Pajamas Media

110 Comments

1. Chris Jones:

Great post, you’re absolutely right.

Jul 11, 2008 - 8:57 am 2. AJ:

BC nails it again. He has the pulse of society, especially Chicago, covered to the highest degree.

Jul 11, 2008 - 9:05 am 3. Nina Carlotti:

As a Catholic, I can assert that Pfleger is typical of the sad decline of the priesthood in America. The few good priests you meet come from other countries, and the ones recruited here seem to think of themselves as social workers with a Roman collar rather the soldiers of the Faith.

Jul 11, 2008 - 9:21 am 4. Kevin:

I am a Catholic and I will not hesitate to say that this man is an idiot and a disgrace to America. He can rot in hell.

Jul 11, 2008 - 9:33 am 5. Steve Wills:

Good job Bernie. My folks also came from less than meager beginnings, not to mention that most of the men in my family died in WWI and WWII fighting and not benefiting from slavery. Just so you know that when the men in my family were off fighting, the women like my grandmother were working seven days a week to support them. She got one day off a month. Like my grandmother, I work seven days a week. I took the 4th off and I am lucky enough to be going to Alaska at the end of July; my first vacation in three years. I guess what I need to do is start receiving all of my benefits from slavery; where is the line so I can go stand in it?

Jul 11, 2008 - 9:36 am 6. Ditto:

Sleight of hand tricks involve getting the audience to look one direction to distract them from seeing what’s really going on. E Pluribus Unum – out of many, one. We have drifted so far from this precept. We are all like children, finding out our differences for the first time. We have to take out our differences and examine them and determine what, if anything, these differences mean. That’s okay in kindergarten, but we are no longer children.

We can not afford to look to an external source – a President or a preacher or anybody else – to lead us toward unity. We can and must stand firm within ourselves and disavow separatist thinking within our country. Embrace diversity, yes – but find commonalities and grow our nation’s culture to be what we would want the world to believe of us.

The fight on the playground is over and has served to prove only that the teachers are no more adult than the students. Let’s all graduate past this point in our cultural evolution and get busy building our nation.

Mmm-kay?

Jul 11, 2008 - 9:45 am 7. Larry:

The way Pfleger got off with a handslap is exactly the same spinelessness in the Catholic Church that led to the pedophilia scandal. How the mighty Church has turned into a quivering mass of jello.

Jul 11, 2008 - 9:47 am 8. Mark:

Bernard,

Like you, I am a second generation American, white, and guiltless. My grandfathers made their own way in this country and left what they could to their progeny.

I am also Catholic and have stated many time my incredulity at the perfidy of hierarchy of the Church. Pfleger should have been either defrocked years ago or moved to a monastery that practices and enforces the Vow of Silence.

Jul 11, 2008 - 9:47 am 9. dan:

This “priest” is nothing but a political prostitute. And, judging from his mannerisms in the video, probably at least one other kind of prostitute as well.

I am a lapsed Catholic who retains great affection for the institution and its history: the Church really, really just to suck it up and clean house.

Jul 11, 2008 - 9:51 am 10. Boca Condo King:

One of the ‘fathers’ more intersting statements was ‘give up your 401 fund’. As if saving for retirement helps keep blacks down…..

Well as a group Black Americans do save less then other groups.

Someone should have called his bluff with the follow pitch to memebers of Trinity….

Want to get ahead? Cut what you pay Trinity in half and put that money in a 401k fund. (ok it would really be an IRA but same same)

That sort of statement would really put the racial hustlers in a bind…..

Do they encourage getting ahead? Or staying poor?

Trinity ‘disavows middleclassness’ but sticking the consquenses in front of everyone will make some, not all, open thier eyes….

Jul 11, 2008 - 10:03 am 11. Eric:

White guilt is currently destroying Europe with “Great” Britain leading the way and Sweden in a close second. We need only look to Europe to see our future if the peddlers of guilt continue to own the culture.

Jul 11, 2008 - 10:09 am 12. Patricia:

I stuck with the Church through disgusting pedophilia scandal. However, I will not give them any more money until they get rid of Pfleger. I write this sentiment on all of their solicitations to me from the local parrish to the Archdiocese. I was hoping that more people would let the Catholic Church know how they feel about Pfleger by writing e-mails, withholding contributions (and letting them know why).

Jul 11, 2008 - 10:10 am 13. Patricia:

Another thing, I am also sick and tired of being labeled as the cause for all evil in the world because I am Caucasian. I do not suffer from white guilt and stand up for my race when appropriate. Barak Obama and his crowd have done a great deal toward hurting race relations. His preacher and Pfleger show us that our social contract to be more sensitive to one another in matters of skin color has only been honored by one side of the equation (whites). Blacks continued their hate speak and vitriol against whites while a majority of whites made special efforts to examine ourselves and improve where necessary over the last 40 years. Obama’s crowd has brought this stuff out in the open. How dare he lecture whites about race, which is what he did in Philly in March. Now J Jackson says Obama is talking down to blacks. It is infuriating.

Jul 11, 2008 - 10:16 am 14. Larry:

I am also sick and tired of being labeled as the cause for all evil in the world because I am Caucasian. I do not suffer from white guilt and stand up for my race when appropriate.

What’s unfortunate is that it’s ever necessary to stand up for your race. The fact that it is points to the source of the problem.

Jul 11, 2008 - 10:26 am 15. Bob:

Affirmative action: Government trying to prove that two wrongs make a right.

I have no white guilt. My ancestors came to the US in the 1830s and settled in New York state before moving on to Iowa. I don’t recall there being many slaves in either of those states, but many citizens of both NY and Iowa (as well as the rest of the Northern states) fought and died in the Civil War, which was part of the effort that ended slavery. Of course, I personally did not fight the Civil War, but it would make a lot more sense for me to take credit for those that did than to feel guilt because of what a small percentage of southern landowners did before that war.

Jul 11, 2008 - 10:46 am 16. Bird:

My ancestors first touched American soil in 1743 in North Carolina. Two brothers with modest land grants. One brother’s family eventually headed northwest to Tennessee and Kentucky, and I fall within his lineage. He and his were self-reliant farmers, no slaves. The other went on to greater wealth and spread south over the years–cotton and slaves. I, personally, don’t owe anybody anything, and I say that goes, too, for any distant cousins descended from the other brother. Guys like this preacher are full of shit.

Jul 11, 2008 - 11:11 am 17. newguy40:

My forebearers came over from Poland and Ireland. I don’t know much more than that but I suspect there was not much privelege or wealth based on what my parents and grandparents related to me.

I feel no white guilt. In fact, I am extremely proud of my heritage of western civilization. And, inculcate that same pride in to my children. Frankly, it’s nice to see similar views without being called a “kluxer” or “unevolved”.

Jul 11, 2008 - 11:14 am 18. SuzEQCitizen:

The Michael Pflegers of the world (they’re comin’ out of the woodwork, folks!) embarrass me far more as a causasian than the fact that two of my forebears DID fight for the Confederacy during the Civil War, did own a peanut plantation in Georgia while not owning another single human being of any race or ethnicity, (which was promptly lost to the Carpetbaggers, btw) or any other stereotype slapped on white folk which makes us sooooo baaaaaad in the Twenty-First Century.

Regardless of whether my forebears HAD owned slaves, it is not my responsibility to make reparation for anything that anyone OTHER than what I am personally responsible for has committed.

If that were so, then *I* should be crying about what happened to the other side of my family in 1838, when my great-great grandfather, Luther Rice, refused to be forced to leave his native Georgia and march to Oklahoma in what would become known as the Trail of Tears.

The bottom line is that I am not going to give up ANY of my 401K, which recently lost $20K, thankyouverymuch, for some supposed or perceived slight any of my forbears committed.

So to the Michael Phlegers of the world….get over yourselves.

Jul 11, 2008 - 11:22 am 19. Del:

Both my mother’s and my father’s family arrived circa 1710 in Virginia. Both direct lines (from England) served in the Revolutionary War and WW II – with uncles, cousins, serving in the Korean War and the Viet Nam War. (Can’t find any service in the Civil War.)

My mother grew up hungry in the 30s and 40s; my father quit school in the 8th grade to go to work to support his family when his father was killed in an automobile accident; he knew many days without food.

My father was born in Quincy, MA. His father drove bootleg liquor during Prohibition for Joe Kennedy.

