I was thinking about how many women about my age (57 last time I looked), are furious at the democratic party for rejecting Hillary, and how some of them vow never to vote for Obama. You can make fun of this anger, and you can try to reason it away. But that anger is real, and for people who support Obama, I would like to suggest there is similar case close to home.
Reverend Wright got his 15 minutes (though it seemed like years) of fame, for a few angry phrases. On the flip, I'd like to discuss Rev Wright's anger and compare it to the anger we see in some Clinton supporters.
I was thinking about how many women about my age (57 last time I looked), are furious at the democratic party for rejecting Hillary, and how some of them vow never to vote for Obama. You can make fun of this anger, and you can try to reason it away. But that anger is real, and for people who support Obama, I would like to suggest there is similar case close to home.
Reverend Wright got his 15 minutes (though it seemed like years) of fame, for a few angry phrases he tossed out during a few speeches. Here is some of what Obama said about that anger.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
I would argue that women of my generation may have a very similar experience. It is not, at least from my point of view, as vast and as deep as that of Blacks in America. But they have experienced prejudice in the workplace and in church. Discrimination at school and when applying for home loans. They were looked down upon by those in powers, and treated as "playmates" or "home-makers" -- not human beings.
Just as Rev Wright is angry at the way his country treated him, they are angry at the way their country treated them.
And Hillary was going to make up for it all. Just as the Civil Rights movement was going to make up for it all. But the the civil rights legislation didn't make everything better, and it appears that Hillary isn't going to wash away the sins of the past.
So I guess that is all I wanted to say. If you can understand where Rev Wright's anger comes from, you should be able to understand where Clinton's supporters anger comes from.
At least that is how I think of it.
What do you think?