The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. Controversy: The Bold Speech that Barack Obama Should Give to Make It All Go Away

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss a few things with you. Some of these things are philosophical, others are personal. Because some of you may have, in recent days, heard about or viewed the videos that came out that showed Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., my pastor, engaged in very disturbing and divisive rants that contradict everything that I have ever believed in, it was important that, perhaps for the first time in this campaign, I held a conversation with you, the American people. I call this speech a conversation because it is not a political speech. It is a personal speech in which I elaborate on Barack Obama, the man, and clarify who I am at a very personal and philosophical level.

I will begin by saying that I totally repudiate the words of hatred that are contained in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. videos. I not only repudiate them, I reject and condemn them with the greatest vigor.

Those who know me can testify to the fact that such hatred is alien to who I am. While I understand that those who have a set of predetermined opinions will use my 20-year membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ where Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. officiates against me in this campaign, it was important that I made clear, on this very day, what my personal beliefs are.

I have indeed known Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. for several decades and have held him in great esteem for several decades. While I have never personally heard him make such controversial statements as I saw in the video, it is hard, after watching these videos, not to notice how much hatred dwells in the heart of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

Now, several pundits and a number of people have already concluded that I am guilty by association because I have been close to Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. for all these years. They have concluded that I should have left the church years ago, and that I have shown lack of judgment. They have concluded that, because I never left the church, I must share Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.’s views on race and politics in America. They have concluded that I must be lying to the American people when I argue for a different kind of politics for this country.

I do understand those feelings. If I had not been Barack Obama running for President, I would also probably feel the same way looking at the same situation. So, this is a reality that I cannot escape, and that I must confront.

But, you know what? I am not going to run away from that reality because I know it is an American reality. The hatred that seethes through the mouth of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. is not an isolated phenomenon. It reflects a reality of our country that has been with us for a number of centuries now, and that we have all tried to bury, escape, and avoid. It is a reality that has been allowed to persevere, prosper and many of us have preferred to run away from the challenge, instead of trying to find the root causes of this type of hatred so that, together, we can begin to heal this nation from the diseases of racial hatred and political dishonesty that have allowed us to be divided.

So, let me be personal for a minute.

I am enraged. I am enraged at how easily we condemn, and how little we are ready to go the extra mile to understand why this hatred is out there in the first place. I am enraged at how easily we are ready to throw the stone at those of us who, by ignorance or by sickness, have taken the path of hate, and how very few of us are ready to extend our love to those of us who suffer from the disease of hate and ignorance, so that we can begin the process of redeeming them and resolutely putting this country on the path towards reconciliation.

I do not fault anyone for believing that because I belong to a church in which a pastor with such views officiates, I must also, somehow, share his views. But I stand here today to say that such a conclusion would be utterly misguided. Why?

People too often forget that I am born from a father that was black, and a mother that was white. If they had not both been dead, they would be standing by my side today as I campaign across this wonderful country of ours.  Now, you tell me: do you really think that the Barack Obama that I am would be able to develop hatred for white people, and hold the kind of language of hate against white people that is contained in the disturbing videos that came out? Those who hold that I am guilty by association certainly are not measuring the full implications of their belief, because they are basically saying that I would be able, as a mixed-race person, to hate my own mother because she was white?

And this begs the question: who am I, really? Am I black simply because our society, for some reason, concluded that a person born from a black father and a white mother is necessarily black, that the whiteness in him does not count? For what I know, I have both black blood and white blood in my veins. Which part, then, should I hate and reject: The African blood in me, which I share with Jeremiah Wright Jr., or the Irish blood in me, which I share with Dick Cheney?

My reality as an American is, perhaps, different from the reality of those Americans who are not born of black and white. Being born from both black and white gave me a very unique perspective on American society that, in some very profound way, made me who I am today. Because I am the very embodiment of both black and white America, I have always refrained from defining myself as one or the other. How could I? How could I hate one part of me, or prefer one over the other? Because of this duality, I took, from very early on in my life, the unusual position that the only way out of this internal conflict is to love both parts of me: that is, love both the Black America in me as well as the White America in me. In other words, in order not to succumb to the easy trappings of hate, I decided to love America and put America first in my life. Which is why, in my campaign, I have tried to stay away from petty definitions and proclaim myself to be, not a Black American nor a White American, but simply an American. And so I made my campaign to be a campaign for America, and myself a candidate running for the United States of America.