My Mom and Dad struggled for subsistence in the 50s. I was raised to understand self-reliance – not a sense of entitlement. So, were many other dirt-poor, assimilated cultures and nationalities, which have melded into a patriotic (dirty word, in some circles)whole.

What’s to be guilty about?

Look at many countries in Africa today! How many Black Americans want to relocate to their “homeland”, where atrocities, too horrific to imagine, are visited by their people on their OWN people? I am not aware of a “reverse migration” to Africa – for good reason! Search Yahoo for Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Chad. Others?

People around the globe want to emigrate to America – note the illegal imigration numbers. If some residents lucky enough to be citizens by birth are dissatisfied here, perhaps, relocation and repatriation to their ancestral “homeland” would be desirable.

Conversely, perhaps, the grace of God brought their ancestors to these shores!

GOD BLESS AMERICA! as opposed to what spews from Trinity United Church of Christ – from whatever color the speaker!

Jul 11, 2008 - 11:31 am 20. Mabel:

I have heard references to American slavery as its original sin…if that’s the case, then it is the original sin of the entire world. Almost every society in history has practice it. I recently saw a news report that it is still prevalent today in Mauritania (Africa).
As a South American, I can say that there is way more racism where I come from that I have ever experienced in 20 yrs living in the US.

Jul 11, 2008 - 12:45 pm 21. Lily:

My father’s family came from Germany and Poland just before the end of WWI and not one had ever owned a slave. Heck they were lucky if they owned a hairbrush. They all worked hard with their children as their only farmhands. My grandfather started school in first grade speaking German exclusively and when he was forced to quit at the end of 4th grade to work on the family farm he spoke fluent English, although he had an accent all his days. My grandma was educated all they way though high school and as a one-room-school teacher, her income kept them going through the dust bowl and great depression.

My mother’s family came mostly from Ireland in the 1700’s, they never owned slaves either. If it wouldn’t have been for my great-great grandfather, my great-great-grand mother and her family would still be living in a teepee on the prairie.

Jul 11, 2008 - 12:49 pm 22. Dave Surls:

‘Well America has been raping people of color and America has to pay the price for the rape!”‘–Pfleger

‘…unless you’re willing to give up the benefits then you must be responsible…’–More Pfleger

Two can play this game.

Members of the Catholic Church were enslaving people and burning folks at the stake, and doing all kinds of other nasty stuff for centuries before America was created.

And, of course, the Catholic Church was also acquiring great wealth thanks to the pillaging and looting of its membership.

Let the Catholic Church be stripped of everything it owns, and let the (tax free) salaries of priests be docked at 100% (Plfeger can take up begging in the street if he wants to eat) and let that wealth be distributed to the hundreds of millions of descendents of the victims of the Church, THEN we’ll talk about America paying back.

Got to lead by example, padre.

Got to practice what you preach.

Jul 11, 2008 - 12:50 pm 23. Assistant Village Idiot:

As many have described here, a lot of Americans do not have any connection to slavery, have come from families with nothing, or have ancestors who fought to free the slaves. This is so obvious that it scarcely needs pointing out.

The result of the preaching of the Pflegers and Wrights will be that legitimate complaints will be taken less and less seriously. These faux victims steal the attention from those who might have a real gripe. No sensible person believes that junk, and so we all begin to tune out altogether.

Jul 11, 2008 - 1:10 pm 24. Dave Surls:

And, all you Catholics owe me, because my protestant ancestors were hounded and oppressed for generations before they escaped to America.

So, pony up.

And, hurry it up, because I’ll need the dough to pay off the offspring of the people that my ancestors oppressed.

Cash or checks will be fine. No credit cards, please.

Jul 11, 2008 - 1:16 pm 25. always right:

Dave Surls @Jul 11, 2008 – 12:50 pm

But…but…I thought priests don’t OWN anything?

Jul 11, 2008 - 1:26 pm 26. Lisa:

Do you think Pfleger expects Obama to get rid of half of his retirement funds?

Jul 11, 2008 - 1:29 pm 27. Larry:

Lisa, the other half doesn’t have any slavery (at least American slavery) in his background either, so Obama would have to give it all up.

Jul 11, 2008 - 1:44 pm 28. David:

One thing bothers me about everyone’s assertions that they’re not connected with slavery. What about those who (at least by oral tradition) are? On my mother’s side of the family we’re supposedly related to Lincoln (I’m descended from Nancy Hanks’ brother), but the oral tradition of the family is that on my father’s side, the family owned slaves during the antebellum period. When the war started, supposedly, the family split, and ended the war impoverished. However, suppose I had inherited millions that were descended, indirectly, from slavery? Should I have to return the money, be vulnerable to a Johnny Cochran-style class action lawsuit where the black population of the country all get some meaningless coupon and the lawyers get all my money? I would like to think we could come up with a better solution than *that*.

Ancestral or racial guilt is, regardless of the circumstances, silly. One of the points of this country is that you’re not judged by who your parents were, but by who you are. I have two favorite lines on this, one from a movie and the other from a TV show. On the show Wiseguy, Vinnie (the main character) said to someone “It’s [life] not about *what* you are, it’s about who you are.” In the movie Gettysburg, the old Irish sergeant Kilrain says that here (in America) you’re judged by who you are, not who your family was. I agree with both sentiments. There’s nothing that says that a person can’t inherit millions of dollars and still be a decent and ethical human being, even if he lives well his whole life. If it does say that somewhere, the people like Will Smith and Denzel Washington had better impoverish their children. Either that, or this supposed guilt of the wealthy only applies to us evil whites.

Jul 11, 2008 - 2:11 pm 29. Roderick Reilly:

My ancestors are also post-slavery arrivals to America. I don’t find the descendants of slave-owners to be guilty of anything either.

Pfleger’s point of course is that we whites have “benefitted” from our ancestors transgressions. As virtually every other poster here has pointed out: what benefits? Which whites? So frikkin’ what?

Here’s the most galling part to me: whatever past disadvantages African Americans have sufferred from at the hands of virulent white racism, THEY SUFFER FROM NO WHITE-INDUCED OR WHITE ENFORCED DISADVANTAGES AT THIS TIME WHATSOEVER. None. Zip. ANY remaining pathologies suffered by SOME who happen to be African American are due to their own faults, AND the ruinous policies of people who think like Pfleger, but have even more power. The percentage of blacks who are middle class and prosperous even by American standards is higher than ever.WE OWE THEM NOTHING AS A RACE. There is no need for any more affirmative action to “correct imabalances.” THAT job has been accomplished, thank you very much.

If African Americans still choose to feel aggrieved in large numbers and keep insisting on being categorized by race and racial consciousness (and therefore exhibit their own brand of racist behavior), despite the enormous, dramatic economic and social gains they have made in the last 3 decades, and if they insist on cheering on Pfleger, Wright, as well as the charlatan buffoon who replaced Wright and introduced Pfleger in the video, Al Sharpton, Jessuh Jaksun, Louis Farrakhan, ad nauseam, then I have a suggestion for them:

Shut the hell up, or WE — the rest of us Americans — will demand our trillion or so dollars back that we shelled out in social programs of which African Americans were disproportionate beneficiaries. Who needs “reparations” from whom?

Jul 11, 2008 - 2:12 pm 30. cedarford:

Father Michael Pfleger ignores that the Catholic Church made a major theological ruling that declared there was no basis for blood guilt. That any animosity towards Jews because their ancestors who killed Christ was morally and religiously wrong since sin is affixed to the individual only(The Jews did, BTW, kill Christ, according to the Gospels. Their Sanhedrin – High Priest-Lawyers – captured & condemned Christ. Then turned him over to the executive authorities, Romans, for their sentence to be carried out.)

Father Michael Pfleger, by declaring whites collectively guilty of ancient crimes against “oppressed people”, with no explaination into how that present-day guilt links to causality by individual souls ininvolved and unaware of past people’s deeds, is employing on whites the very blood libel his Church said was evil and wrong and was banned when applied to Jews. Yeah, the Catholic CHurch is short of Priests, but keeping this guy around may be as bad as keeping the pederast priests in jobs.
Father Michael Pfleger is also doing it, beside by being a person who hates his own race, as a Marxist who is trying to tie sin to class. Another reason the Church would be well rid of him.

