What Reverend Wright says about us

Surprisingly, Ann Coulter actually has a decent criticism of the Obama speech that gives me insight into why conservatives are so pissed off.

Throw Grandma Under the Train

From that column:

"As an authentic post-racial American, I will not patronize blacks by pretending Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is anything other than a raving racist loon. If a white pastor had said what Rev. Wright said -- not about black people, but literally, the exact same things -- I think we'd notice that he's crazier than Ward Churchill and David Duke's love child. (Indeed, both Churchill and the Rev. Wright referred to the attacks of 9/11 as the chickens coming 'home to roost.')

Imagine a white pastor saying: 'Racism is the American way. Racism is how this country was founded, and how this country is still run. ... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. And believe it more than we believe in God.'

Imagine a white pastor calling Condoleezza Rice, 'Condoskeezza Rice.'

Imagine a white pastor saying: 'No, no, no, God damn America -- that's in the Bible for killing innocent people! God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human! God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme!'

We treat blacks like children, constantly talking about their temper tantrums right in front of them with airy phrases about black anger. I will not pat blacks on the head and say, 'Isn't that cute?' As a post-racial American, I do not believe 'the legacy of slavery' gives black people the right to be permanently ill-mannered.

Obama tried to justify Wright's deranged rants by explaining that 'legalized discrimination' is the 'reality in which Rev. Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up.' He said that a 'lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families.'

That may accurately describe the libretto of 'Porgy and Bess,' but it has no connection to reality. By Rev. Wright's own account, he was 12 years old and was attending an integrated school in Philadelphia when Brown v. Board of Education was announced, ending 'separate but equal' schooling.

Meanwhile, at least since the Supreme Court's decision in University of California v. Bakke in 1978 -- and obviously long before that, or there wouldn't have been a case or controversy for the court to consider -- it has been legal for the government to discriminate against whites on the basis of their race.

Consequently, any white person 30 years old or younger has lived, since the day he was born, in an America where it is legal to discriminate against white people. In many cases it's not just legal, but mandatory, for example, in education, in hiring and in Academy Award nominations.

So for half of Rev. Wright's 66 years, discrimination against blacks was legal -- though he never experienced it personally because it existed in a part of the country where he did not live. For the second half of Wright's life, discrimination against whites was legal throughout the land.

Discrimination has become so openly accepted that -- in a speech meant to tamp down his association with a black racist -- Obama felt perfectly comfortable throwing his white grandmother under the bus. He used her as the white racist counterpart to his black racist 'old uncle,' Rev. Wright.

First of all, Wright is not Obama's uncle. The only reason we indulge crazy uncles is that everyone understands that people don't choose their relatives the way they choose, for example, their pastors and mentors. No one quarrels with idea that you can't be expected to publicly denounce your blood relatives.

But Wright is not a relative of Obama's at all. Yet Obama cravenly compared Wright's racist invective to his actual grandmother, who 'once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.'

Rev. Wright accuses white people of inventing AIDS to kill black men, but Obama's grandmother -- who raised him, cooked his food, tucked him in at night, and paid for his clothes and books and private school -- has expressed the same feelings about passing black men on the street that Jesse Jackson has.

Unlike his 'old uncle' -- who is not his uncle -- Obama had no excuses for his grandmother. Obama's grandmother never felt the lash of discrimination! Crazy grandma doesn't get the same pass as the crazy uncle; she's white. Denounce the racist!

Fine. Can we move on now?

No, of course, not. It never ends. To be fair, Obama hinted that we might have one way out: If we elect him president, then maybe, just maybe, we can stop talking about race."

The irony, of course, is that Ann Coulter has been written off many times by the left as a raving loon. And the truth is that Ann Coulter's anger and Jeremiah Wright's anger and all of the anger that has boiled over during this speech has derived from the same source: a lot of angry, hateful people trying to rationalize why they are all so angry and hateful. It has been the calling card of the last 8 years of politics and too much of daily life. How do I know this? Because I'm a nice guy whose not all angry and hateful, most of the time. And I've had to put up with the same shit that Obama is having to put up with now as all these shitheads try to rationalize why they are all such angry, hateful assholes.

The bottom line is that there is no excuse for why people are such angry, hateful assholes. They just are.

Everyone has pain in their lives. Everyone has a million reasons to hate and be angry at the world. Everyone. No goddamn exception on that.