There is no denying that there are, at least, two Americas that have historically conflicted. One part of this America is the one that we have witnessed in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. videos. That part of America holds historical grudges that find their source in the very problematic history of our country, which once had two classes of people defined on the basis of the color of their skins. The other part of that America is the America that, today, still lives through the guilt of what it once believed to be true, that while all men were born to be equal, equality could still be denied to some men. These are the two Americas that, over the years, never were able to find a way to talk to each other in order to begin the conversation that would have allowed them to heal old wounds and look to the future with the understanding that we are in this America together, and that we must build it together.

Some have asked: how come Barack Obama stayed with such a church with such a pastor for so many years? Did he not get influenced by this pastor? Is he not thinking like his pastor? Has he not shown lack of judgment?

These are very legitimate and understandable questions. But they are misguided. Why?

Black experience in this country is one that, perhaps, many people outside of black communities do not clearly understand. The reading that Blacks have of America is not always the reading that white America has of it, precisely because of the historical and even current grudges that continue to frame some of our antagonisms of today. These grudges stem from a perception, in Black communities, that this country does not want them, that this country does not love them. They look at so many Black males in disproportionate numbers in prisons across the country, and they conclude that the white man is out to get them. They look at inner-city poverty and they conclude that no one in this country wants to improve their condition. And year after year, the grudges accumulate, precisely because no one is taking the time to listen.

No, it is not easy to be black in America, and many of us who were raised in communities that had ceased to believe in the American Dream are certainly likely to fall prey to the discourse of hatred. And while some of their views are unacceptable from the point of view of politics, they nevertheless reflect an American reality that has always been there, and that politicians must begin to pay attention to. But not all of us, fortunately, fall prey to the discourse of hatred and discouragement. And so, it is not simply because we attended churches in black communities that, because of the Black experience, have had pastors who mix the gospel with social and political discourse, that we all became hateful people. It is not because we interacted with pastors with views that were, at times, bigoted and informed by hatred that we were all doomed to hate white people. I am sure that Martin Luther King, in his own time, went through the same Black experience, but, instead of being discouraged by this experience, he used his knowledge of the Black experience to begin the dialogue which, several decades ago, lifted and changed America.

I would be dishonest if I said that the words that came out of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. in those videos are unique to him. These views are not. They are part of the Black experience in this country. In some funny way, if there had not been people such as Jeremiah Wright Jr. in my life, I would probably never have become the Barack Obama that I am today. If Black communities had not been vibrant with discourses that were, at times, extreme, and, at times, conciliatory, I would never have been inspired to enter public life with the agenda of doing what I can to make it better by seeking durable solutions to the hatred. My whole discourse on change was first and foremost informed by my Black experience. This experience taught me to love those who hated me, to never lend myself to easy conclusions, and to always work towards a better America.

The problem in our country is not so much that there is hatred in it. Everybody knows there is. It is a fact that we all must recognize. The fundamental question is: where does it come from and what do we do about it?

Do we repudiate and hate back those who hate us, or do we take the unusual approach of loving them in order for us to help them understand that in the America of today, things are more possible than they were several decades ago?

Do we isolate the 90% of Blacks who attended churches with pastors with a sociopolitical discourse that, at times, may have sounded anti-American, and declare them to be unfit for America, or do we recognize this reality as being part of the American reality that we must confront and resolve for the posterity and benefit of this country?

Do we declare Ku Klux Klan members and all those who have hatred for blacks to be unfit to be Americans simply because they hold racist views, or do we try to sit down with them as brothers and sisters with the aim of understanding the source of beliefs that are obviously based on sheer ignorance? Do we abandon them to their ignorance and allow the hatred to continue or do we try the best we can to confront and address this reality in order to attempt to resolve it?

Do we hate and isolate those who hate us simply because we have become so cynical that we have stopped believing in the possibility of a new America, in the possibility of change?

No, my fellow Americans. When you love your country, you do not give up on your countrymen and country women no matter how estranged from reality they have become. True patriotism is not about excluding those who exclude us, or hating those who hate us. True patriotism is about recognizing that hatred is a disease that, if left unaddressed, could escalate to consume and engulf us all, leaving behind a nation divided beyond recognition.

Unlike what the pundits and cynics might believe, the Black experience that I went through was a mix of everything. In some corners, some, just like Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., lived in the prison of hatred that they built around their own mind and allowed themselves to be consumed by it. In some other corners, some had kept their hopes alive, and kept believing that the new America that Martin Luther King had dreamt about several decades back was still possible.