Jul 11, 2008 - 2:25 pm 31. Kenneth Connors:

You hit this nail right on the head this whole white guilt thing is only possible do to the hard work of previous generations he must of had it little too easy growing up. I’m white and I’ve been a Marine and Construction worker I’ve felt a lot of things working in a sweltering ditch in the summer or on a open hi-rise in the winter but guilty isn’t one of them I’ve been busy working for a living paying taxes.

Jul 11, 2008 - 3:29 pm 32. ginsocal:

I found it interesting how similar my family’s background is to Bernard’s. Grandparents (all from Finland) came over in the 1910’s, settled in the U.P of Michigan, eventually moving to Detroit.

I, too, feel zero in the way of guilt, white or otherwise. This is basically a huge extortion scheme, as if the 40 trillion dollars spent on various entitlements over the past 45 years hasn’t been enough. Pfleger (you don’t deserve to be addressed as “Father”), turn over your assets! I expect to see you starving on the street before I give up one dime.

Jul 11, 2008 - 3:57 pm 33. Annony:

THEY SUFFER FROM NO WHITE-INDUCED OR WHITE ENFORCED DISADVANTAGES AT THIS TIME WHATSOEVER. None. Zip.

I’d back off a little from that, because while whites collectively aren’t enforcing any kind of barriers formally, individual attitudes remain in specific instances, which can still cause damage.

- HOWEVER -

Over the past half century, white America, collectively, did everything humanly reasonable to try to right the wrongs of the past. With a handful of notable exceptions, we went to great lengths to try every conceivable idea to try to erase the legacy of racism, and erase all differences. And we got almost no cooperation from black America. We tried to integrate. They wanted their “communities”. We tried to make education available. They sneered and called studying “being white”. We tried to make things color blind. They insisted that race be the central organizing principle of everything.

White America is still interested in putting this all behind us, but I really think we’ve arrived at a point in history (actually, we’ve been stuck here since the ’70s), where NOTHING is going to improve until black attitudes change, and we get some more cooperation and less sneering and ridicule.

The ball is in black America’s court. It’s been there for 40 years.

Jul 11, 2008 - 4:10 pm 34. Javelin:

This total lack of insight is typical PJ. Isn’t guilt part of Christianity especially Catholicism? Other cultures, like the Japanese, feel shame but little guilt. White privilege is not be some golden pass card to life. But face it, you are better off if you are white, all other factors being equal.

As far as the media sweeping it under the rug, how so? What are they supposed to do, endlessly replay the video like some childish Limbo rant? Is this some major event or just some pathetic sideshow? It’s a petty sideshow and taking it seriously, like this PJ hack, is giving Father Pfeger more credit than is due. He committed no crime and is not a confidant of Obama. This was no major event, it was a sermon at a church. Perhaps someone whould find some jicy sermons of some fundementalist Evangelical or some jihadists instead? If he wants to make a fool of himself, why is it incumbent for the “MEDIA” to endlessly recycle the same petty trash? If this man is so pathetic that his biggest moment is putting on a reverse minstrel show for black churchgoers, then he should be pitied more than mocked or condemned.

Jul 11, 2008 - 9:24 pm 35. gus3:

If today’s whites have to shoulder the collective blame for slavery…

Then do today’s Jews have to shoulder the collective blame for crucifying Christ?

Oh, that’s “anti-Semitism,” isn’t it?

Get over yourselves, libs.

Jul 11, 2008 - 9:47 pm 36. Gozer the Carpathian:

Oi… I have yet to figure out how folks are “better off” based on the color of their skin. There are lots of things that effect how well off we are, and if anything your skin color shouldn’t even be on the list.

Now if you want to use it as a crutch, an excuse, or a weapon then of course you’re going to think it’s a factor. In the end though it shouldn’t be, and really isn’t. I’m half Chinese / half white so I guess I’m in “the privileged” but I must have missed my membership card in the mail because I still work every day for my living. As my father and my father’s father did.

Jul 11, 2008 - 11:49 pm 37. Boris:

“He is wrong about everything as there is no “white privilege” in the United States of America.”

Your anecdote does not support this position.

Jul 12, 2008 - 5:39 am 38. Pope Linus:

My mother traces her family roots back to the Mayflower in 1620. So what do the Brits owe me?

White privilege is, I think, just a way of getting white people to feel bad about any success that they may have because, deep down, those peddling the white privilege lie know that we shouldn’t be held responsible for any wrongs–perceived or legitimate–of our relatives. White privilege makes race baiters feel better about themselves by making whites feel bad, because the race baiters know they don’t have an intellectual leg to stand on.

Jul 12, 2008 - 6:04 am 39. Backeast:

Let’s put the blame where it should lie, the failings of black culture and values. It’s very simple, if you don’t value education or hard work, you will fail in this country. If you don’t teach your children to be self reliant, they will fail. It is Black culture that has kept many stuck in a cycle of victimhood and deprivation and they have no one to blame but themselves. I guess it’s a “black thing”. So is blaming all of their own deeply embarrassing failures on “whitey”.

White people in this country have done more for blacks than any other group in history. Race baiters and the civil rights industry have no interest in ending the skin privilege game. Many people of color come to the U.S and have little problem integrating and moving up the economic ladder. Why can’t the blacks pull their own weight like everyone else? It’s the ONE question they need to ask themselves.

Jul 12, 2008 - 6:12 am 40. WR Jonas:

Those who think that reparations are never mentioned in association with tha Obama campaign because it is a dead issue have their heads in the sand.
Democrat politicians have already hinted at how it is going to be implemented.
A special fund as yet unnamed will be attached to a line item on the 1040 tax form. Imbedded in a qualifying test will be a racial component which excludes “certain people” and allows others to receive a distribution from the special fund. A Democratic Congress and a new agency to review claims will be created and funded to determine, who and how much each applicant is entitled to.
Their appetite and desire for government money is insatiable.

Jul 12, 2008 - 6:19 am 41. aloysiusmiller:

(WRJonas) Their appetite for “government money”? Whose money is that? You mean “their appetite for our money”.

Jul 12, 2008 - 6:40 am 42. Valerie:

Let’s put the blame where it really belongs: on preachers who sell the notion that all white people hate all black people. These evil preachers discourage black people from going out into the rest of the world and taking their place at the table. They discourage them from doing the social things that would bring them success and prosperity: they tell them to dress wrong and to avoid speaking as if they had a reasonable education. They say that Jesus was a thug.

It’s hard enough to work for an education, to go looking for a job, to persistently strive for a better life. To do these things, it is essential for a person to safeguard his or her personal attitude, because there will be revolting developments in each of their lives that must be converted to opportunities. Telling a person who has faced a setback that it’s due to something that can’t be changed, like the color of their skin, is an action that has the potential to cripple a person’s ability to provide for a family.

These preachers have harmed their congregations. Father Pfleger should be fired for doing harm to his flock.

Jul 12, 2008 - 7:06 am 43. Buck Smith:

My male ancestors of age in 1860s were probably mostly confederate soldiers, but I don’t really feel any guilt for North American salvery. As a first principle I would feel more resposnibility for a crime my son committed than one my father did. And that responsibility attenuates more with each generation forward and back.

Jul 12, 2008 - 7:06 am 44. cfbleachers:

Pfleger’s mission is stir up as much anger, resentment and bile based upon “the Big Lie” of white “privilege causing black disenfranchisement”. His humiliating and all too painful to watch minstrel show…was a white guy trying to talk and act “black” was simply the theater of the absurd production of this class warfare/race warfare theme.

Pfleger, Wright and Farrakhsn…the Three Stooges of South Chicago’s Institutional Blamefest all sing from the same hymnal. In order to exist, in order to thrive…in order to maintain any relevance…they must convince hordes of people that:

1)Blacks are down BECAUSE whites are up
2)Blacks are poor BECAUSE whites are rich
3)Blacks are struggling BECAUSE whites are not
4)Blacks can’t succeed in America BECAUSE whites can
5)Black people would be wildly successful in another country that did not have whites
6)If there was a country run by black people, it would not have oppression, systemic lower class blacks, teen pregnancies, absentee fathers, gang violence. No permanent black underclass.

“The Big Lie” that is being spread…is that whites are the REASON for any black’s lack of success. And as long as there are people who buy into the Big Lie…Wright can live in a mansion in a white neighborhood.

Preaching racial warfare mixed with class warfare is an old con game. But, as long as there are people to buy into it, this shell game can go on forever. Of course, focusing on a phony problem won’t get you any closer to where you want to be, but blaming someone else for your lack of success is easy on the ego.

