Barack Obama denounced his former pastor of 20 years, retired Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Speaking at a press conference in response to Rev. Wright’s National press club speech Barack Obama said that Wright’s “comments were not only divisive and destructive… They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs” (NY Times, 4/30/08). This came after a series of public appearances by Rev. Wright to expound his ideas and clarify his relationship with Barack Obama. Wright’s sermons as head pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ for 36 years, particularly the past seven years, and Wright’s link to Nation of Islam’s leader Louis Farrakhan created a firestorm in the big business media and a great dilemma for Obama in his fight for the Democratic Party nomination for president.

Responding to attacks that his speeches were “unpatriotic” Rev. Wright said: “our congregation has sent dozens of boys and girls to fight…while those who call me unpatriotic have used their positions of privilege to avoid military service, while sending – while sending over 4,000 American boys and girls of every race to die over a lie” and “You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you.”

Speaking about Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Farrakhan Rev. Wright said “he is not my enemy… He did not put me in slavery…” His defense of Louis Farrakhan is based on NOI’s work in reforming ex-criminals, black nationalism and denouncing white supremacy. However, the NOI’s ultra-conservative position on women and gays, its anti-Semitism and support for black capitalism represent a dead end that has failed to mount a challenge to the racial and class oppression black people face daily.

Reverend Wright’s speeches strike a chord with African-American workers and youth throughout the country because he is denouncing the US imperialist war in Iraq, police racism and violence. Rev. Wright’s theory on the development of HIV/AIDS by the government as a plague aimed at blacks, while false, is rooted in the government neglect in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic as well as the sordid history of experiments by the medical establishment in communities of color.

Obama’s March 18th speech “A More Perfect Union,” became the most downloaded document on the Internet and was hailed by the corporate media as a “watershed” moment in race relations. The speech showcased Barack Obama’s talents as a speaker and politician uniquely able to address the issues of racism and race relations. Obama’s candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination has tapped into the genuine desire for change and inspired those who are concerned about the mess created by the Republicans.

Barack Obama’s campaign presents a façade of race-neutral politics, a multi-cultural electoral coalition, and a post-civil rights/black power race reconciliation that has inspired millions of people across the U.S. At the same time, Obama has distanced himself more and more from the tradition of radicalism of the civil rights and black freedom movement. He is doing this by refusing to address the legacy of slavery, racism, poverty, political disenfranchisement and their effects on the working class and poor, and particularly the black working class and youth.

While striking a more populist tone at electoral rallies and public meetings in order to inspire his electoral base, Barack Obama’s candidacy is primarily beholden to his corporate sponsors – institutions like huge law firms, power brokers in Hollywood, and giant Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs who have pumped millions of dollars in his campaign coffers.

The corporate media, the Hillary Clinton campaign and Wall Street have forced Barack Obama to distance himself from Rev. Wright, something he was initially reluctant to do. The situation has revealed the racist character of U.S. big business and the Democratic Party, as the Clinton campaign continues to the very end to echo the right-wing media, and pump racist venom and racial polarization into the presidential elections. The guilt-by-association tactics of this presidential campaign is another example of corporate politics and institutional racism practiced not only against working, poor and people of color, but also on their own loyal representatives, like Barack Obama.

Why did Obama join United Trinity Church?

A former decorated military officer, Wright became the minister of the United Trinity Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago in 1972. Wright’s speeches are influenced by Trinity’s social gospel, rooted in an African-American and African-centered radical articulation of liberation theology. Trinity Church became a powerful resource for the black community providing services, shelters, day care and literacy programs and was involved supporting the colonial revolution in Africa.

The black church has been a historic pillar in the black community, socially, politically and spiritually. Radical ministers and liberation theology, (along with the influence of the socialist and trade union movement,) have played a significant role in the development of the black church opposing slavery, white supremacy and capitalism.

However, Rev. Wright hasn’t spearheaded a serious grassroots movement to challenge the agenda of U.S. capitalism. Instead, Rev. Wright has provided tacit support to the big business-controlled Democratic Party, providing a cover of radical rhetoric to its continued drift to the right. Furthermore, in the absence of a radical political mass movement that would demand accountability of its leadership, a large part of the black church leadership has drifted from the social gospel to the so-called prosperity gospel, an abandonment of the demand for social justice with ministers like Floyd Flake who argue that the kind of rhetoric used by Rev. Wright must be abandoned in favor of non-political and entrepreneurial mega-churches.

Barack Obama joined Trinity Church on two occasions in the 1980s and upon his return to Chicago in 1992. In his ‘A More Perfect Union’ speech, Barack Obama said “Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger.” The son of a white mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father, Obama grew up in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia, and was educated at Harvard and Columbia. Living on the South side of Chicago as a housing activist, Obama did not have real roots in the black community.

Trinity Church gave Obama the ‘street cred,’ and connections necessary to launch his political career. Barack Obama’s clean break with Rev. Wright is an admission of the realities of this presidential campaign. As Bruce Dixon commented in Black Agenda Report, Rev. Wright’s message while useful in the past, is now as expendable as “the political will of the rest of Black America has been all along” at this point in the campaign.

Radical Change and Racial Reconciliation

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Kerner Commission report, about the roots of the urban explosions in the 1960s. The working class, the poor and people of color are facing a serious crisis, with wages stagnating or declining, prices increasing and a massive wave of house foreclosures. An honest discussion on race and creating a path for true racial reconciliation is absolutely necessary if working people are going to be able to put a stop to the policies of divide and conquer. But while Barack Obama uses the rhetoric of reconciliation, U.S. big business and the two-party system are launching another vicious attack on the living standards of the working class and the poor.

A serious discussion about ending racism and poverty must speak truthfully about the myth of the American Dream for black workers, and the nature of capitalism as a system that needs racism, sexism, and class oppression to survive. To properly face the anger and bitterness among the working class and poor, we need to build a movement for an egalitarian democratic socialist society, to permanently uproot the seeds of racism, poverty and war. As Malcolm X said “I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don’t think it will be based on the color of the skin.”

As Malcolm X said “I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don’t think it will be based on the color of the skin.”