Obama, I am so happy for you, the world is watching and supporting you!!!, I can only imagine that if Mccain or Hillary gets the red carpet treatment to the white house, this will only severe international ties, put the american economy into chaos and put them back 100 years…

With all the support behind you we wish you the best and God Bless you and the USA.

Supporter from New Zealand….

Granted, hands down Hillary shouldn’t be elected dog catcher, and hasn’t the integrity to handle sewage disposal.  But lets not be equally delusional and think that this is not a political move, it certainly is.

What a set of comments here from Obama fanatics who are just plain blind to what happens around them. There is no difference between them and Obama that they dont see whats happening just like Obama did for 20 years. And on all sites I have seen, the Obama bandwagon or the first to comment enmasse to make sure that the general opinion is in his favor. They have a fantastic online system. But what an opportunitistic .. is this Mr Obama. For 20 years he does nothing but but quits now because he clearly sees it is hurting him. If not for the hurting his chances, he would have stayed with the church and that my friend is called flat out lie and opportunism. There is no moral or ethical values here. Here you have a candidate who will do anything, flip flop for his convenience

Michael,You have no idea what you are talking about. You have no idea what principles Trinity is founded on. Have you ever attended a service? Do you have any knowledge of the church’s outreach ministry? Do you have ANY knowledge of black political thought. What Trinity’s and Wright’s teachings are centered on are black conservatism: encouraging his parishioners to stop depending on whites to help, demand excellence of their children, and to essentially IGNORE white people. These are essential to uplifting of the black race (these are also espoused by WHITE conservatism in an effort to reduce the size of gov’t). THAT’s why Obama attended this church for 20 years.  Have you read any works of the major Black American thinkers? Frederick Douglass? Booker T. Washington? Clarence Thomas just to name a few? Probably not. You are not an expert. All you have seen is a few clips taken from a lifetime of sermons. You are ignorant, along with the vast majority of everyone expressing his/her opinion on this subject. All of you need to reserve judgment until you’ve enlightened yourselves. Stop condemning Obama out of your own ignorance. Grow up. Life isn’t a made up clips. When are you people going to dispose of the Sean Hannity mentality? Read. It would be a good start: http://dsadevil.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-i-read-rev-wright.html

Chuck, why is it that one should have to understand black political thought to understand a church? Should right wing politics also be understood to have the proper context in which to view conservative evangelical churches?

And that’s leaving aside the particular objections that most people have to the school of black political theology (which is that it is racist and seeks to capitalize on collective white guilt.) Even if the tenets of the philosophies were reasonable it would still be wrong to mix politics with religion as TUCC does. It’s incredible to me that this church didn’t have it’s 501(c)3 status stripped long ago.

Nice spin, Chuck, but this:
<i>If you actually researched Trinity you would know that its teachings are not centered  around black political theology. </i>

Directly contradicts what Rev. Wright has repeatedly said (in interviews he constantly talks about how his preaching has been inspired and based upon the black liberation theology of James Cone.)

And those video clips were not cherry picked by Obama’s opponents, they were selected by TUCC as representative of their pastor’s teachings.

And besides, I was responding to YOUR claim that we needed to understand black politics before we could understand this church.

Of course when I got to this part of your comment:
<i>No white politician has ever been excoriated for their affiliation with the religious zealots on the right the way Obama has for his ties to this church, which is a testament to the inherent racism in this country.</i>
I realize that you are completely delusional, so I’m a bit sorry to have engaged you in a discussion that’s probably pointless. Where have you been for the past 20 years or so?? No white conservative politician has ever had the kind of close association and church membership with controversial preachers as Obama has with his church- yet even to associate with one in seeking a political endorsement has carried a huge backlash and outcry from liberals for years. The real question is why the left has never had a problem with lack of separation of church and state when it’s occuring in left wing churches.

simple – political expediency – that’s all.. he’s a shallow hypocrite – he sat there for 20 years listening to ‘vile’ sermons and only when the polls show that he needs votes from middle class white voters he’s trying to appease them.. the reality is that he is not really ‘black’ and the reason he joined the church was not because he believed it but that he needed the black community to support him in his political ambition.. remember, he didn’t have the overwhelming support of the black vote until bill clinton was idiotic enough to compare him to jesse in south carolina.. so his cutting ties off so easily to a black church most likely will lose him black support who rightly will see that he will sell them out when the price is right.. and, oh remember the whole intellectual schmancy about how wearing a flag pin is not necessarily an indication of patriotism? then why the hell is he wearing one? he’s a sneaky eel – there’s nothing new and refreshing and ‘change’ about him – he’s a conniving politician that’s all.. and the more the people see him as a regular politician, then the infatuation will wear off and he is history..

The purpose of TUCC is to uplift the black community. Black liberation theology holds tenets that aid in that mission. Wright incorporates those tenets into his ministry, but the ministry is centered around UPLIFTING THE BLACK COMMUNITY. That is something I think we can all agree needs to be done by as many churches as possible.

It’s not spin. What FOX does is spin. They’ve done such a good job of it that when someone actually tries to profess the truth in the face of that ill-informed point of view, people like you see it as spin. I’m not saying I agree with everything Reverend Wright espouses, but the church is founded on solid Christian principles harnessed to uplift a minority group. Nobody leaves that church hating white people. These aren’t 8,000 black racists, which apparently you all assume.