Pfleger’s role in this con game, is taken from black culture…and reversed. In black culture, someone who is a mewling, bowing, scraping, supplicant to the “other” race…was called an “Uncle Tom”. A black who “acted white” for purposes of currying favor and by word and deed was screaming out “I’m not like THEM”….was seen as a sellout, a chump, a coward and as a tool for the “other side”.

Pfleger is a White Uncle Tom. His minstrel show and black affectations are a unique brand of torture to witness…as he slams white people and sells the tripe of racial warfare against his own natural skin tone.

Hiding behind the facade of “religion” is the “cover” used by Farrakhan, Wright and Pfleger. There isn’t a dust mite’s bit of difference in their marxist underpinnings and the class/race warfare they wage is precisely, exactly, utterly…the same.

Jul 12, 2008 - 7:34 am 45. Javelin:

Nice to see the usual people showing off whose ancestors had it harder here. Who cares, Why do you pay attention to this stuff. This article means nothing. It is just another mutual masturbation event so the same cons can rant the same crap and play victim of the media and race hustlers. It seems that the most of the posters here as well as the “author” are acting like they are really the opppressed ones. I am especially impressed with the mindless drones who link everything to Marxism like stupid reactionary cranks.

Jul 12, 2008 - 9:12 am 46. Buck Smith:

Another question I never here explored is this. Right now, all over Africa, people of color are trading slaves. White Europeans and North Americans ended slavery over 150 years ago. When are Africans and Middle Easterners going to quit. Should people of color bear some guilt for slavery happening today?

Jul 12, 2008 - 9:33 am 47. Annony:

Should people of color bear some guilt for slavery happening today?

The truth is that every New World slave was captured and sold by Africans. Arabs came over land to capture slaves, but the slave trade with the Americas was called a “trade” for a reason. The traders traded goods from Europe for slaves in Africa. The sailors weren’t equipped to capture anyone. So yes, there is plenty of African guilt in this sordid story to go around.

Jul 12, 2008 - 9:44 am 48. Good Ole Charlie:

Javelin:

Example of Black PAthology.

In the cube next to mine is a Black Woman,Single Mother who got off her duff and got her Master’s Degree in Computer Science. She’s a hard worker, good teacher, and is liked and respected by all of us.

She home-schools her daughter because she can’t trust her daughter “physical, mental, and moral safety” (her quote) to Philly Public Schools.

In May her front door was battered in and the apartment broken into. Everything was either trashed or stolen. Fortunately, she and her daughter were shopping when all went down.

Her neighbors carefully explained to her that “The boyz decided you were acting too white”. And the local cops agreed that that was the motivation.

Tisha has removed herself and her daughter to an all white suburb now. Safe, quiet, and “you don’t have three locks on the door”.

Until that racist psychology and philosophy heads out forever, Blacks will be a persecuted minority, persecuted by fellow Blacks. Not a happy situation.

And your solution is, my dear fellow? Do let us know.

Jul 12, 2008 - 9:59 am 49. Dave Surls:

Dear fake preacher,

Sorry preacher man, but I’m not responsible for what other Americans have done, or for what other white people have done. I’m only responsible for what I’ve done.

If the guilt by association hogwash you’re spewing was true, then you would be responsible for what other Catholics have done just as I, according to you, am responsible for what other Americans have done.

One thing Catholics used to do is try people for heresy and burn them at the stake, which, by your idiotic theory of group guilt, you must then also be responsible for, which would make you a cold-blooded murderer, and we would be within our rights to try you for murder and execute you.

Which, actually I wouldn’t object to all that much, because you’re a hate-filled maniac, and a waste of oxygen, and the world would be a better place if you weren’t in it.

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

That’s out of your holy book, fake preacher. Read it sometime, padre, and consider what it means, while you mull on the deeds undertaken by the Catholic church in light of your doctrine of collective guilt.

Not respectfully yours,

Dave Surls

Jul 12, 2008 - 10:52 am 50. RiverC:

In some ways I shed a tear, because I am very proud of my great-grandfather, who was a judge in Ohio. (Bayless was the name.) There was wealth in that side of the family, but his cousins – like many in my family – ran their inheritance into the ground. My grandmother was somewhat more sensible, though what she inherited was not money or a company or a trust fund but a sense of class and dignity. My grandfather on my mom’s side and my other grandparents came from, like your’s, humble backgrounds. My father’s father had his problems and left my dad and his brothers nothing at all, but he was a hard working and faithful man until the end. He was a manager at a glass company, but we did not inherit anything – eventually his pension was cut. My real inheritance comes from the hard work and intelligence and perseverance of my parents – who are now divorced – but what they gave me was a result of choices they made and not this so-called priest’s imaginary bogeymen. But, if we are ‘guilty’ in that way then the whole world is. There is not one nation who has no blood on their hands.

Such ignorance from one who is supposed to be a holy man! Alas for the Catholics, here.

Jul 12, 2008 - 11:08 am 51. Annony:

David Surls, I’d take that a step further. If I, by virtue of being white, am responsible for what other whites have done, then he, by virtue of being a Catholic priest, is responsible for what other priests have done. That makes Pfleger a pedophile. QED.

Sorry father, but that’s your logic in your face. You’re a pedophile by your logic.

Jul 12, 2008 - 11:35 am 52. Jvette:

Give it up with the Catholic basing already. For your information, Catholics weren’t the only religious people to do harm to others in the name of faith. Protestants were rather cruel to Catholics as well. The same is true for the different races. Humanity is all the same beneath the skin, that goes for physically as well as culturally. Blacks sold other blacks into slavery and blacks held, and in some countries continue to hold slaves.

What I think people like Fr. Pfleger and others fail to note is that there are millions of blacks who enjoy the same benefits as whites in this country. And also, there are many whites who grow up poor and without access to decent education, with generation after generation never rising above destitution for the same reasons as blacks, poor education and too many teen births to single girls.

Jul 12, 2008 - 12:38 pm 53. Believer:

Every one of us will suffer an injustice at the hand of another man at some point in our lives.

For the secular man, I would think handling oppression or any form of injustice with character would be the highest manner of responding to a wrong. Other commenters here have shared the character their own family members have shown.

For the religious man – and definitely the Christian – handling such injustices with faith, and forgiveness, is the highest response to a wrong. It is the duty of every pastor or priest continually to remind and encourage this high calling in his parishoners.

Instead, we have witnessed just the opposite from both Wright and Pfleger. They neither have themselves nor do they encourage character in the secular man, or forgiveness in the man of faith.

I wish these men were merely worthless to secular society and the Christian church. But they are worse than that. They are dangerous to both.

We must remind ourselves as often as necessary between now and November that this is what Obama will deliver to us should we be foolish enough to have this man at the helm. He has surrounded himself – throughout his adulthood – with men of low character and poor judgment. Men who are a danger to our society. Not unlike himself.

Jul 12, 2008 - 1:37 pm 54. fred:

I am a Roman Catholic and a former Jesuit seminarian. People like Fr. Pfleger are intellectual lightweights and moral imbeciles, and it is a shame that people like him were ordained in the first place. The way the archdiocese of Chicago caved on this guy, always gave way to him, and no doubt will continue to do so indicates the low quality of management and leadership in Chicago and in many environs of the Church.

My first paternal ancestor did not get to the United States until 1855, down the Lake Champlain Valley from Quebec. My paternal ancestor, Moise Chasse, was a carpenter who settled in Southbridge, MA and eventually had to anglicize his last name in order to compete for work – since he was not employed in the mills and had the protection of that French Canadian enclave. He had to learn English and compete in the outside Yankee world or work. My maternal ancestor did not get to the United States to work in the mills in Lowell, MA until the 1880’s. My wife’s family, both sides, also hails from Quebec. We had nothing at all to do with slavery, “racism,” and Jim Crow.

My people were called the “niggers of the North” by the others in New England. My Dad’s mother, the only Hibernian ancestor, arrived in New England by boat from Adrigole, County Cork, before WWI and worked as a governess in a wealthy home in Providence, RI.

I rather suspect most of us have stories about our immigrant forebears that adequately demonstrate the slander of Fr. Pfleger’s demonization. Those of us who, like me, are U.S. military veterans can attest that we’ve served alongside black soldiers without any thought whatsoever as to their worthiness to be with us.

