"That doesn't get covered. I see them still doing, still trying to do
what they did back in the '60s , but not getting the coverage. Let them
marry a gay guy, or a gay couple, that's going to make the news. Let
them go up against Wal-Mart, especially Wal-Mart's treatment of women or
its workers, that doesn't make the news. Because the Waltons, and the
corporate giants who control the news, don't see that kind of work by
the church as important. What's important is that the Supreme Court sided with
the Walton family. So that those churches that are trying, that are
dealing with poverty, that are dealing with honest conversations about
educational reform, that are not jumping on the 'Waiting for Superman'
bandwagon or Bill Gates, but who are really in the schools, are
relegated to the shadows. And from what I see talking to local pastors
they're trying their best to make a difference in the lives of the poor,
they're doing feeding.
"I just left Fresno and a little small church out
there adopted one of the missions [for the needy] in Fresno. They've
got a place called Tent City in one of the richest counties in the
country. Folks are living in tents as if it was Soweto or Calcutta. The
guys from that small church in Fresno are going there, because it's
dangerous for the women to go over there, guys are going over there once
a week, and they are taking the youth of this church. But that's not
making the news. I've seen the church doing all kinds of exciting things
around the country, but it's below the radar.
"How many times has there been a debt-ceiling vote these past few years?" he asked. "Eighty-seven times. But what becomes news? Well, first of all, don't mention the number of debt-ceiling votes to the public. The media needs a crisis whether it is the debt-ceiling vote or Obamacare. These are the things we keep in front of the people's faces. What about the important issues? If it is about the defense budget or the fact that major corporations haven't paid a penny in taxes, we get -- no, no, no, no, no, no, no -- don't put that in front of them. It is 'low information' America. It's 'my mind is made up -- don't confuse me with any facts.' I see what the church is really doing, the liberal church, the old-line church, the unpopular churches, the ones that don't get the coverage. I see them in the trenches seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.
"Do you know what successful ministry is?" he asked. "When you change and touch the lives of people, when you make a difference in their lives, when you give them hope, when you help them go back to school and get an education. That's successful ministry. But even seminarians I teach are looking at ministry like it's a "be like Mike" basketball role model they are pursuing. Instead of important and life-changing questions being addressed, the questions one hears are: How many members do we have? How many CDs and DVDs have we produced? How much money do we make? That's not a successful ministry. Too many seminary students aren't interested in making things better. They're interested in becoming like T.D. Jakes, in building a megachurch. They're not interested in being in the hood, with those who have lost hope.
"We don't want our children to have any kind of critical thinking, we just want them to be able to function in a low-paying dead-end job," Wright said. "There is no emphasis on teaching the young African-American male to dream. And teaching him, and the young sisters also, him or her, that, OK, education is more than passing scores, how you perform on a test -- it has to do with how you live in community with others. It has to do with nutrition. It has to do with poverty. It has to do with the whole person. We are slashing and burning programs at the preschool level. We start with Head Start and early childhood education, and all the way up through the foundational primary grades. Who is going to teach these kids Langston Hughes' poem 'Mother to Son'? Who is going to repeat Hughes' words to them:
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor--
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now--
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
"Who is going to tell him or her you can do this, you really can, you can achieve, you are not what society has labeled you?" he said. "And then we have to give them an alternative, some tools where they can get a job, where they can take care of their families, where they can learn to think critically and analyze some of the stuff that they're hearing on television, and deconstruct some of the stuff they're hearing in hip-hop. Because there are some conscious hip-hop artists who have not bought into the corporate model. But you need to know the difference, and be able to tell the difference between the two. That kind of engagement is what I know several churches are doing."
Wright, who perhaps knows Obama better than nearly any other person in the country, sees a man who sold his principles for the chimera and illusion of power. But once Obama achieved power he became its tool, its vassal, its public face, its brand.
