The Amateur (5 page)
Authors: Edward Klein
And so that summer, Obama went to see Wright, whose sermons, in the words of David Mendell, one of Obama’s early biographers, “sometimes more [resembled] left-wing political rants than religious preaching.”
“What I remember,” Wright said when I asked him about his first meeting with Obama, “is that he came to talk to me as a community organizer, not in search of Christ. I said what Joseph’s brothers in the Bible said when they saw him coming across the field: ‘Behold this dreamer!’ Barack came to me with this dream, man. He wasn’t from Chicago and he was gonna organize all these different churches—Catholic churches and black churches—on Chicago’s far South Side. And I’m saying, ‘You can’t organize the black churches. You don’t
know
the black church. Listen, man, we got Baptists who won’t speak to Presbyterians ’cause they don’t immerse. We got Church of God and Christ who don’t speak to Baptists because they don’t speak in tongues. You ain’t gonna organize no churches.’”
know
the black church. Listen, man, we got Baptists who won’t speak to Presbyterians ’cause they don’t immerse. We got Church of God and Christ who don’t speak to Baptists because they don’t speak in tongues. You ain’t gonna organize no churches.’”
My interview with Wright, who, at seventy years of age, is retired from the pulpit at Trinity, took place on a bleak November morning in his current office on the campus of the Kwame Nkrumah Academy, a charter school that is named after the late Marxist dictator of the West African nation of Ghana. Since retiring, Wright has moved from his modest quarters in Trinity’s parsonage to a new million-dollar mansion along a golf course in the posh Tinley Park section of Chicago.
As might be imagined, I had serious reservations about meeting with Wright, whose vitriolic sermons demonizing white people and portraying the United States as evil had turned him into a pariah in most parts of America. Yet, I discovered that despite Wright’s dreadful excesses, his harebrained ideas, and his outright bigotry, he was still respected in large swaths of Chicago’s African-American community, where he was admired as a biblical scholar and prophetic minister. My friends in that community urged me to swallow my reservations about Wright and meet with him.
“Go listen to what Dr. Wright has to say,” one friend told me. “You’re a journalist and Wright has a story that’s a real eyeopener. It’ll cast a whole new light on Obama’s clumsy, crude, and
amateurish
handling of the greatest crisis in his political career, his public renunciation of the man he once referred to as ‘like my father’—Jeremiah Wright.”
amateurish
handling of the greatest crisis in his political career, his public renunciation of the man he once referred to as ‘like my father’—Jeremiah Wright.”
“After Barack and I got to know each other, it got to the point where he would just drop by my church to talk,” Wright said. “And the talk gradually moved away from his community-organizing concerns—street cleaning, housing, child care, and those kinds of needs—to larger things, more personal things. Like trying to make sense of the world. Like trying to make sense out of the diverse racial and religious background from which he came. He was confused. He wanted to know who he was.
“And I told him, ‘Well, you already know the Muslim piece of your background,’” Wright continued. “‘You studied Islam, didn’t you?’ And Barack said, ‘Yeah, Rev, I studied Islam. But help me understand Christianity, because I already know Islam.’ And I said, ‘Well, let’s start from the beginning. Who do you say Jesus is? Let’s boil it down to the basics.’”
“Did you convert Obama from Islam to Christianity?” I asked Wright.
“That’s hard to tell,” Wright replied. “I think I convinced him that it was okay for him to make a choice in terms of who he believed Jesus is. And I told him it was really okay and not a putdown of the Muslim part of his family or his Muslim friends.”
As a result of his stirring, primetime keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama became an overnight celebrity. His memoir,
Dreams from My Father
, which had languished on remainder piles in bookstores, rocketed to the top of the
New York Times
bestseller list. Suddenly wealthy (his current net worth is estimated at $10.5 million), he and Michelle donated $22,500 to Trinity United Church of Christ in 2006. The following year, as he prepared to throw his hat into the presidential ring, he was still a Trinity congregant, and sometimes attended services where Wright delivered poisonous sermons against whites, Jews, and America.
