This is a scholar’s view, and gives much needed insight.
The Marxist Roots of Black Liberation Theology
It has been difficult for Americans like myself to absorb the vitriol pouring forth from Jeremiah Wright. Where I am from, integration was well in place by the 1960’s — the town is too small. So, it seems impossible that a “separationist” worldview of the kind Michelle Obama’s thesis documents has existed. Everyone is equal here. It’s also the West. It really hurt to listen to those sermons, because they seem so foreign to all that I or my friends knew or know. All the schools I ever went to were integrated and just about everyone was working their way through.
I will say this though. For as long as I can remember I’ve had to check off boxes that divide Americans by ethnicity. Since mine is “white” I’ve always had to pay my own way. Affirmative Action programs never did anything for me, and I never got any free scholarships based on my ethnicity, like many others did.
I’ve also never gotten any free checks from the government — no unemployment, no welfare, no food stamps, no grants or loans except a couple of student loans in my undergraduate years (that I paid back!). A girlfriend of mine (in mid-life) just finished her BA and MA and she is $90,000 in debt for her education. After her first husband abandoned her, she had to go on welfare briefly and get food stamps for her two kids in the mid 1980’s. She’s white too.
Does this look different for Black or Mexican or Asian or Indian women? Any race of woman? I don’t think so. Out here in the West, everyone is in the same boat.
It seems to me, that if the inner cities were given tons of money in the pre-Reagan years (which I believe they were) –what happened? Graft? Who is responsible for that?
How is anyone going to lay blame on any of the other races right now? It seems to me that this is a country full of people who can be Horatio Algers if they want. The whole mythology behind Americanism is based on that, isn’t it?—–the old “rags-to-riches” story. The American corporation is the great leveler here, now. Isn’t it?
The article above is really enlightening in terms of understanding where what we are experiencing as “hatred” is coming from. The thoughts expressed will be “news” to many, many Americans who believed in Martin Luther King’s vision of non-separatism and integration. It seems a parallel “segregationist” vision was operational within religious circles — being preached all these years.
It’s shocking in a way, for those of us who grew up “integrated” as a matter of course.
The article also unpacks belief systems we haven’t seen before with great, great, clarity. It’s a must read.
