The Big Tent in Obama's Head

Contrary to atheist writers Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, I don't think that religion is the source of all the world's problems.


But religion is certain the source for a lot of Barack Obama's problems.


Obama's church in Chicago, Trinity United Church, is back in the news for "controversial" comments given by a Catholic priest on white privilege and its relation to Hillary Clinton.


According to Father Michael Pfleger, this is the core of white privilege:

[Unintelligible] to address the one who says, “Well, don’t hold me responsible (gesticulating) for what my ancestors did. But you have enjoyed the benefits of what your ancestors did and unless you are ready to give up the benefits (voice rising), throw away your 401 fund, throw away your trust fund, throw away all the money you put into the company you WALKED INTO BECAUSE YO’ DADDY AND YO’
GRANDDADDY AND YO’ GREATGRANDDADDY–(screaming at the top of his lungs)–UNLESS YOU’RE WILLING TO GIVE UP THE BENEFITS, THEN YOU MUST BE REPSONSIBLE FOR WHAT WAS DONE IN YOUR GENERATION ‘CUZ YOU ARE THE BENEFICIARY OF THIS INSURANCE POLICY!

…We must be honest enough to expose white entitlement and supremacy wherever it raises its head.

I'm sympathetic to arguments concerning white privilege in the United States. There are a lot of ways that whites are privileged and probably the strongest is the substantial differential in wealth between middle-class whites and middle-class blacks.


Here's an illustration of what I mean. In my home town in upstate New York, the twelve children of an extremely poor African-American family, the McGruders, all got college degrees. Assuming that all the McGruder children attained middle-class status with those degrees, those adult children still would not have had the wealth of the average middle-class whites because they wouldn't have inherited any assets.


Because African-Americans in the United States have been historically excluded from wealth (by being denied credit, excluded from lucrative employment, denied permits, etc.), there is a real sense in which inherited wealth is a matter of "white privilege" as well as family accomplishment. This is what Father Phleger refers to when he views white people with trust funds, 401 K's, and other instruments of wealth as enjoying the benefits of historical racism.


But Father Phleger is also a demagogue who is using a legitimate argument to stomp on Hillary Clinton when she's down.

…When Hillary was crying (gesturing tears, uproarious laughter from audience)–and people said that was put on–I really don’t believe it was put on.

I really believe that she just always thought ‘This is mine’ (laughter, hoots). ‘I’m Bill’s wife. I’m WHITE. And this is mine. And I jus’ gotta get up. And step into the plate. And then out of nowhere came, ‘Hey, I’m Barack Obama.’ And she said: ‘Oh, damn!’ WHERE DID YOU COME FROM!?!?! (Crowd going nuts, Pfleger screaming). I’M WHITE! I’M ENTITLED! THERE’S A BLACK MAN STEALING MY SHOW. (SOBS!) SHE WASN’T THE ONLY ONE CRYING! THERE WAS A WHOLE LOTTA WHITE
PEOPLE CRYING!

Like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger strikes me as a self-centered asshole who's using the success of Barack Obama's candidacy to promote himself in a way that he knows will harm Obama.

But that's not my point. What's interesting to me is that it seems obvious that Trinity United Church in Chicago is a place where condemnations of whites were heard frequently and Barack Obama would have been a regular member of the audience and it seems like Obama would have had at least some sympathy with the message. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been close to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

There's also the more moderate opinion of Jesse Jackson and black feminists like Angela Davis and Toni Morrison. In this view, American society is still powerfully shaped by the legacy of slavery and segregation but that moving forward would be possible if African-Americans can form alliances with poor whites, white women, and other marginalized groups.

I bet that Obama is sympathetic with this view as well. That was certainly his perspective in his Philadelphia speech on race relations.

But Barack Obama's brain also had room in it for a third view that the U. S. has made so much racial progress since the 60's that race shouldn't matter in a presidential campaign. Obama's views are close enough to the color-blind orthodoxy of race neo-cons like William Bennett that they've expressed positive perspectives on his campaign.

One of the things that makes African-Americans distinct from whites is that they can hold both "black-centric" and "maintream" views in their heads at the same time. Obama's head has been an especially big tent on issues of race and that's been an advantage so far in the campaign.