While Reverend Wright’s timing is opportunistic and his motives are egotistical and narcissistic, his remarks on the United States are not terribly off mark. The United States support of dictators in the Middle East for the last 60 years, along with its sanctions against 5 Muslim countries did have alot to do with the September 11 attacks. Our abandonment of Afghanistan after the defeat of the Soviets was cowardly and has come back to haunt us. The toppling of an Iranian democracy, the support of the Shah and countless other monarchs and dictators surely has raised the ire of the current Islamist groups. Finally, our blind support of Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza and our blind eye to Palestinian refugees and their suffering have exposed us to the most violent currents of Pan-Arabism, Islamism, Arab Nationalism, Palestinian Nationalism and Secular Militarism.
Our treatment of African Americans in the past, including Slavery and Jim Crow Laws, coupled with regretful events such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, the high number of African American inmates, the high penalty for crack cocaine as opposed to powder cocaine, the endless stream of fatal police brutality and the small number of African American college graduates have all contributed to an atmosphere of suspicion and cynicism in the African-American community, of which Reverend Wright is merely a symptom.
We have to confront these subjects head on and address them fairly. Obama’s presidency and Reverend Wright’s sometimes shameful rants have exposed a tremendous fault line as well as a golden opportunity to begin to understand, and see from, the other’s perspective. As much as Obama’s candidacy has made us feel proud and optimistic about our nation’s transcendence of race, Reverend Wright’s sermons will make us recoil from our ugly reflection in the mirror. But both images are true.
We must begin to answer the questions that are implicit in these infamous sermons. Was September 11 a response to our own actions abroad or did they attack us because we are a beacon of liberty as president Bush would have us believe? Do we owe the African-American community an apology as a nation; do we owe them a museum? Where is the National Museum of the African-American Slave? It doesn’t exist but the National Holocaust Museum (a memorial of a crime not perpetrated in US soil) is in Washington, DC.
Related posts:
- The Real Existential Threat
- The Road to Darfur Passes Through Baghdad and Jerusalem
- Learning From South Africa?
- National Arab-American Museum opens in Dearborn
- Khalid Mish’al Column In The Guardian
The right of return for palestinians is another distorted position being sold to the world. In 1948, palestinians were TOLD TO LEAVE as the neighboring ARAB armies would defeat the new state of Israel. The same amount of Jews were living and persecuted in Tehran Baghdad, Aman etc. Theres no right of return for them,in fact at every opportunity, their history and culture are destroyed in these lands. Temples in Iran, Jacobs tomb in Jordan etc. A 1967 analogy would be for America to return Texas to Mexico ,and Florida to the Spanish.
Posted by Anonymous | April 30, 2008, 12:23 amAlan Dershowitz Award for Most Instances of Egregious Bullshit in the Fewest Words goes to the post above.
Congratulations, and go fuck yourself.
Posted by Ismail | April 30, 2008, 5:30 amOf course, I meant the first comment after the post, not the post itself.
Posted by Ismail | April 30, 2008, 5:32 amjust as an FYI, not as a comment on your post, america’s black holocaust museum is in milwaukee.
http://www.blackholocaustmuseum.org
Posted by Ellen | April 30, 2008, 8:59 amhttp://www.thenational.ae/article/20080426/OPINION/207828328/1080/commentary&template;=opinion
AN interesting piece in the National (a new Abu Dhabi-based English Language Newspaper) invites Jews who left the Arab World to return. The main issue for the world and Palestinians is not the return per se but the lack of rights and freedoms for the Palestinians within Israel and the occupied territories which constitute a majority within historic Palestine.
Posted by Sama Adnan | April 30, 2008, 10:20 amYou know, I told quite a few people after 9/11 (including my mother) that it was most likely a response to our horrendous foreign policy / blind support of Israel.
Of course, most Americans had jumped on the “patriotic” bandwagon immediately after 9/11, and didn’t want to hear that, especially in the NYC suburbs.
Posted by ally | April 30, 2008, 9:46 pm“The right of return for palestinians is another distorted position being sold to the world. In 1948, palestinians were TOLD TO LEAVE as the neighboring ARAB armies would defeat the new state of Israel.”
Even Israeli historians don’t believe that. Why? because there is no evidence, no documents, no radio recordings that even slightly indicate that Arab armies asked the indigenous Palestinian population to evacuate (even Zionist historians such as Benny Morris will admit that).
On top of that, why would Palestinians evacuate their homes with almost none of their possessions???? The Israeli archives show that their was a system of intimidation used to terrorize Palestinians into fleeing. The Palestinians fled thinking they were going to come back. Boy were they wrong.
As for the Jews in Arab countries, many Arab states are willing to take them back. However, remember that the Jews were rarely forced out by gun-point as the Palestinians were. Also, remember that popular anger towards the Jews did not occur until the Palestinians were thrown out of their land.
The lucky Palestinians that did get incorporated into the State of Israel, were under martial law for more than a decade. To this day they live as 2nd class citizens, they don’t even have the freedom to marry whom they please.
Posted by Arayus | December 11, 2008, 10:26 pmThank you so much for giving everyone a very splendid opportunity to read in detail from here.
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