Rev. Wright, Obama & freedom of speech
Published Apr 3, 2008 9:04 PM
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Chris Silvera
WW photo: John Catalinotto
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By Chris Silvera
Secretary-Treasurer, International Brotherhood of
Teamsters
Local 808
Dear America:
Why are we judging Barack Obama by the words of another man?
Rev. Jeremiah Wright served his country honorably as a U.S. Marine. As such, he
has earned full rights under the Constitution of these United States of
America. One of those rights is freedom of speech. This freedom of speech does
not require consent or agreement from those being spoken to.
America must understand the point of view of a formerly enslaved and now
oppressed people. When white men wrote the words to the Constitution that
“all men are created equal,” they saw fit not to include people of
African descent who remained in enslavement. As a people who have felt the
wrath of American Democracy for more than four hundred years, forgive us as a
people.
After only forty years of freedom forgive us for sometimes thinking and saying
what is perceived as “crazy” things, yet all the while dying in
every war ever fought for any and everything that resulted from Jamestown to
Plymouth Rock, including the army of the Confederate States of America through
today’s war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Though Crispus Attucks was the first to give his life and many others of
African descent fought for Independence and in the War of 1812, in the Battle
of 1815, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II,
Korea, Vietnam and Gulf Wars I and II, we are still not fully accepted as truly
loyal citizens of our country. We still live in a country that allows a symbol
of insurrection and enslavement to continue to fly legally.
Did Senator McCain have to denounce his mother and her words regarding Mormons?
Have we analyzed the past ten years of sermons by the pastors of Sens. McCain
and Clinton? Have they ever said anything inflammatory or controversial that we
should know about? Should those candidates be held accountable for what their
pastors have said? Are those candidates even identified with any specific
church? Should McCain have to renounce and denounce Pat Robertson or (John)
Hagee and other controversial pastors that have endorsed him? If Obama has to
renounce Farrakhan and Wright, why is there no call for McCain to renounce and
or denounce inflammatory preachers who support him?
What frailty does white America believe exists in the hearts and minds of the
descendants of enslaved Africans; that like the rest of America, we can go to
any church, pray to any God, be preached to by anyone; leave church and then
ignore everything that was said by the preacher and break the promises we made
to God.
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Racist genocide
Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
Between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service, with the
participation of the U.S. surgeon general, purposely denied treatment to 399
Black men in the late stages of syphilis in what came to be known as the
Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.
Taking advantage of mostly illiterate sharecroppers, doctors told the men that
they were being treated for “bad blood” and gave them aspirin
instead of the traditional syphilis remedies. They wanted the men to die so
they could perform autopsies on the men’s bodies to collect data.
Symptoms of untreated syphilis include tumors, heart disease, paralysis,
blindness, insanity and death. By the end of the experiment, 28 of the men had
died directly of the disease, 100 had died of related complications, 40 of
their spouses had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with
congenital syphilis.
It wasn’t until a 1972 Associated Press article broke the story that the
government ended the experiment.
Source: Borgna Brunner, “The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment”
(www.tuskegee.edu)
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For over forty years, our government knowingly and with purpose ignored
infected descendants of the enslaved with syphilis. In light of the Tuskegee
experiment as it was known, America must understand why we look at the HIV/AIDS
infection rate among African Americans with a raised eyebrow. America should
understand why the descendants of Africans see the greatness of America through
a different prism; enslavement, Jim Crow, Ku Klux Klan, Dred Scott, Plessy,
lynchings, police brutality, inferior educational and employment
opportunities.
The test of whether we have made racial progress toward equality will be seen
through future primaries. We must not allow the most segregated time in America
to destroy the legitimate campaign of this African American, Barack Obama. No
other candidate/citizen will have their love and patriotism questioned in this
manner and overtone. African Americans believe that this is a negative legacy
from the period of enslavement. What history suffers America to question the
patriotism and loyalty of any Descendant of enslaved Africans. Only a Black
person would suffer the indignity of being judged by the words of another.
If we have truly achieved equality, then we will judge Barack Obama solely on
his character, his ideas and what we believe that he can offer in the
rebuilding of America; and we will not use the words of one man to characterize
the humanity of another, and all the while we continue to die for America.
E-mail the writer at [email protected].
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