Jeremiah Wright's 'Trumpet'

...When Trumpet surprised Wright with a “Lifetime Achievement Trumpeter Award,” it said that he “preaches a liberation theology” whose “religious message [is] fused with political activism...

...Implicitly drawing on Marxist “dependency theory,” Wright blames Africa’s troubles on capitalist exploitation by the West, and also on inadequate American aid: “Some analysts would go so far as to even call what [the United States, the G-8, and multinational corporations] are doing [in Africa] genocide...

...The entire world can now look at the Continent of Africa and see what the policies of the United States, the G-8 countries, globalization and transnational corporations like Coca-Cola and WalMart have done and continue to do on a daily basis to those children...

...Wright likes to call it “the criminal injustice system...

...The dream of that school, which we articulated in 1979, was built on hope...

...Emphasis Wright’s...

...The term “white supremacy” solves this problem, and Wright deploys it at every opportunity...

...If you’ve heard about the “Empowerment Award” bestowed upon Louis Farrakhan by Wright, or about Wright’s derogation of “garlic-nosed” Italians (of the ancient Roman variety), then you already know something about Trumpet...

...So for Wright, it’s really not a question of correcting America in the spirit of a loving patriot...

...Wright’s hostility to assimilation goes beyond classic American expressions of pride in ethnic or religious heritage...

...Neither piece has so much as a religious veneer...

...African children are being left as orphans because of HIV/AIDS...

...One of Wright’s most striking images of American evil invokes Hurricane Katrina...

...Obama’s longing for a father fi gure surely gave him a great hunger to get to know what Wright was about...

...They buy off preachers...

...In September 2005, Trumpet offi cially separated from Wright’s church and became an independent entity, with Wright as CEO and his two eldest daughters managing the magazine...

...Yet the “Audacity” sermon also features allusions to South Africa’s Sharpe ville Massacre (1960) and “white folks’s greed [that] runs a world in need...

...Glance through even a single issue of Trumpet, and Wright’s radical politics are everywhere—in the pictures, the headlines, the highlighted quotations, and above all in the articles themselves...

...That school has to have at its core an understanding and assessment of white supremacy as we deconstruct that reality to help our children become all that God created them to be when God made them in God’s own image...

...No fl ag pins here...

...To read it is to come away impressed by Wright’s thoroughgoing political radicalism...

...That does not mean we stop struggling against what it is they stand for that is not in keeping with God’s will and God’s Kingdom that we pray will come every day...

...Predictably, Columbus Day is a day of rage for Wright...

...Again and again, Wright makes the point that America’s criminality and racism are not aberrations but of the essence of the nation, that they are every bit as alive today as during the slave era, and that America is therefore no better than the worst international offenders: “White supremacy undergirds the thought, the ideology, the theol ogy, the sociology, the legal structure, the educational system, the healthcare system, and the entire reality of the United States of America and South Africa...

...Strangely, given his view of this country, Wright insists that real credit for America’s discovery goes to Africans...

...Wright’s swipe at Italians is actually directed toward the Romans who crucifi ed Jesus (in what James Cone calls a “fi rst-century lynching...

...This, for Wright, is genuine “integration...

...Wright is the foremost acolyte of James Cone’s “black liberation theology,” which puts politics at the center of religion...

...Raping teenage girls and calling it love (as in Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings...

...Not only does black liberation theology founder James Cone see Wright as his most important follower, but Wright’s successor as pastor at Trinity, Otis Moss III, also views Wright as the quintessential political pastor...

...For example, the April 2006 issue features a column entitled “Demand Impeachment Now...

...Instead of counseling determination amidst personal tragedy, Wright uses “hope” to exhort his readers to boldly carry on the long-odds struggle against white supremacist America: “We deconstruct the vicious and demonic ideology of white supremacy with hope...

...In a sense, then, disclaimers notwithstanding, Wright turns the crucifi xion into a potential charter for “anti-European” anger...

...Wright’s “Audacity to Hope” sermon is built around a painting he describes of a torn and tattered woman sitting atop a globe and playing a harp that has lost all but a single string...

...Given Wright’s conviction that America, past and present, is criminally white supremacist—even genocidal— to its core, Wright is not a fan of patriotic celebration...

...There are plenty of arresting sound bites, of course, but the larger context is more illuminating—and more disturbing—than any single shock-quotation...

...Ivan van Sertima’s book They Came Before Columbus...

...There are white members of Wright’s church, and black liberation theologians have always, if a bit reluctantly, welcomed support from white radicals...

...When the levees in Louisiana broke alligators, crocodiles and piranha swam freely through what used to be the streets of New Orleans...

...We lay the foundation with hope...

...Some analysts would go so far as to even call what they are doing ‘genocide!’” —Wright,Trumpet, June 2006 “An anthropology that sees some as more equal than others cannot but help produce a sick sociology...

