Rev. Wright AND THE BRAIN DIVIDE
I listened to Rev. Wright’s televised NAACP speech and while I reminded myself of the forum he gave it in I honestly can’t see how this can possibly help Obama in his quest for the Presidency. While I agree that different is not deficient his nationally televised remarks will only further polarize the electorate as they are carefully examined by a much wider audience. I know many black pastors and churches who do not espouse these things. It is becoming increasingly clearer that this comes from his theological framework of liberation theology which always pits one class against another. I am still scratching both sides of my brain after hearing his remarks about “eurocentric white children” learning from the left side of the brain and “afrocentric black children” learning from the right side of the brain and that the educational failure in the black community was related to an educational establishment which teaches to the left side. While he obviously is an intelligent man having been educated in a predominantly white upper class high school in Philadelphia he needs to revisit Plessy v Ferguson and Brown v Board of Education because different not deficient sounds a whole lot like separate but equal to me. These remarks taken to their logical conclusions would call for a teaching environment where blacks could be educated using a methodology that teaches to the right side of the brain while whites could be educated using the existing methodology that teaches to the left side of the brain. (sic) Rev. Wright is doing great damage to the numerous advancements and contributions made by many African Americans. This is what happens when you put ethnicity or race above faith. He ought to re-read Galatians 3:27-28. While not ignoring America’s national sin of slavery and “racism” race itself is really an illusion because at the biological level all human beings are the same. When will we understand that anyone who has been born in America or has become a naturalized citizen is an American period? Certainly more has to be done to improve our entire educational system and address the underlying socio-economic conditions of many poor Black, Hispanic and White children that interferes with their education and accounts for an increasing dropout rate but Wrights remarks when analyzed in the next few days will be seen to have contributed very little.
