Like practically everything else involving Barack Obama, outrage over his association with Father Michael Pfleger quickly dissipated. The subsiding furor over the incident evidenced once again that the mainstream media loves the Democratic frontrunner in an unsavory fashion. It also illuminates the way in which Obama’s past clashes resoundingly with who he claims to be. To our elites, forgiveness is the perpetual rule in regards to the Illinois senator. They may soon dismiss those who mention the clergymen’s demagoguery with charges of “that’s so May 2008” or “get a life.”
Well, most of us have a life but for those who have “moved on,” please recall Father Pfleger’s sweltering Memorial Day weekend sermon at Trinity United Church, with theatrics so unusual that they got posted all over the internet. His antics appeared to have long-term implications as they led to Obama parting ways with his racialist church. Additionally, they resulted in a suspension for the St. Sabina’s pastor. This sounded promising initially but the hierarchy of the Catholic Church soon reinstated him. Once again there are “no restrictions” on his speech. The Chicago Sun-Times effused — in a peppy and triumphant dispatch — over the priest’s return to his congregation. The reporter covering the event compared him to Rocky, celebrated his “pugilistic resistance,” and concluded that “what didn’t kill him seems to have made him stronger.”
Alas, if only that were true for his fellow citizens. The racism of Pfleger and his ilk debilitates the nation on a daily basis. Independent of his link to Obama, the Pfleger imbroglio remains topical because it highlights the sick phenomenon of Caucasians regarding themselves and their history with scorn. Journalists scrutinized only his derogatory comments about Hillary Clinton and ignored the more inflammatory portions of his spoken word performance. In the sentences that preceded the well-known segment, Pfleger lobbied for universal white guilt:
… honest enough to address the one who says, “Well, don’t hold me responsible for what my ancestors did.” But you have enjoyed the benefits of what your ancestors did and unless you are ready to give up the benefits, throw away your 401 fund, throw away your trust fund, throw away all the money you put into the company you walked into because your daddy and your granddaddy and your great-granddaddy, unless you’re willing to give up the benefits then you must be responsible for what was done in your generation cause you are the beneficiary of this insurance policy! We must be honest enough to expose white entitlement and supremacy wherever it raises its head. I said before I don’t want this to be political because, you know, I’m very unpolitical.
Of course, practically every word of the diatribe was false, but it is essential for white Americans to respond to calumny and vindicate their names and heritage. Those who do not take Pfleger’s brand of defamation seriously are doomed. The left has gained the moral high ground, perception-wise, over the last forty years due to the right having vacated it. The lies disseminated about conservatives are completely specious; however, a multitude of voters believe these falsehoods due to the Republican Party’s ineffectual responses.
The GOP will be very dead should their politicians continue to deem themselves “above” the fray. To succeed in politics one must do battle and emerge victorious. Turning the other cheek allows pseudo-liberals to write a societal narrative wherein we are the scourge of humanity and the eternal enemies of “social justice,” the ecosystem, and civil rights. We must defend ourselves.
Therefore, there’s no reason to move on in regards to Father Pfleger. His entire monologue consisted of nothing more than slander. Obviously, had my ancestors committed wrongs I would not be responsible for them, but, as is true for millions of my fellow citizens, my antecedents oppressed no one. Before 1910, more than four decades after the end of the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment, not one relative of mine dwelled on these shores. Thus, the priest’s allegations are not only absurd but are no more applicable to me than a directive from the head of the Lindsay Lohan fan club.
Just as with countless readers, my ancestors were thoroughly impoverished in Europe, which caused them to trade in their trinkets and buy passage to the new world. Had the old world esteemed my family members then they would have never boarded those boats.
One of my grandfathers migrated to Detroit in the 1920s from Ireland via Canada. His hands were needed in the fields so he became a second-grade dropout. The woman he married was the brains of the family because she was fortunate enough to have received nine years of formal education. She bore him eight children as he toiled at Ford Motor Company. Granddad never accepted promotion because he feared losing his union membership. My mother was the only of his offspring to attend college. Her enrollment was made possible by a marching band scholarship rather than dividends from a trust fund. Upon death, my grandfather left medical bills as opposed to ownership in a company or the riches of a 401k account.
My other grandfather hailed from Russia. Unlike American blacks who, before the Brown v. Board of Education decision, received a segregated and inferior education, my father’s father received no education whatsoever. He never attended a day of school in his life. He passed through Ellis Island and maintained a thick Russian accent until dying at age 88 (he attributed his longevity to giving up cigars at age 75). When I was a kid my grandfather used to send me birthday cards with a signature alone affixed to them. How literate he was I cannot say. When he passed away he left my father absolutely nothing. Over the course of his life, his economic output was inconsistent and often illegal. He married three times and departed the earth as financially barren as he was upon entering it.
In lieu of our antecedents, from what insurance policy did my mother and father benefit? The one person who definitely cannot answer that question is Father Michael Pfleger. When he gazes upon his countrymen he sees only theoretical constructs in a lowbrow postmodernist parlor game that he assembled. Did Pfleger ever meet any men like my grandfathers? Does he even know that such people existed?
He is wrong about everything as there is no “white privilege” in the United States of America. If there were, programs like affirmative action would never have received the imprimatur of the state because they teach the young that discrimination is totally acceptable should it oppress the right kind of citizen — white citizens as of 2008.
Further, political correctness would have no power or sway were Caucasians to be truly advantaged. PC involves treating “the other” as a holy relic and deferring to them; conversely, the majority population is regarded as former functionaries of the Khmer Rouge. Lastly, we know that white privilege is a lie because Asians outperform Caucasians on almost every single measure of societal success.
Both of my grandfathers would have found the notion of white privilege very perplexing. That they shared the same skin color as upper-class WASPs meant nothing in 1920. The Brahmins of our society wanted nothing to do with either of them. My Russian grandfather was such a low-status male that he changed his overly ethnic name to match one held by a local celebrity. Regardless of elite opinion, both men enjoyed their lives and felt indebted to their new homeland. They lived in the present and did not dwell on crimes of the past which English kings or Russian tsars may have committed against them. Resentment was not a language they could comprehend.
Yet it is resentment that allows Father Pfleger to ascend the rungs in society’s vile church of victimology. It is a disgrace that the Catholic Church — via their employment and protection — continues to enable his race warfare. According to his supervisors, Father Pfleger has served his penance, but should Barack Obama become our next president it will be the general population’s turn to serve.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member