Republicans are apparently banking on highlighting the Jeremiah Wright story if Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee:
For months, Republican party officials have watched with increasing trepidation as Barack Obama has shattered fundraising records, packed arena after arena with shrieking fans and pulled in significant Republican and independent votes.
Now, with the emergence of the notorious video portraying Rev. Jeremiah Wright damning the country, criticizing Israel, faulting U.S. policy for the attacks of Sept. 11 and generally lashing out against white America, GOP strategists believe they’ve finally found an antidote to Obamamania.
In their view, the inflammatory sermons by Obama’s pastor offer the party a pathway to victory if Obama emerges as the Democratic nominee. Not only will the video clips enable some elements of the party to define him as unpatriotic, they will also serve as a powerful motivating force for the conservative base.
Basically, it seems that the emergence of the Jeremiah Wright story has pushed into the conservative mainstream issues that had been circulating through the grapevine:
Until now, questions about Obama’s allegiance to country had been largely confined to the fever swamps of the Internet and e-mail chains. They took the form of dark whispers about the greater meaning of Obama’s failure to put his hand over his heart during one national anthem, his decision not to wear an American flag lapel pin and, at their most toxic, the outright lie that he’s a Muslim or some sort of Manchurian candidate.
With Michelle Obama’s comments last month that she was, thanks to her husband’s candidacy, for the first time “really proud of [her country],” the topic entered the more mainstream elements of the conservative conversation, ricocheting across talk radio, cable news and blogs.
“All the sudden you’ve got two dots and two dots make a line,” said Castellanos. “You start getting some sense of who he is and it’s not the Obama you thought – he’s not the Tiger Woods of politics.”
But if Michelle Obama’s gaffe caused some ripples in the right-wing pond, the Wright videos have detonated the equivalent of a daisy cutter on the conservative landscape, awakening an otherwise dispirited party base.
“I usually get three or four emails a week on Obama,” said Michigan Republican chairman Saul Anuzis Monday. “Today I received more than 10 – all of them on his minister.”
Among the e-mails Anuzis received was a link to a mash-up video splicing together Wright’s most extreme comments, Michelle Obama’s statement, footage of Obama not putting his hand over his heart during the anthem at a political event and images of Malcolm X and the two black Olympians in 1968 who raised their fists in the “black power” salute set to the iconic rap song by Public Enemy “Fight the Power.”
Here’s the video in question:
Will it work ? Show me some polling, and we’ll start to know the answer.
March 27th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Doug - just came across your blog. I had this written a few days ago shortly after this video “came and went” within 24 hours from YouTube:
Make Me Wanna Holla: Patriotism and Black Nationalism in America
By Dowoti Desir
A recent YouTube video manipulating the words of a presidential candidate, “Don’t tell me words don’t matter.” included excerpts of the peppered sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. damming America for the cruel contradictions she continues to burden upon her black and brown daughters and sons. The Reverend hollers about the revisionism and historical amnesia that conveniently informs the foreign policy decisions of its elected officials and a corporate media that perpetuates its myths. Interrupting his preaching is the voice of symbolic change in America Barak Obama. Its dorsal footage has him stuttering, “I…I…I…I wasn’t in church that day.”
“America’s chickens have come home to roost!” Wright admonishes reflecting on the September 11th, attacks. His image is immediately juxtaposed with the late human rights leader El Hajj Malik El Shabazz — Malcolm X explaining what he meant when he used those same words following John Kennedy’s assassination. The narrative arch of the video suggests all three of these African Americans were and are unpatriotic because two of these men, elected to speak their minds and the third refused to revoke his relationship with his pastor.
Malcolm X however laid his life down in the interest of brotherhood. If that is not the ultimate act of patriotism then we need to ask ourselves, “What is?” While we can argue that Malcolm’s loyalty is to an America that is akin to “Another Country” Baldwin speaks of, we cannot dispute his love of his people and defense of humanity. But if “America” doesn’t understand why Black people might be angry – perhaps she doesn’t know her history. Ignorance however is not an excuse. America can’t seem to understand Black people can love America and still be angry with her. Malcolm X and Rev. Wright are both Black Nationalists. A Black Nationalist will examine his or her nation within the context of the greater global community not simply within the parochial limitations of its boundaries.
Nationalists are after all patriots, and the most enlightened patriots demand better for their country’s most oppressed. Alleviating the plight of the longest suffering among them only enables those who stand on their shoulders a higher perch. In his lifetime Malcolm X spoke on behalf of that group – those “bottom of the barrel Negroes,” and he looked beyond US borders to Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe to support their cause. Barak Obama does the same for the most vulnerable Americans within the country and other human beings affected by her global positioning off-shore.
It is this possibility for a global vision that recognizes the nuances and turpitude of national and foreign policies that fray relations with nations and peoples who bore the brunt of questionable US economic, political, and diplomatic actions that defines Malcolm’s political and human rights legacy. It is that same kind of vision weighing Barack Obama’s candidacy. He at least will open a door for discussion. If he does not secure the Democratic nominations or should he do so and, not victor over his Republican rival, both Senators Clinton and McCain are compelled be more sensitive to a pervasive mood in the country to get beyond a problematic racial past in a manner which transcends episodic sound-bytes and gets to the heart of its still flawed institutionalized, racist infrastructure.
Patriotism is a complex notion and fraught with disagreement by those who have a nation’s noblest interests at heart. But make no mistake Malcolm X walks in the same footsteps as other American warriors such as Nat Turner – an enslaved man who sought release from a Jim Crow South. And Turner was no different in his desire for freedom then the white anti-colonialist Patrick Henry when he demanded, “ Give me Liberty or give me Death.” All three were freedom fighters. While Barak is no Malcolm, or Nat Turner and for better or worse, he certainly is no Reverend Wright, he comes at an important historical trajectory in this nation’s history.
The great paradox of 2008 is not that a Black man is running successfully for president but that the U.S. has real prospects for its first President of African descent and Black folks may not be permitted to vote in the November elections if the Voting Rights Act is not renewed. No other ethnic or racial group is subject to such potential disenfranchisement. It is yet another stain on race relations in America.
Freedom to say what must and needs to be said including the articulation of anger or criticism towards America – a country that was given much and from whom much is expected in return – is the right of all Americans. Yet when the facts are analyzed, dismay and hard ugly truths stated. Animating the most American right fought for: Freedom of expression, African Americans are still considered “Unpatriotic!”
The time for the rhetoric of fire and brimstone may not be called for but America must learn to do what Black people have always done and that is to play double-dutch – simultaneously engaging two stringing, opposing options with agility and grace. Together we must learn to listen to the most informed public voices, both those softer sonorous tones that seek consensus. And be mindful of others, bellowing thunderously when a government expends over half a trillion dollars overseas in an illegal war instead of investing in the educational infrastructure of its children; creating universal healthcare for its citizens; or shoring its economy towards job creation and retention for its inhabitants.
This commentator [for one] wants a candidate and president who listens and addresses issues directly no matter how harshly stated, instead of shrouding his or her head in false liberalism, disingenuous tolerance, or pseudo conservative propriety. A chest full of American flag pins does not a patriot make.
Dowoti Désir, is freelance journalist, cultural activist, and the Executive Director of the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center.