Friday, April 25, 2008
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Blogging Rev. Wright on PBS
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Posted by:
Amanda Carpenter at
9:04 PM
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I'm settling in for the PBS interview with Reverend Jeremiah Wright tonight. Stay tuned.
9:02: The warm-up question. "When did you feel the call to ministry?" Wright says during the civil rights movement and discusses feeling dejected by Christians who supported segregation and lynching. He decided to join the military instead at that time.
Turns out Wright and Moyers met when President Lyndon Johnson had heart surgery. As a Navy Corpsman pulmonary technician Wright was operating. Moyers was the President's press secretary.
9:15: Moyers asks Wright about helping his church members overcome "shame."
Wright says,"The shame of being a descendent of Africanism is a shame that has been pumped in the hearts and minds of Africans from the 1600's on. To become a Christian you had to let go of all the vestiges of Africanism and become European."
"That shame is the shame that many Africans in the 60's and 70's were feeling," Wright says. This is what eventually led to his church motto "unashamedly black, unapologetically Christian."
Goes on to talk about why a black church is needed to celebrate African culture since traditional churches make Africans dismiss culture and adopt European culture.
9:20: "One of the things that this church means is hope," Wright says. (Sound familiar?)
"They come looking for hope, we try to move peope who are marginalized...to move them from hurt to healing," Wright says.
9:23: Moyers asks about black liberation theology. "The terms liberation theology or black liberation theology cause more flags or red flags for people who don't understand it," Wright says. Moyers agrees and compares black liberation theology to the "Jews story."
9:25:Questions start about the "goddamn America" clip.
"Governments fail people and governments change and governments lie," is Wright's response. "Governments who want to kill innocents are not made in the image of God."
Wright mentions being "crucified by corporate owned media."
9:30: Moyers asks Wright why people don't want to acknowledge the government is capable of cruelty.
"We are miseducated as a people," Wright says. "They would rather cling to what they are taught."
(Ummm, like guns? Or that Euro-faith Wright doesn't like?)
Says that the God slaves prayed to in the bottom of slave ships were not praying to the same God as those sailing the ship. Wright says those slaves were "very angry and very bitter."
(Okay, I think Wright has been writing Obama's stump speeches now.)
9:38:Wright is blasting the media who "looped" his soundbites. "They wanted to communicate I am unpatriotic, un-American, filled with hate speech, that I have a cult."
Wright says the clips are "unfair, unjust and untrue" and media played them "for some very devious reasons" to "put an element of fear and hatred to stir up anxiety" among those who "know nothing about the black church."
Wright says he has gotten death threats and bomb threats on the church.
9:42: Moyers asks Wright if he "ever thought you would be made to personify what white Americans fear."
Now Moyers is asking about the role of music in his church, "blues, duwops and rock and roll." Wright says music has been a "crutch" to help Blacks. Moyers asks "What blues are you singing right now?" Wright replies "I don't know why they treat me so bad!"
9:50 Wright retierates "those sound bites were taken for nefarious purposes." Mentions Obama's race speech. "because of you guys playing these sound bites something very powerful is going to happen...it will help the nation come to grips with miseducation and things we don't like to talk about. "
9:57 Moyers wants to know what Wright thought when Obama distanced himself from Wright. "I do what I do, he does what politicians do...He did not disown me because I am a pastor," Wright says.
Now they are on the rumors Obama is a Muslim. Wright says media is "fear mongering" and continues to bash "corporate media."
Back to race. Wrights says there are racist passages in the Bible. "We have to argue with our texts...[that contain] racist understandings."
Interview over.
If you want to watch some clips, PBS has excerpts HERE.
I'm sure Fox and Townhall will have some more "nefarious" clips to play from this in the next few days...
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