Note to White People & Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s 9/11 sermon - “The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall.”

Note:  The first part of this post is written by Roland S. Martin, CNN Contributor

Excerpts follow but you can read the entire article and hear Jeremiah Wright's Full Sermon at:  http://intheknowchicago.com/Issue1Link1.htm

My personal notes appear at the end....

Barack Obama and Pastor Jeremiah Wright

As this whole sordid episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has played out over the last week, I wanted to understand what he ACTUALLY said in this speech....I have now actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, “The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall.” It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001.

One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned “chickens coming home to roost.” He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation.

He was quoting Peck as saying that America’s foreign policy has put the nation in peril:

“I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday did anybody else see or hear him? He was on FOX News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the FOX News commentators to no end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost.”

“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

“We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.

“We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

“We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.

“We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.

“We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

“Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

“Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.”

He went on to describe seeing the photos of the aftermath of 9/11 because he was in Newark, N.J., when the planes struck. After turning on the TV and seeing the second plane slam into one of the twin towers, he spoke passionately about what if you never got a chance to say hello to your family again.

“What is the state of your family?” he asked.

And then he told his congregation that he loved them and asked the church to tell each other they loved themselves.

His sermon thesis:

1. This is a time for self-examination of ourselves and our families.

2. This is a time for social transformation (then he went on to say they won’t put me on PBS or national cable for what I’m about to say. Talk about prophetic!)

“We have got to change the way we have been doing things as a society,” he said.

Wright then said we can’t stop messing over people and thinking they can’t touch us. He said we may need to declare war on racism, injustice, and greed, instead of war on other countries.

“Maybe we need to declare war on AIDS. In five minutes the Congress found $40 billion to rebuild New York and the families that died in sudden death, do you think we can find the money to make medicine available for people who are dying a slow death? Maybe we need to declare war on the nation’s healthcare system that leaves the nation’s poor with no health coverage? Maybe we need to declare war on the mishandled educational system and provide quality education for everybody, every citizen, based on their ability to learn, not their ability to pay. This is a time for social transformation.”

3. This is time to tell God thank you for all that he has provided and that he gave him and others another chance to do His will.

By the way, nowhere in this sermon did he said “God damn America.” I’m not sure which sermon that came from.

This doesn’t explain anything away, nor does it absolve Wright of using the N-word, but what it does do is add an accurate perspective to this conversation.

Note from MsGenevieve:  I blogged this because I think it's important for folks to gain their own perspective on the issue and remain an advocate of finding their own truth.  I've visited Trinity numerous times in my youth and heard Pastor Wright speak. He's a brilliant man with a tremendous gift for moving and inspiring his congregation.  I am a better person for having had heard his words and would never denounce him under any circumstances.  However, I'd heard a story recently on NPR discussing how a lot of white people have never been to a Black Church service and have no idea about our ways of worship and teaching.  Although most black folk have been to a white church service at least once (remember spending that night over your white friends house on the weekend's and going to their religious services on the Sunday morning??)  I wonder then if it is possible to really wrap one's mind around something when they really have no point of reference.

Jacques Berlinerblau, program director and associate professor of Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, has a posted Note to White People where he recalls his findings during research for his book on African-American oratory.  He writes:

Last week the junior Senator from Illinois found himself trying to explain the pulpit indiscretions of his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Aware that many wanted to know how he could spend years listening to such remarks without having decamped from Trinity, Obama tried to place those remarks in their proper context:

"Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear."

Things are often said in African-American oratorical contexts—sometimes the most lyrical, provocative and over-the-top things—which are rarely intended to be marching orders. Those who hear these things may indeed be dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting, but they are acutely aware that they are not hearing fighting words....I want to suggest that African-American public speakers understand that their role is to uplift, educate, entertain, and even outrage. Audiences, in turn, understand that they will enjoy, reflect, absorb and then promptly adhere to the stunt man’s credo: don’t try this at home.  I am not saying, however, that nothing of substance ever comes out of the Church. When the pastor asks for volunteers for the soup kitchen across town, people cheer and sign up. When the pastor asks for congregants to help tutor children, people cheer and sign up. But on those occasions when the pastor suggests some sort of radical political action leading to macro-structural change, people only cheer.... And while Obama’s argument about taking these words in context was, in and of itself, valid, it does not in any way neutralize the advantages that will accrue to those who take them out of context.

Well that's all I wanted to post about that.

And now for a little comic relief.....