The sound bites were not cherry picked by TUCC. TUCC has hours upon hours of video showing Reverend Wright’s sermons. The media cherry picked the few clips out of his 30 years of sermons that were most controversial and aired them. You seem confused.

I stand by my claim that if you are going to assess Obama’s judgment for attending the church, gather all evidence, not just bits and pieces. Otherwise, reserve judgment and assess him on other things. You can’t assume it was for sound reasons he attended the church? You must assume, as FOX implores you to with the incomplete evidence they provide, that he used bad judgment. Be mature and seek knowledge for yourself. You don’t want to do that, though. You’d rather remain ignorant and cast judgment.

And when you got to the part of the argument where I compared what Obama is experiencing to his white counterparts on the right, you had concluded I was delusional. If after reading everything I said, you came away with that conclusion, then you lack the intellect to even have this discussion. This election season is a prime example. McCain isn’t losing any votes as a result of his seeking the endorsement of far right zealots. The left can mention it all they want, but he isn’t truly paying a political price for it, not in his own party. But Obama is paying a HUGE political price. Exit polls in WV and KY prove it. Nice try at doing the same thing to me that the media has done to Wright. Call me delusional so everything I say is invalid. Grow up.

I agree that no church should be talking politics from the pulpit. Pfleger was wrong, and so was Wright. But I will say this: the clips from the Sunday after 9/11 paint an unfair picture of that sermon. If you watched the Bill Moyers interview, then you know what message Wright was trying to deliver. Many Christian pastors  the principle of Karma: what goes around comes around. That’s actually a Christian tenet. I’m not saying I agree, but it is not that uncommon. He said the people in his church had family members who had died in the WTC, and they were looking for where God was in all of this. He explained it to them. They left the church feeling better. Go back and look at the WHOLE sermon. But you don’t want to do that. You want to harp on "America’s chickens are coming home to roost." You take comfort in calling him fringe, loony, goofy, racist. You’re immature.

I didn’t say I agreed with everything Wright said. I most certainly don’t. America did not create AIDS, and God should not damn America. Those comments deserved denouncement. But we’re discussing Obama’s attendance at the church, and whether it shows a lack of judgment on his part. It doesn’t. The reasons he went there are sound.

Again, please answer this question: what is wrong with a man that is half white and half black, who was raised by the white side of his family his whole life, attending a church in his adulthood that espoused uplifting the black community? In my opinion, that only serves to forge a well-rounded human being with a perspective that would serve the Presidency well. I guess in you all’s eyes, the less black, the better.

C Stanley,Fair enough. I shouldn’t put words in your mouth. Your above comment includes nuance that this debate over Obama’s judgment in attending the church does not. I agree that victimology is completely counterproductive to the advancement of black people. But I don’t think the characterization of TUCC as a church that promotes victimology in order to create resentment in the black community is accurate. That’s how the media has portrayed the church and that’s why Obama’s judgment has been called into question. There is no excuse for the AIDS comment, but it is a fact that the US gov’t let black syphillis patients go untreated until they died. I am young black guy, and I have no resentment towards white people. I do, however, resent ignorance, especially amongst those who are so opinionated. I love this country because it is the greatest country in the world. Jeremiah Wright does too. He is a lot more resentful than me, and many of his views I don’t share. But to call into question Obama’s judgment for attending the church that does the most outreach on the southside of Chicago is absurd. He went to a church. My family goes to a church where some things are said that we don’t agree with. That doesn’t mean we get up in front of the alter to proclaim our disagreement. Obama is a parishioner in the church, not a politician. He’s not a deacon. Just because he’s a US Senator doesn’t mean he has an obligation to correct everything Wright said that he disagrees with. How about Obama’s speech on race? Is that not a major step towards rebutting the dated point of view of the likes of Wright and moving the conversation in the black community forward? To those on the right, it is not. It is simply political pandering. That’s why it’s hard to believe anyone really wants to get to the truth. We all just want to play the blame game, attack, accuse, renounce, denounce, and pretend we’re perfect. Nothing Obama does is sufficient, even though it’s obvious to all of us he does not share Wright’s views. We can say we’re suspicious, but c’mon, they’re two different people. We’re all different people, and we can be patriotic in different ways. Wright was a marine who served by the bedside of LBJ. How can he not be patriotic? Because of a view comments he made that Sean Hannity took out of context? Everything isn’t just a yes or no. It’s not black and white. It’s gray. We should all take the time to really search for the truth, but politics doesn’t lend itself to that.

admin: comments containing personal attacks will be deleted in their entirety.

Chuck, why is it that one should have to understand black political thought to understand a church? Should right wing politics also be understood to have the proper context in which to view conservative evangelical churches?

I also wanted to quickly answer this point by CStan, because I think it’s a reasonably solid objection. My answer is "yes, and we do."

The discourse on this topic boils down to "if X group had its way, it would do bad things." My argument is that we need to have some warrant for making that assertion — and generally that warrant is "hearing" (broadly speaking — reading, experiencing) their claims and advocacy. Until we have some experiential basis for saying "it would do bad things", it’s not a legitimate claim to make in the political arena. And that’s true for every group — Black Liberation Theology and White Evangelical Christianity.