...The enemy is white supremacy...

...The author pointedly refuses to call Bush “president,” merely referring to him as the “resident” of the White House (and therefore as “Resident Bush...

...Is Wright an anti-white racist...

...The construction of a school for inner city children undoubtedly falls into the category of the “good works” which nearly everyone recognizes as a benefi t bestowed by Trinity Church on the surrounding community, Wright’s ideology notwithstanding...

...Wright’s words about Farrakhan were almost identical to those that, just four months later, led a supposedly shocked Obama to repudiate Wright...

...Yet in Trumpet, Wright and his fellow columnists show themselves to be exactly that...

...Wright likes to call the American North “up South...

...The deeper connection is to Africans on the continent, and to the worldwide diaspora of African-originated peoples...

...In an image that captures the spirit of Wright’s relationship to the United States, he speaks of blacks as “songbirds” locked in “this cage called America...

...Reginald Williams Jr...

...Although the expression “African American” appears in Trumpet, the magazine more typically refers to American blacks as “Africans living in the Western Diaspora...

...Sertima’s work has been severely criticized by scholars and was dismissed by prominent British archaeologist Glyn Daniel in a 1977 New York Times book review as “ignorant rubbish...

...Nonetheless, the problem of reverse racism keeps coming up, abetted by episodes like the assault on “garlicnosed” Italians...

...Some of those demons are fi lthy rich...

...In South Africa, thousands of young girls are being raped because the ‘myth’ is that if you have sex with a child who is a teenager or younger, then you can be cured of AIDS...

...Desegregation did not mean that white children would now come to Black schools and learn our story, our history, our heritage, our legacy, our beauty and our strength...

...Wright, however, rejects the notion that “black racism” is even possible...

...Our hope is built on Him who came in the fl esh to set us free...

...What about patriotism...

...In fact, for all his rousing rhetoric, Wright is a bit of a policy wonk, moving fl uidly and frequently from excoriations of American foreign policy in various African countries, to denunciations of Senate votes on the minimum wage, to fulminations against FCC licensing policies and Clear Channel, and so much more...

...To Williams, Douglass’s words ring every bit as true today as they did before the Civil War and the abolition of slavery...

...In fact, Obama himself graced the cover at least once (although efforts to obtain that issue from the publisher or Obama’s interview with the magazine from his campaign were unsuccessful...

...He would certainly deny it...

...In their fi rst meeting, Wright warned Obama that many considered him too politically radical, and it is simply inconceivable that in 20 years’ time someone as sharp as Obama did not grasp the intensely political themes repeated in so much of what Wright says and does...

...Everything...

...Always...

...Moss (himself now considered the most promising young black-liberationist preacher in the country) turned down the opportunity to step into the leadership of his own preacher-father’s nationally known church for a chance to serve at the still more renowned Trinity...

...Racism,” says Wright, is a “slippery” and “nebulous” term, precisely because it seems potentially applicable to blacks and whites alike...

...That is why he prefers the term “white supremacy” to “racism...

...Calling Columbus a racist slave trader, Wright excoriates the holiday as “a national act of amnesia and denial,” part of the “sick and myopic arrogance called Western History...

...your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless . . . your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings . . . mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy —a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages...

...Wright opposes “assimilation,” expressing displeasure with the likes of Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, and Colin Powell...

...Wright himself is explicit: [T]here was no separation Biblically and historically and there is no separation contemporaneously between ‘religion and politics.’ . . . The Word of God has everything to do with racism, sexism, militarism, social justice and the world in which we live daily...

...In that sermon, Wright’s allegory of hope amidst despair concentrates on our need to soldier on in faith amidst personal tragedy...

...They are entrenched...

...Wright and the other columnists at Trumpet seem to think of blacks as in, but not of, America...

...Liberation theologian that he is, Williams is particularly hostile to those who “will even invoke religious fervor, and biblical quotes to justify their fl awed sense of phony patriotism...

...So Obama’s presence at sermons is not the only measure of his knowledge of Wright’s views...

...For example, Wright claims that “desegregation is not the same as integration...

...Indeed, they feature explicit repudiations of even the most basic expressions of American patriotism, supporting instead an “African-centered” perspective that treats black Americans as virtual strangers in a foreign land...

...On the contrary, the pages of Trumpet resonate with enraged criticism of the United States...

...Jeremiah Wright’s The magazine produced by Barack Obama’s pastor reveals the content of his theology BY STANLEY KURTZ To the question of the moment—What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it?—I answer, Obama knew everything, and he’s known it for ages...

...There can be no mistaking it...

...We deconstruct the vicious and demonic ideology of white supremacy with hope...

