(NAME-MCE) FW: Some Contex...Rev. Wright's speech just after 9/11

[Tracey de Morsella (formerly Tracey L. Minor)]

Coates, Rodney D. Dr. wrote:
> Here is  a CNN report on Rev. Wright's speech just after 9/11. Fascinating
> what a  difference context makes!
> http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/21/the-full-story-behind-rev-jeremiah-wrights-911-sermon/
>
> ~~~~~
>
> CNN Contributor  Roland Martin has listened to several of the sermons of Rev.
> Jeremiah  Wright from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Portions of
> the  sermons have been excerpted in recent stories.
>
> As this whole sordid  episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah
> Wright has played out  over the last week, I wanted to understand what he
> ACTUALLY said in this  speech. I've been saying all week on CNN that context
> is important, and I  just wanted to know what the heck is going on.
>
> I have now actually  listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September
> 11 titled, "The Day  of Jerusalem's Fall." It was delivered on Sept. 16,
> 2001.
>
> One of the  most controversial statements in this sermon was when he
> mentioned  "chickens coming home to roost." He was actually quoting Edward
> Peck,  former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President
> Reagan's  terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That's what he
> told the  congregation.
>
> He was quoting Peck as saying that America's foreign  policy has put the
> nation in peril:
>
> "I heard Ambassador Peck on an  interview yesterday did anybody else see or
> hear him? He was on FOX News,  this is a white man, and he was upsetting the
> FOX News commentators to no  end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador,
> he pointed out that what  Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah
> Mohammad was in fact true, he  said Americas chickens, are coming home to
> roost."
>
> "We took this  country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara,
> the Comanche,  the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.
>
> "We took Africans away from their  country to build our way of ease and kept
> them enslaved and living in fear.  Terrorism.
>
> "We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies,  non-military
> personnel.
>
> "We bombed the black civilian community of  Panama with stealth bombers and
> killed unarmed teenage and toddlers,  pregnant mothers and hard working
> fathers.
>
> "We bombed Qaddafi's  home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash
> your children's head  against the rock.
>
> "We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying  to make a living. We
> bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on  our embassy, killed
> hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers  who left home to go
> that day not knowing that they'd never get back  home.
>
> "We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more  than the
> thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an  eye.
>
> "Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after  school.
> Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by  day.
>
> "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and  black South
> Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we  have done
> overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards.  America's
> chickens are coming home to roost.
>
> "Violence begets  violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets
> terrorism. A white  ambassador said that y'all, not a black militant. Not a
> reverend who  preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open
> and who is  trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous
> precipice  upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we
> have  wounded don't have the military capability we have. But they do  have
> individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And  we need
> to come to grips with that."
>
> He went on to describe seeing  the photos of the aftermath of 9/11 because he
> was in Newark, N.J., when  the planes struck. After turning on the TV and
> seeing the second plane slam  into one of the twin towers, he spoke
> passionately about what if you never  got a chance to say hello to your
> family again.
>
> "What is the state  of your family?" he asked.
>
> And then he told his congregation that he  loved them and asked the church to
> tell each other they loved  themselves.
>
> His sermon thesis:
>
> 1. This is a time for  self-examination of ourselves and our families.
>
> 2. This is a time for  social transformation (then he went on to say they
> won't put me on PBS or  national cable for what I'm about to say. Talk about
> prophetic!)
>
> "We  have got to change the way we have been doing things as a society,"  he
> said.
>
> Wright then said we can't stop messing over people and  thinking they can't
> touch us. He said we may need to declare war on racism,  injustice, and
> greed, instead of war on other countries.
>
> "Maybe we  need to declare war on AIDS. In five minutes the Congress found
> $40 billion  to rebuild New York and the families that died in sudden death,
> do you  think we can find the money to make medicine available for people who
> are  dying a slow death? Maybe we need to declare war on the nation's
> healthcare  system that leaves the nation's poor with no health coverage?
> Maybe we need  to declare war on the mishandled educational system and
> provide quality  education for everybody, every citizen, based on their
> ability to learn,  not their ability to pay. This is a time for  social
> transformation."
>
> 3. This is time to tell God thank you for  all that he has provided and that
> he gave him and others another chance to  do His will.
>
> By the way, nowhere in this sermon did he said "God damn  America." I'm not
> sure which sermon that came from.
>
> This doesn't  explain anything away, nor does it absolve Wright of using the
> N-word, but  what it does do is add an accurate perspective to  this
> conversation.
>
> The point that I have always made as a journalist  is that our job is to seek
> the truth, and not the partial  truth.
>
>
>