Notes from the Left Coast

Drummond Pike’s Blog

There has been a battle raging in the philanthropic rag, “Chronicle on Philanthropy” that was inspired by a fear-mongering conservative named William Schambra of the Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal at the Hudson Institute. He started with the worst of fear-mongering which you can derive from the title to his prominent editorial, “Philanthropy’s Jerimiah Wright Problem.” The article basically tried to equate Wright’s outlandish rhetoric (albeit taken out of context) with a body of very thoughtful work being done by a number of non-profits and foundations that addresses an emerging analysis called structural racism.

As you can imagine, the fur flew in subsequent letters to the editor. Our experience in submitting a couple, neither published, was that the editor had waded in to territory about which the Chronicle was sadly unaware and woefully unprepared for. Why they chose the pejorative Mr. Schambra to opine on these matters was only the first of their errors. Now, they have given him the bully pulpit again to share his response to the Letters to the Editor. In it, he mentions Senator Obama by name at least half a dozen times, and probably the same for Rev. Wright. Oddly, he invokes Obama’s speech on race – a truly extraordinary historical event – to justify his view that those working on structural racism fail to realize that we are entering a post-racial era. It’s quite a feat of logical gymnastics to transmogrify Senator Obama’s speech into a critique of the work of so many thoughtful, engaged people. Amazing.

What I came away with though was a sense that all that really mattered to him was figuring out how many times he could remind us that the Democratic nominee is black, that he rejected an extremist minister, and that Rev. Wright is truly out there. Methinks there may be some out there who want to see race as the centerpiece of the upcoming campaign, instead of the economy or Iraq or climate change. I wonder why that would be? Maybe we haven’t yet arrived at Mr. Schambra’s post-racial age just yet?

Of course, just why the Chronicle on Philanthropy wants to assist him in his mission might be another good question to ask.