Pincham, Wright both worthy of respect

Back in the days when R. Eugene Pincham was a judge on the Illinois appellate court for Chicago, the city’s politics were a blood sport where the sides were not “Democrat” and “Republican” or “liberal” and “conservative.”

They were “black” and “white” – as in race (back in those days, “African-American” as a category wasn’t in regular use, and I remember times when any Chicago reporter who tried to work the phrase into his copy was mocked mercilessly).

IN THE 1980s when Harold Washington’s very presence at City Hall aroused the anger of much of white Chicago, the politically partisan split in our government came from the color of one’s skin. It wasn’t just “white” people who spoke out.

Pincham put himself in the Chicago political history books when he told a rally of potential black voters at an Operation PUSH rally in 1987 they ought to feel obligated to support Washington’s re-election as mayor.

Or, as he so “eloquently” put it: “Any man south of Madison Street who casts a vote in the Feb. 24 election who doesn’t cast a vote for Harold Washington ought to be hung.”

The significance of that comment is that south of Madison Street is the Great South Side, which has evolved into a collection of African-American neighborhoods with occasional patches of white and Spanish-speaking people mixed in (unlike the North Side, which is predominantly white ethnic with occasional Spanish-speaking and Asian neighborhoods and almost NO black people).

PINCHAM’S CAREER BECAME defined by that comment. To Anglo Chicago, he became a bigot – one who real bigots would bring up whenever anyone tried to call them on their nonsense.

There is a generation of Chicagoans who always want to think of Minister Louis Farrakhan and Pincham as the real racists, somehow wrongly biased against the white majority (even though in Chicago, the black population is slightly larger than the white one – with the Latino population growing at a rate that it will equal the two within about a decade).

Those people now want to add the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the list for the comments he made during various sermons, and would like for us to think of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama as someone who is tainted by association with a racist like Wright.

I’ve made it clear before, and I will repeat myself again. I don’t buy it.

PINCHAM AND WRIGHT came out of an era where the power of the law was used against them, keeping them in a form of servitude and lashing out against them whenever it was to the advantage of the white majority.

It was that type of mentality that formed Pincham’s philosophy on life – he became a lawyer so as to fight the white establishment whenever it would try to abuse the rights of black people. Making sure that the judicial system didn’t run roughshod over the rights of criminal defendants (who are human beings too, even though some people don’t like to have to concede that fact) was the focus of his career.

If that meant that a legal system that was used to being able to bash black people around suddenly had a judge who would not support such abuses, then I suppose it would be natural that certain elements would want to think negatively about Pincham’s legal legacy.

I remember in particular when Pincham ran for mayor of Chicago using the label of the Harold Washington Party – an organization that briefly had legal status as a fully legitimate political party (I wonder if the Green Party in Illinois is destined to fade away in a similar manner – but that’s a different subject).

PINCHAM’S QUOTE ABOUT Washington was dredged up everywhere white people went, but black people understood the frustration that caused a man of his generation to make such a statement and think in such a way.

I never did encounter a black person who would admit to voting for anybody except for Pincham in that election, and Pincham actually managed to win a majority of votes in 15 wards – all of which on the South and West sides that had African-American majority populations.

Recalling Pincham is relevant because of Wright’s plight these days.

Wright’s career as a South Side pastor consists of work done to try to bolster the lives of the African-American majority that lived around his church and chose to worship there because its “Afro-centric” view of the world promoted a sense that their lives had value.

BUT CERTAIN HALF-WITS are trying to reduce Wright to the level of someone whose support for black people meant he did not support white people, as though providing support for “black” or “white” people are not compatible goals.

Obama is being trashed by his opponents (most of whom have eagerly been looking for an excuse to publicly say they don’t support him) for remaining in Wright’s congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ, which has a majority black congregation and preaches a message of African-American empowerment.

Even Hillary R. Clinton has said she would have dropped out of that church, had she ever heard a sermon like Wright’s.

BUT I ACTUALLY gain respect for Obama because he is not trying to pander to the potential votes of white people who want to get angry about people like Wright or Pincham, who in their comments remind us that our nation has an ugly history when it comes to racial matters.

Many of those people are the types who dream that the ugly past will wither away if we just ignore it. Others want to take an attitude that they are not bigoted against non-white people who realize the “error” of their ways and accept the “proper” means of doing things – which usually translates to the “Anglo” way.

Somehow, I don’t think Pincham experienced a “deathbed epiphany” this week that he was wrong to fight for the rights of people who might otherwise have been trod on by a judicial system that was set up to occasionally entrap them.

NOR DO I expect Wright to ever think he was mistaken in trying to use his ministry to promote the image of African-American people.

What about the fact that he used harsh language on occasion to do so? Wright’s speaking style really can best be described as “southern preacher.” But when other preachers use that style, we hear about “fire and brimstone” and can laugh it off. For Wright, too many of us want to condemn him for it.

Until we can accept that difference of style, this country’s multi-racial and –ethnic population will never be able to fully get past its racial divide.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: R. Eugene Pincham remained active as an attorney (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/obituaries/chi-judge-pincham-obit-webapr04,0,6348192.story) even after retiring as a judge. He was one of the attorneys retained by musician R. Kelly in his ongoing legal battles in Cook County criminal court.