 When we hear an individual controversial comment by an evangelical pastor (like Rev. Hagee), we do not hear it in isolation. Evangelical Christianity is well represented in the political forum. They have powerful lobbyists. They have syndicated, national columns. They run and elect candidates to state and national office with significant success, and represent a formidable bloc of power in American politics. Their perspective is heard on TV news and cable talk shows. Because of all that, I am in a reasonable position to know what would happen if they "had their way." I know reasonably well their position on, say, gay rights, abortion, feminism, religious liberty, etc.. An individual instance of radical Evangelical advocacy is situated in that nexus of knowledge I possess by being a reasonably politically aware actor in an America where evangelical Christians are significant players, which is where I get the right to evaluate it. I do, to a reasonable extent, "know" the context of right-wing/evangelical political advocacy it operates in, because I hear their voices as they seek to enact that agenda daily in the public sphere.

By contrast, Black Liberation Theology possesses none of those attributes. It is not a powerful lobby. It does not possess significant numbers of elected officials at any level of government. Their adherents are not syndicated columnists who are major parts of our national public discourse. They are not regular contributors to the mainstream news or punditocracy. Experientially, I have no reference point for what they do "if they had their way", because there is no precedent for it. When they do enter the public consciousness, it’s in circumstances such as this — a sudden frenetic burst of media attention that necessarily is not attentive to the broad nexus or context of the movement — and unlike with Evangelical politics, I have no daily experience to fill in the gaps. Because of that, I do not have the right to assume "what they would do."

In contexts where group X is not a "normal" and familiar part of our political discourse, I must find alternative paths to "hear their voice." Reading their actual writings — their books and journal articles and stories — is probably the best way to do that.

David, on the rightwing church vs. leftwing church differential in power, I strongly disagree. My perception is that the black liberation theology might not be directly quoted by politicians on the left, and it’s proponents may not be directly courted for endorsements and such, but the tenets of the theology permeate left wing racial politics. If black political leaders are espousing the same ideas as the religious leaders, and the churches are preaching that message (in the case of TUCC, they’re doing so in an openly political manner, even referring to specific politicians by name and campaigning from the pulpit), then how is this any different than the influence that you ascribe to the religious right?

And, left wing politicians in local black communities certainly have courted the religious left vote- to date though, it’s never happened so openly on the national scene.

C Stanley, I am confused about your view of Obama’s position in the church. Have you ever attended a church that a state level politican attends? I have and they tend to be your more quiet parishoners. Because they are not there for the purposes of making the church PC or ready for the press. That would be presumptuous and self-serving to suggest a church should change its message just because a "high and mighty" politician sits in the pews.And you didn’t respond to my assertion that no pastor must curb their words in reference to the politics of the state surrounding it. I wonder how you would answer THAT. Also, what communcations about TUCC has Wright used Obama in? Like I said, the right rallied in their churches to get Bush elected… do you have a similar problem with that?

@JY  # 30 or anyone else…Shouldn’t TUCC and any church on the Right be scrutinized over their tax status with such a departure from the rules ?
Should pro life Catholic politicians be excommunicated ?
Didn’t Obama pick this church for political reasons just like he now leaves it ?

Liberation theology, not even specifically black liberation theology, coexists with a lot of writing in academic departments like ethnic studies and sociology, and in Marxist social movements. While the typical mainstream politician doesn’t describe himself as a Marxist, a lot of people’s mainstream political opinions are derived from that point of view, which treats Western culture as inherently bigoted and the history of America as a history of repression. Its certainly has had an impact on how a lot of people view our history and our current culture.

Umm, what? I agree that liberation theology can co-exist with Marxism (though that’s more prevalent in the Latin American form than in the Black rendition). But they are not the same thing. First, "Marxism" has nothing to do with the theoretical belief that "treats Western culture as inherently bigoted" etc. etc.. Marxism is an indictment of capitalist economics and the exploitation of the proletariat. That’s totally separate. If anything, Black Liberation Theology stands at odds with Marxism because Marxism does not easily admit to alternative axes of oppression other than economic class, while BLT is (obviously) concerned with racism as its central point of analysis. This is why so many radical Black leaders in the mid-20th century broke from Marxism after initial flirtation. When people say "that’s Marxism", what they’re really saying is "let’s conflate everything I think is scary and bad and call it a single ideology!"

Second, nobody seriously holds that Western culture is "inherently bigoted", at least in the sense I suspect you’re using it. What some do hold is that the political and social institutions are shot through with racism — ideologically and structurally. It’s not some ontology or biology that makes the West "bad", it’s the particular manner in which our social relations have been constructed. They do view it as "inherent" in the sense that they view racism as normal operating procedures that rationally flow from the current organizing principles of Western society. But it’s a slippery term that gets used to incorrectly draw a parallel to classic biological racism.

