Wright and the Black Church: Reverend Wright claims that the repeatedly aired clips of his speeches are an attack on the Black Church, not on him. This implies that black churchgoers generally believe the things he believes.

I showed in an earlier post that a large minority of African Americans hold Wright's racist and conspiratorial views, and contrary to what all the pundits are saying, young people are more paranoid than older folks. I only reported mean age in the earlier analysis, so now I would like to display the percentages who agree by age group, and I would also like to add some additional questions about Jews since Wright says that Farrakhan is a great man of this and the last century:


Percent agreeing (somewhat or strongly) by age group

Jews are bloodsuckers
18-29 37.3
40-59 30.3
60+ 34.1

Jews financed the slave trade
18-29 43.0
40-59 30.7
60+ 35.5

FBI/CIA provide a steady supply of drugs into black neighborhoods
18-29 57.1
40-59 42.8
60+ 35.0

White scientists invented AIDS to kill blacks
18-29 27.4
40-59 23.9
60+ 32.7

First, these odious beliefs are fairly common, but most blacks--in Chicago at least--do not hold them. And it is clear that attitudes have not improved among young blacks. The pundits are full of it.

But Wright is not really claiming that all blacks are like him: it is the Black Church and he that are inseparable. We can get at this entity by limiting the analysis to blacks who attend services weekly:


Percent agreeing--weekly churchgoers

Jews are bloodsuckers 30.5
Jews financed the slave trade 32.9
FBI/CIA provide a steady supply of drugs into black neighborhoods 43.5
White scientists invented AIDS to kill blacks 22.3

The numbers are not much different among religious blacks, so Wright does not represent the Black Church, but just a sizeable minority of all blacks.

Since most Chicago blacks do not think this way, why did Obama go out of his way to pick a church that does? If it was for political reasons, why not pick a church that was more mainstream among blacks?

He claims that he chose it because of all the community work it does. Let's take him at his word. Belonging to a church that is a little more active than the next is more important than not being associated with a black racist church?

I think this shows that his politics end where his (black) family begins. (At least, that has been the case, but now Wright his forcing his hand). His feelings must have become familial for Reverend Wright (he always uses family terms when speaking of him) and he chose an angry black women for a wife. He feels that he is among family and at home among anti-American blacks. He may or may not agree with many of their ideas, but he feels more emotionally at home with them than with moderate blacks.