Is the Rev. Wright Wrong? Only Sometimes.

Over half of the U.S. voting-age population never lived when the federal government and states, counties and localities enforced racial discrimination against blacks, Asiatics, native Americans and others not so lucky as to be born white, and against Jews, so dumb as not to be born Christian, preferably Protestant.

They did not see citizens of Japanese descent herded, at bayonet point if need be, into dismal concentration camps in western deserts, put there during the Second World War by members of the stupidly and incorrectly labeled “Greatest Generation.”

They never saw signs in restaurants saying “No Colored Served” and sometime “No Niggers Served.” They never examined the tawdry furnishings, broken blackboards and tattered books (if any) nor inferior beans and other grub ladled up in the cafeterias of segregated schools for blacks in rich Southern and Northern towns.

The whites among them never went forth with children and cameras in hand to look at the body of the latest lynched black swinging in the wind.

They never read the articles in Time, Newsweek and other national magazines mocking the physical and intellectual attainments of people different from the owners and editors, never listened to radio programs mocking nonwhites and Jews or watched films in which all blacks, often portrayed by white actors, were clowns or crooks, and all Indians, usually played by white actors, were meant to be shot or sworded by some noble white guy, like John Wayne, who never served in the military.

During the war of the Greatest Generation, the American military was segregated and remained so until Harry Truman, as commander in chief, ordered integration–an order detested and often disobeyed by the generals and admirals of the Greatest Generation, especially the admirals.

What changed all that, somewhat? Chiefly the Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of Lyndon Johnson’s many great legislative achievements, which couldn’t have come about had television not shown on the evening news police whipping, gassing, clubbing and whipping black men, women and children marching for their rights.

Many of us, however, still remember all of those injustices and have seen many injustices continue since 1964, not least of which remains the segregation of schools, now blessed by the Five Catholic majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Is it any wonder someone like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who did see and who did experience the racial prejudices and cruelties that exist to this day in America the Beautiful (for White Folks), might sail over the edge in his late years?

Is Wright wrong to say that America gets attacked because of injustices it has inflicted on dark-skinned people around the world? Hardly. All one has to do is read a good history of the CIA–Tim Weiner’s “Legacy of Ashes,” for example–to know that noble agency spends most of its time and wads of our money supporting tyrants and dictators ruling over and terrorizing people of dusky hue.

Is Wright wrong to say “God, damn America?” Note the comma. Does God in theory support all our wars? Note we’ve fought all of our recent wars against people of color other than white. Such people around the world and in the U.S. appreciate keenly that the country that preens itself as being the home of the brave and the land of the free spends its treasure and blood trying to make sure, in the name of oil and bananas, that many people never become free of kings and other tyrants.

Yes, Wright is wrong, very wrong, about AIDS. But note that many evangelical white preachers still yawp on the TV and radio that God created AIDS to give homosexuals hell on earth.

And, yes, Wright is a foolish old man–foolish to pull his pants down in public for the press to heehaw and for the many racists still among us to holler as a good reason for not voting for Barrack Obama.

Obama is trying to make the best of bad things–his former preacher slipping over the edge and the obvious message that deep in their hearts many whites fear and detest blacks and will not vote one.

Hilary Clinton is making the best of a bad thing–this racist backlash that may cause many blacks, main supporters of the Democratic Party, to refuse to vote for her if she beats Obama for the Democrats’ presidential nomination.

And can we expect the Republicans, who have deliberately practiced racist politics for the past 30 years, not to poke up racist fears if Obama does get the nomination? Hardly. They will try to liquidate him by parading Wright and any other black they can mock or make fearsome. That’s part of the standard Republican playbook. And merely a reflection of the American way, after all.