Black Liberation Theology may not be universally representative of the ‘Black church’ but it is sufficiently large to be mainstream. And while some may wish Reverend Wright shuts up and goes away, that’s not going to happen and it’s too late anyway. So the remaining alternative is to broaden the discussion and not grant the racists like Michelle Malkin frame the discussion. Or we can change the subject repeatedly, watch the GOP turn him into Willie Horton and watch the Big Tent Democratic Party get torn by a Katrina-like foul racial wind that permanently destroys it. Hyperbole? Not.

Via the NY Times, here’s Wright at the National Press Club today:

“The black church’s role in the fight for equality and justice from the 1700s to 2008 has always had as its core the non-negotiable doctrine of reconciliation, children of God repenting for past sins against each other,” he said.

As a result of this background and the unfamiliarity of many white people with black preaching, he said, some might find his sermons unsettling. He also noted that the widely circulated clips of his remarks were only short snippets lifted out of the context of much longer, closely reasoned arguments.

“We root out any teaching of superiority, inferiority, hatred or prejudice,” he said. “And we recognize that for the first time in modern history, in the West, that the other who stands before us with a different color of skin, a different texture of hair, different music, different preaching styles and different dance moves; that other is one of God’s children just as we are, no better, no worse, prone to error and in need of forgiveness just as we are.”

Asked about remarks that some critics have called unpatriotic, Rev. Wright noted that men and women from his Chicago congregation had fought in all the country’s recent wars, “while those who call me unpatriotic have used their positions of privilege to avoid military service.”

Yesterday, at the NAACP dinner, Wright was lighthearted, and spoke in more of his ministerial style. His immediate audience got his central point: just because Black church evangelism styles are different to the ears of much of white America doesn’t mean it’s bad, threatening, or negative. But as political opponents of Obama and Democrats are predictably going to do, they seized on fragments again and ignored the spirit of conciliation and friendly co-existence at its core.

By comparison, he was more succinct and delivered a message in a different way to his different audience at the press club and the MSM got his point clearly, which could help as they are often the filter through which many Americans get their information. But it falls well short of what is needed next.

Other ministers, priests, rabbis, and clerics should chime in. So should other politicians. The risks are far greater in maintaining silence than they are in pointing out that most of Wright’s points are completely defensible. He may not (if you’re a white voter like me) sound ‘just like us’, but that difference doesn’t make him dangerous or a threat to anyone. One can refute 2 or 3 points he’s made over a long career and remind voters that many of us have superstitions, have made wrong assumptions and drawn wrong conclusions over the course of our lives. Consider, for example, how many concluded that George W. Bush would make a fine president, how manny thought Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggart or their local parish priest were fine fellows only to discover their sexual predilections or criminal perversities got in the way.

It is not such a stretch to imagine that medical experiments caused the AIDS epidemic after the history of government funded tests of venereal diseases that utilized Blacks as guinea pigs without their informed consent. It’s no different than surmising conspiracies existed that resulted in the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK. Speaking of different right/left brain learning styles is no nuttier than saying Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, which was a bestseller in its day.

Of course, most of the ire directed at Wright continues to be his controversial “God damn America” snippet which was not a request but an interpretation that God would condemn some of the things American leaders have done. He did not say “America deserved to be attacked on 9-11″. He was indicating that it was understandable that America had enemies and that some enemies are created by bad government policies that have damaged other people.

In a soundbite media culture, meaning is distorted and in the political cultural, it’s a deliberate distortion, often dishonestly so. Barack Obama did not make any of the more controversial claims, there’s nothing to indicate he heard them earlier than the rest of us did and it’s perfectly understandable that, in weighing the good Reverend Wright has accomplished in his ministry against the statements that many find upsetting, Obama would defend the man while rejecting some of his opinions.

I have some friends and family members capable of uttering opinions I completely disagree with, yet I love them and would defend them from any who’d conclude they are evil people to be shunned. And it’s certainly time that more people speak up in defense of Reverend Wright. His words exist in response to problems that exist in our world. He is not the creator of those problems, nor does he promote the continuation of the problems he’s noted.

It would be nice if some spoke out of the moral urgency to do so, rather than the social and political expediency of doing so, but either way, silence is the least acceptable. That way is cowardice.

Wright deserves our defense. Obama quite obviously cannot be held liable for sentiments he shuns, and deserves defense as well. And for the adamant fencesitters, silence is consent to the destruction of the Democratic Party. That may seem theoretically acceptable but at this crucial point in our nation’s history, that occurence would amount to a death sentence for far too many: our troops and the Iraqi people especially. Plus all the other economic miseries that would afflict many Americans from the continuation of current Republican economic policies.

The reality is staring us in the face. Grasp it and make a better reality for tomorrow. Sometimes our battles choose us.
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Perspectives from others: Steve Benen, Peterr at Firedoglake, Scarecrow at the same, and Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings.