Politics and Culture

I heard most of the sermon. My thoughts:

Content:

Pretty banal stuff. Wright mentioned that he mostly talks about Christ before offering his thoughts on culturo-historical issues of the day. His main message was that people see others as "deficient" and that those people are "deficiant(?)." He gave racial, cultural, and musical examples. I don't know. I think things can be different, but of a similar quality. On the other hand, can I think that Milli Vanilli is deficient vis a vis Handel, to use one of the reverend's examples? Europeans did see Africans as "deficient," I suppose, but, in some measures of civilization, they were (are)- thus, the term "underdeveloped." Reverend Wright sees America as deficient in some ways, but wait! Maybe Wright's absolute relativism is consistent after all, since he compares Al Qaeda to the United States.

Reverend Wright has a lovely singing voice. Only slightly deficient compared to Otis Redding and James Brown, although superior to Brown in his later years.

Girl You Know It's True

Political effect:

Jeremiah Wright denied that he delved into politics which isn't true, but didn't say anything "controvertial" like damning the nation or accusing the government of diabolical human experimentation. What did people expect? That Wright would praise Farrakhan for his important contributions to science such as popularizing the theory that white people were created by blacks in a laboratory? That he would say how he talked about how best to destroy the "white enemy" with Obama over a Fatburger?

Minority religions and non-mainstream practices within established religions always look bad to those gazing upon it. Remember when, before Wright and during Romney, some commentators looked at Mormonism as weird? People not familiar with Catholicism laugh at miters and the Eucharist. And, look at what people are saying about the Texas polygamist's hairstyles.

Thus, many will look at Wright and those who spoke on either end of his speech's emotional, semi-logical NAACP presentation and wonder how Obama could have listened to that for twenty years.