Neither of you were slaves, but millions of women are bought and sold as sex slaves around the world. You have never been lashed by the master's whip, but thousands of women are forced to be circumcised. or beaten, or whipped every day. Women are raped as part of military campaigns by your African brethren. Women in the Middle and Near East are murdered in "honor killings," or burned alive when they fail to please their husbands. They have their tongues cut out for praying too loudly, for speaking too loudly. Years ago I was infuriated, but not surprised, that Ultra Orthodox Jews in Israel were eager to ban Jewish women from audibly praying at the Western Wall. The proposed sentence was 7 years in prison. The standard sentence for rape in Israel at the time was three years. It never became law, but it once again demonstrated what can happen to the human mind when it is broken by religious fanaticism. Women live as second, third, and fourth class citizens around the world.
In America they are raped and murdered in our streets. They suffer in silence at the hands of abusive husbands, boyfriends, fathers. They face withering sexual harassment in the workplace. They get less pay for equal time, and face glass ceilings that prevent them from achieving social and economic equity; regardless of their race, color, religion, or creed.
African Americans have suffered greatly. No one but the insane disputes that. First it was slavery. Stripped of all human dignity, made to be the servant to others; all of it officially sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States (though the wisest among the Founders were well aware that it was an issue to Then it was the Jim Crow South, the KKK, the discrimination in the North. Lynch mobs. The testimony to the savage acts committed against them is, at last, increasingly becoming part of the American canon. The struggle continues today, but not because of racism. Because of a lack of Humanism.
You are in no position to legitimize the racism of Black America Barack. It is wrong, just as white racism is wrong. Should we not be moving forward, rather than bringing our young children to sit in the pews of racist preachers? America has been learning to see past color. If that were not the case there would not be a Congressional Black Caucus. There would not be black mayors, governors, business executives, Harvard Law School graduates. That's not to say that Blacks in America don't face profiling, police brutality, and prejudice. But you don't have exclusive rights to that. I still encounter people who want to see my Jew horns and my tail (I suspect Pastor Wright and his fellow bigot Louis Farrakhan would like to see them too). And of course urban Black prejudice against every new wave of immigrants from the Vietnamese to Mexicans is well documented. It's an ugly circle that men like Pastor Wright, whose screed you must subscribe to on some level or else you would not be a 20 year member of his church, perpetuate with their hate and ignorance (unless your family's membership is a political move to help you appear "more Black" which would only cause me to respect you even less than I already do; if that's possible).
As a Jew I have faced persecution at the hands of neighbors. As a young kid I was harassed and beaten by Catholic School kids for my faith. Clubs were restricted to Jews. And if you want to talk about anger, I'd stack 3000 years of continuous persecution, derision, and genocide against 300 years of slavery and discrimination any day of the week. My people, above all others, have the greatest claim to spewing the kind of vitriol that issues forth from the mouth of Jeremiah Wright. But is hatred for the Gentile preached from our pulpits? Not in any congregation I have ever attended in the United States, or Israel (and I have attended many). That's not to say that there have not been racist clerics among us. Meir Kahane was perhaps the most notorious. He died by an assassin's bullet, and no one has risen up to take his place. That says something to me about Jewish tolerance, or lack of it, for racists in our clergy.
Who among us has not faced suffering? Whose suffering is more important, or more worthy of anger than another's. There is no doubt that racism still exists in this country. If it didn't then Jeremiah Wright would not cost Obama the general election (and in large portion it will; remember the Swiftboat Vets? This will be a whole lot worse).
There is no excuse. There is no reasoning. There is no logic to the words of Jeremiah Wright. America invented AIDS to kill blacks? Really? I suppose Wright was there to pat Steve Cokely on the back when he told the world that Jewish doctors were injecting Black babies with HIV. There is no justification that can be given by Barack Obama to legitimate that. The fact that he attempted to do so is a clear demonstration that he is not the transcendent candidate he presented himself to be. To legitimate that kind of hatred serves only to brand oneself as being possessed of that hatred. And Obama has the temerity to lecture us about race! Martin Luther King, Jr. fought to bring us together. Wright seeks to tear us apart. He is a disgrace, as is Barack H. Obama.
If we are supposed to acknowledge the painful past that supposedly spawned Jeremiah Wright a past that is thankfully fading away; then we must acknowledge the continued persecution and oppression of women in America and around the world, and understand that the human family is not whole, is not free, is not righteous until we hold them up for what they are: human.
Civil Rights is not an issue limited to those of color. All of us demand our rights be we red, white, yellow, brown, black, gay, straight, male, female, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Taoist, Pagan, whatever.
Indian Nations continue to sit behind the veil where America cannot see them, many living in third world poverty; suffering from inferior medical services; constantly fighting to keep their lands from turning into nuclear waste dumps. It is the culmination of a 400 year act of genocide that I don't hear the lefties talking about while they call Israel an apartheid state. Liberty begins at home morons. Let no one kid themselves about what's not being talked about in this country and what is being talked about.
No Barack, your speech was not timely. It was not important. It is behind the times, and only demonstrates yet again that those who speak on race in your terms will only serve to keep us divided. There is only one race: the Human Race. People like Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, and Barack and Michelle Obama clearly don't get that. And if you support Obama, clearly you don't get it either.
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