At the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960's, the challenge was persuading white America to accept the vision of a post racial society. 40 years later, that same desire for a post racial America is preventing us from confronting a new racial problem.
When Reverend Jeremiah Wright's offensive sermons came to light, they were generally viewed through a political lens. Cable news and talk radio gorged themselves on debate about how it would affect the presidential campaign. Reverend Wright was labeled as either a serious political liability, or as an aberration that could be dismissed as just one of those inexplicable storms that pass in an election year.
What was missing was a serious discussion of what it told us about ourselves.
More recently at the Trinity United Church of Christ, Father Michael Pfleger preached a sermon just as racially offensive as those given by Reverend Wright. And just as with Reverend Wright, the media focused on the man in the pulpit and not on the congregation that rose to its feet and cheered his message.
What we all saw in those videos was not simply a cultural difference. The vast majority of Americans were shocked, not by an unfamiliar style or tradition of worship. We were shocked because we saw the kind of open bigotry and racial animus that we believed had been consigned to our past. We were slapped in the face with the harsh reality that our post racial image of America was wrong.
The original American sin of racism that so many of us believed was largely wiped clean, was only in hiding, pushed into corners of our society where most of us never looked. The video revolution became our eyes and looked into that corner for us. We should be grateful that we saw the truth.
Accepting this revelation will be difficult. Changing our core assumptions about what kind of nation we are, especially when it is in such a negative way, will encounter understandable resistance. We have become comfortable thinking of ourselves as having put the worst of racial conflict behind us, with just a few loose ends to tidy up when we have time.
As if this was not difficult enough, coming to terms with it has been made immeasurably more difficult by its partisan political implications. The groups most likely to support Senator Obama are progressives, the young and African Americans. These are the same groups who once led the civil rights movement. They fought to persuade America to face its racism so that we could overcome it. Now they are caught in a gut wrenching contradiction.
Electing the first African American President would be a beautiful gift to the American soul. It would be an affirmation of all that we think we have achieved in overcoming our painful past. But to receive that gloriously self affirming gift, it is politically necessary to define Trinity United as a church that is not racist. Pointing out the deep racial hostility at Trinity United has been variously described as a distraction from real issues, dirty politics or a lack of understanding of the black church tradition.
The new generation that should be leading the fight against racism, has been forced to choose between the conflicting goals of electing an African American President, or confronting the reality of racism that still exists. They have chosen the more pleasing path and forgotten where that path was supposed to lead.
We can stop and congratulate ourselves for the racial progress we have made, or we can continue the struggle. We cannot do both.
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