Keep Reverend Wright in perspective
What did Reverend Wright say that got his critics so angry?
He wasn’t saying that God damns all Americans. Of course, no one could claim that. Instead, I think he was challenging the assertion that God should bless all Americans. For example, why ask God to bless an unrepentant slave master? I’d rather that God bless South America as much as the United States.
The U.S. has been called the “Great Satan” in the Middle East for almost 30 years, so I was not surprised by Reverend Wright’s comments about 9/11. We have practiced “democracy hypocrisy,” supporting dictators in Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. If people in the Middle East are angry with us for stealing their oil, it should come as no shock.
As for the suggestion that the U.S. government spread HIV, while that was never proved, we know that Reagan was slow to respond to the AIDS epidemic. We also know that the U.S. government allowed syphilis to go untreated in black males as part of the Tuskegee Study from 1932 to 1972.
Reverend Wright’s comments need to be put into perspective. His interview with Bill Moyers is at the PBS web site:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/watch.html