Mark Brown continues thrashing about, offering us a picture of the thoroughly frustrated liberal. “A lot of white people are freaked out by Wright,” he says. But “Obama isn’t scary.”
As a member of Wright’s church, he’s not necessarily a Wright “disciple.” No? Why did he join and why attend? He didn’t live near it, it’s not a neighborhood church. Like many Catholics and many more Protestants, he shopped for a preacher and found one, 20 years ago, and stayed with him until about 36 hours ago.
He didn’t pick this church for its liturgy, did he? OK, maybe the music. But look, just how much good music can make up for squirming through a ranting sermon you disagree with? Or even a non-ranting one.
In any case, this United Church of Christ denomination, descended from the Pilgrims, is quintessentially Protestant and therefore pulpit-oriented, not altar-oriented. O. picked this guy for his preaching and his leadership, not as someone to make him uncomfortable in the pew.
“There’s no secret black agenda that Obama is waiting to promote if he becomes president,” says Brown. Oh my, this is playground argument. Brown should quote the guy who said this.
Brown is smug about this: “My point struck painfully close to home,” he says of antagonistic letters he got but does not quote. He pricked our consciences, did he? The less his argument convinced people, the better it was? The madder people get, the more sure he is he’s right.
He knows their deepest thoughts and motivation:
Part of [what people object to] is Wright’s ignorance and part of it is his arrogance and part of it is that he talks louder than white people would prefer and part of it is that he uses the sing-song cadence they associate with other black ministers they have grown to hate over the years such as Jesse Jackson.
We should really be leaving Mark Brown alone. As an admitted white liberal he is better than us, just really special in every way. All these years in Oak Park and you don’t understand that. I just can’t believe it!
I’ve seen this happen so many times in politics where black candidates are involved that I’ve lost track. An opponent has trouble attacking the black candidate, so they find somebody connected to the candidate and attack them. I can’t say why this is more prevalent with black politicians unless it’s that the black experience has produced more fringe players who can be used for this purpose.
I know racism when I see it, and the Rev. Wright affair has it in full bloom.
. . . don’t give me the “double standard” baloney. If we could ever clean up the white racism, the thing that some of you consider black racism would take care of itself.
Blithe Spirit 
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