...While many consider Wright’s call for God to damn America irredeemable, others might argue that “in context,” Wright’s prophetic denunciations actually prove his love of country...

...The “crimes of 9/11,” it darkly announces, are “not only unsolved, but covered up by both Democrats and Republicans...

...But is a school that portrays America as a white supremacist nation fi lled with predatory alligators and piranha a good work...

...Wright, Trumpet, November / December 2006 ing with the Police” decries racial profi ling and counsels those detained to refuse to speak to police without a lawyer present...

...The goal was to turn Trumpet into “a more sophisticated publication that would speak not just to black Christians but to the entire African-American community...

...We need to educate our children about the white supremacist’s foundations of the educational system...

...Wright’s Trinity, affi rms Moss, is “the most socially conscious African-centered and politically active church in the nation...

...Here’s another passage in the same mode: [O]ur fi ght against Wal-Mart’s practices has not been won and might never be won in our lifetime...

...A careful reading of nearly a year’s worth of Trumpet Newsmagazine, Wright’s glossy national “lifestyle magazine for the socially conscious,” makes it next to impossible to conclude otherwise...

...Here are excerpts of a piece in the May 2006 Trumpet: We need to educate our children to the reality of white supremacy...

...What have I to do with your national independence...

...Williams apparently wants to replace market mechanisms with a pricing system dictated by “human rights groups...

...I obtained the 2006 run of Trumpet, from the fi rst nationally distributed issue in March to the November/December double issue...

...Then in March 2006, with key fi nancial backing from the TV One network, Trumpet released its fi rst nationally distributed issue...

...Wright concludes: “Giving Columbus the credit is called ‘American History’ or ‘The History of Western Civilization.’ Back in the 1960’s we called it what it was and is, however, and that is ‘a pack of lies.’ ” Contempt for Columbus Day is hardly novel, but in the 2006 July/August issue, regular Trumpet columnist the Rev...

...In the fl ood waters of white supremacy . . . there are also crocodiles, alligators and piranha...

...Wright’s status as a father-fi gure comes through clearly in the pages of Trumpet...

...We lay a foundation, deconstructing the household of white supremacy with tools that are not the master’s tools...

...Williams goes on to echo and update Douglass, condemning the Fourth as “nothing more than a day off work and a time for some good barbeque to the millions of African Americans who suffer and have suffered under the policies of this government and this country...

...In November 2005, Wright’s daughter and Trumpet publisher/editor in chief Jeri Wright announced the goal of increasing circulation from 5,000 to 100,000 in 10 months...

...America, to Wright, is a kind of alien formation, scarcely less of a “cage” for “Africans in the Western Diaspora” than it was during the days of slavery: “[T]his country is built off, and continues to exist on, the premise of white supremacy...

...What to the American slave is your 4th of July...

...What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it...

...Here is a typical passage: “Do you see God as a God who approves of Americans taking other people’s countries...

...Following black liberation theology, Wright emphasizes that the black Jesus was “murdered by the European oppressors who looked down on His people...

...is that the now-infamous YouTube snippets from Wright’s sermons are authentic refl ections of his core political and theological beliefs...

...Anyone who does think this way, Wright suggests, should revise his notion of God...

...While the majority of Trumpet’s articles weave radical politics into a religious framework, some are purely political...

...The incredible plight of the African child has now been made visible for the entire world to see...

...They control the media...

...Far from succumbing to surprise and shock after Jeremiah Wright’s disastrous performance at the National Press Club, Barack Obama must have long been aware of his pastor’s political radicalism...

...Trinity Church urges parishioners to boycott Wal-Mart, and Wright decries what he calls “the “Wal-martization of the world...

...According to Wright, America’s alleged genocide in Africa, as well as its treatment of “Africans in the Western diaspora,” both leads to and fl ows from a single underlying truth: “White supremacy is the bed rock of the philosophical, ideological and theological foundations of this country...

...Even some of Wright’s famed “good works,” and his moving “Audacity to Hope” sermon, are placed in a disturbing new light by a reading of Trumpet...

...The policies with which we live now and against which our children will have to struggle in order to bring about “the beloved community,” are policies shaped by predators...

...A piece headed “Read Me My Rights: Protocol for DealBlow, Jeremiah, Blow Glance through even a single issue of Trumpet, and Jeremiah Wright’s radical politics are everywhere...

...A sick anthropology produces a sick sociology and allows Christians in America to wear black robes during the day and don the white robes of the Klan during the night...

...That is an analogy that we need to drum into the heads of our African American children (and indeed all children...

...While the nationally distributed issues of Trumpet in 2006 contained no pieces blaming 9/11 on America’s “terrorist” foreign policy (as Wright did in a famous sermon), one remarkable piece defended then-congresswoman Cynthia McKinney’s suspicion that the Bush administration knew about the 9/11 attacks before they happened...

