Why Wright makes me Proud

I've finally gotten a chance to confront Obama's Wright problem full on and finally understand where Wright is coming from, what he stands for, and why he pisses people off. And I am proud to consider him an ideological ally on two basic grounds: black liberation is absolutely necessary in Wright's form and the perspective he bears on foreign policy cuts through the conservative's naive and selfish self-righteousness to find America's place in the world, not outside or above it.

To sum his ideology up in a sentence: he's a black liberationist preacher which automatically means: liberal, identity politicist, direct descendant and next generation of civil rights. The civil rights movement didn't die in 1968. Some of it went crazy with back to Africa or black separatist sentiments which often took the scars of discrimination to the point of self-exemption (I'm thinking of Farrakhan). The civil rights movement translated ideologically into liberationism, identity politics, diversity politics, etc. On the ground, it held firm in churches, community service organizations, and political advocacy. Jeremiah Wright is a key exemplar of what the civil rights movement has become today.

I stand behind the black liberation movement as a wholesome way to achieve black self-determination, pride, and solidarity without the elitist, exceptionalist, and/or confrontationality of other black power ideologies. The first key tenant, a black-centric point of view whereby events are interpreted through the lens of discrimination towards racialized people, especially blacks, not only subverts the contemporary dynamics of racial subordination, but also helps put a sense of self-worth into focus. Such a point of view doesn't say, "I am black and I get special treatment because you discriminate against me." Rather, it says, "I am black and am just as valuable a person as anyone else. I'm going to respect myself and demand the respect of others that I give to them." The second tenant facing and overcoming racial discrimination too is still necessary and relevant. Discrimination has become diluted since the civil rights era. But it is still salient and saturated, imposed through expectations, intuitions, and embittering realities. There must be a standing up and accounting for discrimination and its effects within and outside of the black community and American society as a whole. Black liberation is the black community standing up to face the effects of discrimination within itself and confronting the larger society with everyone's role in perpetuating and enforcing oppression. The key values underlying this are humanistic: that everyone has value deserving of a sacred human dignity that cannot be taken away. Social justice with this humanism means imposing obligations on the privileged to repay the debts of oppression without demoting the privileged to the level of animals - to acknowledge the crime without bestializing the criminal, something American culture has yet to accomplish.

This extends seamlessly to Wright's foreign policy and the policy of all good liberals - to respect all people and humanistically stop and correct oppressions, privileging, and exceptionalism. The history of US foreign policy is rife with exceptionalism, caretaking, and neocolonialism and Wright is correct to note that this has made us a focus of hatred and vengeance among those we've dominated. We continue to support one of the largest state sponsors of terrorism (Saudi Arabia), imposed a program knowing that it would kill millions of the most vulnerable (the Oil-for-Food program), reject any international legal responsibility, and promote economic growth with callous disregard for labor or environmental welfare. This isn't the Bush Doctrine on foreign policy. This is the American Doctrine since World War II. Kennedy and Johnson orchestrated Vietnam and the Bay of Pigs, Nixon invaded most of South America, Clinton implemented Oil-for-Food, Bush holds thousands of prisoners of war without trial or a plan for release. What do we expect the world to think of us? American has been hawkish and neoliberal in foreign policy since the end of isolationism and it's about time we joined the rest of the civilized world with a liberal foreign policy. We must allow ourselves to be held legally responsible and answerable to the rest of the world by disbanding the security counsel, allowing all of our international operatives to be triable at the Hague, to be sanctioned by the UN for violating international law. What kind of proponents of democracy and humanitarianism can we be if our every action is based on the ability to veto the democratic vote of our fellow nations, to not be beholden to the law that we helped write and hold everyone else responsible for, if we refuse to engage in any discussion with those who have extremely varying views of the world, if we feel we can do whatever we want as a country in the world. We are not the most democratic country in the world. We are its biggest hypocrites. We must commit to a sustainable development plan for the second and third worlds. We must accept environmental responsibility and sign Kyoto. We must break the exclusionary, agenda-setting practices of the G8. This is a liberal foreign policy.

Before I sign off though, I would like to make one strong caution to Wright and those like him attacking Hilary Clinton for her privilege. The last thing we need to come out of this primary contest is a split between women and African Americans ala "we've suffered more" claims. No, Clinton has never been called a "N*****." But, she has, like every other woman, been afraid to walk alone at night, had her feelings trivialized, been judged as too cold and controlling for a woman, etc. The matrices of oppression have not disappeared and they are still very much caught up in one another (infantilizing, compartmentalizing, animalizing, etc.). We cannot create a political split between oppressed groups in this country without confounding the whole liberation movement!