"President Obama was selected before he was elected," Wright said, "and he is accountable to those who selected him. Why do you think Wall Street got the break? Why do you think the big three [financial institutions] were bailed out? Those were the ones who selected him. We didn't select him. We don't have enough money to select anybody. You're accountable to those who select you. All politicians are. Given those constraints, he is doing the best he can because he is accountable to the ones that put him where he is. Preachers, pastors, ministers, we are not accountable to these people. I'll never forget one of the most powerful things he said to me in my home, second Saturday in April 2008. He said, 'You know what your problem is?' I said, 'What is that?' He said, 'You have to tell the truth.' I said, 'That's a good problem. That's a good problem.' "
"When he was elected to the United States Senate I was asked what
advice I would have for Sen. Obama," Wright said. "I said, 'Please
don't change who you are, because of where you are.' Who he was before
he got to that position is a very different Barack. Which to me is
unfortunate but it's to be expected because that's what you chose, you
chose to run, to be in that place.
"I can give you a glimpse into the kind of person he was, which was mind-blowing to me to see somebody with that kind of integrity. He went to his first Congressional Black Caucus meeting the year before he announced that he was running for the Senate. He came back to Chicago and came into my office asking for an appointment. He was heartbroken. It showed to me that night his naivet???? and his integrity. He was naive because he was down in Washington trying to get audiences with the Congressional Black Caucus in terms of testing the waters about his making a run for the United States Senate. And it was a meat market. That blew his mind. I'm saying Barack, come on, man -- name one significant thing that has come out of any Congressional Black Caucus. Come on. [He] was naive. He told me,'My name should be out there right now, last week in September, but I can't announce.' I said, 'Why can't you announce?' He said, 'I don't know whether or not Carol Moseley Braun is going to run again. I will not run against an African-American woman.' And I'm saying to myself, what manner of man is this? I know guys who would run against their own mama. You will not run against an African-American female? To have that kind of integrity was awesome to me. He changed. That's unfortunate."
"In February 2007 on [a broadcast of] 'Religion & Ethics'
I said there will come a time when Obama will have to distance himself
from me," Wright said. "Now that's February 2007. So the fact that he
had to distance himself from me does not come as a surprise. What did
come as a surprise was how he did it.
I've heard you describe that your dad laid the foundation upon which
you stand. He made you the kind of person you are. I know that when you
interview someone and the tears start, you fold up your notepad and put
your pen away because you're not that kind of reporter.
"If there was somebody from your dad's church running for an office, and the media comes up to them and puts a microphone in front of their face and says, did you hear what Pastor Hedges was saying about the war? If you disagree, your response is, 'I disagree with that, next question.' You don't have to chastise Pastor Hedges. I just disagree with him. Next question. But [Obama] was listening to people who are politically minded, people who are counting votes. He was not listening to people with integrity. In November and December of 2008 during the ethnic cleansing of Gaza one of the news media persons put a microphone in front of Barack's face and asked him what do you think about what's going on in Gaza? He said, 'We can't have but one president at a time.' I told my wife he needed to be on 'Dancing With the Stars' the way he danced around that question. That was like a preview of coming attractions in terms of the pragmatist, center-of-the-road, conciliatory, not-speaking-from-principle person the world sees today.
"And for him to have been a community organizer in one of the poorest communities in the city, Altgeld Gardens housing project, and now to be painted into a corner where he can't address health care for the poor," Wright said. "He took the public option off the table. What happened? What happened is politics happened.
"King would be saying to us the same thing today he was saying in 1967 and 1968," Wright said. "He would be condemning our nation's utter disregard for the poor. A strong nation cares about all of its citizens regardless of their color or their race or their religious beliefs. Malcolm, once he broke with the Nation of Islam, and found that God, or Allah, really does have children that don't look like you, would be appalled by our buying into a military option as a way to peace, as a way to finding common ground. The military option is not an option. King and Malcolm would agree with that.
"I was walking through the airport a few weeks ago," Wright said. "I
saw on the cover, I think, of Time Magazine, Osama bin Laden's picture.
The caption on the cover said 'Justice.' I said, 'How about murder? It
was an assassin's hit.' What really bothered me as I read more about it
was that Barack and Hillary [Clinton] and the war folk were sitting in
the war room watching the hit. There were cameras in the field. It was a
hit, two right above the eyebrow. Why, why, why did you murder that
man? We have international courts. We have trials like the Nuremberg
trials. Why did you murder him? Why not put him on trial?
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