The Thomas Chronicles

Has anyone heard Barack Obama specifically denounce, repuidate, or otherwise condemn the remarks made by Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright?

I have not, and I doubt anyone has either in public or in private. Because I think the simple fact of the matter is Obama hasn’t done it.

One can easily get lost in Obama’s soaring rhetoric, his wide smile and his sonorous hypnotic voice and not notice he hasn’t yet denounced his “former” pastor. it is no accident that Jeremiah Wright has canceled speaking engagements in Texas and Florida, and it speaks to collusion between Obama and Wright.

Just look at Wright, the man. If Obama truly denounced, I do not think he would hesitate to denounce Obama as an Uncle Tom. He did just as much to Colin Powell and Condi Rice. He also denounced Oprah after she left his church.

And yesterday, far from distancing himself from Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ, whose new pastor is continuing on in the Wright tradition of utter obscenities from the pulpit, Obama praised his church and defended Wright.

Although the question he had asked would not have required him to touch on Wright, Obama praised his church.

“Everybody is welcome to come to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street. It is a wonderful, welcoming church,” he said. “If you were there on any given Sunday, folks would be doing the same things in church at Trinity as they do everywhere else. They’re praising Jesus. They’ve got a choir singing. It’s a very good choir. And the pastor is trying to teach a lesson to connect scripture to our everyday lives.”

Obama said Wright had said some “very objectionable things when I wasn’t in church on those particular days.”

This is, of course, rubbish. People have heard about Wright’s extremist, racist remarks all across the country since the 1980’s. It’s just well-known that you don’t get ahead in Chicago politics unless you get the nod from “Reverend” Wright. So much for playing the misunderstood victim.

“I do have to remind people though this is somebody who was preaching three sermons at least a week for 30 years and got boiled down and found five or six of his most offensive statements and boiled that down to…half minute sound clip and just played it over and over again partly because it spoke to some of the racial divisions that we have in this country and tapped into those divisions.”

Those “cherry picked” comments that Obama accused his critics of using in an endless loop is not the creation of his critics, but some of those offensive comments were in the DVD’s Obama SOLD to churches around the country at his campaign stops. These comments were his church’s compilations of what they’re proud of.

It is clear that Obama has not rejected Wright or his Black Nationalist Church. And if anyone has any doubts about what Obama’s church is about please visit their website and read their lauded “The Black Values System“, of which they’re are adherents.

THE BLACK VALUE SYSTEM

Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System, written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee, chaired by the late Vallmer Jordan in 1981.

Dr. Manford Byrd, our brother in Christ, withstood the ravage of being denied his earned ascension to the number one position in the Chicago School System. His dedication to the pursuit of excellence, despite systematic denials, has inspired the congregation of Trinity United Church of Christ. Prayerfully, we have called upon the wisdom of all past generations of suffering Blacks for guidance in fashioning an instrument of Black self-determination, the Black Value System.

Beginning in 1982, an annual Black Value System – Educational Scholarship in the name of Dr. Byrd was instituted. The first recipient of the Dr. Manford Byrd Award, which is given annually to the man or woman who best exemplifies the Black Value System, was our brother, Dr. Manford Byrd.

These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They consist of the following concepts:

1. Commitment to God. “The God of our weary years” will give us the strength to give up prayerful passivism and become Black Christian Activists, soldiers for Black freedom and the dignity of all humankind.

2. Commitment to the Black Community. The highest level of achievement for any Black person must be a contribution of strength and continuity of the Black Community.
3. Commitment to the Black Family. The Black family circle must generate strength, stability and love, despite the uncertainty of externals, because these characteristics are required if the developing person is to withstand warping by our racist competitive society.

Those Blacks who are blessed with membership in a strong family unit must reach out and expand that blessing to the less fortunate.

4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education. We must forswear anti-intellectualism. Continued survival demands that each Black person be developed to the utmost of his/her mental potential despite the inadequacies of the formal education process. “Real education” fosters understanding of ourselves as well as every aspect of our environment. Also, it develops within us the ability to fashion concepts and tools for better utilization of our resources, and more effective solutions to our problems. Since the majority of Blacks have been denied such learning, Black Education must include elements that produce high school graduates with marketable skills, a trade or qualifications for apprenticeships, or proper preparation for college.

Basic education for all Blacks should include Mathematics, Science, Logic, General Semantics, Participative Politics, Economics and Finance, and the Care and Nurture of Black minds.

5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence. To the extent that we individually reach for, even strain for excellence, we increase, geometrically, the value and resourcefulness of the Black Community. We must recognize the relativity of one’s best; this year’s best can be bettered next year. Such is the language of growth and development. We must seek to excel in every endeavor.
6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic. “It is becoming harder to find qualified people to work in Chicago.” Whether this is true or not, it represents one of the many reasons given by businesses and industries for deserting the Chicago area. We must realize that a location with good facilities, adequate transportation and a reputation for producing skilled workers will attract industry. We are in competition with other cities, states and nations for jobs. High productivity must be a goal of the Black workforce.
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect. To accomplish anything worthwhile requires self-discipline. We must be a community of self-disciplined persons if we are to actualize and utilize our own human resources, instead of perpetually submitting to exploitation by others. Self-discipline, coupled with a respect for self, will enable each of us to be an instrument of Black Progress and a model for Black Youth.
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness.” Classic methodology on control of captives teaches that captors must be able to identify the “talented tenth” of those subjugated, especially those who show promise of providing the kind of leadership that might threaten the captor’s control.

Those so identified are separated from the rest of the people by:

1. Killing them off directly, and/or fostering a social system that encourages them to kill off one another.
2. Placing them in concentration camps, and/or structuring an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.
3. Seducing them into a socioeconomic class system which, while training them to earn more dollars, hypnotizes them into believing they are better than others and teaches them to think in terms of “we” and “they” instead of “us.”
4. So, while it is permissible to chase “middleclassness” with all our might, we must avoid the third separation method – the psychological entrapment of Black “middleclassness.” If we avoid this snare, we will also diminish our “voluntary” contributions to methods A and B. And more importantly, Black people no longer will be deprived of their birthright: the leadership, resourcefulness and example of their own talented persons.

9. Pledge to Make the Fruits of All Developing and Acquired Skills Available to the Black Community.

10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions.

11. Pledge Allegiance to All Black Leadership Who Espouse and Embrace the Black Value System.

12. Personal Commitment to Embracement of the Black Value System. To measure the worth and validity of all activity in terms of positive contributions to the general welfare of the Black Community and the Advancement of Black People towards freedom.

Take this church at their word. I am so glad that the great majority of Blacks in our country reject this excrement out of hand, but this is Obama’s church, the same church he’s just recently praised.

Is it any wonder that his church has deep affinities with Louis Farrakhan?

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