Sullivan posts an interesting note he got from a reader:
I worked four years as a teacher in the Black community
in Oakland in the early 90's and these ideas from Wright's sermons were
endemic. To me the remarkable thing about Obama is that he has
positioned himself, and set as a goal for himself, to lead Black
culture towards one of participation and non-victimization. You can't
do that if you're not participating as a member of the Black community,
whatever state you find it in.
How do we go forward? 3 percent of all Black men are in prison, and
it's 11 percent of black men aged 25-29. Mostly on drug charges. The
community has been in crisis for decades. And here come many
conservatives with a message to marginalize the Black community
further.
What is more helpful here? That, or putting into a position of
leadership someone who has really heard and understood all these
arguments in the Black community, disagrees with
them and says so and
yet is still respected there, and asks young Black men to take
responsibility and shows how it's possible to live a decent life in
America? It seems pretty obvious.
The reader makes a huge mistake by conflating his experiences in the black community with the entirety of black America. Also, to put it bluntly, he thinks too much of "mainstream" white people. A healthy percentage of black folks may believe that the government concocted HIV to kill us, but the conspiracy theories of white America are legion--and much much deadlier. A sample:
In a February CNN-Time poll, 76 percent of those surveyed felt Saddam
provides assistance to al Qaeda. Another poll released in February
asked, "Was Saddam Hussein personally involved in the September 11
attacks?" Although it is a claim the Bush administration has never made
and for which there is no evidence, 72 percent said it was either very
or somewhat likely.
That was in 2003. It is also an incredible number, and it led to arguably the largest military blunder in the history of this country. Black people do not need to be lectured about conspiracy theories when fully THREE QUARTERS of this country believed Saddam was behind 9/11. This is to say nothing of the religious fictions of the wing-nuts, which Chris Hayes outlined, last week.
Evangelical Christians believe that anyone who has
not accepted Jesus as his personal lord and saviour will be sadistically
tortured for the rest of eternity, which means that each of the 6
million Jews who died in the Holocaust now spends each instant from here
to end of time suffering torture far worse than what they faced in
Dachau or Treblinka.
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