The following is something I wrote and posted on The New York Times site, commenting on Nicholas Kristof's op-ed, Obama and Race, published March 20, 2008.
I have seen some, perhaps not all, of the taken-out-of-context videos of Rev. Wright’s comments from the pulpit. What I heard, and I say this is as a white person, is pretty much true things. Yes, he spoke with great emotion, but injustice evokes great emotion. And, as Barack rightly pointed out, it’s not so useful to break us up into two camps—blacks vs. whites. And it’s not really accurate. But from my perspective, this country is very flawed and to act as if someone is completely wrong to point that out is equally wrong and suggests that Rev. Wright’s critics are living in denial of the many injustices that have occurred and continue to occur in this country.
I remember seeing bumper stickers in the 1970s that said America--love it or leave it. I used to think if those were my only choices, I might have to leave. Now we have a potential president who actually says not love it or leave it, but, yes, the U.S. has a lot of problems, and some of them have to do with race prejudice and a real misunderstanding between the white culture and the black culture in this country. And then he says that we need, first, to acknowledge these differences, second, to talk about them openly, and third, to try to get beyond them and embrace our common humanity. That’s pretty remarkable.
And when the wife of this candidate says she finally feels proud of what’s going on in this country as shown by the amount of support this candidate has received, I agree with her. Because I can say that for many years, I have not felt good about many of the policies pursued by our government, especially as pursued by George Bush. I am not proud of what he has done—and to the degree that reflects back on our country, I’m not proud of our country.
I now read that Republicans feel Rev. Wright’s words are a gift that will allow them to win against Mr. Obama should he be the candidate who runs against John McCain. If that’s their weapon in the upcoming election, it simply affirms that they prefer to live in the denial I referred to above than to actually confront our problems and solve them. For the Republicans, it’s always “us vs. them.” For Barack Obama, it’s much more, “we’re all in this together.” The implications of the Republican perspective will always lead to perpetuating the problems we have now. The implications of Barack Obama’s basic assumption lead to realistically addressing our differences and coming together to bridge them. That makes a lot more sense to me than the former. I can only hope, for first time in a long time, enough people in enough states agree and Obama will receive the 271 electoral votes needed to win in November.
—John Woods, March 20, 2008
