I WOULD RATHER BE WRIGHT
Did Senator Barack Obama say that? I
don’t think so. The pundits are advising
Barack to get over this association with the Reverend and next time he sees a
bus coming to give the reverend a big push. Barack is trying to distance
himself more gently. Nonetheless his media “advisors” don’t seem to be coming
from an impartial perch since most of them are minions of majaor
media companies that no doubt place some restrictions on their “independence”,
the imprimatur of journalism. Because they are venal captives of show biz, we
can forgive the Limbaughs, Hennitys,
Levins for their lugubrious oft visious
bias, but journalists, already
characterized by these punks as “drive-by-media” have more at stake. They have
the probity of their profession to protect, a chore the more difficult when
their services as commentators are purchased. Commentators and columnists have
different franchises; the former, to express personal opinion, the latter to
report the news.
Popular media and newspaper
columnists risk their independence by
syndicating not only their columns in the press but by syndicating themselves to agents who
then distribute them on the endless carousal that stops to let them off at
various TV talk shows. I was amazed at the near unanimity of opinion expressed
about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright after he held center stage at the National Press
Club and other venues. It seemed that the pundits, both black and white, either
maligned Wright and/or advised Obama to be rid of him. Wright was caricatured
as an egocentric showman vying for public attention and was minimized as a
voice important to his long-served congregation. Actually his press critics, reporters
turned showmen making the rounds on TV shows mirror the Pastor to some extent.
So when serious black leaders like
the Reverends Wright, Jesse Jackson or Sharpton come along comes along they encounter derision from the conservative
radio talk show establishment as well as some dismissiveness
from the rest of the press corps. They are tolerated but not accepted as a
serious component of this democracy.
These guys, Ayres and others yet
unheard of, are the spokesmen for a large population of African Americans whose
ancestors were enslaved and who themselves experienced an American brand of
Apartheid practiced legally in the south until and socially in the north until
President had to invoke the Army toi assure that
black children could go to school with whites children in the south.
We don’t have to agree with these
black leaders who are churning the water but we should certainly understand
they are fighting for causes they believe will repair their grievances and
advance their constituencies.