Note to White People

By: Jacques Berlinerblau

March 24, 2008

About a decade ago I was researching a book that required me to spend a good deal of time taking in numerous and sundry varieties of African-American oratory. I look back at those visits to churches, Afrocentric rallies, and community activist gatherings with fondness. They certainly alleviated the archival tedium of an otherwise dull scholarly project.

That's because there is long tradition of outstanding and invigorating oratory in African America. How outstanding and invigorating? So much so that an accomplished speaker such as Senator Barack Obama would still be considered to be a mere promising Triple-A prospect by the lofty standards of black public rhetoric.

Last week the junior Senator from Illinois found himself trying to explain the pulpit indiscretions of his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Aware that many wanted to know how he could spend years listening to such remarks without having decamped from Trinity, Obama tried to place those remarks in their proper context:

Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear.

I was critical of Obama's speech but it strikes me that this point, in and of itself, is true. Things are often said in African-American oratorical contexts—sometimes the most lyrical, provocative and over-the-top things—which are rarely intended to be marching orders. Those who hear these things may indeed be dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting, but they are acutely aware that they are not hearing fighting words. I recall once attending a meeting of Afrocentrists (an environment that is usually at a large ideological and spiritual remove from what one finds in most black churches) where one speaker after another assiduously tore in to the catch-all category of "White People." To use some adjectives we heard last week, the rhetoric was "controversial," and "incendiary" (it was also, I must admit, pretty damn funny).

On the way out the door I met a Haitian-American acquaintance of mine. He undoubtedly noticed that I was a bit chagrined by the evening's banter. I recall two things from our conversation. The first was the language he spoke (i.e., English, which he had never used with me before) and the second were the actual words he spoke: "Don't worry Jacques. We just talking."

Whether in French or English I immediately demurred. But thinking about it ten years on, I must concede the point. The atmosphere was more like a carnival than a political rally. No one was anything but polite to the white folks in attendance. People left the building quietly and in good spirits. Come to think of it, there seemed to be an almost total disconnect between the revolutionary prodding of the speakers and the glee of the crowd on the one side, and the collective psyche of the group after the "performance," on the other.

I want to suggest that African-American public speakers understand that their role is to uplift, educate, entertain, and even outrage. Audiences, in turn, understand that they will enjoy, reflect, absorb and then promptly adhere to the stunt man's credo: don't try this at home.

I am not saying, however, that nothing of substance ever comes out of the Church. When the pastor asks for volunteers for the soup kitchen across town, people cheer and sign up. When the pastor asks for congregants to help tutor children, people cheer and sign up. But on those occasions when the pastor suggests some sort of radical political action leading to macro-structural change, people only cheer.

Perhaps this is why Senator Obama could hear those inflammatory utterances without getting too worried that they would imperil his candidacy. Ninety nine percent of what he heard from Reverend Wright had nothing to do with anything controversial anyhow. And when he heard those problematic statements he shrugged his shoulders and concluded "Reverend Wright's just talking."

The problem is that the GOP and FOX News were just listening. And while Obama's argument about taking these words in context was, in and of itself, valid, it does not in any way neutralize the advantages that will accrue to those who take them out of context.

In previous posts I noticed that Faith and Values politicking is played by rules that favor candidates from Conservative Protestant religious traditions. It now strikes me that the same rules may pose subtle disadvantages to politicians from African-American ones.

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