Wright says the religion of the people on the deck of a slave ship must be different from the religion from the people under the deck. On the deck, god is justifying the practice of slavery, and below — god gives them hope that someday they will be free. My people, the Jews, understand this very well, it’s part of our tradition. We’ve just celebrated the holiday of Passover, a feast that’s all about the pride of an enslaved people. If we’re still telling the story, passing it down from generation to generation, after 3000 years, why should we be critical of the African-Americans who are telling the story of their enslavement, which ended only 145 years ago, and whose manifestations are still with us today.
From Dave Winer’s Huffington Post commentary on Bill Moyer’s interview with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Full Moyer interview is here.
Comments (2)
Thanks, R. I made it a point to tape the interview last night. I watched it when I got home and enjoyed every moment of it. I’d actually been on to Huffington Post site few times today, but hadn’t seen Winer’s blog post. His perspectives were right on the money. Thanks for linking. Paco
@Paco - > I’ve just put it on the iPod. Maybe I’m naive, but when I heard all of the who-shot-john about Rev. Wright, I was shocked. It was so obvious that his words had been taken out of context.
My mom has been listening to Wright for years and I think she even attended his church a few times.
Granted, since I’ve been away, I’ve fallen out of the loop with Wright and his sermons. I thought, perhaps with all of this new mess, he’d gone really off his rocker or something. So, I peeped his stuff again. There wasn’t anything there that he hadn’t said before. It had just been selectively edited.