Opinion: Jeremiah Wright, Pastor or Giant Enemy Crab??

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There’s a saying in the black community: ‘Blacks are like crabs in a barrel.’ This means that if one crab looks like it’s going to escape from the barrel and avoid the frying pan, rather than follow that crab to freedom, the others pull it back down.

It was only a matter of time before the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s antics put him into this category; the black blogsphere is teeming with accusations of crab-like behavior hurled at the pastor. It’s not that everyone disagrees with his positions on the damage caused by racist laws, policies and practices of the past; many blacks understand exactly why he’s angry. But Wright had a choice between either helping Obama get elected or seizing his 15 minutes of fame. And since the choice would be clear to a child, the reverend’s display of at the National Press Club last week has convinced many that he must be sabotaging America’s chance to elect a black president on purpose.

That makes Wright the Giant Enemy Crab of all time. He has thrown his claws around Obama and is determined to haul him back into the barrel of racial resentment and bitterness where everyone can suffer together. Some wonder how Obama could have had a 20-year relationship with this man, and it’s a valid question. But Obama never had this relationship. Wright was probably cool with Obama when Obama was his follower and a newcomer to Christianity. But the pupil has outgrown the master and the pastor can’t take it. And Obama isn’t just displacing him as a preacher, he is attacking Wright’s belief that America was, is and always will be racist. And if Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination, let alone the presidency, Wright’s entire world view goes up in flames. Better for him that Obama lose — even if the country loses too.

At blackvoicenews.com, a columnist writes that Obama occupies a unique position in political history as the only black man to have a serious shot at the White House. (That also makes Wright unique for having a genuine shot at taking him down). ‘Then along comes the enemy and he looks like us.’ William Jelani Cobb’s column on newblackman.blogspot.com reports that Wright has “gained the contempt of a growing number of black folk who feel that he has single-handedly ruined our chance to have a black president.” Who says Wright isn’t a uniter?

Strategytalk.org has the full crabs-in-a-barrel tale, with ethnic variations. Apparently in Russia the syndrome is called ‘Peter’s Pig.’ And Undercoverblackman addresses the reverend’s egomania here, writing: ‘With a peacock’s strut, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright basked in the media spotlight in D.C. this morning...In the best tradition of crabs-in-a-barrel black bull[$#!+], Rev. Wright did his part to cut the legs out from under Barack Obama.’