I would like to keep this discussion limited to Reverend Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ membership as a whole. There have been a few threads discussing Wright’s comments, but these threads have focused mainly Senator Obama’s political campaign. If you want to comment on Obama, please, do that in one of the other threads.
Reverend Wright has been in the news for a few comments he has made during his sermons. Some examples:
The comments that seems to have caused the most controversy is when he “God damn America.” I have no problem with this comment. America has done a lot of really messed up things. If you want to say that your god should damn America, I have no problem. This is especially true when we consider the context of Reverend Wright speaking to America’s treatment of black America; there are still living black Americans that were not treated as virtual non-citizens by country. So, God damn America? If I believed in God, I might join in. I would not agree that the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki were on the same level as the 9/11 attacks, but still America has done a lot of messed up things.
But, then are the comments that are just totally nuts and obviously lies. America lied about inventing HIV? Only an ignorant and deluded individual could would say that. And what is up with all the church members cheering such an ignorant and deluded comment? Sure, America has done some bad things. This includes the what happened with Tuskegee experiments, which Wright mischaracterizes; however, there is absolutely no evidence that America has lied about inventing HIV. There is solid evidence that HIV was not invented at all.
What causes a person to come to such an ignorant and delusional position? Does he just not care about the facts? Why do you think the crowd cheered the HIV comments? Do you think that the membership actually believes Wright’s lies? What does it say about the membership of Trinity that they would cheer much a comment and most likely believe it?
Should this church be held up as group of ignorant and deluded persons?
The fact that a lot of the things ARE true makes it a lot easier to buy the ones that aren’t. You don’t understand how something like the Tuskegee experiments makes it very easy to believe the HIV crap?
No. There is evidence for the Tuskegee experiments. No only is there not evidence that the government invented HIV, there is virtually indisputable evidence that it is a natural virus.
What 3 out of aint bad.
If you were an elderly black ,it would not be hard to understand frustration with the government. We have done wrong for a long time and still do. Why do you think he should play nice.
It also is an example showing the government actually can keep a secret. This one was kept for 40 years.
Considering you didn’t really know the facts of the Tuskegee Experiement, maybe you should remove the soda straw from your eye and try looking at the big picture.
Wright is stuck in the '60s, a black radical that looks to blame America for everyone’s ills. And thinks that whatever past mistakes she may have made proves his current claims, no matter how outlandish.
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The first sentence starts with some vaguery, then lists facts that I have no problem with. Now Sentence 2 is where he uses a little slight of hand. The sentence attempts to equate something (most logically things mentioned in sentence 1) with the “killing of innocent people”. But there is no equivalence. And I don’t see the U.S. as treating her citizens as “less than human”. Far from it. This is just hateful crazy-talk. The last sentence is true. Because every lie does better if you sprinkle a little truth in. Of course, he’ll leave it vague so the unquestionable failings of slavery and Jim Crow can be conflated and confused with whatever problems that still might exist.
The facts in Sentence 1 are summed up with a statement of broad-brush opinion. Pure nonsense. And to draw some link between putting an end to a war we did not start ( and saving millions of lives) and the terrorists who murdered 3,000 people on 9/11 out of the blue tortures the mind. Simply blame America for everything nonsense.
Fine. I agree. The facts stated are true. And we should come to grips with that. People want to kill Americans. We need to increase vigilance. The more we do that the fewer people will be killed. This is the idea behind the Patriot Act. I’m glad he is a fan of it. Maybe he’s sane after all.
As do, evidently, reverends. I wish he was on SDMB so I could state: “Cite, motherfucker.”
Again, as do reverends. And, “Cite, motherfucker.”
That article mentions one blowhard righty pastor whose endorsement McCain appears to have sought, NOT a pastor who McCain considers a spiritual father & has sat under for twenty years. Anyway, John Hagee is probably most known as a vocal, even fanatical, supporter of Israel.
I actually sympathize with Obama on this because I realize one may very well
blind oneself to the misstatements & faults of another who has otherwise helped one in many ways.
As for “God damn America”, Wright could have avoided all this if he’d said “God judge America”, or even “As victims of slavery and discrimination, we black people and others may be justified in saying ‘God damn America’…” Indeed, I think the Book of Revelation is sort of a liturgy of the persecuted Christians calling for God to judge Jerusalem & Rome. However, as a Christian pastor, Wright fails in acknowledging white America’s repentance in many areas & improving of conditions. Hell, within eight years of 9/11, a black man named Barack Hussein Obama has a good shot of being elected President. That says SOMETHING positive about America.
How many people are shown cheering the comment? Is there a link? Have all 8,000+ members stipulated that they believe the government is the source of HIV? Have they indicated that they are unfamiliar with other explanations of the cause?
I can understand why many might be skeptical and cautious. Even the president could understand:
Many blacks might cheer what the Reverend Wright said without fulling accepting that the government is once again undermining people of color. It happened in Tuskegee. It happened in New Orleans. It has happened in our “justice” system. Their reluctance to believe everything they are told is more likely a skepticism based in knowledge of past deceptions – not ignorance of current scientific and medical explanations.
I think that the greatest ignorance is shown by those who would make generalizations about the many based on the reactions of the few and who would take those few reactions and presume to read the minds of even those people based on their momentary reactions.
But there is no great “sin” in ignorance unless it is ignorance by choice.
Wright got it wrong, I don’t know what you think, although you do say he mischaracterized the experiments. Nobody was infected with syphilis, rather they were denied treatment and not told of their illnesses, all while they were being observed.
While the Tuskegee experiment is a head shaking moral outrage, even was approved by a national African American Medical Association in latter years, tolerated by all US presidents from 1932 to 1972, no one was deliberately infected.
The bottom line is this: most people aren’t Dopers. They don’t know what the evidence is or isn’t for Tuskegee or the artificial creation of HIV. They know Tuskegee happened, so they hear talk about HIV being invented by the government and find it plausible. They’re wrong, but it’s hard to blame them in my view.
I would say two of the five statements you quoted are false and three are opinion. Harsh opinions that I don’t hold, in some cases, but opinions nonetheless. And false is not the same thing as a lie because we don’t know if Wright believes those things.
While it is not true that the government infected black men with syphillis, it’s close enough to the truth that I can’t jump up and down and scream “Liar liar pants on fire.” What actually happened is no less cruel than deliberate infection.
I’m somewhat confused - is the OP calling Wright a liar, as per the title, or deluded, as per the original post. If his claims are the result of delusion, then he truly believes them and they are not lies. If he’s lying, then he’s aware of their untruth and therefore is not deluded (about those specific things).
Don’t get me wrong. Wright is incorrect in some of his claims, and I think the HIV one in particular shows great ignorance. I just want to be clear on what exactly he’s being accused of (possibly justly).
I think the HIV idea fits with what is perceived as a trend by folks like Wright. I think that notion is stronger than any ‘facts’ that anyone could come up with to prove otherwise to such a mentality.
There are, after all, people that believe we did not ever go to the moon.
Mos Def said on Bill Maher’s show, alongside Dr. Cornel West (who disagreed with him) that there is no threat from Osama bin Laden and the government is lying.
I think much of the membership is disposed to believing that it’s POSSIBLE that those statements may be true and in any case, cheering at the overall notion of protesting against corruption and power even if they wouldn’t necessarily hold to every single sentiment – even the ones cheering, I think, may very well have done so for the spirit of the message more than the literal alignment with the belief(s).
Beyond which, and finally, the black preacher shtick is very entertaining on an aesthetic level. It’s show business to some degree. It stirs passion.