And when I was a Jesuit seminarian, before I left, I was sent from the New England Province out to Loyola of Chicago to study philosophy. I did a stint of volunteer work on the South Side of Chicago. I can attest to the fact that those environs are not typical of America as I know it. It is a bleak, weird, violent, and perverted place where all manner of unsavory characters are attracted for the purpose of politically exploiting the misery found there. The University of Chicago is also a magnet for Leftist “intellectuals” who do some window dressing for the neighborhood.

Fr. Pfleger is the monkey organ grinder act with the shoebox for people to drop in donations.

Jul 12, 2008 - 5:52 pm 55. Enough of This:

I renounced White Guilt in response to Black Crime.

Jul 12, 2008 - 7:26 pm 56. Enough of This:

I renounced White Guilt in response to Black Crime. Spend some time in “the community,” see how “these people” behave. The crime, the stupidity, the violence, the cruelty… And they are GLEEFUL about it, they REVEL in it. There is something wrong with “these people,” and there’s nothing so-called White People can do about it.

Jul 12, 2008 - 7:29 pm 57. Heh:

There’s a MARXIST TROLL skulking about. The odor is unmistakable . . . .

Jul 12, 2008 - 7:54 pm 58. Lance:

Loved this piece. My grandparents, both sets, were Irish immigrants to America and my Irish grandfather served his new nation (he had become a naturalized citizen by then) in WWII as a Marine that saw heavy combat. Father Plfeger is nothing more than an idiot. He is basically telling people what they want to hear because he gets off on the reaction it creates for him. Watch the video of him and tell me he isn’t enjoying being the showman for the congregation. His parish is black too and he does the same thing there. I believe he relishes his petit empire. As for Obama, I think he is nothing more than an opportunist. He joined Trinity to get props, he hung out with Pfleger and others like him to help get him elected, and Obama is doing the same things now. He is trying to “move to the center” and who are those mad at him about it? The leftists that have supported him. However, if anyone doesn’t think Obama isn’t far left is just fooling themselves. A man is known by the company he keeps and look at the company Obama has been keeping. That should speak volumes.

Jul 12, 2008 - 8:37 pm 59. Dave Surls:

“Give it up with the Catholic basing already.”

I think it’s safe to say that you’re missing the point.

Jul 12, 2008 - 10:55 pm 60. Dave Surls:

“I really believe that she [Hillary Clinton} just always thought, ‘This is mine. I’m Bill’s wife. I’m white. And this is mine. I just got to get up and step into the plate.’”

“And then out of nowhere came, hey, I’m Barack Obama. And she said, ‘Oh damn, where did you come from? I’m white. I’m entitled. There’s a black man stealing my show”

When Pfleger (I’m not going to call him Father Pfleger, because he doesn’t deserve the honor) claims to know what Hillary Clinton thinks, he lies. When Pfleger says that Hillary Clinton said something she didn’t say, he lies again. When he lies and damages someone’s reputation, then he’s breaking God’s law.

The Eighth Commandment:

“Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.”

The catechism of the Catholic Church says in regard to the Eighth Commandment:

“2477 Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty:

- of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor;

- of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another’s faults and failings to persons who did not know them;

- of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.”

Pfleger doesn’t follow God’s commandments, and he doesn’t follow the teachings of the church.

He’s not fit to be a priest. I have no respect for the man, and little respect for a church that continually lets this guy get away with this crap.

It looks to me that the church is more interested in avoiding controversy than it is in upholding God’s law and church doctrines.

They ought to be ashamed.

Jul 13, 2008 - 9:26 am 61. Eva Ritchey:

We will not forget Pfleger, Wright,Jesse Jackson and other “reverends”. It may disappear from the headlines, but their words are seared into our memories. Seeing and hearing them was a blessing.
More people will stand up, push back, “do battle and emerge victorious”.

Jul 13, 2008 - 9:29 am 62. Jvette:

Dave, Oh, I got the point. You, I think, don’t understand the nature of the priesthood.

Fr. Pfleger and hundreds, possibly thousands, of priests ordained in the late sixties and seventies are adherents of the liberation theology popular in those decades. His rhetoric is a direct result of the “white, Catholic guilt” that was prevalent then. But,he ssid what he did in a protestant black church and not from the pulpit of a Catholic mass. In the mass, the priest must adhere to strict rubrics regarding prayer. In his homily, he must not substitute personal opinion or theology for that of the church.

A priest, by virtue of their ordination, serves “en persona Christi” upon the altar. No one is “worthy” of this honor. They are called by Christ and we must have faith that there is some reason he is a priest.

Priests, in their personal lives are still only men, as sinful as any other and in need of forgiveness. Even Popes must make use of the confessional.

The church is in a state of flux. The abuses of many priests and religious since Vatican II are being rectified. The priests ordained at that time are being replaced with humble, devout orthodox men who still preach social justice, but in the context of Catholic doctrine and theology.

I got the point… that by his logic Fr. Pfleger is guilty of all Catholic sins in the same way he says that whites are guilty of the sins of other whites. The church reprimanded him. If he continues unrepentant there may be further action. It is too soon to tell.

Jul 13, 2008 - 11:13 am 63. Cristina:

Bernie:

Great article. As one with no ancestors here I’m even more free from “white guilt” than other immigrants from the Old World. But I do derive myself from a spiritual–for lack of a better word–ancestorship, the Founding Fathers, their smart wives and daughters, and their constituencies.
One thing that strikes me that hasn’t been pointed out enough is that Pfleger, like Jeremiah Wright, is a mountebank, a con artist, a purveyor of hate and anger potions. Their trade is in a phony sense of identity and resentment. It’s an emminently easy trade, apart from the contortions of the body on the stage and the cost to the vocal chords that can be relieved, behind the stage, with a shot of bourbon. Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and the actors on London stages and on the country roads of England would have recognized these fools as two renegades of their own craft.
Try to watch Jeremiah Wright in another medium, being interviewed on TV. His incarnation is scholarly, reasonably restrained, almost genteel.

Jul 13, 2008 - 12:21 pm 64. Dave Surls:

‘No one is “worthy” of this honor.’

Some men are worthy of the honor of being addressed as “father”. Pfleger isn’t. He’s a hate-filled, maniacal demagogue masquerading as a priest, and I don’t address such men as “father”.

“…in need of forgiveness.”

Pfleger not only doesn’t forgive, he demands that people atone for sins that others have engaged in, and when it suits his purpose, he conjures up imaginary sins so he’ll have an excuse to condemn instead of forgive. See the comments he made about Hillary Clinton for an example. He’s a truly evil man, and what’s more he remains unrepentant.

“I got the point… that by his logic Fr. Pfleger is guilty of all Catholic sins in the same way he says that whites are guilty of the sins of other whites.”

The point isn’t to bash the Catholic Church or it’s adherents, the point is to ridicule Pfleger’s totally un-Christian behavior and abject hypocrisy.

It’s not bashing the Catholic Church to point out that at one time Catholics burned heretics, any more than it’s bashing America to point out that at one time Americans owned slaves. It’s just telling the truth.

For the most part, it’s the phony priest I’m bashing, not the Catholic Church or Catholics in general.

“The church reprimanded him.”

It looks to me like the church has been letting Pleger get away with violating church doctrines and dictates for years. And, I suspect that they’re doing it to avoid confrontation and controversy. It’s their church, so they can do as they please without regard to my wishes and opinions, but I don’t have to respect them for it. And, in this case I think a little mild bashing of the Catholic Church is in order. They’re a little too interested in maintaining their public image and authority, and not interested enough in demanding that their priests adhere to God’s law.

Jul 13, 2008 - 1:27 pm 65. David:

Has anyone really asked what was wrong with American slavery? I definitely do not want to be a slave and that is the dividing line as to who is a slave and who is not. One does not become a slave as a consequence of just being captured and forced to work. Our ancestors were very deliberate in chosing slaves. They wanted people that would put up with the concept. Africans seem to fit the bill as there own familes are the ones who sold them into the institution. They then put up with the institution an rarely tried to get freedom or kill their owners. Look at the devotion of certain peoples to particular poltical parties and the fact that they are really enslaving themselves. The real aberration in history is that we have relatively little slavery today and for the last 100 years. That is a very strange concept in world history. So why are we feeling any guilt? The subsequent racism that has existed since the War of Northern Aggression is the responsibility of the Lincoln administration and the aftermath of the war.

