Grumpa Joe's Place

My Flag Flies Everyday

More from “Dreams From My Father.” BO writes about how he learned of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church. As a Community Organizer, he found himself interviewing local ministers. The job involved looking for common issues that he could then bring into action through the local people. A good idea, that in my opinion is the same as pushing on a rope. It seems this old minister directed him to a young minister on 95th St who was attracting all levels of blacks. Even though his church is in one of the poorest neighborhoods on the southside of Chicago. I know it well, because I grew up three miles east of there. It wasn’t always a poor area, it was middle class. Unfortunately, the whites abandoned the area after the first black family moved in. They couldn’t move away fast enough. I digress. Before he left the community organizing business, BO showed up at the Reverend Wright’s church for a service. It sounded like BO didn’t really have much of a connection with God at the time. He was attracted to the message that Wright preached, i.e. Black Liberation Theology. It is a belief that racism is evil. 

James Cone a Black liberation theologian explains that   “…at the core of black liberation theology is an effort — in a white-dominated society, in which black has been defined as evil — to make the gospel relevant to the life and struggles of American blacks, and to help black people learn to love themselves. It’s an attempt, he says “to teach people how to be both unapologetically black and Christian at the same time.””

BO’ attraction to this message seems to confirm his troubled mind regarding his “blackness.” Being fathered by a black man to a white woman, and reared by white grandparents he did not understand his own racial make-up. As I explained in my previous post titled “Conflicted Soul,” he was raised white, but his soul was black. He wanted to be black. I don’t see anything wrong with that. He is half black, so why wouldn’t he want to express himself as black? What I do see as a problem is with his faith.

Religion is a belief and a faith that there is another world after death. Black Liberation Theology emphasizes action toward blacks learning to love themselves through the teachings of Jesus Christ. BO evidently saw something in this theology that appealed to him. Perhaps he could learn to love his blackness if he pursued this avenue.

When the media finally uncovered Jeremiah Wright’s sermon in which he “God Damned America,” BO got too much negative publicity out of it. At first BO defended the Reverend. I commend him for that. He showed that he truly had a strong relationship with the man. When the threat of losing his race for president increased, he finally “resigned,” from the church in an attempt to distance himself from Jeremiah Wright. Did he also resign from his “belief?” A true believer would have stood his ground and stayed.

If BO dropped this belief in Black Liberation Theology, after twenty years, at the drop of a hat, how quickly will he change his mind about his plan to tax only those making over $250,000.00?  How quickly will he change his mind about any of the issues he so arrogantly proclaims to be the “Change We Can Believe In.”

Filed under: Election, family, Funk, Garden, grief, Memories, Motivation, politics, Travel, Uncategorized, Writer | Tagged: Barack Obama, belief, black liberation theology, community organizer, Dreams From My father, James Cone, Jeremiah Wright, Jesus Christ, racism | 1 Comment »