Third, even in my non-caricatured reconstruction, nobody of political influence holds anything approaching these opinions. There is no politician alive who would argue that America is structurally racist — it’d be politically suicidal. Nor does anybody elected to office seriously question the underlying structure of America’s political and social constructs — they’ll demand reform, but not revolution. The Black political leaders that get put on TV are well within the tradition of the mainstream civil rights movement (conceiving themselves as heirs to King, as I said in the last post). They are by no stretch advocates of, say, Black Power or Black Liberation Theology, or anything approaching it — they don’t even hint in that direction. Your response boils down to "Black people sometimes are put on TV to talk about affirmative action, so I know everything about the various strains of Black Political Thought" — neglecting the fact that the Black people on TV represent a very particular school of thought. They’re operating from a completely different set of assumptions and principles regarding the state and future of American race relations. Black people are not like trees (to borrow from President Reagan): Once you’ve seen one, you have not seen them all.

Look, if y’all want to seriously argue that the disciples of James Cone get comparable media time (particularly when they get to control the message) to the disciples of Jerry Falwell, or that the Nation of Islam could take on the Family Research Council in a political knife-fight, we’ll just have to "agree to disagree" (snort). But I think the honest players amongst us recognize that there is a material and substantive difference in the type of exposure and political influence these groups possess.

People know what critical theory is is, people know what the Nation of Islam stands for, people know what multiculturalism is and what separatism is. People know what Marxism is.

Speaking as someone who has studied these things in reasonable depth, no, people don’t. Every time I’ve seen those categories referenced (even the ones I greatly dislike, like the NoI) in popular debate, they’ve been butchered beyond recognition. Including by yourself: "influenced by Marxism" is not the same as "Marxist". Marxism was influenced by capitalism, yet, it is not capitalist. Most intellectual theories are influenced and draw from (yet modify and change) those which come before. Certainly, Marx had insights on the power of structures and social differentiation which got adopted by Crits (contingency of truth I identify as flowing better from the pragmatist tradition: are William James and John Dewey "Marxist" now?). But that is insufficient to say  they are the same animal. This is just spectacularly lazy thinking. Black Power — despite being avowedly capitalist — is nevertheless Marxist because both articulate some notion of "class consciousness"? Under that metric, my entire religion (Judaism) is definitionally Marxist. Better to characterize critical theory as a Kuhnian paradigm shift away from Marxism.

Similarly, your whole summary of what I presume to be the New Abolitionist movement (Noel Ignatiev and co. — it would be easier for me not to assume if you’d start citing to actual authors, and it would actually relate to the putative debate at hand if these authors had "Congressman" in front of their name) is a lovely menagerie of half-truth and slight of hand. 19th century White supremacists did not say the "construct" of Blackness was inherently inferior, they said Blacks (as some Platonic category) were inherently inferior and then constructed ideological schemas and stereotypes to back it up. The New Abolitionists (who are marginal even amongst Crits) say that the construct of being "White" is inextricably bound up with the notion of White Supremacy — what other binding factor is there in the social construction of Whiteness qua Whiteness (Love of Wonder bread? Inability to jump?)? Consequently, they urge the abolishment of Whiteness — not the people currently raced as White, but the category of "White". As it happens, I disagree with them — but there’s is an attack on Whiteness as an ideology, not as biology.

I wrote a post the other day reviewing an article about what the author calls "the post-left" saying all those same things ("leftists think everything about America is irredeemably corrupt while the rest of the world is sanctified!"). The problem is he, like you, doesn’t actually link the "theory" to any statements by actual human beings (the only time he tries, he actually proves the opposite, with Judith Butler). And even he doesn’t (directly, anyway) say that these are views that have mainstream political penetration. What we saw there, we see here: unbelievably caricatured renditions of "Critical" thought, not linked back to any actual people or sources,  expressed as possessing influence and power way beyond their ranks.

In any event, even this debate — superficial as it may be — is well beyond what ever occurs in American political settings. Expression of these tropes in any sort of depth is very rare outside particular intellectual circles (mostly academic). It. Is. Not. Politically. Salient.

All I’m claiming at the moment is "I’ve read the damn books." You’re quoting secondary sources at me (and off-point ones as well — both because the putative topic of debate is how influential these theories in mainstream politics, and because Gross & Levitt’s book is dealing primarily with a particular branch of argument of left thought [that crops up most often in sociology of science, yet to be discussed at all] that hasn’t thus far entered this debate. Cone’s theology, for example, has absolutely nothing to do with the supposed misuse of scientific terminology Gross and Levitt are attacking). It’s not adequate.

It is amazing how nobody on this thread, despite all of their grandstanding, can make the simple announcement: "I read James Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power (or whichever book). I found its argument uncompelling for X, Y, and Z reasons."

Though you’d make an excellent abstinence-only educator: "You may have actually read the books in question and, you know, studied the topic. But I don’t need this elitist ‘knowledge’ crap to tell me what I already know! Besides, I read a book that vaguely relates to the debate and an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education once, so I’m clearly equally informed."

Jason, I think you have a very valid point but why engage people on a blog in a conversation if you feel that your knowledge of the subject matter is greater than theirs is, unless you are going to explain the points about which you feel their knowledge is inadequate? It’s pretty absurd and arrogant to reference an entire book and basically tell people, "Come back and discuss after you’ve read it cover to cover." If there are specific ideas that we don’t understand because we’ve read only excerpts and articles instead of the complete works of Cone et al, then why not describe those ideas? Or if it’s not possible to do so, then accept that the general public is going to hold a different view of those works than the ‘enlightened’ ones do.

