Thursday, March 27, 2008

Garlic Noses?

Fox News, Newsmax and CNS News are all reporting that Obama's [former] pastor, mentor and "uncle" Rev. Jerimiah Wright has slurred Italians referring to them as "garlic noses."
Wright, who is now "pastor emeritus" of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago included the slur in a piece published in the most recent issue of his Trumpet Newsmagazine.
"(Jesus') enemies had their opinion about Him," Wright wrote in a eulogy of the late scholar Asa Hilliard in the November/December 2007 issue. "The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans." Wright continued, "From the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth . . . up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style. . ."
"He (Jesus) refused to be defined by others and Dr. Asa Hilliard also refused to be defined by others. The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge, but Asa, like Jesus, refused to be defined by an oppressive government because Asa got his identity from an Omnipotent God."
Put Wright's aside the hateful anit-American rhetoric for the moment and focus on his ethnic slurs.
Over the course of many years I've heard my share of slurs and guttural language used against Italians and Italian-Americans. But this is surely a new low - and couched in religious terms, to boot.
Rev. Wright is a man who apparently harbors deep and lasting hatreds and resentments.
In failing to clearly and completely disown Rev. Wright, Obama has committed a grievous error.

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