The infringement of black Americans' rights to their own bodies in the name of medical science continued throughout the 20th century.In 1945, Ebb Cade, an African American trucker being treated for injuries received in an accident in Tennessee, was surreptitiously placed without his consent into a radiation experiment sponsored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
Black Floridians were deliberately exposed to swarms of mosquitoes carrying yellow fever and other diseases in experiments conducted by the Army and the CIA in the early 1950s.
Throughout the 1950s and '60s, black inmates at Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison were used as research subjects by a University of Pennsylvania dermatologist testing pharmaceuticals and personal hygiene products; some of these subjects report pain and disfiguration even now.
During the 1960s and '70s, black boys were subjected to sometimes paralyzing neurosurgery by a University of Mississippi researcher who believed brain pathology to be the root of the children's supposed hyperactive behavior.
In the 1990s, African American youths in New York were injected with Fenfluramine -- half of the deadly, discontinued weight loss drug Fen-Phen -- by Columbia researchers investigating a hypothesis about the genetic origins of violence.
DR. WRIGHT CHOOSES TO 'DO THE DOZENS' ... AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB - Gulp!
I couldn't help but think that "the Ghetto" was trying, swamp-like, to engulf Barack Obama, yesterday, to hold him back, just as it did for many before him. The train wreck, predicted here but avoided in the first two at-bats with Moyers and the NAACP, unfolded in spades at the NPC.
How many questions/questioners did he disrespect? To the trained eye, he appeared like a student-driver trying to take laps with the pros. Of this, Roland Martin's face on MSNBC, during AC360, sort of said it all, yes? [I call it "AC720", but readers here know I have my own humorous names for a lot of things.]
And how else could it be? Wright has no experience "managing" a crisis of confidence, an attack on character of the scale created here. What's more, did anyone show Wright a "third-way", a way to talk but avoid going before the great Sanhedrin, i.e. using other venues and ways of reaching an audience? There is more than just begging for silence, just as there is wisdom in knowing when to be silent.
The whole premise of his visit was ... overreach. Most people at large are not of a heart to hear about "black liberation theology". They want to know about Obama. Accordingly, they are simply interested in whether Wright is a wacko, so they can get on with it. He could have done just as well by himself to read some lines of verse from the Psalms and to offer up a prayer for all politicians, using his booming voice, than try to ... overthink the situation.
OBAMA'S RESPONSE: I TOLD YOU SO
His campaign did not seem quite prepared. But, that might be an illusion. We'll see.
There is no peremptory for Wright at this point. There is no distancing that will be wholly effective. If Obama were to announce that he and Michelle had decided to leave Trinity, it's not clear that the linkages would go away or that would be a 'convincing break' to the average Joe.
I suspect that Obama can get away with a combination of fact-based rebuttal and "I told you so":
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America. - The Philadelphia Speech
As such, one does not Tucker-Carlson "walk away", especially if you are trying to build community or repair community. What one does is learn how to "emphasize the positive, latch on to the affirmative ..." (and you know the rest of the song). Find diamonds in the rough, see the hand of God at work in all things, even.
JUST THE FACTS, MA'AM
As for the fact-based rebuttal, they need to nudge Wright on the "AIDS issue". Citing an AIDS ministry is not sufficient. Drawing a false conclusion from the theses of two books is not wise. Wright needs to be pressured to correct the record, not Obama.
What Wright said on Israel could get amplification, as do all the particulars that Wright listed about Trinity (just ordinary folks, not interested in "theology"-anything deserve to hear this).
For now, that addresses most of the factual problems (except for the new ones). The rest is noise.