...Building on his reputation as a charismatic and “socially conscious” preacher (and no doubt also upon the fame conferred by his Obama connection), Wright decided several years ago to take the publication national...

...Our hope is not built on faith-based dollars, empty liberal promises or veiled hate-fi lled preachments of the so-called conservatives...

...They tempt us with ‘bling-bling’ and they put a cute ‘spin’ on their self-destructive ideology...

...In other words, the abolition of slavery and segregation notwithstanding, America is still a fundamentally racist nation...

...In Trumpet, the political context of the “hope” theme is harsher still...

...One of the most striking features of Wright’s Trumpet columns is the light they shed on his longstanding theme of “hope...

...Wright is up to speed on local, national, and international politics, and it’s tough to imagine him missing an opportunity to confer with Obama on his wide array of legislative crusades...

...Wright founded Trumpet Newsmagazine in 1982 as a “church newspaper”—primarily for his own congregation, one gathers— to “preach a message of social justice to those who might not hear it in worship service...

...Trumpet provides a rounded picture of Wright’s views, and what it shows unmistakably Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center...

...Wright’s young minister prot?g?s call him “Daddy J” and “Uncle J,” and perhaps this latter name prompted Obama’s reference to Wright as “like an uncle...

...Attempting to inoculate Wright (and Obama) from critics like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, Christian Century dismissed the notion that Wright’s Trinity church “is a political organization constantly advocating for social change...

...Williams invokes Frederick Douglass’s famous 1852 Fourth of July address: What to the slave is the 4th of July...

...To him, your celebration is a sham . . . your national greatness, swelling vanity...

...America’s justice system is another favorite Trumpet theme...

...Wright, Trumpet, September 2006 “Some of the demons against who we struggle are gigantic...

...In a Trumpet interview, Jesse Jackson characterizes Wright as “between a huge father, pastor, preacher, [and] prophet...

...This column is illustrated with a large picture of slave manacles...

...Hostility to capitalism is another of Trumpet’s pervasive themes...

...It leaves no doubt that his religion is political, his attitude toward America is bitterly hostile, and he has fundamental problems with capitalism, white people, and “assimilationist” blacks...

...Getting across his political message is Wright’s highest priority...

...Wright views the United States as a criminal nation...

...Farrakhan’s picture was on the cover of a special November/December 2007 double issue, along with an announcement of the Empowerment Award and Wright’s praise of Farrakhan as a 20th- and 21st-century “giant...

...Unfortunately, neither Wright nor any of the other regular Trumpet columnists displays a trace of this “I’m denouncing you because I love you” stance...

...Reginald Williams calls prisons “the new concrete plantations” and likens the inclusion of nonvoting prisoners in state population counts to the offi cial counting of nonvoting slaves in state populations before the Civil War...

...An anthropology, that sees whites as superior and people of color as inferior, allows a sociology—an ordering of society—that defi nes non-whites as non-human...

...I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim...

...In that earlier striking passage on the post-Katrina fl ooding in New Orleans, Wright speaks of his determination to “drum into the heads of our African American children (and indeed, all children...

...That hope still lives...

...It seems inconceivable that, in 20 years, Obama would never have picked up a copy of Trumpet...

...Radical politics is no sideline for Wright, but the very core of his theology and practice...

...This column, “The Beloved Cynthia McKinney” (illustrated with pictures of McKinney in model-like poses), decries the fact that McKinney was “tarred and feathered in the press” for raising questions about possible government foreknowledge of 9/11...

...In When Black Men Stand Up for God (a book he coauthored, in praise of Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March), Wright says, “The enemy is not white people...

...Another piece taunts Vice President Cheney for his shooting accident and ends, “America, it’s time for regime change...

...Thanks to a national publicity blitz, she was able to declare that goal had been met well ahead of schedule...

...Taking other people’s women...

...He dismisses such blacks as “sell outs...

...The insult to Italians was in the same double issue...

...In another one of his regular Trumpet columns, Reginald Williams criticizes McDonald’s for failing to heed leftist advocacy groups by voluntarily raising the price it pays for tomatoes (so as to raise the wages of tomato pickers...

...Back in May 2007, the liberal, Chicago-based Christian Century published an extended study—really a defense—of Wright’s church...

...the idea that America is fl ooded with the “crocodiles, alligators and piranha” of white supremacy...

...They remain demons, however...

...That image creates the context for one of Wright’s most energetic invocations of “hope”: We are on the verge of launching our African-centered Christian school...

...As we’ve seen, Wright blames multinational corporations for conflict and poverty in Africa...

...As evidence for the African discovery of America, Wright cites Dr...

...comes down hard on the Fourth of July, which Williams dismisses as “the national holiday of the dominant culture...