Rev Jeremiah Wright & The Environmental Movement

Rev Jeremiah Wright, right, has become a pariah due to his harsh tone and descriptions of the United States. The cable news show pundits have hung Rev Wright around Senator Obama's neck and do not seem inclined to loosen the knot. Yet if Barack Obama, through his twenty year religious connection to the minister, is somehow tainted by a brush of anti Americanism and racial insensitivity, then shouldn't the environmental movement also be placed under the same harsh klieg lights. The environmental movement is about as segregated now as it was at the first Earth Day. Moreover, the radical green left makes anti American statements all the time and recently torched homes in protest of the American way.

We could stay on the negative path but Senator Obama challenged America in his great 'race speech' to move beyond the problem and start talking about solutions. To paraphrase and expand upon his comments, "[We] can no more disown the [environmental movement] than [we] can disown the black community." AAEA grew out of the mainstream environmental movement. We sometimes consider the movement to be our 'nutty uncle.' Our 'biased white grandmother.' We have worked to try to integrate the mainstream environmental movement. We failed miserably. We have challenged the movement too and still failed miserably. Although we have more or less walked away from programs to integrate the movement, we hope the mainstream groups will renew their own efforts to diversify because it will only make them stronger to have more points of view. And you never know, we cannot seem to resist periodically trying to talk some sense into our uncle and grandma.