Friday, November 20, 2009

Current
Weather
49°F

Eric Hartley: Listen to the Rev. Wright, then decide

By ERIC HARTLEY, Staff Writer

Published 11/03/09

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright was pastor to the future president of the United States for many years. He married Barack and Michelle Obama in 1992 and then became a figure in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Getting him to speak locally should be a coup. But instead, Wright's upcoming remarks at a county NAACP banquet in Glen Burnie later this month have inspired censorship's ugly cousin: the refusal to listen.

The controversy started when Perry Ealim, a Pasadena businessman who's being honored at the banquet, sent out an e-mail asking friends and colleagues to come, noting that Wright would be speaking.

The response was not what he expected.

People told Ealim not to go, even to decline the award. They said he shouldn't tacitly endorse Wright, who they called divisive or even racist. Some compared Wright to David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader and perennial political candidate.

Politicians, who usually go to these events to score a few easy political points, have run away in droves.

"This is 2009, and I thought we'd grown to the point where at least we can sit down and disagree agreeably," Ealim said yesterday. Chuckling, he added: "It's gotten to the point where I'm almost afraid to answer my phone."

You probably know that Wright said the words "God damn America" in a 2003 sermon or that in 2001, he said Sept. 11 attacks were "chickens ... coming home to roost" for America's past foreign policy.

But do you know the rest of those sermons? Not likely. And frankly, I don't, either. In a nation with a YouTube attention span, where the most popular shows on "news" channels feature people yelling at each other, nuance and context are lost.

"We believe that people should be allowed to hear his complete message and not just snippets," said Jacqueline Boone Allsup, president of the county NAACP chapter, which invited Wright to speak.

"Sound bites are just that, sound bites," said Ealim, who is African American and is being honored for the work of his nonprofit firm, Pasadena-based Merge Business Development Systems, which helps new or expanding businesses.

Ealim said he has listened to Wright's full remarks and found some things he didn't like. But like a grown-up, he can separate the good from the bad. He doesn't just take his ball and go home, which is what some elected officials are doing.

County Executive John R. Leopold, who attends the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast, isn't going to the Nov. 20 Freedom Fund Banquet.

"County Executive Leopold is not going to tell an organization who they should or shouldn't have as their speaker. However, personally he would rather go to an event featuring a speaker who preaches unity and tolerance," said Dave Abrams, a spokesman for Leopold.

Politicians see this as a principled stand. But refusing to listen to voices with which you don't agree is really a form of intellectual cowardice.

Ealim - who, a bit ironically, is a Republican - wrote an open letter following the criticism in which he urged people to use Wright's appearance as a "teachable moment," to come and perhaps hear him explain what he meant by those now-famous remarks.

Ealim said black preachers often say things from the pulpit to shock people, to wake them up (figuratively and perhaps literally in some cases). When you divorce remarks from that context, the meaning is "lost in translation," as Ealim said.

Wright is not David Duke's counterpart. He's a former Marine with a long record of community service, facts that were missing from last year's attack ads.

Hearteningly, people across the nation who read news stories about the controversy - in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Florida and elsewhere - urged Ealim to go to the banquet. Too bad some people here in Anne Arundel County aren't willing to do the same.

Del. Ron George, R-Arnold, said he likely won't go. He'll be interested to see what Wright has to say, but doesn't want to endorse his message by going in person.

"I think going is showing support and it's showing respect for the person," George said.

He suggested that Dr. Ben Carson, the black doctor who rose from poverty to become a world-renowned neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, would be a better speaker.

True, that would be safe and noncontroversial and warm and fuzzy.

But in a world where you can self-select news that reinforces your political views, watching MSNBC or Fox News, reading Dailykos.com or Newsmax.com, it's more important than ever to challenge yourself by listening to someone you might not agree with, who even - gasp! - might make you a bit uncomfortable.

You don't have to applaud, after all.

Carl Snowden of Annapolis, the director for civil rights for the state Attorney General's Office, said a conservative speaker like Rush Limbaugh or Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas likely would inspire the same kind of criticism.

Snowden said he would go see either one with interest, but a lot of people wouldn't. And that's a sad commentary.

YOUR COMMENTS

RULES OF PARTICIPATION

If you encounter other problems, please email ewiffin@capitalgazette.com and include your name, username, and any errors or messages that are displayed. The more information you can provide, the better able we will be to assist you.

In order to post or vote on a comment, you must be signed in with a hometownannapolis account.

Take a look at a summary of Commenting Guidelines.

Report Abuse or Vote In order to allow the user community the ability to collectively rank the value of comments posted on the Capital Gazette websites we have implemented a thumbs-up/down system. All logged-in users may participate by voting up/down each comment. If others vote on your comment, your individual score will go up/down depending on the votes. Initially, everyone starts with a score of zero, and must earn credits to have significant voting weight. Individuals with higher scores will have more voting weight. -16

Fred - 2009-11-03 20:32:04

Like many on the left (and right) you make an accusation and provide nothing with which to back it up. Then you toss in character assassination with the "oxy-cotin" comment.

Usually this indicates that your argument is weak, or you don't have the ability to articulate it a meaningful way.

So I'll bite ...

Can you point to a single quote by Rush that is "outlandishly bigoted". I doubt it. He's been on the air long enough you should be able to find at least one.

unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?

Chris Warner - odenton, MD - Karma: Neutral

Rush/Wright - 2009-11-03 19:56:53

as the right rationalizes ( but regurgitates) the outlandishly bigoted things Limbaugh says on the grounds that the oxy-cotin addict is an enterntainer, I submit that Wright is but a performance artist who wishes to provoke thought.

unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?

Fred Shubbie - , - Karma: Terrible

Rev. Wright - 2009-11-03 19:23:24

You are seriously suggesting that people should listen to someone like Wright who spews hatred? You are very wrong, the David Duke comparison is unfortunately an accurate one.

The worst part of your opinion piece is where you compare him to Clarence Thomas and Rush Limbaugh. I can understand (though not agree with) the comparison to Rush, but to compare Wright to Clarence Thomas is such a joke.

Wright is just one in a long line of race baiters. He is a bottom feeder, nothing more.

unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?

Chris Warner - odenton, MD - Karma: Neutral

Eric, please write - 2009-11-03 13:18:45

the same article when the KKK comes to town.

unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?

Peter Dennis - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Excellent

Ironically Republican? - 2009-11-03 12:54:54

Eric, please explain that comment. What makes his political designation ironic and why is it important to this story that he is a Democrat or a Republican?

unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?

Steve K - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Good