And so, on my journey to hope, I took both my black experience and my white experience with me:  and along the way, I found blacks and whites who had begun the journey before me. Together, we shared the audacity of hope. Where, around me, black and white Jeremiah Wrights talked about hatred and the impossibility of reconciliation in this country, I held my head high and continued to believe in the possibility of change.

Was I influenced by Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s hatred? Yes, I was. I was influenced to resist the appeal of it. I was influenced to resist the appeal of hatred from those cynics who had decided that the only way to combat hatred was with hatred. The more I saw or heard of hatred, the more I decided to take the path to hope, the journey to change.

And so I stand before you today, my fellow Americans, to say that I have made the choice of hope. Hope is to acknowledge that while it may appear to us as a daunting task to change America, a better America is still possible. We have to hope for it, take it from the dream that Martin Luther King dreamt and transform it into a vision for America that will allow us to work together for the immediate improvement of America. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but now.

Some cynics have tried to make us believe that we are so divided that we cannot resolve the hatred that holds us all prisoners in the prisons of our minds, in the prisons of the past. They have preferred to take the easy way out. They have made the choice of hating back and excluding those who hate them. They have defined patriotism as monolithic thinking and discouraged diversity of thought. They have labeled those who dare to question the status quo with names that define them as un-American. They have resorted to the promotion of particular agendas, instead of promoting an agenda for America. And by so doing, they have allowed the hate to continue, and the issues have grown worse.

I do not believe in the fatality of hatred. What I believe in is in the dream of Martin Luther King for an America that is not just for whites or for blacks, for Asians or for Hispanics, for foreigners or for nationals. What I believe in is in the United States of America, in an America for all Americans.

My countrymen and women,

We are today at a crossroads of American history. The choices we will make at this crucial moment of our history will determine how we shape the future of this country not only for ourselves, but also for our children. When I began this unlikely journey, never did I imagine that I would be standing here today thanks to the votes of both blacks and whites, united in a crucial vote that expressed their desire for change in America. And what great lesson for Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. to see that the America he has hated so much is the America of the past, that today’s America has already begun to turn the page from the past to the future, that there is no reason, today, to continue to hate, that the only way out is to talk to each other, and reconcile our differences for a better America? What better lesson for those who had lost hope to see that someone with the name Barack Obama is poised today to become not only the Democratic nominee, but also president of the United States of America, a symbol of the desire of this country to turn the page of the past and turn its aspirations to the future?

If I am ahead in this primary today, it is because many white people in this country had decided that it did not matter what the color of my skin was, what mattered is that we needed to change this country from what was to what it could become. And they chose me to enact this transition from the America of the past to the America of the future.

I believe in change. I believe in hope. I believe in the dream and in the possibilities that this country now offers to all of its citizens. It is not so much that we are divided in this country. We have simply stopped talking to each other, we have stopped hoping and caring for one another.

Which is why people who have cultivated cynicism in this country cannot understand where I stand today, and why I have not left the church of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

It is crucial that the American people try to understand why it was important that I stayed. It is also crucial that they understand why I am, in fact, very happy that these controversial videos of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. came out.

These videos exemplify, better than anything I could have ever said, why we need change in America. Leaving the Trinity United Church of Christ because of the views of Rev. Jeremiah Wright would have been an act of cowardice, a refusal to confront the issue of lingering hatred and grudges in this country. Leaving the Trinity United Church of Christ would have meant, for me, an embrace of the cynical idea that nothing could be done to redeem people who have been misguided because of their ignorance. It is a drama that we have come to believe so easily in this country that it is by returning hate for hate, blow for blow and fear for fear that we will resolve the issues of race and bigotry, poverty and exclusion, sexism and injustice. We have simply forgotten or renounced to love and redeem those of us who have lost themselves along the way to redemption. We prefer the easy way out, the way of the cowards, who prefer to denounce as opposed to resolve, condemn as opposed to discuss, hate as opposed to love.

What country would we be if we decided that because there are black churches in America with pastors that engage in questionable talk, the solution is not only to hate them back, but also to make of those millions who attend such churches guilty of the sins of their pastors? And that because they once attended such churches, they would not be fit to wear the American uniform to war to defend this country, that they could not hope, some day, to become president of the United States and do so with a judgment that is congruent with the American Dream?

