It’s official: The "pastor issue” as regards the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is old hat. Why? Because it’s not about radical pastors anyway, and never was; it’s an issue of whether or not it is plausible that Obama sat in a church which teaches the racist, Marxist, anti-American doctrine of Black Liberation Theology for 20 years and somehow missed the core values thereof. It is also an issue of the candidate’s numerous shady associates within the far Left Chicago cabal, the lack of scrutiny the establishment press has employed on the subject, and the feeble explanations Obama has offered on those rare occasions when he is queried in these areas.

 

But before we move on: The example of Catholic Father Michael Pfleger’s May 25 outing as guest speaker at Chicago’s Trinity United Church (which precipitated the candidate’s leaving the church this weekend) warrants analysis, the reason being that it illustrates key aspects of the behavior of racist far Left whites, whose actions are really those which militate to keep black Americans down (as opposed to the faceless and largely nonexistent white oppressors against whom adherents to Black Liberation Theology and other activists rail).

 

To recap: Father Pfleger is a Catholic priest and head of the Faith Community of Saint Sabina church in Chicago, a predominantly black congregation. He is also an Obama supporter and contributor whose church has benefitted financially due to the senator’s influence.

 

Despite being white, Pfleger is a proponent of Black Liberation Theology and has a long history of gratuitous civil rights activism in the tradition of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and others. The ultimate useful white idiot, he has called Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan "my brother” and has had him speak at St. Sabina’s. Yes, Farrakhan – one of the most odious racists and anti-Semites in America.

 

It’s a sad state of affairs when in 2008, a white man feels he has to adopt the diction of "The Kingfish” from Amos’n’Andy to relate to black people. It’s even sadder when such techniques are successful. All Pfleger needed was some black greasepaint for his face and white for his lips and he’d really have been set.

 

Although it is no secret that this columnist holds a deep disdain for afrocentrism, and even the inaccurate and pretentious term "African-American” as it is commonly employed, I’ve always found whites who sink to Zeligesque affectations of black people nauseating. As he spoke, Pfleger took on a "hip” black persona and speech patterns, intermittently wiping his brow á la the late soul legend James Brown or a Louisiana bayou preacher.

 

The minstrel show aspect of his oratory was the least offensive of his diatribe at Trinity United. In addition to his ludicrous accusation that Hillary Clinton felt entitled to the Democratic nomination because she’s white (as opposed to being pathologically narcissistic), Black Liberation Theology’s answer to Eminem spouted more of the incendiary, erroneous, racist, anti-American bilge we’ve heard over the past few months from Revs. Wright, Moss and Meeks, riling this ostensibly loving Christian bunch of folks into a howling mob.

 

"Well, America has been raping people of color and America has to pay the price!” – Fr. Michael Pfleger at Trinity United Church of Christ, May 25, 2008

 

Who, one wonders, is "America” in this context, what is "the price,” and in what manner is it to be "paid?” Pfleger’s rhetoric smacked even more of anarchism than Marxism at times; overall, he came off like a semi-literate activist on a streetcorner in downtown Managua, save that he was speaking what passes for English.

 

It is probable that a more indulgent, patronizing, grotesque display has never been aired on national television.

 

When a black activist spews this sort of hate, it is easier for whites (and blacks who don’t necessarily agree) to put the phenomenon down to ignorance, bitterness, or even a profit motive. When a white far Left activist behaves in this way, it lends credence to the argument conservatives both black and white proffer that blacks are being fed this culture of victimization and hatred because it is an imperative of the far Left’s agenda. Miserable, disempowered factions are far easier to control if one can ingratiate oneself to them, scapegoat another group as the name of their pain and claim they have solutions.

 

As with so many of the ills America currently faces, it has been the modus operandi of the far Left for decades to either create or exacerbate same, and then propagandize those who suffer into believing that the real blame falls to their political opponents.

 

The danger here – and an extremely grave one, to be sure – is that all of the passion of religious zealotry is now being used to pit one ethnic group against another to advance a political agenda and for the personal aggrandizement of unprincipled individuals. We have seen in other regions and nations – most recently in the case of radical Islam – where this can lead.