Yes, I agree, esp with your last paragraph.

FWIW, in addition to the criticques of BLT that Jason already mentioned, here are some of mine. One is on theological grounds, and the rest is my common sense view of what I know of the political implications of BLT.

First, theologically I don’t feel that any liberation theology holds water. There’s just no justification of the idea, certainly in the NT and in Christology, that God takes the side of the oppressed in the sense of restoring equality in this world. Christ was pretty explicit that His kingdom was of the next world, not this one. And that’s pretty much the point- we can never expect perfect justice in this world because God gave us free will and men sometimes choose to wield it for power rather than seeking His will.

That kind of dovetails with my first critique of the political ideology, which is really a general criticism of most radical left politics. Starting with the concept that a utopian justice is achievable leads to an inordinate faith in the power of government to create egalitarian conditions, IMO.

And then on the particulars of this brand of racial politics, I think the burden of proof should be on its advocates to show how the nursing of grievances can actually lead to progress once a certain level of progress has been achieved. Again, this is just a common sense observation, but it seems to me that in all situations of social grievance (personal or political) that picking at the scab prevents its healing. Obama himself acknowledges that when he points out the legitimate gripes of certain groups of white Americans, who did not in fact reap the benefits of institutionalized racism and in fact have now had to suffer the effects of reverse discrimination (and yes, I realize that Obama would not claim to be an adherent of the political ideology we’re discussing- I’m just pointing out that I agree with him on that basis.)

My objection is that you are making very bold claims about both the philosophical underpinnings and the practical upshot of Wright’s theology without any academic or experiential warrant whatsoever. When you make a descriptive claim like "What has been said in recent days and weeks at that Church isn’t worse than the things that were said at this place for the last 20 years," it has to be backed up by you having read a representative cross-sample of Rev. Wright’s sermons over the last 20 years for it to have any validity whatsoever. If you make the claim that Trinity is essentially espousing "anti-white" doctrine, and I respond "well, actually, I’ve read two collections of Rev. Wright’s sermons, and predominant theme is to not rely on Whites, not to hate them (Washingtonian racial uplift via the demand for discipline, excellence, and achievement)," and you come back with "oooh…look at you, you’ve read a book! Liberal elitism!"… discussion can’t proceed in any significant sense.

Similarly, if you’re going to make assertions about what BLT fundamentally is, it would help to have read a Black Liberation Theologian. Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power is widely recognized as the defining book in the BLT canon. But if you had read a different book by him, or even a different BLT author, that’d be fine too. What’s aggravating is an assumption of expertise based on 4 minute YouTube clips, and what’s infuriating is this "an apple is still an apple" response to the plea for contextualization.

"Interested individuals" should always be interested in expertise. Critical thinkers should always be willing to have their assumptions challenged by those who have engaged more deeply with the topic than they themselves have. Particularly when the debate at the moment is descriptive (what are Wright/Cone/BLT/Crits actually arguing?) rather than normative (are Wright’s/Cone’s/BLT’s/Crits’ agreed upon arguments correct?), it would seem particularly apt to defer to those who have, you know, read the argument. No?

If you make the claim that Trinity is essentially espousing "anti-white" doctrine, and I respond "well, actually, I’ve read two collections of Rev. Wright’s sermons, and predominant theme is to not rely on Whites, not to hate them

David, I’ve read your blogpost on that and I still don’t see how that’s substantially better (though it does explain the part of this philosophy in action at TUCC, for example, that I think is productive- asking black families to focus on their responsibilities to their kids, etc.)

But again, just using common sense, how can racism be overcome with such a separatist attitude that basically says, "FU, white America, we’ll coexist with you but remain a separate culture" instead of embracing a collaborative, assimilative approach (one that would, for instance promote black middle classedness which doesn’t have to embrace the same cultural norms as white middle class.) What seems really counterproductive is for blacks to embrace a different vision than most white Americans see for a postracial future, while simultaneously condemning whites for not welcoming blacks into their society. It’s a bit hard to welcome people who are condemning you and rejecting your vision of America.

It seems intutitive that there should be a dual approach which asks both blacks and whites to take responsibility and solve problems relating to black poverty in a unified way and focus on solutions instead of blame.

Jason: here’s Ratzinger on Liberation Theology. The point you brought up is an example of what he refers to as the ‘kernel of truth’ of the theology which is what makes it believable- and that if the Church had been correctly living out its mission, then there wouldn’t have been that opportunity for the kernel of truth to be coapted as a political movement.

So the premise of your argument, the definition of what "success" means in terms of interracial relations in America, is the very standard Black Conservatives are rejecting as unrealistic. They’re no longer interested in being "welcomed" into broader White society — they think that’s a suckers game at this point (Malcolm X: "Why would I want to integrate into a burning house?").

Well, my counterargument to that is that many of us on the outside looking in have the perspective that the blacks who accept this ideology are actually being suckered by the black leaders who advance it, and the reason they’ve been successful in convincing blacks to follow them is that the ideas are basically a self fulfilling prophecy. If blacks continue to act as though all whites only want to repress them, even in the face of reams of evidence to the contrary, then the white resentment will push back against those attitudes and the black separatists use that to claim that racism is still rampant.

