Jeremiah Wright Rages against “War on the Poor” at Detroit UM Church

on November 30, 2011

Announcing that the United States is experiencing “a war on the poor,” controversial United Church of Christ clergyman Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright preached a message of class warfare at a Detroit event sponsored in conjunction with the Occupy Wall Street movement in November.

As the former long-time Chicago pastor to Barack Obama, Wright became an incendiary issue during the 2008 campaign due to his sermons that declared “God damn America!” and suggested that the 9-11 attacks were “America’s chickens coming home to roost.”

Wright has largely left the public spotlight since his retirement, so his appearance at a Detroit United Methodist church was notable.

Speaking November 6 at the historic Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit, Wright dismissed criticisms of the “so-called” welfare state that he said had been leveled by corporations, the wealthy, and the “pretend-to-be rich” – an apparent designation for those wage-earners neither in the top 1 percent nor subscribing to Wright’s political ideology.

“We’ve got a war against poor people,” Wright thundered from the pulpit, declaring: “the evidence of that war is in plain sight” and citing alleged plans to “destroy public education” and the removal of a public option from Obamacare legislation that was ultimately signed into law.

Central UMC is located adjacent to Grand Circus Park, where Occupy Detroit is encamped. Proclaiming itself a “justice-seeking, reconciling” church, Central UMC embraces a liberal, activist role that includes anti-war and pro-homosexuality causes. The congregation’s senior pastor, Edwin A. Rowe, was recently honored at the Democratic Socialists of America Greater Detroit Annual Dinner. Although no longer a large congregation, the church, likely thanks to an endowment, hosts prominent speakers, including Jesse Jackson in the past. An upcoming speaker includes an MSNBC anchor.

Bemoaning that there was “no mention of the poor in the past presidential campaign,” Wright asserted at Central UMC that “all the emphasis was on Joe the Plumber” and the middle class in the 2008 campaign. Calling the GOP the “Grand Obstructionist Party,” Wright complained of Republican opposition to increased federal spending that he claimed would bring jobs to minorities.

Wright also fretted about the “Wal-Martization” of education in which he said workers were trained “to handle minimum wage jobs” rather than critical thinking. “Look at Occupy Detroit,” Wright advised. “Listen to the voice of the 99 percent.”

While the UCC minister railed against “filthy rich corporations,” he also directed much of his rhetorical fire against the U.S. government. Noting that U.S. military personnel are stationed in many parts of the world, Wright told of a “war on the poor” that he described as also being waged on many fronts: “from inadequate education to mass incarceration.” The criticism also carried over to efforts to combat crime.

“Millions of Americans today are ‘Law and Order’ junkies,” Wright exclaimed, describing not just the popularity of the long-running crime drama franchise, but also the American public’s support for government policies aimed at reducing criminal activity. “Nixon’s war on drugs in 1971 was not a war on drugs, it was a war on black people,” Wright determined. Claiming that statistics show the “biggest” drug users are on the “white campuses” of America, Wright asserted “SWAT teams are not seen on white campuses.”

The retired Chicago minister also warned of a “new caste system where black, brown and poor people convicted of non-violent crimes are now outside the legal citizenry of the United States” due to incarceration. Wright has less frequently made news following his retirement from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where Obama held longtime membership. Following public criticism of Wright’s sermons, then-Senator Obama distanced himself from the fiery preacher by denouncing his numerous incendiary comments, among them that the U.S. government was responsible for infecting black Americans with the virus that causes AIDS. Obama ultimately withdrew his membership from Trinity Church.

Wright was set to keynote the 2008 National Black Religious Summit on Sexuality in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) and the Howard University School of Divinity. But he ultimately dropped out of the event. RCRC is an abortion rights coalition comprised primarily of mainline Protestant denominations; it counts the United Methodist Women’s Division and the General Board on Church and Society (GBCS) among its members.

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