Dreams from My Father
, which had languished on remainder piles in bookstores, rocketed to the top of the
New York Times
bestseller list. Suddenly wealthy (his current net worth is estimated at $10.5 million), he and Michelle donated $22,500 to Trinity United Church of Christ in 2006. The following year, as he prepared to throw his hat into the presidential ring, he was still a Trinity congregant, and sometimes attended services where Wright delivered poisonous sermons against whites, Jews, and America.
Why did Obama remain a member of Trinity?
Did he agree with what Wright said from the pulpit?
And if not, how could he sit there and listen to such rubbish?
“How [can we] reconcile this church membership... with the fact of [Obama’s] own family—his white mother, grandmother, and grandfather?” Shelby Steele wrote in
A Bound Man
, his brilliant analysis of Obama’s racial identity. “It was not a ‘Black Value System’ that prepared Obama so well for the world. Nor was it ‘black community’ or ‘black family.’ It was not black anything. One could easier argue that his good luck was to be born into a white ‘family,’ ‘community,’ and ‘value system.’ And, in fact, isn’t his success, his ease in the American mainstream, due more to assimilation than to blackness? Isn’t his great advantage over other blacks precisely his exposure from infancy on to mainstream culture? And doesn’t it then follow that
assimilation
might be a very reasonable strategy for black uplift? And, correspondingly, doesn’t Obama’s success make the precise point that ‘blackness’ is a dead end?”
A Bound Man
, his brilliant analysis of Obama’s racial identity. “It was not a ‘Black Value System’ that prepared Obama so well for the world. Nor was it ‘black community’ or ‘black family.’ It was not black anything. One could easier argue that his good luck was to be born into a white ‘family,’ ‘community,’ and ‘value system.’ And, in fact, isn’t his success, his ease in the American mainstream, due more to assimilation than to blackness? Isn’t his great advantage over other blacks precisely his exposure from infancy on to mainstream culture? And doesn’t it then follow that
assimilation
might be a very reasonable strategy for black uplift? And, correspondingly, doesn’t Obama’s success make the precise point that ‘blackness’ is a dead end?”
When it comes to dealing with the inconvenient truth about Barack Obama’s deep-rooted relationship with Jeremiah Wright, liberals have struggled to find a way to absolve Obama from culpability. Some liberals argue that “buppies” (young, black urban professionals) like Obama flocked to Sunday services at Trinity in order to assuage their feelings of guilt about being better off than the majority of their fellow African-Americans. Sitting in the pews of Trinity, they could shout
Amen, brother!
when Wright declared: “How do I tell my children about the African Jesus who is not the guy they see in the picture of the blond-haired, blue-eyed guy in their Bible or the figment of white supremacists [sic] imagination that they see in Mel Gibson’s movies?”
Amen, brother!
when Wright declared: “How do I tell my children about the African Jesus who is not the guy they see in the picture of the blond-haired, blue-eyed guy in their Bible or the figment of white supremacists [sic] imagination that they see in Mel Gibson’s movies?”
According to Salim Muwakkil, a Chicago journalist, Wright “had the reputation of a militant guy who provided kind of vicarious militance for Chicago’s black elites. So they could get a dose of militance on Sunday and go back home and feel pretty good about doing their part for the black movement.”
Other liberals have come up with a different theory to explain how Obama could sit week after week in a church that preached white wickedness and black superiority. They argue that it was Michelle Obama, not Barack, who chose Trinity because she wanted to associate with what
Washington Post
columnist Eugene Robinson, in his book
Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America
, termed “a small Transcendent [black] elite with such enormous wealth, power, and influence that even white folks have to genuflect.”
Washington Post
columnist Eugene Robinson, in his book
Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America
, termed “a small Transcendent [black] elite with such enormous wealth, power, and influence that even white folks have to genuflect.”
But Jeremiah Wright didn’t buy any of these explanations.
“Brides like to have their weddings at a church, which is why I think Michelle came to Trinity,” Wright told me. “That’s been my sneaking suspicion, because Michelle didn’t belong to any church when she married Barack. Where have you heard or read about her family raising her in church? My point is—and I haven’t said this publicly to anybody before—but like you talk about Toni Morrison, you talk about Maya Angelou, you talk about these black women, they grew up in a church, most of them. Michelle didn’t. She grew up in a kind of Jack and Jill middle income, completely middle-class environment.