David, it is disturbing how you want to cherry-pick which pieces of black liberation theology you will discuss. Anyone who highlights the negative aspects (grotesque suspicion and outbursts of hateful language towards anything labeled as "white") is told, by you, that those elements are unimportant and that only the positive message of self-reliance that you are reporting is relevant.

Might not BOTH positive AND negative aspects be relevant, especially when dealing with BLT as a social and political project that has implications far broader than the black community alone?

When you sugar-coat and try to suppress or avoid engaging counter-points, you move out of the role of intellectual analyst and into the role of anti-intellectual spin artistry. And no reflected claims of expertise can save your credibility then. So far, your contributions to the discussion are very well-read and well-written, but fall somewhat short in intellectual honesty.

P.S. It is highly rude as well as completely dishonest to imply, as you did in the quote below, that everyone who disagrees with or criticizes BLT is by definition racist. It is especially dishonest in light of your continuing failure to even respond to specific criticisms. Implications that everyone who disagrees with you is a racist by definition may be a staple of how you have grown used to handling disagreements on some other sites, but it is not acceptable here.

In the words of John Solomos and Les Back, racism is “a scavanger ideology” — it can respond to nearly any interpolation of facts and still manage to rearticulate itself as coherent and sensible.

I actually think David might have a good argument to make saying that the positive aspects are the "core" of black liberation theology.  But I don’t think he can credibly make that argument as long as he continues to pretend that the negative aspects either do not exist, are not influential, or are out-of-bounds lest the critic be accused of "racism" for even mentioning them.

If you think Black people are obligated to trust American Whites

This seems a pretty obvious strawman. No one is suggesting that anyone has an obligation to trust someone else, but rather that they have an obligation to allow for the possibility that another individual might be trustworthy until individual behavior proves otherwise. BIG difference. Distrust of an individual that is based purely on skin color is quite simply racism.

Let me ask you this: Would you endorse or condemn a general statement that whites are untrustworthy?

I ask because this is what BLT advocates appear to be saying at more than just a few points — that whites are as a people and as individuals untrustworthy. And I don’t see any legitimate way to "contextualize" (aka spin) that away. Further, I read attempts to spin it away as intellectually less than honest, basically the same as any other form of ad hoc theorizing.

And there seems no way to read the DuBois quotation you offer as anything other than bald racial prejudice to the effect that most, if not all, whites are untrustworthy. If anyone said the exact same thing about any non-white group, they would be condemned, denied tenure, fired, vilified, and expelled from polite society. Yet you ask that we have a different standard for BLT advocates. That’s illogical.

Your point about Wright is similarly contorted. You conflate beliefs about the untrustworthiness of an individual (Wright) based on his individual behavior with a generalized belief in the untrustworthiness of all white people. You assert that anyone who condones distrust towards an individual must also condone an automated and indelible distrust towards all people of an entire race. That’s nonsense.

By the way, a claim that history mandates perpetual distrust is denied by reality. France has been invaded by Germany numerous times through history, with the last time being much more recent than the end of slavery in the U.S. Yet today, French people routinely trust German people and the two governments are very close allies. Clearly, the idea that negative experiences between groups mandates permanent distrust is not coherent with reality. Indeed, I would argue that separatist rhetoric is what CAUSES continued distrust between groups far more than simply DESCRIBING it. I would point you towards nationalist/separatist projects in the former Yugoslavia as evidence of how rhetoric of historical grievance CAUSES new grievance rather than liberating people from it.

Jason, it seems to me – and it has constantly seemed to me – that this prejudice and even racism towards white is an intrinsic part of ‘black conservative thought.’ For example, the idea that blacks should rely on themselves seems to be connected to the idea that white whites can’t be trusted, etc.

I am not sure that is true. Certainly, when directly expressed as a directive to automatically distrust anyone who is white, such a directive is intrinsically racist. But to merely say that a community should develop the capacity to stand on its own is not inherently prejudiced because it can be based on the POSSIBILITY that others are untrustworthy rather than the POSITIVE ASSERTION that they are untrustworthy.

I’m thinking of the Mormons’ and Jews’ strong cultural histories of self-reliance. (Israel, for example, refuses to join in any formal alliance even with the United States.) Anyone who has observed the Israel-U.S. relationship or the relationship between Mormons and their non-Mormon neighbors cannot reasonably conclude that they are prejudiced against those who they are trying to avoid being dependent upon.

But when an assertion of untrustworthiness of an entire group is made explicitly, racism becomes intrinsic, not incidental or contingent.

I am also not convinced that a coherent “black conservative thought” ideology is really present as being described by David. I think that David just might instead be practicing a technique I’ve seen in other areas (i.e. some feminist IR scholarship) to take everything the advocate (i.e. David) doesn’t like (i.e. black racism and Clarence Thomas’ judicial philosophy) and attach it to a label (i.e. “conservative”) that the advocate has reason to believe will be accepted automatically as bad by his ideologically sympathetic audience (and therefore insulated from challenge). That way, everything good coming out of a black person is from a fellow “liberal” and everything bad is from one of those awful “conservatives”. It is a way of putting a rhetorical thumb on the scales while pretending to be an objective analyst. We saw a great deal of this little trick when some members of the media would refer to hardline Communists during the fall of the Soviet Union as “conservatives” while anti-communists were suddenly the “liberals”.

