Wright's NAACP Speech - Definition or Disaster?

Earlier today I watched the Bill Moyers interview (thanks, David, my DVR didn't catch it) with Bill Moyers on PBS and was glad to have the opportunity to hear what Rev. Wright had to say outside of the sound bites so prevelant on TV and these intertubes.

I was quite pleasantly surprised when this evening saw CNN airing, in its entirely without commercials, Wright's keynote speech an NAACP fundraiser in Detroit. For those of you interested, the speech can be seen here for now - and I'm sure more widely available elsewhere in the morning. CNN also cancelled their evening programming to get on-the-ground reaction from Soledad O'Brien and Roland Martin with other commentary from Obama and Clinton supporters.

Rich Sanchez said throughout the course of this coverage that they were being deluged with email - mostly positive. I too found Wright compelling. Alternately, he was deadly serious on the the dinner's theme, "A Change is Gonna Going to Come", academic in the arts and theology, and downright funny. ABC's Jake Tapper tooks some notes (a skill I'm trying to work on for you all):

Most of Wright's speech addressed the theme of the dinner, "A Change is Gonna Come," talking about the differences between different cultures and races, saying "a change is coming because we no longer see others as being deficient...Different doesn't mean deficient."

"The black religious tradition is different," he said in comments that seemed to address the controversy about his sermons. "We do it a different way."

Wright discussed how different groups have seen other groups as "deficient." After saying English-speakers saw Arabic-speakers as "being deficient," Wright mentioned Obama almost as an aside.

"Please run and tell my stuck-on-stupid friends that Arabic is a language -- is a language, it is not a religion," he said. "Barack HUSSEIN Obama," he said, emphasizing the Illinois senator's middle name dramatically, "Barack HUSSEIN Obama, Barack HUSSEIN Obama. There are Arabic-speaking Christians, there Arabic-speaking Jews, Arabic-speaking Muslims and Arabic-speaking atheists. Arabic is a language, it is not a religion. Stop trying to scare folks by giving them this Arabic name like it's some disease."

No matter what your leanings, I do recommend you all watch the speech as Wright has been one of our most favorite topics here at Political Machine lately. He ain't going away anytime soon and neither are you, so we might as well have an informed discussion about it.

I went looking for some immediate reaction from the grassroots blogs - the pro-Clinton Taylor Marsh and a timely diary on the now mostly Clinton supporter-free Daily Kos. Needless to say, the pro-Clinton crowed found Wright terrible - divisive, racist, uppity, arrogant; while the pro-Obama group found the speech intelligent, educational and positive. I suspect I know how our readers will come down on this.

Will this have a negative impact on Obama? Probably. Will this help Hillary? Well, alot of people will think so. Even some pro-Obama people wish Wright would just go away. That wish on either side will not come true. If Obama is the nominee, we'll all have our share of the good Reverend everyday between now and the November election. I'm personally glad he's out speaking now. Was it self-serving? Could be - this man is no shrinking violet and he definately has an ego. He also mentioned he has a book coming out. That will be jumped on immediately.

Jeremiah Wright is a learned and distinguished academic (two masters and a doctorate), ex-Marine and revered minister in his community who no doubt does not wish to have his long, successful career reduced to a few You Tube clips and has every right to defend his life's work. I wish him (and by extension Obama) the best. Perhaps now is the time for us to shake out the true feelings about race in this country so we know where everybody's coming from.

I'm looking forward to everyone's reaction. I'd especially like to hear from the African American readers who know alot more about traditionally Black churches than I.