A Dialogue About Race? No, No, No, A Monologue!

I'm sitting here listening to Ole Reverend Wright talk to the National Press Club in Washington, and he's saying that what's transpired is not an attack on him, it's an attack on the black church, and that he hopes it will result in the black church no longer being invisible, and that it will start an honest dialogue about race.

Well, not if I have anything to say about it, it won't.

First off, our professional victim is sort of Wright... er... right - it is an attack on the black church - Trinity Church specifically. But he's wrong that it's not an attack on him, and I'd be happy to demonstrate that personally were I to be given the opportunity.

As I said in an earlier post, my conception of "the black church," was one of spirituality set to up-tempo gospel music. It was an absolute shock for me to hear such a vicious man as Reverend Wright say the things he said from a church pulpit, and it was a bigger shock to learn that his church is not alone in hosting such "sermons."

And now that Wright is being lauded and applauded by a seemingly wide cross-section of black people, my feeling is that it is setting race relations back decades. Which brings me to the point that I've also attempted to make before: I have no interest in racial dialogue. That's not to say that I have no use for black people - or Hispanics, or Asians (I married one, God damn America), it is to say that race is over for me. I allowed myself to get sucked into it when I was younger, and I've come to my senses.

See, no one in my family ever had anything to do with the mistreatment of any member of any other race, and it took me a long time to realize that i have no responsibility whatsoever for what blacks experienced. So I will not accept any guilt. But I'll take it further - even if your family has a history that goes back to the days of slavery, you have no responsibility now either.

Blacks, whether it's conscious or not, have an interest in maintaining a "racial dialogue," because it gets them special favors even as it continues the evils of discrimination. So please, include me out. Reverend Wright can rant all he wants, and believe me, he is as I write, but this "reasonable bigot," only has my attention insofar as I can deride and, hopefully, minimize him.

Interestingly, the magnificent and irreplaceable Jackie Mason was on earlier this morning, and he left with a memorable observation - Jackie said that Barack Obama tells us that the Reverend Wright took him into his church, baptized him, married him to Michelle, tutored him and counseled him - for twenty years... but he didn't hear a word Wright said.

Well, I'm done, and so is Wright. He's now answering questions, and I must say, they are direct and specific, the sort of questions Barack Obama should have to answer, and from what I've heard, Obama will have almost endless explaining to do now. For example, I just heard Wright say that Louis Farrakhan is not his enemy - that "he did not put me in chains, he did not make me a slave, and he did not make me this color."

Now I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet everything I own that no one ever enslaved the reverend or even put him in chains... not that there's anything wrong with that... in his case.. so to speak. but that's just my glib guiltlessness talking.

UPDATE: Having just posted the above, I next came upon this terrific bit of commentary that, I feel, greatly expands on the point I was attempting to make