wright trouble
Music: Gnarls Barkley: The Odd Couple (2008)
This morning most of the heated buzz was dedicated to discussion about Reverend Jeremiah Wright's fiery comments to his congregation over many years. Rev. Wright has been Obama's "spiritual advisor" for some time, and Clive Crook reports that the title of his bid-book, The Audacity of Hope, was coined by Wright. What did Wright say that got folks so hot and bothered? Well, he spoke the truth, of course:
Jesus was a poor black man who lived in a country, and who lived in a culture that was controlled by rich white people. The Romans were rich . . . . It just came to me within the past few weeks y'all, why so many people are hatin' on Barack Obama. He doesn't fit the model: he ain't white, he ain't rich, he ain't privileged. . . . Hilary fits the mold. [race card thumped with fervor]. . . . Oh I am so glad that I gotta god who knows what it is to be a poor black man in a country, in a culture, that is controlled by, that is run by rich white people.
The clip is here. There are other clips too, among my favorites are the ones in which Rev. Wright points out the hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy with something like, "and we're surprised we got attacked?" Nevertheless, what Rev. Wright has said really isn't all that different from what we discuss in my classes in terms of ideology. Everyone knows rich white people control the means of production (and therefore culture). What's objectionable about Wright's sermon is that he ignores the fact Hilary has faced discrimination as a woman. I mean, I agree that she's practically a white male as a figure, but one cannot ignore the misogynistic MSM reportage and punditry: she's hated on too, Rev. Wright.
Regardless, the MSM has been having a field day with this, and pundits on This Week agreed some serious political damage has been done (on Meet the Press the consensus was much less dire). Obama has responded to the media reportage with, pretty much, the only viable rhetorical move: categorical denial and disassociation. "All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn," he said in an interview on the Fox News Channel. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country." This is about the quickest way to get the focus to move on, and I agree he is saying the right things.
The problem, however, is that what Obama is saying isn't really the truth---at least in terms of the locus of identification with Wright. Wright's sermons are, frankly, enjoyable and fun---and the politics is an affective politics. Sure, what he is saying matters, but meaning is just not located in the things he says (which I agree with). This morning Donna Brazile touched on the issue briefly by saying something like, "it's the tone that matters." She is right, it is the tone; but more importantly, it's a tone in the key of signifyin'.
I've briefly touched on this topic before in discussing the Don Imus scandal. Much of Wright's sermonizing---well, all of it, I suspect---comes out of the African American vernacular tradition most eloquently documented by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in his groundbreaking book, The Signifying Monkey. I won't rehash my point here again except to say that Rev. Wright is doing his job and participating in rhetorical form of public address that has a long history in African American vernacular speech; he's both deadly serious and also being playful. The master trope here is irony, in this case affective irony, "Signifyin'" in Gates' terms, and by playing with it one takes a risk of alienating those who "don't get it." Cicero said as much centuries ago, that wealthy white Roman!
There's an excellent tip-off for Rev. Wright's vernacular logic. Pay attention to what the Reverend says at the beginning of the clip: "Somebody missed dat, you got nervous 'cause we got white members here---I am still in bible country, I'm still in the text!" What's the preacher doing? First, he's giving a shout-out to the whites in his congregation: "I know I'm going to make some whites nervous, but follow me more closely---I'm getting this story from the bible." He's not saying white people suck. He's saying rich white people who discriminate against black people suck! I agree with him, both at the level of the WHAT and the level of the HOW, the tone. He's slap-dab in the middle of a rhetorical tradition, one of the very same traditions that animates "secular" civil rights rhetoric.
If one is a white and alarmed by this sermon, then you don't "get it." As white guy, I absolutely don't get it in one sense: I've not been discriminated against on the basis of my race. At some level I cannot feel the bonds Wright is forging with his African American congregation. But on another level I do understand that if I'm offended, I never will.
Yeah, I know what I’m typing is whiteness on a stick, but that shouldn't keep me from talking race in a reflexive way, right?