Jul 13, 2008 - 1:34 pm 66. regmaxi:

I guess raping children is far more righteous than defending civil rights or speaking the truth …
Thats real choice logic your using here people …

Jul 13, 2008 - 1:36 pm 67. Jvette:

It is not the person you are addressing it is the position. Many people do not view Pres. Bush as being worthy of the respect due his office, never the less, he is the president and must be addressed as such.

It matters little if Fr. Pfleger is a hypocrite or not, his sins are the result of his own actions, not those of the church collectively.

Again, a man ordained to the priesthood is a priest, regardless of his personal behavior. This is sacramental to the church and it is a rarity to defrock a priest. They may, if it is necessary, remove him from public ministry.

You could have made your point regarding Fr. Pfleger’s logic as in pertains to him without a gratuitous mention of the sins of the church.

You used the Bible verse regarding the speck in one’s neighbors’ eye while ignoring the log in one’s own. Our response to this priest is to pray for him and to point out where he is wrong in love not anger or by lashing out.

As for the church and how it will deal with him. If Fr. Pfleger has brought scandal to the members of his church, he should be reprimanded and moved to a non-public ministry. I don’t claim to know the whole story with him, but there must be some redeeming qualities to him.

Once again, Fr. Pfleger was expressing his own opinion in a church which was not Catholic, so he was not acting as the minister. If all the priests who expressed opinions about issues and people outside the pulpit were removed, we would really have a shortage. We must be patient, pray for him and for our church.

regmaxi: cheap shot which adds nothing to the debate.

Jul 13, 2008 - 3:27 pm 68. seeker:

To regmaxi:

for raping children, death penalty.

They are not talking about “civil rights”. They are talking about “white guilt”.

Read the title please.

Before, black don’t have civil rights. Then it was granted. Story finished.

Then the a church priest came along preaching “white guilt”. That’s the logic. No choice but live.

If you are black, then live with us.

We sweat, you sweat! period.

Jul 13, 2008 - 3:52 pm 69. Paul Patterson:

Father Pfleger: Now there’s an oxymoron. I thought the Catholic Church had learned to purge the perverts from the sacred trust of ministry. But no, apparently, not yet.

Not enough children molested by pervert priests? What will it take to purge the disease from our midst?

Jul 13, 2008 - 4:48 pm 70. Jedi Knight:

Mr. Chapin,

There is no need for you to defend your family’s background. Even if your ancestors were straight-up slave owners, that would make you guilty of absolutely nothing. Good article.

Jul 13, 2008 - 6:18 pm 71. Bill:

The first person with my father’s family name arrived on this continent at Jamestown in 1609, but I don’t know what, if any, genetic connections link that man to my brother and me.
What I do know is that my father’s father was a farmer in western Illinois who moved in off the farm to become a railway motorman and that my father worked as a telephone lineman before he died at 40 when I was a year and a half old and my brother was still in my mother’s womb.
My mother’s father was born in England in the late nineteeth century but became American. As the descendant of Englishmen on both sides of my family, I can proudly lay claim to belong to the first people in history who outlawed slavery and, on the British side, used their naval strength to destroy the North Atlantic slave trade.
But mostly I resent Father Pleger’s imputation of white guilt to all whites–or any current whites, because it’s a vile, castrating trick,used to psychologically bully people into his PC army or to shame others into letting him and his have their own slanderous way.

Jul 13, 2008 - 6:26 pm 72. commenter:

“Did Father Pfleger ever meet any men like my grandfathers? Did he even know such people existed?” Whites without privilege are invisible to leftists.

Jul 13, 2008 - 8:42 pm 73. Dave Surls:

“You could have made your point regarding Fr. Pfleger’s logic as in pertains to him without a gratuitous mention of the sins of the church.”

Not really. It’s pretty much essential to the argument.

Jul 13, 2008 - 9:18 pm 74. Ramp Rat:

Idiots like Pfleger will not be happy until there is a race and civil war. Conservatives should immediately attack him for what he so obviously is a racist in a frock. The main reason we are here is the GOp abandoned the high ground on this issue and at the same time walked away from the public school system, looking for answers in vouchers and church schools. As anyone can now see a very unwise choice. If we are to survive as a cohesive country we -conservative have no choice but to fight, and fight hard. its still not to late, but it is after 11:30 pm on the political clock.

Jul 14, 2008 - 12:14 am 75. Why I Feel Absolutely No White Guilt | Rob Chapman:

[...] (Continue Reading Original Article) [...]

Jul 14, 2008 - 12:19 am 76. regmaxi:

jvette: It was not a cheap shot , but an encapsulated response to most of the previous posts . I made my point .
seeker: the slaves who were brought to the United States had the same rights as anyone else living here , theirs were not recognized . Remember all men (women) are created equal .

Jul 14, 2008 - 12:47 am 77. Black African:

Total rubish. While the new white generation may not be morally cupable for the sins of the past, they should accept that they have benefitted from those sins. Like the privileged whites in South Africa, they should seek to correct the wrongs of the past and seek to live with their fellow black citizens, for they have no choice. We are on this globe together, whether we like it or not. Those who don’t like this arrangement should seriously consider emigrating to Mars, and establish an exclusive white colony there. Good luck to them!

Jul 14, 2008 - 2:28 am 78. tanstaafl:

When I heard Pfleger rant, I could only think he sounded idiotic.

Also, he has (artificially enough) adopted the speech patterns and cadences of his buddies on Chicago’s south side.

All these purported “men of God”, it seems, are required to pay some kind of obeisance to Louis Farrakhan. (Imagine what Jesus would think of that)

First Pfleger rants at Trinity and then mutters some remarks sounding vaguely like contrition. What a joke.

I’ve read that the local Bishop is something of a wuss when it comes to disciplining Pfleger.

Jul 14, 2008 - 7:26 am 79. Dave Surls:

“they should seek to correct the wrongs of the past”

Sorry, pal, I can’t jump in my time machine and go back and prevent black Africans from massacring hundreds of thousands of people in Rwanda.

And, even if I could, I wouldn’t. I have my own problems.

But, if you want to try and right all the horrors perpetrated by black Africans throughout history…feel free.

Jul 14, 2008 - 8:20 am 80. hoosiertoo:

“I’ve read that the local Bishop is something of a wuss when it comes to disciplining Pfleger.”

The Catholic Church as a whole is “something of a wuss” – read: derelict – when it comes to discipline, whether of pedophiles or whackjobs like Phlegmer. With some notable exception (Burke in St. Louis being one) the US bishops are a disgrace.

I’m a practicing Catholic.

Jul 14, 2008 - 8:43 am 81. Jvette:

Dave, actually you could. I was able to mention the cruelty of Protestants and others without actually listing them. Anyone who isn’t aware that all of humanity has been subject to slavery, genocide, oppression, religious bigotry etc…at one time or another must have been living in a cave.

Rather than the gratuitous listing of the sins of the church, all it would have taken is to say that if all whites are accountable for the sin of slavery, then Fr. Pfleger is equally guilty for the sins of other Catholic priests.

See, easy, no below the belt punches at the church.

Jul 14, 2008 - 10:07 am 82. Jvette:

hoosiertoo, you are right that this current congress of bishops is weak kneed and too politically correct. As I had stated earlier, they are the product, as is Fr. Pfleger, of the times during which they were ordained. They are no different than the “sixties retreads” we see in the Democratic party. The only difference is that Fr. Pfleger felt completely comfortable saying what he did in the venue where he said it. Politicians would never be so bold as to speak as he did.

The church has always gone through these types of hardships, dissenters and heretics are nothing new. But, as she has done for 2,000 years, the church will right itself and come out stronger.

Jul 14, 2008 - 10:13 am 83. Bugs:

No guilt here, either. If the White House was built using slave labor, that is a fact of history. Exactly what am I supposed to do about it? I cannot give those slaves back their lives; I can’t pay them for their work. I can’t go back and reconstitute black culture or the black family, undoing all the damage done by four hundred years of slavery and another hundred years of brutal discrimination. Perhaps I can feel regret or a sense of irony. I can resolve always to treat other Americans as fellow citizens, with the same Creator-endowed rights and freedoms every human being enjoys. As an active American citizen, I can join the debate about racial inequality and try to offer creative solutions – or at least support policies that I believe will help everyone achieve their goals. But I have to draw the line at feeling guilty. I wasn’t there, I didn’t do it, and I’m not enjoying my cut of the “white privilege” bonus as much as some people believe I am.

