Christian Science Monitor: Did Obama's Pastor Preach Hate?

The Christian Science Monitor
"Did Obama's Pastor Preach Hate?"
By Jane Lampman
March 28th, 2008

Jane Lampman's article on Rev. Jeremiah Wright, previous pastor to Democratic hopeful, Barack Obama, was the best I have seen on the topic. The article asks the question, "When does speaking out against injustices cross into hate speech?" and attempts to answer whether Rev. Wright's speech was hate speech or not.

The article assumes previous knowledge of the Reverend's controversial comments. However it does offer a bit of background as to why the comments are so controversial, saying that it is in part due to the close Democratic Primary and in part because the comments

Pose a stark question about America's cross-racial discourse.

The article goes on to quote Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama's rival for the Democratic Presidential nomination, who states that she would never have Rev. Wright as her pastor, and then the article interestingly enough quotes Mike Huckabee, who dropped out of the Republican race for their nomination, saying,

Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment, and you have to just say, `I probably would, too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder, had it been me.'

Although I admit that I know little of Mr. Huckabee, I was surprised by his comment.

Ms. Lampman goes on to quote people in the religious community who say that Rev. Wright's comments have been taken out of context and misinterpreted. For example, when Rev. Wright said, "God damn America," he was speaking to God's condemnation of acts of oppression. The article then goes on to give more context to the rest of the speech, that not even The Daily Show gave, although they are known for giving more comprehensive clips and sound bites.

The article offers some insight into the black churches of America, which helps to give even more context to the comments. It also offers a more complex view of Rev. Wright as a man who has seen his church grow from 87 members to over 10,000.

Overall a very balanced article that acknowledged the inappropriateness of Rev. Wright's comments while also presenting a different frame from the mainstream media's. Also, out of the four 'experts' interviewed in this article one of them was a woman. This article was also interesting because besides acknowledging the importance these comments potentially have on the Democratic presidential campaign, they avoided talking about Obama at all. I thought this was very appropriate because the attention the media has been giving to Obama about these comments is unfair; he didn't say them, and just because he went to Rev. Wright's church doesn't mean he agrees with the man on everything.