Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright spoke before a huge crowd of guests at the National Press Club. While the Vice President of the Press Club introduced him, including a statement about all of his previous inflammatory comments and how Senator Barack Obama is distancing himself from the Preacher, the Reverend looked at the floor with a half smile.

Although originally designed as a speech, the Reverend Wright spoke with great eloquence and passion as if giving a sermon, as his voice modulated up and down before the exuberant audience, mainly members of churches and a few non-profit organizations. As the speech progressed, members of the audience started shouting “yeah,” or “right,” and eventually “amen!”

The Reverend Wright said numerous times that by taking a phrase he’d said from a sermon and airing only that one piece, that soundbite, was essentially mischaracterizing his intent and creating inaccurate depictions of who he is and what he believes. He was not there, he said, to name which candidate he thought God wanted in the White House, but he did say (apparently in jest) that he wouldn’t mind being the Vice President.

A major focus of the speech was on history of the black culture and the black religious experience. At one point, Wright said, the black church was the “invisible institution” and was forced underground by the code, since if more than two black individuals congregated together, they had to have a white person present to monitor their behavior. This drew shouts from the audience, mainly “thank God” and “amen.”

You cannot confine a soul, Wright said, that has been liberated and set free by the gospel. Liberating the captives, liberates those that are freeing the captives. God does not desire to see us at war, to see us judging each other superior or inferior, or to see us hating each other. The way we see God, he said, shapes how we see men.

After his brief speech (which was met with a standing ovation), the NPC presenter came to the podium armed with a list of prepared questions that members of the press had submitted. The Reverend Wright looked rather amused at most of the questions, at one point asking if anyone in the media had watched any of his sermons in their entirety. He continually shrugged, laughed, and gestured to the audience how silly this all seemed, evoking peals of laughter from the audience.

During one question, asking him to reaffirm his statements about HIV being deliberately inflicted amongst the black community, Wright looked towards the press and almost indignantly asked which one of the reporters had asked such a question. A reporter leapt to his feet and shouted out the question again, invoking a “no questions from the floor” remark from the NPC. His answer was to ask if the reporter had read "Medical Apartheid," saying he (Wright) reads things, and based on what happens to African Americans in this country, he believes the government is capable of everything. We sold Hussein biological weapons, he said, and he believes "we are capable."

Stating a few times that he was not there to make political statements, Wright did, of course, acknowledge that he “is Barack Obama’s pastor.” A key, he said, is that reconciliation means that we embrace our individual rich histories, we root out any teachings of superiority or the hatred of those who are different than us, because they are all God’s children and no better, no worse, and in need of forgiveness. Only then, he said, will there be liberation and reconciliation.