Jul 14, 2008 - 11:13 am 84. Tina Trent:

You know, it’s one thing to condemn a practice — selectively transferring “guilt” and obligation, as Pflager would do.

And then it’s precisely the same thing to wildly throw around other criteria and measure yourself and your ancestors and other faith traditions against some line you deem yourself on the better side of.

In other words, there’s a lot of reprehensible accusations flying around here in the name of opposing reprehensible accusations. Enough already. Either a person is responsible for others’ actions or he is not, regardless of his faith or when his family landed at Ellis Island. be consistent.

Jul 14, 2008 - 12:19 pm 85. FCA:

I suppose it would be impolitic to ask how African Americans have benefited from slavery?

Just compare the median African American income/standard of living with those of current descendants of African families from which slaves were sold (still living in Africa).

I don’t think I’ve ever heard that question asked.

Jul 14, 2008 - 12:45 pm 86. LOL@all of you:

This thoughtless commentary and the remarks following it would make me weep, if I had feelings. And when the REAL terrorists decide to turn this country into a parking lot, I won’t bat an eye because we will have had it coming.

Jul 14, 2008 - 12:55 pm 87. Alan Breck:

Sorry about this but I feel no “white guilt” either. Over half my ancestors were Cherokee. My white ancestors were southerners who fought for the Union during that misguided war. I question the judgment of my ancestors as the war’s aims altered through the years from “preserving the union” which they favored despite no Constitutional requirement for such behavior. The war aims became the elimination of slavery according to current history.To read current “history” that is what it was all about.

Well, it might have had something to do with a lack of income tax and the fact that Southern states were carrying some 75% of the total tax burden of the US.The first income tax in the US came during that war becuase tariffs on the south no longer brought money to the Treasury.

Why is it that of all the countries that have abolished slavery it was only the United States that needed a war to do so?

People talk about Bush’s war aims changing from WMD to creating democracy in the Middle East. That is not nearly as far a stretch as Lincoln made from 1861 to 1863.

Why also is it that little mention is made of Indians and Whites who were sold into lifetime slavery between 1607 and 1860? Much is referred to as indenture but when children of such people could be sold and there was no end to the term of “indenture” how does this differ from chattle slavery? The Indian slave trade was profitable for many into the 1850s with trade to Mexico. North American Indians were settled in Cuba, Haiti and other Carribean islands as slaves until not long before Emancipation. A bit of research will show some facts.

Contrary to popular teaching, whites were sold into lifetime slavery into the late eighteenth century.Some white people’s ancestors also were slaves.It became convenient to restrict slavery to dark skinned people as whites could merge into the population and escape.

Slavery was common in both the Americas and Europe. Most has been eradicated but not all.

One excellent question is as to who sold the slaves. In North America, there were two tribes that had a strong record in raiding for Indian slaves and Indians sold Indians into slavery. I suspect much the same was true for Africa.

I am no apologist for slavery. It is morally wrong. It is also morally wrong for history to be rearranged to suit present day politics.

With regard to WMD. I doubt if most people have noticed the movement of 550 tons of yellow cake uranium from Iraq to Canada.This is the yellow cake Joe Wilson said Saddam didn’t want. I understand it was enough to make about 100 medium sized nuclear devices. It will now be used to generate electricity. Is 550 tons enough to make a nuclear weapons program possible? How long would it take to convert it to weapons without inspectors?

Jul 14, 2008 - 1:06 pm 88. ChrisGreen:

David (not David Surls): Black families did NOT sell their own into slavery. (I can’t believe commenters on this site haven’t condemned this guy.) You don’t know what your talking about. Many of the original slaves were captured in battle and in raids by enemy tribes. They did not want to be slaves. Most of them were hunters and some were warriors. Your absurd proposition that they ‘wanted’ to be slaves is ridiculous. Don’t be ignorant.

Javelin: Your comment about Christianity and guilt makes no sense. Most Christians believe in guilt, but not in something you didn’t do. I’m not sure what point you were trying to make with that.

Also, everybody pretty much accepts (whether they admit it or not) that being born white is at least somewhat easier than being born black, even if it just means that you’re born to parents who have, statistically, more money. That’s not the point that gets people riled up. What get’s commenters angry (and justifiably so) is the concept that white people alive today owe black people something and that we should feel shame and remorse for what white people (that we aren’t related to and never benefited from) did in the past.

Black African: It would be nice if we could wave some magic want and all the injustices of the past could be corrected. What exactly did you have in mind other than what we are already doing that will actually improve the lot of African Americans and not simply make them more dependent on the government. It’s not like you can legislate institutional racism out of culture. It’s diminishing with every passing decade; what else to you expect us to do? At some point, African Americans are just going to have to work harder and smarter then whites and other minorities to make up for what happened to their grandparents and how that affected their culture. If they wait for everything to be perfectly fair, they will be waiting forever.

Jul 14, 2008 - 1:54 pm 89. Cristina:

Black African

“Total rubish. While the new white generation may not be morally cupable for the sins of the past, they should accept that they have benefitted from those sins.”

Genius, why not force the abortion of every baby everywhere, since every generation under the sun lives on the benefits acquired by those who came before them, by hook or by crook or by honest work? Why don’t you refuse vaccinating your kids because the vaccines happen to have been discovered by “whites” with hypothetical histories of oppression of “minorities”? Why do you participate in any economic and social life–education, job market, banking, writing here–since there’s bound to be many, many sinful whites who have made all this possible? Or is a life in the presumptive sin-free lands of Sierra Leone or white-free Zimbabwe better?
Your choice, pal.

Jul 14, 2008 - 5:21 pm 90. Dave Surls:

“See, easy, no below the belt punches at the church.”

Sorry, but it’s not hitting below the belt to mention that Catholics burned heretics and owned slaves. It’s simply a fact, and if hearing the truth offends you, then you’ll just have to be offended.

Or stop listening.

“The burning of heretics was first decreed in the eleventh century. The Synod of Verona (1184) imposed on bishops the duty to search out the heretics in their dioceses and to hand them over to the secular power. Other synods, and the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) under Pope Innocent III, repeated and enforced this decree, especially the Synod of Toulouse (1229), which established inquisitors in every parish (one priest and two laymen). Everyone was bound to denounce heretics, the names of the witnesses were kept secret; after 1243, when Innocent IV sanctioned the laws of Emperor Frederick II and of Louis IX against heretics, torture was applied in trials; the guilty persons were delivered up to the civil authorities and actually burnt at the stake.”–Catholic Encyclopedia

Like it or not, what I’m saying is true.

And…since the Church directly benefitted from such acts (confiscation of the goods of heretics, tithes from Catholics who owned slaves/serfs, etc., etc.) then let Pfleger hand over every penny of his tax-free salary, let his church and the land it sits on be sold off, and let all the wealth derived from the sale be distributed to the descendents of those who were victimized by the Church and its adherents, THEN we’ll talk about my 401K.

Jul 14, 2008 - 6:18 pm 91. doppelganglander:

Slave-owning white privilege my a$$. Most former slaveholders lost everything in the war — their slaves, obviously, but also their property. Read some history, Pfleger — or if that’s too hard for you, try “Gone with the Wind” or anything by Faulkner. Many worked hard and prospered after Reconstruction, but others languished. That’s the way things go.

BTW, as a person of Irish and Jewish descent, I’m not holding my breath waiting for reparations from the English or the Egyptians.

Jul 14, 2008 - 8:40 pm 92. Knights of Jubilation:

Wow! That’s a lot of rationalization for people who insist, with vehemence and at length, that they don’t feel guilty.

Setting aside the question of blame, this blog is Exhibit A for the claim that American conservatives feel guilty about slavery.

Jul 14, 2008 - 8:54 pm 93. Dave Surls:

Right. The fact that someone denies they are guilty is evidence that they feel guilt.

Leftist = nitwit

Jul 14, 2008 - 10:14 pm 94. Peedikayil the new Creation:

Jer 31:29 I will take care to plant them and to build them up. When that time comes, people will no longer say, ‘The parents ate the sour grapes, But the children got the sour taste.
God shows us His mercy through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Hie mercy is forever to all who believe.
Gal 2:16 Yet we know that a person is put right with God only through faith in Jesus Christ, never by doing what the Law requires.

