Posted: April 28, 2008 4:42 PM
Wright Emerges to Critique Media, Defend Black Church
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Since his sermons showed up on YouTube and became a campaign issue for former parishioner Sen. Barack Obama last month, the retired Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright has kept mostly silent.
Wright, a former Marine and Navy medic commended by the White House for his care of President Johnson, turned down interview requests while clips of his sermons circulated in the press.
During Obama’s now-famous speech on race in Philadelphia, he said Wright’s remarks were not only wrong, but “divisive at a time when we need unity.” Wright finally broke his silence during an exclusive interview with PBS’s Bill Moyers on Friday followed by a weekend appearance at an NAACP dinner in Detroit.
On Monday, Wright held court during an hour-long speech and Q-and-A session at the National Press Club, during which he fired back at critics and the media for not paying attention to his words in their entirety. Here’s a full transcript.
“This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright,” he said. “It has nothing to do with Sen. Obama. It is an attack on the black church launched by people who know nothing about the African-American religious tradition.”
During one sermon a few days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Wright said “America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” noting that the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan and “supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans.”
Asked Monday about those comments, Wright challenged the reporter questioning him.
“Have you heard the whole sermon? No? The whole sermon?” he responded. When the reporter shook her head, he said, “That nullifies that question,” the Associated Press reported.
Told that some have labeled his sermons as unpatriotic, Wright was asked about his thoughts on being an American.
“I feel that those citizens who say that have never heard my sermons, nor do they know me,” he said. “They are unfair accusations taken from sound bites and that which is looped over and over again on certain channels.
“I served six years in the military,” Wright said. “Does that make me patriotic? How many years did (Vice President Dick) Cheney serve?”
Asked why he waited so long to rebut criticism, Wright returned to the central them of his Monday appearance: the attacks against him were really attacks against the American black church.
“The media was making a fool out of itself, because it knew nothing about our tradition.” And so I decided to let them make a fool as long as they wanted to and then take the advice of Paul Laurence Dunbar, ‘Lies, lies, bless the lord. Don’t you know the days are broad?’”
Wright said his Trinity United Church of Christ has a long history of liberating the oppressed in Chicago by feeding the hungry, supporting recovery for the addicted and helping senior citizens in need. Congregants have fought in the military, including in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“My goddaughter’s unit just arrived in Iraq this week while those who call me unpatriotic have used their positions of privilege to avoid military service while sending over 4,000 American boys and girls to die over a lie,” he said.
Wright said he hopes the controversy will have a positive outcome and spark an honest dialogue about race in America. Wright says black church traditions are still “invisible” to many Americans, as they have been throughout the country’s history.
After joking that he’d like to be vice president, Wright said he was opposed to certain U.S. interventionist policies and added that he would hold his former congregation member accountable if he should get elected to the presidency.
“I said to Barack Obama, last year, ‘If you get elected, November the 5th, I’m coming after you, because you’ll be representing a government whose policies grind under people.’ All right? It’s about policy, not the American people.”
Appearing Monday in North Carolina, Sen. Hillary Clinton reiterated her earlier statement that she would not have stayed in Wright’s church had he been her pastor.
But Clinton said she was not happy with the North Carolina Republican Party’s ad featuring Wright that attacks Obama. She said presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain could do more to keep it from being aired.
McCain has said he doesn’t believe that Obama subscribes to Wright’s beliefs. His campaign has said it wants to keep the race for the White House free from personal attacks — even ditching a staffer over a Wright-related matter.
On Sunday, McCain said his beliefs about Obama’s connection to Wright’s comments hadn’t changed, but brought up some Wright comments anyway — bringing about a sharp critique from the Obama campaign for not keeping his promise.
-- By , NewsHour with Jim Lehrer | Comments | Link
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Thanks to Moyers and PBS for giving Wright a chance to speak in more than a sound bite. I was very impressed with the interview.
I want to know when Reverend Wright is available to preach at my church.
Judy Woodruff, did you listen to Rev. Wright's speech to the NAACP? If you had you would not have pulled the comment about President's Kennedy and Johnson speech patterns out of context. He was making a larger point in the context of how African-Americans speak--different is not deficient. Please don't fall into the news media trap of pulling out sound bites. I was disappointed to see this on PBS!
I am a white woman, fan of Hillary and Barack. I was moved by much of what Jeremiah Wright said in his speech at the Press Club today. I was deeply disappointed that the News Hour could not discuss seriously the history of the black church and the issues Wright addressed. Instead, you associated it with Obama, destroying the content and making it another cheesy media story about the campaign.
The fact that Wright is on the defensive tends to indicate that he's guilty.
Of course he's going to claim innocence. Don't all criminals?
all criminals? You mean like bush? or cheney? or Rove?
let me get this straight:
Wright's main point is that American govt have oppressed black people in the USA, Native Americans, and has supported Apartheid in South Africa, and has pulled a number of really nasty tricks.
If that is black racism against whites, count me as a racist too.
He's against the war in Iraq, he thinks nuking Japan was a very bad thing, he thinks Bush is a bad president. These are not surprising or controversial things. Lot's of whites agree with him on that.
He calls 911 a chickens coming home to roost.
To think that 9/11 has nothing to do with US foreign policy is delusional. The USA has bombed Iraq for ten years, occupies part of their Holy land, helping a a ruthless dictator keep his power, and then expect nobody to be pissed off? That's just plain stupid.