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Rev. Wright: I have Jewish friends |
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Written by Dwayne Robinson
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Sunday, 27 April 2008 |
Sen. Barack Obama’s 20-year-long spiritual advisor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is in the headlines again.
Instead of receding into political and public obscurity ... Wright is barnstorming the nation on a campaign of his own ... At a speech Sunday night at a NAACP event in Detroit, Mich., he’s making it clear that he cares more about repairing his own image than repairing Obama’s historic candidacy.
Instead of receding into political and public obscurity until Obama clinches the Democratic nomination or the presidency, Wright is barnstorming the nation on a campaign of his own – first at PBS, then Sunday at the NAACP and today at a National Press Club event in Washington D.C.
On Sunday, his rebuttal against charges of anti-Semitic remarks and ties with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan appeared to be, in essence, ‘Look, I have Jewish friends.’
He thanked and ticked off a long list of Jewish leaders in the country that he knew (and he threw in at least one Muslim, for some balance, one can suppose).
But more interestingly than that, he thanked someone else: CNN’s Roland Martin, whom he referred to as a “life-long friend.”
Now, Martin, for the lack of a better word, is CNN’s “resident black guy.” No matter what the issue of race is, CNN goes to Martin to tell its mostly white audience what black America’s uniform opinion is. (I believe Martin got this esteemed position sometime after the Don Imus “nappy headed hos” controversy.)
And during the Wright-“Goddamn America” controversy, there has been no greater defender of the Illinois reverend on cable television than Martin. In fact, Martin, who wore a white Dashiki with gold embroidering while “reporting” on Wright’s speech Sunday night on CNN, has done more defending of Wright than Obama.
Martin should at least offer some clarity on what this friendship consists of.What is discouraging, however, is that neither CNN nor Martin divulged that he was a “friend” of Wright while Martin repeatedly appeared on-air defending the Wright’s rants, telling us all how we were misinterpreting the statements, how the comments were taken out of context, how we just didn’t understand the black Diaspora (don’t you love when educated people use words like that?).
Martin should at least offer some clarity on what this friendship consists of. Then, he and CNN ought to consider recusing him from “reporting” on his “friend” or, at the very least, disclose this relationship to its viewers.
[CNNblog]
Dwayne Robinson, a TheSequitur.com assistant managing editor, is a journalist in south Florida.
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