of Wright making ugly and incendiary comments from his South Side pulpit about America, whites, Hillary Clinton and Israel.

Obama has not only denounced each statement but today plans to make a major speech about race, politics and the need to come together as a nation. Instead of running from the issue, he's doing damage control and acting like a statesman at the same time.

By making what could be a historic address, Obama is forcing a conversation about the all-important American issue of race. It has been an undercurrent of the campaign for months, recently erupting to the surface. It's time to address it head-on.

On Friday, Obama removed Wright, who had just retired as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ after 36 years, from a minor role on a campaign advisory board. That followed a decision last year to rescind an invitation for Wright to give the opening prayer when Obama announced his run for the presidency.

But Obama wisely stopped there.

He did not sever his ties with Trinity, an institution that does tremendous good in the black community. This is the church where he and Michelle were married and where their daughters were baptized. Walking away would have been politically expedient. Staying with the church can only hurt him.

But abandoning his church would have denied a fundamental truth: Wright's words, as ugly as they are, are rooted in the experience of many blacks in America--an experience Obama can't ignore personally and one he certainly doesn't want America to ignore.

"It just reminds me that we've got a tragic history when it comes to race in this country," Obama said this weekend. "We've got a lot of pent-up anger and bitterness and misunderstanding."

Wright's words also reflect the disparity many blacks feel between the promise of America and their daily reality.

"This righteous anger is about making America accountable to its own creed," said Dwight Hopkins, a theology professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School and a Trinity member. ...

From the Chicago Sun-TImes, the homie news