No surprise here, but it pisses me off just the same. :mad:
On his radio show, Hannity continues to repeat this clip, taken out of context, of course, from the audio version of Obama's book,
Dreams From My Father:
"...where white folks' greed runs a world in need..."Hannity is playing it ad nauseum, telling his audience that Obama "said this, so he means it - believes it," when in fact, Obama is actually quoting from Rev. Wright's sermon,
The Audacity of Hope, which Hannity fails to explain to his listeners.
Here's the quote in larger context. Obama is chronicling a sermon that Wright gave at Trinity United Church of Christ the first time Obama attended -- a sermon that touched him deeply for reasons so intense that Hannity, et al. could never likely comprehend. At this point in the book, for those of you who have not read it, Obama has been working as a community organizer in the south side of Chicago for three years and has just been accepted to Harvard. He's just told some of his co-workers and volunteers that he is leaving, and has hinted to one that he will be back. He then wakes up on Sunday and puts on his only suit to attend church.
Rev. Wright describes having visited a museum and seeing a painting titled
Hope:
... "The painting depicts a harpist," Reverend Wright explained, "a woman who at first glance appears to be sitting atop a great mountain. Until you take a closer look and see that the woman is bruised and bloodied, dressed in tattered rags, the harp reduced to a single frayed string. Your eye is then drawn down to the scene below, down to the valley below, where everywhere are the ravages of famine, the drumbeat of war, a world groaning under strife and deprivation.
"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere ... That's the world! On which hope sits!"
And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpesville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded, though, the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate. The reverend spoke of the hardship that the congregation would face tomorrow, the pain of those far from the mountaintop, worrying about paying the light bill. But also the pain of those closer to the metaphorical summit: the middle-class woman who seems to have all her worldly needs taken care of but whose husband is treating her like "the maid, the household service, the jitney service, and the escort service all rolled into one"; the child whose wealthy parents worry more about "the texture of hair on the outside of the head than the quality of education inside the head."
"Isn't that ... the world that each of us stands on?"
"Yessuh!"
"Like Hannah, we have known bitter times! Daily, we face rejection and despair!"
"Say it!"
"And yet consider once again the painting before us. Hope! Like Hannah, the harpist is looking upwards, a few faint notes floating upwards towards the heavens. She dares to hope... She has the audacity... to make music... and praise God... on the one string... she has left!"
People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters. As I watched and listened from my seat, I began to hear all the notes from the past three years swirl about me. The courage and fear of Ruby and Will. The race pride and anger of men like Rafiq. The desire to let go, the desire to escape, the desire to give oneself up to a God that could somehow put a floor on despair.
And in that single note -- hope!-- I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories -- of survival, and freedom, and hope -- became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into the future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shamed about, memories more accessible than those of ancient Egypt, memories that all people might study and cherish -- and with which we could start to rebuild. And if a part of me continued to feel that this Sunday communion sometimes simplified our condition, that it could sometimes disguise or suppress the very real conflicts among us and would fulfill its promise only through action, I also felt for the first time how that spirit carried within it, nascent, incomplete, the possibility of moving beyond our narrow dreams. ...
...
As the choir lifted back up into song, as the congregation began to applaud those who were walking to the altar to accept Reverend Wright's call, I felt a light touch on the top of my hand. I looked down to see the older of the two boys sitting beside me, his face slightly apprehensive as he handed me a pocket tissue. Beside him, his mother glanced at me with a faint smile before turning back toward the altar. It was only as I thanked the boy that I felt the tears running down my cheeks.
"Oh Jesus," I heard the older woman beside me whisper softly. "Thank you for carrying us this far."
pp. 292-295, excerpted from
Dreams From My Father 
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
