Is Obama's church racist?

You have probably received one. The email rumor attacks on Barak Obama are everywhere.

“He is a smoker.”
“He is secretly a radical Muslim with ties to terrorism.”
“He hates America and refuses to salute the flag.”

When someone first approached me with these rumors, I asked why Hillary Clinton was not hammering him on these things. She would easily win, and she was really struggling at the time.

To others, I have referred them to snopes.com and have urged them not to be used as a conduit in schemes to perpetuate falsehood. I told them, “There may be many reasons not to vote for Obama, but most of this stuff is just false.”

Most of these accusations are easily disproved with video of him leading the Senate in the pledge of allegiance or what have you.

One that is a bit trickier is the accusation that Obama belongs to a racist church. His church is the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. On their website, the church is described as “unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian.” Two of their ten vision points express a commitment to Africa and to the education of “African people in diaspora”.

Is this racism? If Hillary Clinton belonged to a church that was unashamedly white and committed to the education of white people, we would certainly say it is racist. So, yes, I suppose it is racist in that it holds race is a primary qualifier for whom they seek to serve.

The next question would be; is it wrong? We have all been taught that racism is wrong. So much so, that it may be hard to examine the question further. So, please allow me to rephrase the question. Is it loving?

Unlike other forms of racism which are used to keep a particular race down, this form is used to pick a particular race up.

In this case, being for one group does not equate to being against others. From all reports of people who have had actual contact with the church, they do not treat people of other races poorly. They embrace everybody.

So, though it is technically racist, I do not think it is entirely wrong.

But one more point: I think it has some terrible (though unintended) consequences. Far too many people will see those values as exclusionary. Far too few will be able to navigate the subtle differences in the forms of racism.

If TUCC is committed to reconciliation, as their website reports, they should consider the feelings of white people. Few will want to reconcile with them if they feel they are being discriminated against because of the color of their skin.