Re: Obama's Wright Thing

Hank Gillette (hankgillette@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
) wrote:

> In article <Xns9A924E1538FE5opusthepenguinnettax@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>  Opus the Penguin <opusthepenguin+usenet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>> >> > You don't think Lesbian Separatist communities exist? 
>> >> > Anyway, it's a thought experiment.  It tests to see if your
>> >> > views are consistent.  I don't buy your rejection of the
>> >> > thought experiment. 
>> >> >
>> >> 
>> >> I didn't either. I thought the parallel was valid.
>> > 
>> > Since I'm not a member of Rev. Wright's church, nor have I ever
>> > attended, I have no idea whether the parallel is valid or not.
>> > Unless you have some inside information, I'm pretty sure you
>> > don't either. 
>> > 
>> 
>> I don't understand your point. In both cases I'm having a church 
>> described to me that I'm not a part of. And I'm being asked to
>> make a decision about whether the facts as presented are cause
>> for concern and, if so, how much concern. These can be parallel
>> situations even if they in "fact" arise from entirely different
>> cir***stances that only an insider would know about.
> 
> Rev. Wright's church is real. The Lesbian Separatist church was
> imagined by Dover to match what she perceives Trinity United
> Church of Christ to be. But since we only have a partial picture
> of what Trinity United Church of Christ is really like, there is
> no way that we can be sure that the parallels are valid.
> 
> For one thing, as someone else pointed out, Trinity United is not
> a black separatist church. And while we have less than a half
> dozen examples of inflammatory things said by Rev. Wright, it
> ignores whatever else he may have done in the 36 years he was the
> pastor at Trinity United. 
> 
> It would be like me trying to speak authoritatively on the church
> you recently left based on what you've posted about it here.
> 

But we're not trying to speak authoritatively--either about Rev. 
Wright's church or the LSC. We're trying to make our best judgments 
on the basis of available information.

I take your point that Wright's church is not separatist, so that 
would be a point of discontinuity between it and Dover's 
hypothetical. I can certainly see how one might think that weakens or 
even invalidates the analogy.

As far as Wright's other actions providing context, shouldn't we 
assume that the Rev. Andrea has engaged in similar actions? The point 
of the analogy is to tease out whether we apply different standards 
to women than to blacks in similar situations.

-- 
Opus the Penguin
She gave him that disgusted look that women give to men who have 
utterly failed in their gossip responsibilities. - Lisa Ann