by Vincent L. Hall,I Messenger Media, LLC
That was the actual name of the sermon by Trinity United Church of Christ, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pastor emeritus. I almost had to choke a White brother in the heat of the 2008 presidential campaign because he argued with me that the sermon title was ‘Goddamn America!’ Relying on national media for truth and balance can leave you ignorant, and in the right situations, it can get your ass whipped.
Quit making affirmations based on sound bites and social media posts. It does not matter if you Google everything and research nothing. Dr. Jeremiah Alvesta Wright, Jr., who is abundantly educated, served the U.S. Navy and Marines Corps, and plays the piano with all the grace of a trained virtuoso, did more than lambast this nation in political rhetoric. His brilliant exegesis of Luke 19 looks more and more like prophecy.
And by the way, ‘Daddy Js’ sight and foresight from that Chicago pulpit was more than enough to propel a young Black man to the White House. Dr. Wright could see where this nation was going, based on where we have been. Listen to how we got to the infamous ‘Goddamn America’ line that was used to his disadvantage.
“Governments fail,” Wright said. “The government in this text was comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontus Pilot [Pontius Pilate], and the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from east to west. The British government had a Union Jack. Britain colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, and Hong Kong. “Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America’s government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian decent fairly, she failed.
“She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps during WWII. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them in slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness.
“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no: Not ‘God Bless America’ but Goddamn America! That’s in the Bible. It refers to killing innocent people. Goddamn America for treating her citizens as less than human. Goddamn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!”
As we watch Donald Trump and the evil Pontius Pilate wannabees that he posted at every level of the government, we are watching Dr. Wright’s narrative manifest. America’s history of denying the rights of the indigenous, the enslaved, and now the endangered immigrant is as ungodly as any government can get.
The Republicans harped on the ‘Goddamn America’ statement, but you need to listen to the last stanza of the 11th-century vowed Hebrew Masoretic text of Luke 19 that was foundational to his theological thesis. “They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
Quit playin’! Y’all got God and government confused, and just like the ‘great’ empires in Rome and Great Britain, this nation is headed towards an even greater fall. Oh, say, can you see? Goddamn America, can you see?
(A long-time Texas Metro News columnist, Dallas native Vincent L. Hall is an author, writer, and a lifelong Drapetomaniac.)