Jul 15, 2008 - 12:38 am 95. firefirefire:

I guess I’m one of those “white Americans” who should feel guilty about the actions of my ancestors(They WERE slaveholders)but I do not.
My family has been traced back to before the Revolution thru land deeds and last wills and other public records.
While it is disturbing to me that the family were slaveholders I personally feel no shame.
My ancestors are the ones who should be ashamed,but as far as I know,,,the dead feel no shame.

Jul 15, 2008 - 2:01 am 96. don L:

Is there anyone who honestly can say that the slavery of the soul -in the form of perpetual victimology and beholdingness to the liberal state, is any less a form of slavery than the pre-civilwar physical slavery?

For a man of the Church to not assist the black community into throwing off the cloak of oppression by skin pigmentation as opposed to, freedom from being made in the image and likeness of God, distorts the true mission of his Church. Like the Jesuit liberation theologians of the sixties and seventies who mistook the concern for the poor into Latin American warfare with automatic rifles (and booed the pope), they too fail in their mission of converting and forgiving. There is no forgiveness in black liberation theology, just power seeking self-destruction and certainly not freedom – this Roman collared man notwithstanding.

Jul 15, 2008 - 6:38 am 97. tanstaafl:

We have whole generations of Americans who’ve been deeply and prolonged-ly conditioned to carry a personal sense of “guilt” for every wrong thing that has happened historically or is currently happening on the planet.

And other whole generations of people who have and are being daily conditioned by so called “moralists” (e.g. JWright & Pfleger) that they are victims who ought to go through life with a permanent sense of aggrievement.

I’m here to tell you that neither position is healthy. Neither guilt nor aggrievement should be a perpetual state of mind.

Assisting the black community (or any community) is one thing. Constantly reminding people of how they’ve been wronged (historically or in real time) is another thing. Individuals like JWright and Jesse Jackson (to a lesser extent Pfleger) have grown prominent (even quite wealthy, in some cases) pumping the theme of perpetual victim-hood.

This is not a positive message for the human psyche, no matter what cheering and hallelujahs might go on within the walls of Trinity Church itself.

The real message of Trinity, however, is that black people are a people special and apart. A lesser known aspect of Black Liberation Theology (James Cone) is that any Jesus not black-skinned cannot be the authentic son of God. I guess the Catholic Pfleger gives that teaching a pass.

All perfectly ridiculous and a separatist message that is also the core of the rantings of Louis Farrakhan.

Jul 15, 2008 - 7:55 am 98. GARDIS - CT:

I was horrified by that radical queen Priest. No straight man would gesticulate in such a theatrical manner. The Catholic church still has a problem (infestation with homosexuals), and it better come to grips with that problem. I have never but never heard a sermon in my church regarding abortion, even, how this man’s behavior is tolerated in this church should be the subject of an investigation by none other than Pope Benedict.

Jul 15, 2008 - 9:01 am 99. RA:

Democrats and liberals don’t care about anti-white racism. It means nothing to them. America must do the same to anti-black racists.

The word “nigger” should be allowed as often as the word “whitey”, “craker” or “honkey” are used.

The word “nigger” is acceptible as long as a black uses it. So “redneck” can be used by whites also.

A little consistency in race relations is long over due.

Jul 15, 2008 - 11:24 am 100. truth:

BC
Very well writen. Great family history very nostalgic. It is true there is no reason for white guilt. Just maybe some acknowledgement of real American history.

The issue that drives this debate is not white euro immigrants. The debate starts with the earliest Americans. American Indians and Black Americans had laws put in place to limit there freedoms. Laws, and systematic racism. Not just racism that was spoken but acted upon , justified and supported by law.

Bernard is delusional. If he does not think the domestic policy of this country has helped shaped America. We accept responsibilty and don’t want a handout. But we refuse to have trash rewrite history or leave out real facts.

Do you realize how many blacks migrated to Canada? Also many black wealthy people moved to France and The UK. While Whites were coming here. I wonder what the reasons could have been?

I applaud all of the great Euro American immigrant stories. But please as great as those stories are. A White man is still White. Did they jump out of the pool an drain it when your grandfather jumped in? Also by the way the U.S. is a democracy and was not feudalistic. School is law not a priviledge.

I would pick apart this trash if I wasn’t on my handheld. laughable.

Jul 15, 2008 - 5:12 pm 101. randy:

i was once a catholic, but i got over it. what’s the beef about some so called injustice. i feel that slavery was bad, but so is genocide, hiv, and every other blight that comes along. besides, it wasn’t like there wasn’t a job waiting for the multitudes of africans. so as far as guilt or reparations are concerned,i see no reason for them. unless i can collect for my brave relatives who fought and died to free the slaves…. E. Pluribus Brokum- out of money-none.

Jul 15, 2008 - 9:20 pm 102. Herschel Smith:

My grandfather on one side fought in WWI, was a railroad man, lost nearly everything he had in the great depression, made it through by jarring vegetables from his garden, and left us with nothing. My grandfather on the other side was equally hard working but of modest resources.

I have absolutely no idea what my ancestors did prior to that, as I have never done a family search. That’s the point. I couldn’t care less about it. I am not responsible for their actions, good or bad. I won’t be rewarded by God for their faith, and I won’t he held accountable for their sins. God is no respecter of persons.

Pfleger is a pitiful throwback to liberation theology which is nothing but warmed over Marxism, and the Roman Catholic Church is sadly dying, as evidenced by the fact that they cannot seem to eject such clowns from their midst.

Jul 16, 2008 - 8:08 am 103. tanstaafl:

Is there anyone who honestly can say that the slavery of the soul -in the form of perpetual victimology and beholdingness to the liberal state, is any less a form of slavery than the pre-civil war physical slavery?

For the record, no.

I would argue that slavery of the soul is worse than physical slavery.

Your new form of slavery to the liberal state will be measured by your tax bill and enforced by the chip implanted under your skin.

And that form of slavery will be independent of how much melanin your skin contains.

Jul 16, 2008 - 8:47 am 104. Cletus:

I’m a 3rd generation immigrants of Irish/English/French descent. Some of my Irish relatives were slaves to the British as recently as 70 years ago. That’s more recently than any westerner owned a black slave.

Jul 16, 2008 - 9:10 am 105. RE:

White guilt and black victim hood are pathetic mental illnesses for which I have little sympathy and a great deal of contempt.

Why don’t these people so burdened with their contrived angst work to redeem themselves by freeing the many living, breathing slaves and victims of human trafficking that exist in the world today? It’s because they are complete narcissists, that’s why.

Jul 16, 2008 - 11:24 am 106. patty b:

perhaps the pope could take some time off from preaching the myth of global warming, and visit this disgraceful prist. and perhaps he could counsel obama about being pals with these hate filled preachers and his mentor louis farakhan

Jul 16, 2008 - 2:38 pm 107. Tara:

Those who want reparations from me are welcome to every cent of Confederate money that my ancestors left to me.

Jul 16, 2008 - 3:42 pm 108. Ditto:

truth wrote:
A White man is still White. Did they jump out of the pool an drain it when your grandfather jumped in?

No, there were other forms of ignorance acted upon my grandfather. There is no argument that the treatment of blacks was wrong and I agree that it has been a long road to ending inequalities among many groups of people. The point is – we’re all equally disadvantaged now.

Also by the way the U.S. is a democracy and was not feudalistic.

A correction, if I may. The U.S. is a Republic, not a democracy and not feudalistic. Perhaps a bit nitpicky, but a distinction to be made nonetheless. Would that more people understood the difference.

School is law not a priviledge.

It’s a shame that you state it so. Indeed, school was not law – it was a great privilege until the 1900’s. Compulsory attendance in school didn’t become law in the U.S. until Massechussetts passed it through state legislation somewhere around 1895 or so. By 1918, all states required children to receive an education. The purpose of compulsory attendance laws was to prepare students to become productive, educated, informed citizens who could make their own way in society. Those who value the opportunity do better in America, generally speaking, than those who do not.

As I am fond of telling my daughter, until she learns to read and comprehend, use the English language easily and at least mostly correctly and write beyond freshman level in college, she may as well continue flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Jul 19, 2008 - 8:30 pm 109. baldilocks:

Not that anyone should feel guilty about any crime they didn’t personally commit but I hope you all are equally as fervent about distancing yourselves from the (laudable) actions and legacies of our Founding Fathers.

Jul 21, 2008 - 9:26 pm 110. One:

“We will not forget Pfleger, Wright,Jesse Jackson” …AND john hagee and pastor parsely

Jul 23, 2008 - 9:15 am

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