When you're Wright, you're Right! Sue me.

This afternoon I went to the City of Hope meeting in the ballroom of our clubhouse. There were at least 200 women there along with Mike H. and me. On my table were bagels, cream cheese and coffee which served as my breakfast because I didn't get out of the bed until about 11:30. After all the business of the meeting was over, about two dozen elementary school kids came to entertain on their xylophones--of all sizes and shapes. What skill they showed was amazing and delightful. They demonstrated what a good teacher can do if given the instruments. Sadly, all the instruments had to be donated by the parents. While there, Mike asked if I heard the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's speech to the NAACP last night. Unfortunately, I did not, but I read a transcript of it on CNN's web site. It is a remarkable document and I can just imagine how it was delivered. After all, I heard Dr. King's address when I joined the March on Washington in August, 1963.

Right now, I am an ardent supporter of Barack Obama. All the media attacks on his association with this pastor that people are obsessed with is either racism or ignorance. According to Michael Dyson's view in Time Magazine this week he says,

"Like millions of other blacks, Wright was willing to serve the country while suffering rejection. He surrendered his student deferment in 1961, voluntarily joined the Marines and, after a two-year stint, volunteered to become a Navy corpsman. He excelled and became Valedictorian, later a cardio-pulmonary technician and eventually a member of the President's medical team. Wright cared for Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery, earning three White House letters of commendation."

Dick Cheney received five deferments while an undergraduate. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush used their student deferments to remain in college until 1968. Does this sound as though Wright is unpatriotic?

I like Rev. Wright's peroration of his speech last night; he says,

"Many of us are committed to changing how we see ourselves. Many of us are committed to changing the way we treat each other. Many of us are committed to changing the way we mistreat each other. And many of us finally are committed to changing this world that we live in so our children and our grandchildren will have a world in which to live in to grow in, to learn in, to love in and to pass on to their children. We are committed to changing this world that's God's world, in the first place. Not ours. And I believe we can do it. It's going to take hard work, but we can do it."

A man who speaks like that ought not to be excoriated by whoever his critics might be. Wright is not deficient, he's just different. Give him a break, and leave Obama out of it. He's got a right to pick any church he wants. And the black church is not deficient; it's just different. And that's what America is all about. Of all the divergent ethnic groups and religious groups in our country. none of them, according to Wright, is "deficient"; they're just different.