I agree with that, but reading the writings of the people involved and thinkers, and listening to some of the things said, etc., I can’t help but get the impression that it is most certainly connected with each other in this ideology.

Sure. The question is whether the connection is intrinsic or contingent. There is room at least conceptually for an argument that the relationship is contingent — that Wright is, for example, merely a racist who uses black liberation rhetoric rather than that Wright is an expression of an intrinsically racist black liberation philosophy.

Of course, at this point in the discussion, that is merely a possibility. Before David can actually make such an argument, he’s going to have to be less automatically dismissive of the troubling statements that people like Wright actually have made and, more importantly, less inclined to simply "contextualize" (spin) them. Instead, he is going to have to find someone within his BLT research that makes clear an individual/group distinction towards white people and further that that distinction is the real “core” of the movement. I think that I know of some evidence that might help make such a case, but since David has proclaimed himself the expert on this literature, I won’t presume to do his work for him.

This is pretty much the same critique I have been trying to get David to answer at various points for over a year now — his failure to draw the individual/group distinction that is frankly ESSENTIAL to any truly “liberal” anti-racism. As long as he continues to tacitly endorse a purely group-based view of the race issue, I will continue to strongly dissent from his analysis and allegiances.

Hold it … am I a bad person because I give Black Conservatism too much respect (MvdG) or too little (Jason)? I find much that is compelling in Black Conservative ideology (including the writings of Clarence Thomas, whom I’ve written favorably about on several occasions; and I’ve already noted how Black Power has intersected and buttressed my personal defense of Zionism). I also have problems, which I’ve expressed, and I’ve noted an asymptote which would prevent me from identifying with Black Conservatism even if I wanted to (which I don’t). It is neither something I adore uncritically, nor is it a compendium of things I detest in Black political thought.

I think the response to the Du Bois quote is very revealing (Du Bois, to be clear, is not a BLTer by any stretch, or even a Black Conservative — his statement on why he "trusted" Whites even when he in his heart did not is emblematic of a [very depressed] Black Liberal). I think that in 1920 it’s pretty evident that Whites-as-a -class were exploiting/oppressing Blacks-as-a-class. Individual Whites might have done some good things, but surely Blacks would have justified in a facial stance of mistrust towards X unknown White person (there were German rescuers, yet nonetheless Jews in Germany circa 1942 probably could legitimately "mistrust" the unknown German). Yet even in 1920, I am led to believe, Du Bois’ statement is intolerably racist. I simply cannot hear that sentiment and understand how it co-exists with even a vague nod towards the actual experience of Blacks in 1920 America. Had Blacks "trusted" Whites-as-a-class to the degree you demand in 1920, presuming they’d respond kindly to the assertion of equality, they would have been lynched (more than they already were, I mean). It is a lesson Jews learned the hard way, trusting the beneficence of Germans far too much in the 1930s [See Richard L. Rubenstein, “Homeland and Holocaust: Issues in the Jewish Religious Situation,” in The Religious Situation: 1968, Donald R. Cutler, ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968): 39-64, p. 49]. I would not demand anyone follow us down that blood-stained road. "Too much love…" as supra poem put it.

Nevertheless, no Black theorists that I know of (or would defend) would say that there is some ontological quality to possessing White skin that makes you inherently untrustworthy (the conclusion of Cone’s book discusses favorably the person with "White skin" whose "heart, soul, and mind" are with the oppressed). If that’s what you mean by "positivism" (some metaphysical quality of White people) then the argument isn’t being made (would there not be a serious performative contradiction in White ol’ me making it?). Their argument is contingent, observational, experiential, and constructivist. They observe the White community writ large and, from that observation, do not believe the standard White person will ultimately line up with them and be their ally (sometimes they don’t even say it’s because of racism per se — Carmichael and Hamilton simply observe that different groups have different interests, so there is no reason to believe that Blacks and Whites will magically be in accord all the time). It’s not a commentary on any individual White person, who may well roxxor the anti-racist boxxorz. But when Clarence Thomas is asked "as a member of a group that has been treated shabbily by the majority in this country, why would you want to give the government more power over your personal life?" (My Grandfather’s Son, at 73), he is not being asked to deal with Whites as individuals, but the White community as a class. As expressed through the voting booth, through the corporation, through colleges and universities, through White flight, through lynch mobs, through friendships, through families, through the whole gamut of being Black in White America (good and ill), Black people have to reflect: "is it wise to cede power over my life to this group?"

To say no, to my mind, is a legitimate conclusion to draw from American history as it has been expressed to this point. Racism may have decreased over the past 60 years, but it has been staging a comeback over the past 25 or so (it has, in the words of Kimberle Crenshaw, "retrenched", and now we enjoy the "thrill" of "re-racing"). Racism has moved in cycles before, and whatever anti-racism momentum was picked up during the 50s and 60s has evaporated (if not been reversed) well before it actually eradicated racism. The reduction, after all, came from a pretty high baseline. Consequently, even today the expectation that Whites-as-a-class will ultimately act in the best interests of Blacks is, at best, superobligatory. Hence, rely on oneself.

