Did Obama's pastor preach hate?

While some label the Reverend Wright's words 'hate speech,' others point to a tradition of exposing social ills.

By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the March 28, 2008 edition

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They're the campaign issue that refuses to fade away.

The words of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., Barack Obama's longtime pastor, continue to fuel controversy, in part because the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination is so close this year, in part because the words themselves pose a stark question about America's cross-racial discourse: When does speaking out against injustices cross into hate speech?

Senator Obama's Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, stoked the fires this week, saying, "Given all we have heard and seen, he would not have been my pastor." Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, who quit the Republican presidential race, seemed eager to damp the flames as he told MSNBC, "Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment, and you have to just say, `I probably would, too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder, had it been me.' "

For many in the black community, however, the controversy over selected clips of Wright using inflammatory language has been blown out of proportion. More important, they say, it reveals little awareness among whites of the centuries of African-American struggle and its tradition of "prophetic preaching."

In response to the furor, "There's a desire to redouble efforts to portray the beauty and complexities and challenges of our tradition," says the Rev. Brad Braxton, of Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville. "Many feel the need to remind people of how the black church tradition has been the soul and conscience of the nation."

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, for example, spoke powerfully of what was awry in the land and what needed to be done to put things right.

In Wright's case, however, the language of video clips in which he said "God damn America" for its historical treatment of minorities and accused the government of spreading HIV/AIDs sounded hateful to many. Senator Clinton compared Mr. Wright with Don Imus, the shock jock whose MSNBC TV show was canceled last year after he called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos." "I spoke out against Don Imus, saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review this week.

Senator Obama himself has condemned the statements and called them stupid.

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