america's chickens, or, more wright trouble
Music: Ikon: On the Edge Forever (2001)
Right before I went to bed last night I watched Nightline, once a staple in my television diet but something I promptly rejected when the show went from talk to tabloid (a Disney move, of course). I've actually started watching the show because the lead story is usually something akin to hard news (I stress something akin). Last night I saw a story that made me so mad I had to take a sleeping aid.
As some of you know, Jeremiah Wright has recently decided to make public appearances to both explain his decontextualized remarks and defend his church's congregation, who rightly feel they have been mistreated by the MSM. He first appeared on Bill Moyer's Journal last week ( video is here and a transcript is here). I would encourage the rhetorically-minded to watch the interview for two things especially: (a) the defense of African American vernacular in terms of the "tradition of the Black Church" (synecdoche); and (b) the full contextualization of that fiery sermon that was turned into so many fragments, recontextualized, and recirculated (what my friend Matt McGlone terms "contexomy"). The "America's Chickens Have Come Home to Roost" sermon, for lack of a better title, is powerfully moving and Moyers shows a long hunk of it. It would be great to get a transcript of this sermon not only for teaching purposes, but for a nascent essay I have brewing backstage.
Part two of Wright's publicity campaign was a frank and fun talk at the National Press Club in DC, where it is obvious he was very well received (Jerz pointed me to C-Span's website, where you can view his remarks in their entirety—go to the bottom of the page and select the appropriate drop-down menu). Again, Wright delivered the thesis he advanced on Moyers' show, but with more humor and force: "This [news coverage] is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright . . . . It has nothing to do with Senator Obama. It is an attack on the black church launched by people who know nothing about the African-American religious tradition." And there you have it: you idiots don't understand the black vernacular tradition, and you're reporting on it without any history, with a sense of political amnesia (e.g., how King's oratory was truly received in his time), and with no background whatsoever.
Last evening Nightline, however, ignored what Wright actually said and chose, instead, to argue that "Wright's tour couldn't come at a much worse time for Obama." WTF? Why? Because they "risk offending white voters." What offends white voters is misreporting Wright's comments and insinuating the man is an anti-patriot and racist, for which there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever. Quite the contrary: if you watch the "America's Chickens" sermon, what you find is a compassionate man who is deeply patriotic and therefore outraged by our government's list of atrocities against humanity. The sermon brings tears and remorse, and it says nothing about white people. As I continued to watch Nightline I as simply astonished: the report, delivered by some Brit (!) and apparently written by Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press, uses Wright's appearances to argue that his sharing his views and mind is hurting Obama's campaign. Having listened to Wright's remarks, I would argue Wright's remarks only hurt the Obama campaign if the MSM frame it as doing so, and that's precisely what the Nightline piece did. I think I share Murph's outrage now at ABC and would agree that the company does seem to be biased as far as candidates are concerned.
I generally disregard paranoia-speak. And while I am supporting Obama myself, I will again assert I will stand behind whomever ends up being the nominee. I despair, however, that ABC's reporting has become so biased and downright stupid. If Wright is making the case that White America does not understand the tradition of the Black Church or its signifyin' hermeneutics and homiletics, why isn't that getting researched and reported on? Because, of course, the more interesting story is scandal---and the MSM are creating it. "Yeah, Josh," you say, "same as it ever was." Well, I know that this is nothing new. The increasingly and explicitly bald way in which the MSM is creating (political) realities, however, is astonishing and angering.