Yeah, the problem there David is that the default position is that whites are not to be trusted unless they espouse the right kind of ideology (and of course, that ideology also involves collective white guilt.) So there still, the idea is that all whites collectively are guilty of racism until proven otherwise. You wouldn’t accept that kind of thinking in reverse (and to preempt, in case you were going to make the point that that’s what we’re doing- no, we don’t assume blacks are racist until proven otherwise; we’re simply noting that certain blacks have made it known that they are racist.) It’s a matter of whether there’s a presumption of innocence for the individuals even if one knows there’re some guilty parties in the group. You made the point about the 1920’s for example; even then, I’d say that the approach most amenable to progress would have been for blacks to presume innocence from each individual white that they met, though of course I think it would be reasonable for them to have felt mistrust on an emotional level. But leaving aside the 1920’s, and moving to discussion of today’s society, it’s ridiculous and offensive to be told that all blacks ought to approach all whites with distrust unless the white person agrees with the collective guilt of whites and does a mea culpa by espousing this ideology.

"pro-Trinity whites"

You’re pretty much proving our point, David.

Yes, I think Christine also has a point, David.  The idea that an individual white person is presumed to be a racist until they have somehow publicly signed on to a political proclamation written specifically for whites by non-whites is demeaning to whites as individuals, for it asserts that they do not become eligible to be treated as individuals until they have jumped through hoops set up by someone else.

I am sure you can point to similar hoops set up that black people have to jump through every day — accent, dress, behavioral norms, even art and musical choices.  But that only reinforces my point — blacks legitimately resent when they are forced to "dance" to earn their right to be treated fairly.  Why shouldn’t individual whites resent similar demands?

The risk you ask us to run by demanding this default of trust for those who have oppressed us is a dice roll with our lives (not yours) as the wager. I do not appreciate either the game or the odds.

David, I would once again call your attention to my speculation that you would likely condemn the exact same logic you endorse here if it were deployed by a cabbie refusing to pick up a black fare or a person crossing the street to avoid a black youth.  (And you should note that it is not always whites doing it — most D.C. cabbies are themselves black, but they were widely condemned for their "racism" nonetheless.)

If my speculation is correct, I would ask you to explain WITHOUT appeal to special privileges attached to purely political and arbitrary categories like "the oppressed" how this is logically and morally justifiable.

I also would correct for the last time your misrepresentation of my position. I am not saying that anyone can “demand trust”, as you keep strawmanning it, but rather that they can legitimately demand the possibility of trustworthiness. Big difference.

I would also continue to call attention to my points that you continue to ignore about how BLT can be productive of racism even if it is not intrinsically racism as well as your refusal to question the group-based "as-a-class" assumptions underlying your entire body of writing on these issues going back over a year now.  To see you responding to some more peripheral issues while ignoring my substantive criticisms is quite frustrating, especially since it has persisted across many efforts on my part to engage you on them. Coming from someone who purports to provide the “Debate Link”, such “dropping my arguments” could and should be taken as tantamount to your conceding them, but I would prefer that you respond since this isn’t just a debate game.

Jason: My computer just crashed (on the roomie’s)  so I’m going to have bail. Quickly:

a) On our cab driver, I would not condemn him personally assuming he has some well-grounded (empirical or experiential) reason to fear for his safety, but would identify the issue as part of broader disadvantaging nexus of being Black in America. My views closely parallel those laid out in Jody Armour’s Negrophobia book, so I’d point there for more.

b) I only wish being oppressed was but a "political category", and one day I wish to visit the unidentified planet you live on where that is the case. [/sarcasm]

c) I believe I’ve answered a few times now this "possibility of trustworthiness" thing in agreement with you. BLTers do believe it is possible that Whites can be trustworthy (there is no ontological bar), but they don’t think that represents the current standard setting of the average White on the street (experientially, there is no reason to assume any random White/gentile person to be a good ally). But they’re happy when particular White folks show them to be wrong. Farrakhan obviously does not believe this, one of the reasons Farrakhan is risible, but both Cone and Trinity do. We seem to be in accord here; no need for hatin’. But MvdG, I think, seems to be "demanding" trust in his comments to this thread.

d) "BLT can be productive of racism even if it is not intrinsically racism": I apologize for "ignoring" this point, but I have no idea what you’re even trying to say. If it’s "BLT can produce racism [amongst Blacks? Whites?] even if not intentionally racist in its own ideology" I say "so can every other thing Blacks ever do — racism gets produced in American society as the default setting. ‘Anti-racism’ is the exception, and we’ve yet to bottle the formula that can produce that."

If that "ignored the point", apologies again, but it was my best shot at a very bizarrely worded sentence fragment.

e) "Group-based as-a-class" I think I’ve been far more solicitous of engaging why this thinking makes sense when talking about American racism than you have in responding to my justifications. Jim Crow was not a case of 1000 coin-flips in a row turning up heads (whoa, another case where Whites attacked and mutilated a Black man? That’s some bad luck, that is). It was the White community qua Whites attacking Blacks qua Blacks. The attacks had little to nothing to do with one’s individual status except that being White gave you the right to do it, and being Black made you vulnerable. Likewise for Jews and gentiles. I’m not sure where you’ve made any serious effort to undermine this reality, so once again, my apologies for "ignoring" phantom arguments.