Pastor Wright Coverage: Another Opportunity to Miss the Point

One of the things journalists are supposed to be able to do is back up what they say or write. But the very setup of a story is also something that isn't necessarily a given.

This was clear in reporting on an issue that for most outlets is in the recent past: the incendiary words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright and his infamous 9-11 sermon. Thirty-five minutes long, it was disseminated in snippets over the Internet that amounted to less than two minutes of select rhetoric.

And in framing this story outlets from NPR to the New York Post calmly referred to the pastor's words as "hate speech."


Hate speech is pretty strong stuff, and the term has a meaning in modern usage. The American Heritage Dictionary 2000 edition defines it as bigoted speech attacking or disparaging a social or ethnic group or a member of such a group. That pretty well sums it up, and usually we don't have a lot of discussion about what constitutes it: We know it when we hear it.

Much hate speech comes in the form racial, ethnic, religious or anti-gay diatribes. These are sometimes laughed off as "politically incorrect" by individuals who are in need of serious self-examination. Most of us know that radio's Don Imus' comments on "nappy-headed ho's" fit the bill. We don't have to stop and think about whether the Nazis, KKK or radical religious elements fall into a gray area with much of what they say. The words speak for themselves.

No group has a lock on hate speech, and no group can escape being victimized. Of the 888 hate groups identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2007, for example, 88 were categorized as black nationalist. New Black Panther Party leader Khalid Muhammad, for example, uses clear hate phrases to in some way try and lift the self-esteem of black audiences — in much the same way white racists do on their side. His words won't soil this essay but are easily searchable online.


Pastor Jeremiah Wright's words that are being picked up opportunistically and edited down to cast a shadow over Barak Obama's presidential campaign don't even come close to hate speech. Hate speech is directed at individuals and groups that did nothing but be born into this world the way they are.

Because words are spoken in anger, that doesn't qualify them as hate speech. Someone who loses a family member for lack of health insurance probably wouldn't speak about politely about interests that work the power structure to make sure that situation persists. Normal people don't take kindly to those they see as responsible for needless, immoral death.

In the same way, a member of a racial group that has undeniably been shafted since being brought to this continent in chains may have an intemperate thing or two to say, a policy disagreement or two with the political establishment.

Although he was addressing a black congregation, Wright was talking about a policy disagreement when he said "God damn America" rather than "God bless America." He didn't say "white America." And what he was damning, if anyone chooses to listen to his entire speech, was a Mideast policy that for decades has supported the expropriation of Palestine and cozies up to oil-soaked authoritarian regimes. That's not hate speech; that's free speech.


It's the kind of policy debate we haven't heard while Fox has kept up the drumbeat about Rev. Wright as the most meaningful issue in a Barak Obama presidential campaign.

Bob Datz is a marketing communications consultant and remains a journalist at heart and in fact. Learn more at www.datzmedia.com.