The Futurist, above all else, is devoted to bringing original ideas, observations, and analyses to the blogosphere. The Jeremiah Wright controversy has been heavily analyzed from a mind-boggling array of angles. Yet one noteworthy detail just has not emerged in the discussion. Maybe, as an Indian-American, I am truly a third party, and what was utterly invisible to the two races involved in the discussion, was somehow the very first question that entered my mind.
What immediately struck me is that Barack Obama, who is half Kenyan and half white, still has a darker skin tone than Jeremiah Wright. Indeed, in Africa, Barack Obama himself would be considered white. Could it be that less than half of Mr. Wright's ancestors are black?
To be fair, one must examine additional datapoints. Fortunately, this research exercise required no additional effort beyond what I was about to do anyway. I proceeded to search for photographs of Halle Berry, known to have had one white parent, in order to assess her skin tone. She, too, appears to be of a similar hue as Barack Obama, but distinctly darker than Wright. Here is more video footage of Wright. There just is not enough evidence to believe that even 50% of Mr. Wright's DNA originated from sub-Saharan Africa. Clearly, more than 50% of his ancestry is white.
Reverend Wright has built a career out of being a leader to a community from which less than 50% of his ancestry comes from, while condemning a race that apparently more than 50% of his ancestry comes from. He could just as easily have been a pastor in a white community, where the average skin tone would be closer to his own. White Americans have become so post-racial that it has entirely escaped their notice that the man can scarcely be considered black. His defenders claim that his anger is a byproduct of the racism he experienced in the Jim Crow era, yet he is actively applying the one-drop rule to himself.
It is curious that a man who refers to this country as the "U.S. of KKK-A", managed to attend the University of Chicago, and will soon reside in a 10,340 square foot mansion that his church has provided to him. Most white people are not fortunate enough to live in homes of that size. Indeed, most Harvard graduates don't manage to acquire such an impressive residence. Far from shame America, he has demonstrated how generous, to the illogical extreme, this country is. Nowhere else can someone with light skin pretend to be black, then condemn whites who are closer to his own skin color, and in the process achieve wealth from a nation while simultaneously condemning the same nation through the worst possible insults.
It appears that Reverend Wright identified a profitable niche, positioned his career accordingly, and reaped a rich bounty. As appalled as I am as an American, I am just as impressed as an entrepreneur.
Only in America......
We shall close with a poll. Choose multiple answers if desired (poll closed 4/21/08).