What country would we be if we began to decide that members of the Ku Klux Klan do not deserve to be American, that their children do not deserve to attend American schools because of the views of their parents?

It would seem to me that all forms of hatred stem from one single thing: ignorance. Whereas one can be born with an incurable disability from which one cannot be redeemed, I strongly believe that one can be redeemed from one’s ignorance. I believe that there is the potential of good in every single one of us, providing we began loving one another even in the face of hard and insuperable challenges.

My fellow Americans, when I decided to run for President, I decided to do so because I had the vision that it would take someone like me, who had learned to reconcile the two Americas in me, to take this country into a new direction.

Now, the cynics will say this is not possible, that the challenge is too great. I say there is no challenge so great that we cannot overcome it.

And so I say today that I totally repudiate, reject and denounce the evil in the words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. While I repudiate the words, I will not repudiate the man whom I thought I knew. It is my duty, as a candidate for president of the United States to face the reality of the America that Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. represents and to understand how to cure that America of the disease of hatred. It is equally my duty, as a candidate for president of the United States, to love my Ku Klux Klan brothers, and sit down with them to talk them out of the anger and fears and hatred that drive them. I am running to be the president of all Americans.

I strongly believe that a candidate for president cannot, for simple political reasons, ignore or reject the Americans that hate. The duty of the president of the United States is not to side with those who hate or with those who suffer from hate. His duty is to serve as the moral conduit through which the nation can find a path and a reason to healing itself from its sores and wounds.

My fellow Americans, my belief is that America is not divided. All Americans long for the same American Dream, the same American pride, the same American vision. They all share the same sense of patriotism, the same desire to excel, innovate, deserve, ripe the fruits of their hard work. They all want good health care, decent jobs that can put food on the table and save them enough money to send their kids to affordable schools and colleges. They all want to dream and aspire to something better for themselves, their children and their neighbors.

No, we are not divided because we all hope for the same things, the same opportunities, the same right to a better life. The problem that I see with America today is that we simply began talking different languages and stopped listening to one another. Now, we know what happens when, in any family, husband and wife, children and parents, stop listening and talking to each other. The family breaks up even though they all genuine love each other. The solution, in those moments, is not to repudiate each other, but to challenge one another to try harder, and to talk to each other more.

And so, I reassert today before all that my candidacy is profoundly about change and belief in new possibilities for America. I am not running to be the president of blacks versus whites, Hispanics versus Asians, husband versus wife, racists vs. non racists, sexists vs. non sexists, gays versus straights, red states vs. blue states, small states vs. big states, black states vs. white states, East coast vs. West Coast, South Side vs. East Side. I am running for all Americans and I am devoted to creating the conditions that will allow us all to begin the dialogue for a new America.

As you have seen, the challenges that await us along the way to the new America are huge. The many heads of evil will emerge from beneath the earth and so, at times, we will falter. At times also, we will waiver. At times we will even make mistakes and stumble. The journey we have begun is not easy. If it were, it would have already been done. But let it never be forgotten: our past is full of people who, before us, dreamt of a new America. Those illustrious dreamers are those who passed the torch to us so that we can do for future generations what they did for us. They urged us to never abandon the dream and pressed us to dare to have to audacity and the courage to confront our issues even when they are not pleasant, to love our brothers even when they hold grudges against us.

And so, my fellows Americans, I lay before you today the challenge of our time.

If you believe that this challenge is worth confronting, then I will welcome your vote. If you believe this challenge is too much for you, that America is not ready for change, that hatred and sectarism is what America is all about, that the only way we will resolve the hatred that lingers in some of us because of our complex history is by excluding those who hate us even more, thereby fueling more hatred and more cynicism, then vote for the status quo, vote for the other candidates, those very candidates who have tried to convince you that it is not right to dream, that you were crazy to give your vote to a man who only knew how to make agood speech.

But as I have always said, I am confident that no matter what happens, the American people will rise to this challenge, that they will challenge those who do not wish to be challenged into challenging themselves again, that they are ready to begin challenging those amongst us who have stopped believing into believing again.

I have always believed in the dignity and generosity of the American people, and I thank the American people for having invested in me by giving me their vote. When I become president of the United States in January 2009, I want all Americans to understand that no matter their beliefs, no matter their challenges, there is nothing that can stop us when, together, we decide to confront the challenges of our time.

I believe in the American people because I believe we can.

Yes, we can, my fellow Americans. Yes, we can. So, let’s do it!

Barack Obama