“And even after Barack and Michelle came to the church,” Wright went on, “their kids weren’t raised in the church like you raise other kids in Sunday school. No. Church is not their thing. It never was their thing. Michelle was not the kind of black woman whose momma made her go to church, made her go to Sunday school, made her go to B.Y.P.U [Baptist Young People’s Union]. She wasn’t raised in that kind of environment. So the church was not an integral part of their spiritual lives after they got married.
“But”—and here Wright paused for emphasis—“the church
was
an integral part of Barack’s
politics
. Because he needed that black base.”
was
an integral part of Barack’s
politics
. Because he needed that black base.”
The conflict between church and state—between Jeremiah Wright’s racist brand of religion and Barack Obama’s “postracial” brand of politics—came to an inevitable head on February 9, 2007. That was the day before Obama planned to launch his presidential campaign from the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois—a move aimed at associating himself with Springfield’s most famous citizen, Abraham Lincoln. Wright was scheduled to deliver the invocation, but several days before the event,
Rolling Stone
magazine published a devastating profile of Barack Obama’s minister.
Rolling Stone
magazine published a devastating profile of Barack Obama’s minister.
“Wright takes the pulpit here one Sunday and solemnly, sonorously declares that he will recite ten essential facts about the United States,” the
Rolling Stone
piece said.
Rolling Stone
piece said.
“Fact number one: We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college,” he intones. “Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!” There is thumping applause; Wright has a cadence and power that make Obama sound like John Kerry. Now the reverend begins to preach. “We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS.... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.... We conducted radiation experiments on our own people.... We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!” The crowd whoops and amens as Wright builds to his climax. “And. And. And! GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS SHIT!”
Alarm bells immediately went off at Obama’s campaign headquarters, and at the urging of David Axelrod, his chief strategist, Obama called Wright.
“I was at Amherst College, in the office of Paul Sorrentino, the director of religious life there, when Barack called,” Wright told me. “Barack said, ‘Rev, David [Axelrod] is gonna call you, because we’re going to Iowa tomorrow and I don’t want you to say anything that will upset the Iowa farmers.’ And I said, ‘I got it, I got it.’ And he said, ‘You know, David is a mother hen. He’s gonna repeat the same thing to you, but I’m just letting you know what he’s gonna call you about.’ About an hour later, David called me and said the same thing: ‘We’re going to Iowa right after the announcement and we don’t want to upset the Iowa folks. Is there any way you can work into your invocation something about how egalitarian Barack is, and how he reaches out to people of all ethnic groups.’ And I said, ‘I got it. I got it.’
“Then, half an hour later, the phone rings again,” Wright went on. “It’s Barack. And he said, ‘Rev,
Rolling Stone
’s gotten ahold of one of your sermons, and they’ve already given it out to the Hillary people, and it’s a big mess. And, you know, you can be over the top at times, and David thinks it’s best that you don’t do the invocation tomorrow. You’re gonna become the media focus and all the attention will be deflected away from my announcing my candidacy. So we’re asking that you don’t do that. But I have two other requests to make of you.’ And I said, ‘What are those?’ He said, ‘Number one, I really want you to be here [in Springfield] and I want you to come and pray privately with Michelle, the kids, and me. Number two, I want my church represented, because my church means a lot to me, so I want Pastor [Otis] Moss [Wright’s chosen successor at Trinity United Church of Christ] to do the invocation.’ I said, ‘Well, okay, let me give you his cell phone number.’
Rolling Stone
’s gotten ahold of one of your sermons, and they’ve already given it out to the Hillary people, and it’s a big mess. And, you know, you can be over the top at times, and David thinks it’s best that you don’t do the invocation tomorrow. You’re gonna become the media focus and all the attention will be deflected away from my announcing my candidacy. So we’re asking that you don’t do that. But I have two other requests to make of you.’ And I said, ‘What are those?’ He said, ‘Number one, I really want you to be here [in Springfield] and I want you to come and pray privately with Michelle, the kids, and me. Number two, I want my church represented, because my church means a lot to me, so I want Pastor [Otis] Moss [Wright’s chosen successor at Trinity United Church of Christ] to do the invocation.’ I said, ‘Well, okay, let me give you his cell phone number.’
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