Apparently the sight of a preacher getting all worked up and shouting about how America has a history of racism and injustice is enough to freak some people right out.   People like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity, who normally like to talk pretty tough, come over all vaporish.   They get indignant.  Oh, my, they are indignant.   They are almost as funny exclaiming about racism!  Towards white people! as when they all discovered sexism, which apparently didn't exist until Sarah Palin came along.  Who knew?

 Listen:   I don't get upset when black people get angry about racism, because I bust my ass making sure I am not the kind of person they are angry about.   I'm resigned to the fact that I may not always succeed, either because I actually do something ignorant or just because I'm hitting someone's sore spot.   I may come across a bit clueless from time to time.  But since I also try to be the kind of person who doesn't puff up like a cat whenever confronted with the slightest hint of criticism, I have faith that those people of my acquaintance who know better will gently buy me a ticket for the clue train.  I have that faith not because I think they owe me instruction, but because I also try to be the kind of person who expends effort and is worth the effort in return.  

 I am not the kind of jackass who wants to pretend that there is no racism, or that people shouldn't be angry about it.   I think that anger is a perfectly rational response to injustice, and that the appropriate response to that anger is not "How dare you!" but "What can I do to help?"   Realizing also that sometimes the best thing you can do to help the situation is shut up and listen.

But let's get back to Rev. Wright and why he doesn't bother me.   For one thing, I am from the South, and we are used to shoutin' preachers around here.  It's a rhetorical style, nothing more.  It doesn't make him a radical.   It just makes him a preacher in a particular tradition.  If that tradition is not familiar to you, then you are either not black or not from the South.   I'll try not to hold it against you.

 Furthermore, and forgive me for understating the obvious, for most of United States history being a person of African descent in America has ranged from difficult to horrifying.  The fact that things have improved overall doesn't mean they are all better now, and even very successful and materially well-off African-Americans often have to put up with a whole lot of crap that white  people don't.  There is a constant low-level pressure.   The religious traditions of African-Americans reflect that in various ways and are geared towards helping people cope with it.  The overwhelming message is one of uplift and encouragement, but a very important piece of it is telling people their anger is justified.  Let me be clear:  Anger at being treated unfairly is justified.  Anger itself is not bad or wrong, and righteous anger is often a force for good.   It all depends on what you do with it, where you go from there.  Overall, it seems to me that Wright's church tends to channel that energy towards charitable projects.  

 Do I think some of his statements are out of line?  Sure.   Apparently, so does Barack Obama.  But I think it's important to point out that in the arena of blaming America for 9/11, Rev. Wright's remarks were mild compared to comments like this:

 "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

 Those words were famously uttered by the Rev. Jerry Falwell...a man who exercised huge influence over the religous right when he was alive, whom many people in the Republican party were beholden to, and from whom John McCain sought political endorsement.   Furthermore, he said those words on national TV, from his position as a national figure...not simply from the pulpit of his own church...and at the apex of the shock and horror following the 2001 attacks. 

 And yet, the very same people who are so full of outrage over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright completely failed to condemn Falwell for his even more egregious remarks.  They didn't denounce him as un-American or as preaching hate.  They didn't rebuke him for blaming other Americans for the terrorist attacks on Americans.   They didn't rip into the Republican candidates in 2004 or 2008, or the Republican party as a whole, for their close and comfortable political relationship with him and his ilk.

 Huh.  I wonder why.