Once upon a time, America’s soul was stirred by a brilliant man whose words provoked a national conversation about race, a black man who firmly believed in so-called “social justice”, a man of consequence whose struggles and achievements formed the backdrop of a quintessentially American story.

Who was this man? Not Barack Obama, but the late Richard Wright.

Wright, the author of the iconic 1940 novel Native Son, bore witness to the horrors of the pre-civil-rights South; the anti-black violence of his Mississippi childhood left emotional scars that took decades to heal. Like Obama, Wright settled in Chicago as a young adult and began a long march to national fame; by the mid-1940s, Wright became the most famous African-American author in the United States, a man hailed worldwide for his vivid depictions of racial injustice.

Like Obama, Wright aligned himself with a politically radical entity--in Wright’s case, the American Communist Party. Wright spent years
writing for Communist publications and defending the party’s doctrines. His commitment to Communism was not just professional, but personal; in 1941, shortly after a failed first marriage, he wed Ellen Poplar, a New York Communist Party organizer.

Yet, unlike Obama, Wright gradually opened his eyes to the deep flaws of the radical group he had joined. Wright realized that despite the party’s proclamations of colorblindness, an inflexible racial caste system existed in the organization. He was denounced when he tried to question the party’s orthodoxy, and was rebuked when he raised questions about the treatment of those living in the Soviet Union. Slowly but surely, Wright realized that Communism was oppression disguised as freedom; by the late-1940s, he had severed his ties to the Communist Party.

Wright remained a liberal until the end of his life, but he understood that Communism was poisonous, corrosive, dangerous to the ideals of freedom upon which his vision of liberalism stood. He was loathed by former Communist colleagues for his apostasy, but he never apologized for seeing the truth behind Communism’s lie.

Richard Wright had the moral courage to declare that Communism was wrong. It’s a heartbreaking shame that Barack Obama doesn’t have the same moral courage Wright possessed.

“Liberation theology”--the philosophy that shaped the political and religious vision of Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright--is every
bit as demonic as Communism was. “Liberation theology” constructs psychological walls around the minds of African-Americans, convincing them that the American dream is for whites only. It is a vision formed in a furnace of hate--a vision that can only burn those who share it.

Obama must know in his soul that “liberation theology” is evil and harmful. Obama may be quite liberal, but he is not a stupid man; he cannot possibly be so uninformed as to not realize what kind of hatred “liberation theology” provokes. Yet, unlike Richard Wright, Obama could not bring himself to denounce this philosophy and those who have adapted it.

Just as Richard Wright did not need Communism to be a legitimate liberal, Obama does not need Rev. Wright or his philosophy to be a true “progressive.” Obama did not need to belong to a cult-like church in order to obtain electoral success in Chicago; he must have thought very little of his skills as a politician in order to believe otherwise.

A part of me revels in Obama’s apparent self-destruction; the more he damages himself by continuing to hang around with Rev. Wright, the
better it will be for my candidate, John McCain, in the general election. Yet a part of me is saddened by it too. I want our political system to be filled with men and women of courage, not men and women of
cowardice.

I wanted Obama to exhibit the same courage Zell Miller exhibited when he declared that the Democrats had wandered too far to the left. I wanted Obama to exhibit the same courage Joe Lieberman exhibited when he committed himself to victory in Iraq. Instead, Obama showed me…nothing.

Obama could have been the Richard Wright of our time. He could have said that liberalism does not have to countenance repugnance, that
progressivism does not mean putting up with prejudice. He could have condemned Rev. Wright and his noxious philosophy to the dustbin of history.

Obama could have become a political icon, just as Richard Wright became a literary icon. Instead, as a result of his craven cowardice, he will likely become a footnote, an illusion, a cipher--or, as one of Richard Wright’s contemporaries once put it, an invisible man.