Barack Obama may lose the support of just enough white folks to cost him the Democratic nomination, and/or the Presidency; all of it, because Jeremiah Wright, unlike most preachers opted for truth. If he had been one of those “prosperity ministers” who says Jesus wants nothing so much as for you to be rich, like Joel Osteen, that would have been fine. Had he been a retread bigot like Falwell was, or Pat Robertson is, he might have been criticized, but he would have remained in good standing and surely not have damaged a Presidential candidate in this way. But unlike Osteen, and Falwell, and Robertson, Jeremiah Wright refused to feed his parishioners lies.

What Jeremiah Wright knows, and told his flock–though make no mistake, they already knew it–is that 9/11 was neither the first, nor worst act of terrorism on American soil. The history of this nation for folks of color, was for generations, nothing less than an intergenerational hate crime, one in which 9/11s were woven into the fabric of everyday life: hundreds of thousands of the enslaved who died from the conditions of their bondage; thousands more who were lynched (as many as 10,000 in the first few years after the Civil War, according to testimony in the Congressional Record at the time); millions of indigenous persons wiped off the face of the Earth. No, to some, the horror of 9/11 was not new. To some it was not on that day that “everything changed.” To some, everything changed four hundred years ago, when that first ship landed at what would become Jamestown. To some, everything changed when their ancestors were forced into the hulls of slave ships at Goree Island and brought to a strange land as chattel. To some, everything changed when they were run out of Northern Mexico, only to watch it become the Southwest United States, thanks to a war of annihilation initiated by the U.S. government. To some, being on the receiving end of terrorism has been a way of life. Until recently it was absolutely normal in fact.

For the full article, go here.

Their actions betray a belief in a blessed minority of privileged people who should remain affluent and in power because, well, because they just should be. Women, blacks, gays and other outsiders will never completely be accepted–because “they” are different in a monolithic way. Conservatives are fond of quoting Matthew’s “For you always have the poor with you,” while only giving lip-service to the idea that millions of poor people have shown the resilience and determination to pull themselves up from difficult circumstances.

Ironically, conservatives cling to a vision of a static caste system, even as American culture deteriorates in tems of wages, jobs, morals and innovative spirit.

Obama is describing a society that recognizing its capacity to change for the better. Yes, to evolve.

Jon Robin Baitz, on Huffpo

[From a post on Soupy Trumpet]