Published: March 20, 2008 11:35 pm            

Let us harken our nature’s better angels

The Biblical as well as historical day of Jesus the Christ’s crucifixion — one of the core events of Christianity — is a fitting day perhaps to call on high and pray we are moved by the better angels of our nature, a concept made famous by President Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address, on March 4, 1861.

Lincoln’s famous comment was intended as an olive branch to the citizens of the Southern states. America’s Civil War had not started when Lincoln uttered his famous words.

Perhaps we could apply those words to today, to an episode played the past week.

Barack Obama, candidate for Democratic nomination for U.S. president, is under highly intense scrutiny and much criticism for his 20-year friendship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright has now been made famous for incendiary comments he has made at his preacher’s pulpit at a black church in Chicago’s south side.

Comments like, “The government gives them [African Americans] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’”

And — speaking of 9/11 — “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.”

To many Americans, including this writer, Wright cannot be more wrong.

To make a glib dig at white America using our most intense, horrific national nightmare of modern times — 9/11 — is incredibly insensitive. Aren’t ministers of the Gospel supposed to be sensitive? To comfort us? All of us Christians, not just black members?

Some patriotic Americans have withheld their ire at Wright over his comments about Hillary Clinton not being able to understand what it’s like to be a poor black child raised in a single-parent home because Hillary is part of the rich white power base which controls the United States. After all, those comments appear to be mostly true. How can one become angry at the truth?

Obama’s close relationship with the Rev. Wright at least tentatively appears to be taking a toll on his candidacy. According to one poll, released yesterday, Clinton has taken the lead away from Obama among likely Democratic voters.

Perhaps Americans should pause and reflect prior to making hasty judgments formed in response to sensational TV bites.

Obama answered the controversy with a profound speech — he supposedly wrote all by himself — in Philadelphia Tuesday.

Obama demonstrated character by not publicly abandoning the Rev. Wright. The politically correct thing for Obama to have done would have been to chastise Wright and then disown him. That response would have caused many black voters, and some white ones, to lose respect for Obama — as being a man of mere political expedience and devoid of loyalty and true character.

Speaking of black people’s anger, on Tuesday, Obama said, “But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”

Those are very wise and deep words. How he could translate his inherent understanding of this nation’s racial divide into authentic healing remains to be seen.

Nobody likes a whiner. To many in white America, an activist like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright seems to be a professional complainer. To many in black America, Wright is simply speaking the truth. In the history of the black church in America, many blacks have come to expect fiery, controversial, incendiary sermons from their preacher. In that sense, Wright is following historical tradition.

One hundred forty-seven years ago this month, Pres. Lincoln concluded his First Inaugural Address with a message of peace and hope — wanting to extend an arm of fellowship to people who, frankly, hated him, the new Republican party, freedom for slaves and the federalist type government.

“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Words we can apply today.



Kinnamon is online/special projects editor of the News & Eagle. Reach him at davidk@enidnews.com.