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A Wright So Rong

Jeremiah was a bullfrog. Was a good friend of mine. Never understood a single word he said. But I helped him a-drink his wine. These nonsense lyrics could easily work to caption any photo of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, with his now teetotaling friend Barack Obama.

The whole mess brought on by Jeremiah's big mouth and healthy ego was mostly nonsense as well, but of a sort that may bleed the hope candidate out through the heel. In the post-analysis, did Indiana and North Carolina dissipate this distracting narrative, or reinforce it?

The very light-skinned Wright pulling his blacker-than-thou mantle close about his shoulders as he offers his parodies just highlights hypocrisies yet to be dealt with inside rapidly diversifying black America. He's obviously right about many things when it comes to the abysmal history and pathetic current state of race relations in this country.

Three years ago, I found myself co-hosting a little noted public affairs show focused on black politics in Miami. A fair number of things expressed by Wright were also said on-air by guests or callers on the show at various times. His views are mostly within the mainstream of black culture in America and we need to acknowledge that and deal with it.

I recall one time in particular when we had some local bigwigs from the Nation of Islam on to promote the Millions More march on Washington D.C. in 2005. One of the gentlemen went on in some length about how the U.S. government had created the AIDS virus and spread it through Haiti. It's nuts, yes, but there's something important at the root of the paranoia and alienation that can't be easily brushed off.

However, Wright's reaction to Obama's initially timid brush-off was a classic combination of the crabs in the bucket mentality and the sometimes messed up mentor/mentee relationship that I've frequently observed in black politics.

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