Mythos

I have been wanting to write about the media spectacle surrounding Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama for weeks. My internet went down for a few days and during the time I could not go on-line a new wave of the "controversy" came onto the scene. I heard about the Moyers interview and National Press Club talk through word of mouth. In most of those conversations, people (including members of my family and denomination) said "he (Rev. Wright) went off the deep end" and/or "he just lost it, completely."

Then I made the unfortunate mistake of reading Maureen Dowd's column where she reads and likens Rev. Wright's "preying on Obama" at the NPC to classic hero-myths where a young (underdog) hero beats the odds only to find himself betrayed by his mentor/father figure right before claiming the throne. She concludes the article by suggesting that Obama should "kill monsters...knock off his father and assume the throne." From the first sentence of the article Dowd pulls on the socially-constructed "angry black man" motif to craft her argument wherein she calls Rev. Wright "narcissistic," "explosive," and "The Really Angry Black Man" (as opposed to Obama who she characterizes as the "Sort of Angry Black Man”). This kind of journalism is a prime example of intellectually coded white supremacy where the person holding the pen reiterates (through description) and conditions (through prescription) blatant racism. Red flag: anyone who draws on the (western canon of imperial/colonial literature) "classics" to frame a political discourse without reflecting on how those classics have infiltrated the mind-set and foreign policy--and thereby set up the very dynamics she is (kind of, but not really) critiquing--of America. She writes "The Illinois senator doesn’t pay attention to the mythic nature of campaigns." Clearly she doesn't pay attention to the media's complicity in maintaining the mythos of racial stereotyping, male aggression, and dog-eat-dog nature of politics.

All of this before I had even heard Rev. Wright's comments for myself. My internet came back to life a couple days ago. Since then I have seen the Moyer's interview and the NPC talk.

Before getting into my reflections on Rev. Wright's comments, I'd like to acknowledge that I have three sources of affinity that impact my interpretation of this discourse. First, I am a member of and in-care with the United Church of Christ. I am denominationally tied to Rev. Wright, Trinity United Church of Christ and the broader UCC--all of which have been under serious attack in the past month. Second, I am a liberation theologian. Though I do not limit the scope of my theological projects to liberation theology, it has and continues to be a fertile source for interpreting and thinking about G-d's relationship with humanity and all of creation. Many of Rev. Wright's comments on Moyer's and the NPC platform were geared toward educating the public about liberation theology's history and impact on/in Judeo-Christian religion in particular and the American Black Church in particular. That so many of the liberation trajectories within this theology were misinterpreted and misunderstood in the public square goes to show the divorce of the academic study of religion and the practice of religion in contemporary America. I am interested in closing the gap between the two.

Now, what struck me right off the bat is how quickly the NPC conversation digressed when the format went from lecture to Q&A. Whereas the Moyers interview went in several directions, provided Wright and Moyers space to explore topics in depth, the NPC Q&A session was like a 10th grader accosting the once-popular-now-hated source of rumors. "Did you say this?" "Did you say that? Because if you said this then we think that." Every single sound-bite, pop-fox trope employed in the weeks prior was thrown on the table. Here Rev. Wright had given an hour long talk about the history and survival strategies of the Black Church and all this media representative could do was stay within the confines of month-old accusations. Few, if any, of her questions related to the material he presented--material that was historically accurate, far reaching, biblically sound and brilliantly communicated. Her questions, body language and facial expressions could not have been more juvenile and offensive, which of course provoked a form of social mockery between Rev. Wright, the other media analysts in the room and Rev. Wright's supporters in the audience. Once again it is "proven" to us: people just cannot talk about race with sophistication and civility. What a useful refrain for those who have power investment in those conversations remaining harmfully chaotic. People have been citing the "craziness" of this media spectacle all week, but I find the placement of that craziness on Rev. Wright instead of on the framing of the interactions another instance of white supremacy and deep seated ignorance. Further, the obsessive media coverage of the event and the consequences of that event (primarily the split between Obama and Wright) have distracted the American public from more immediate, and dare I say life-threatening, issues. Bob Herbert, one of the most reliable journalists at the NYTimes (though he too has fallen into the Wright hateration trap) wrote on this systematic distraction quite well.

What I sense is at question, and for me at stake, in this entire circumstance is allegiance. I cannot help but think that Rev. Wright and Barack Obama found themselves at the fault line of two American tectonic plates: religion and politics. Facing each other, and in facing each other facing a mirror, these two had to sense the upcoming earthquake made possible by legal separation of church and state in a land where the people's hearts lack any such separation. Both Rev. Wright and Senator Obama came up close and personal with the implications of "serving God and country"--two things I think they both aspire to do. Rev. Wright said it very clearly: "after the election I will still be a pastor." In the end the pastor chose to keep his allegiance with God, not with the possibility for the first black president. What an excruciating decision. It does not strike me as coincidental that such a decision faces Barack's pastor, not Hillary's or McCain's. And what decision is left for Senator Obama? Giving up his pastor or his political career. What an excruciating decision. Is it any coincidence that the American public demands a black-on-black dismissal before it considers a black man electable?

In the end, they both made a choice based on allegiance. One could write a dissertation on the ethical implications of those allegiances and decisions, but while we wait for such a publication to inform our understanding, I think it’s crucial to notice how particularly narrow the options are for both. Most ironic of all: in a country where religion and politics consistently tango with each other to check and balance practical and ethical decision-making, we expect two public figures who represent the best of both to abandon one for the sake of the other. Perhaps it is our reluctance to admit the religious-political hybrid within—so destabilizing to our first amendment and sense of superior identity—that forces us to project our macrocosm anxiety onto an arbitrary (though strategically chosen) microcosm. But admitting anxiety isn’t a part of the American Mythos. And it certainly wouldn’t get you elected in a time of deep seated economic anxiety because then you’d actually be representing—not transcending—your people.

Underlying most of this discourse is what Alfred North Whitehead would call the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness.” We want strength and answers when we feel weak and anxious. We want stable identity categories so we can understand, classify, interpret and use what’s identified when it suits us. Unfortunately we are reaching for water trying to grasp a rope. If we really wanted “change” (to use Obama’s phrase) or “transformation” (to use Wright’s phrase), we would begin to pick apart the very desire to grasp and cling in moments of uncertainty. We would begin to see the arbitrary nature of classification systems and start to let the Other tell us their own story before we place our story on them. And we might let friends remain friends instead of igniting racial in-fighting to tighten our white supremacist hold on power.