People with more courage face up to that, let it go, and move on with their lives. Everyone else dwells in it, marinates in it, and looks for a million fuckin' excuses for why they have every right to be a shithead.

It's dysfunctional and foolish. We just keep doing it because it's easier than being honest with ourselves about our behavior.

And that rationalization has animated much of this political period.

I learned this lesson the hard way after my last major break-up. I was in a lot of pain. I was missing Brandi in a serious way. We had both been in a lot of pain, together, after a 4 1/2 year relationship where we fought like cats and dogs and passionately as we loved one another and brought the whole thing to a crashing halt one month before September 11th. I was in a lot of pain, I was hurting and angry, and on a trip to Disneyworld with my family, I took it out on my brothers and sisters and family, something I've regretted ever since. Truth be told, we were all shitheads to one another that weekend. My parents were trying to behave. But all of my brothers and sisters and me were fighting with one another, that weekend, like we did when we were kids. It was pathetic is what it was.

And I learned an important lesson, that weekend, about pain and anger. I went to 3 therapists after that trip. I studied Zen Buddhism (which is a really helpful practice for dealing with emotional pain, by the way, if you ever consider giving it a try). I read every psychology and relationship book I could get my hands on, because I was still trying to win Brandi back and trying to be the best person I could be to do that.

The point is that we all can take a turn for being a shithead. But some people refuse to face up to the anger and the fear and the bitterness that dwells inside of them. Because it is painful. And it takes courage to deal with it and face up to it.

That's my experience and consistent with my studies. Anger and hatred and all of our worst impulses that have all of the most serious damage in the world are all a function of pain that people just have a hard time facing, both because they don't understand it, and also because it is painful and our emotional defenses are a temporary measure to give us breathing room from dealing with that pain in a world where our evolved instincts are designed to give us protection but not make choices for our learning, growing, thriving experiences in the world.

That's the point of forgiveness, and love, and compassion. It gives us respite from all of that pain and helps us see more clearly a world that is full of pain and the aggression that often, though not always, engenders it. That was the point for people like Abraham Maslow. The goal of human psychological learning curve is to deal with this pain more effectively so that we are not constantly taking out the aggression found in those emotional defenses on our friends, family, colleagues, and everyone around us. The reason why we need the courage to deal with our pain is because our emotional defenses are constantly hurting others and undermining our capacity for genuine connection with others.

All of the aggression that we have dealt in during this political period accelerates that problem and brings up those defenses in fiercer, more aggressive ways. Which both makes learning the lessons more difficult and which accelerates the aggression. Which leads to resistance and reprisals. Which accelerates the aggression. Which leads to resistance and reprisals. And on and on and on.

It's been an ugly spectacle to watch.

And the sad part is that all of this tough pretense is all in the name of cowardice to face up to that pain, anger, and bitterness, rather than accelerate all of that aggression and the emotional defenses that come with it.

We are such a foolish, cowardly lot, sometimes. Humanity.

And our one saving grace is that all of our foolishness has consequence. And noone wants to keep dealing with the ugly consequences forever. That was why liberal values took hold during the Enlightenment. And it is why there is only one logical way forward during this period. And it is not the foolish and cowardly route of force that we have been taking. In fact, to anyone not engaged in emotional and otherwise defenses for that behavior, it is pretty obvious regress. And all of the consequences from that behavior are pretty obvious regress, too, for anyone not trying to defend this course.

It is undoubtedly clear to me how the Nazis did their damage, now, after much disbelief, as a kid growing up and studying that period, that an entire nation of people would follow such ugliness. But now I understand why. Fear, anger, hate, and bitterness animate much of many peoples' lives. Power is a seductive fantasy for resolving all of that ugliness for those who have lacked the courage to face up to it in their hearts.

And it would will out if it were not for the fact that it goes nowhere. But the fact that it leaves peoples' lives in shambles is why it cannot continue. Eventually, the pain becomes less scary than who we have become.

And what we have become is not progress, that's for sure. It's nothing to be proud of, really. It just is.

And, if we want to be better, we will have to give this up, at some point.

There is no "or else," really. We would continue to get worse, of course, if we didn't choose differently. But the truth is that most people want to be better, even as they slide in bad directions. And the truth is that, very much like today, the world does kind of go to shit when we don't.

And noone wants that.

Maybe courage isn't so tough, after all.