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The Black Church, Homegoing Services and Whitney Houston

18 Feb

Whitney Elizabeth Houston, 1963-2012 Matt Sayles/AP/File

On February 18, 2012, the family of Whitney Houston paid their final respects in an invite only, yet televised homegoing service at her home church, New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey.  Initial reports had said that only BET was covering the full service, but certainly shocking to me, the major cable news networks of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News covered the entire service from beginning to the recessional.  This isn’t a post to eulogize the wonderful talent that is and was Whitney Houston, but rather a cultural commentary on what Whitney’s homegoing service, an experience she didn’t get to see, meant for the larger culture.

Particularly on CNN, between the hosts of Piers Morgan, Soledad O’Brien and Don Lemon, they were all tripping over their words trying to set the most politically correct tone possible when speaking about this as a “traditional Baptist service.”  To which myself and others, I’m sure, couldn’t help but roll our collective eyes.   Even Don Lemon gave a cringe worthy comment when walking the street trying to get interviews from well wishers and invited guests to the services when he said this would be a service with “jumping and shouting and fanning.”  That is to say, the experience that is the institutional Black Church as we know it, shouldn’t and can’t be expressed in those three words.

The Black Church, as we know it historically and even in a contemporary setting is not monolithic; indeed it is really black churches.  What the nation, and indeed the world saw today was but a glimpse of an ecclesiastical culture that is unique to the black American experience.  From the order of service, to the music, to the ebb of flow of words uttered by chosen guests and even the sermon.  The collective swaying of the choir, to the ecstatic utterances from Donnie McClurkin to the emotion displayed by Ray J as the casket of Whitney Houston was carried out of the door.

This is but a glimpse of how we worship, and the world for a brief four hours in time was able to see that.

That being said, I, personally, am of the opinion that if  you are aware that you have a national audience, you need to speak to the national audience.  I do think that one can employ rhetoric that speaks to the immediate and present persons and one that transmits through the TV and other mediums.

I’ll never forget when Albertina Walker, the Queen of Gospel music as she was called, died.  I happened to be living in Chicago at the time and people were questioning me about what church was this that the funeral was to be held at.  I knew the church just because of my proximity to it and that it was a church my mother used to go to when she was growing up.  Not to mention, it was Albertina Walker’s church where she held her membership and it was an historic church that was institutional in Chicago as it was a home church to many of those who arrived during the Great Migration.

What was peculiar about it was that this was a public figure, nationally known, having a funeral at a smaller church.  Now a public musical was held two days prior at Apostolic Church of God to accommodate the large crowds, but the homegoing services were held in a much smaller church.

I’ll never forget watching the online stream of the services where the pastor of the church, in the middle of his eulogy decided to address the critics.  The pastor took the time to put people in their place, so to speak, surrounding the issue of why the services were held at his church and why he was chosen to speak and not a preacher with larger recognition.

I cringed in my seat.

The problem, as I saw it, with that type of rhetoric was that it was highly localized and frankly it did nothing but detract from celebrating the life of the deceased: Albertina Walker.  The pastor of the church was relatively unknown at the time, and guess what?  He’s still unknown.  If he had simply preached a great eulogy, people would have been more inclined to remember him as the pastor who preached a wonderful eulogy about Albertina Walker.  Unfortunately since he didn’t say much and what he did say did nothing to call to attention the reason they had gathered that day, no one outside of his circle knows who he is.

Pastor Marvin Winans preaching the eulogy of Whitney Houston entitled "Prioritize" from Matthew 6:25

Today, Marvin Winans, pastor of the Perfecting Church and part of the Winans family, a gospel singing group was charged with the task of delivering the eulogy for Whitney Houston.

To be frank, there wasn’t much positive I could say about his eulogy.

Now, I know there are varying schools of thought when it comes to preaching eulogies.  Some question the necessity of using a scripture as a text to preach from, or the need for a theme or title to preach about.  Some see a eulogy as merely a call to be saved by the members while others believe that rather than preach a text or a title, one ought to indeed eulogize the person who has died.  Some believe if you know the person, you ought to most certainly talk about the person, and if you don’t, one should talk about Life and Death and what does that all really mean when a family loses one of their.

Amazingly, Marvin Winans didn’t do any of that.

Now, I’ve caught bits and pieces of Marvin preaching over the years and there’s one sermon of his I’ve heard in it’s entirety that’s on YouTube his famous “That’s It, and That’s All” sermon he preached a few years back.  I think by the time I heard the aforementioned sermon, I knew my personal theology didn’t align with his.  However, his theology aside, the sermon lacked a certain cohesiveness that I think was needed for such an occasion as this.

For me, Pastor Winans failed to give a good word over the life of Whitney Houston as he never mentioned her once in his discourse.  Additionally, he didn’t say anything directly encouraging to the family and certainly not to the thousands of persons who had tuned in via television.  I think when it comes to basic pastoral care that needs to be done in the pulpit, comfort in the time of sudden and unexpected grief is needed and it seemed that Pastor Winans was drawing from an empty well when it came to giving words of comfort to a family that has lost its daughter, sister, cousin, mother and even ex-lover.

Not only did Winans seem to falter with his basic tasks, it was just a poorly organized sermon.  We went from Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount to a story about reading car manuals and why the Bible is our manual and by the time he meandered through controversial doctrines we ended up with him endorsing a prosperity theology.   Let me be honest, by that moment, I had abandoned all hope for a decent sermon and I would have been shocked for him to make sense of it all.

The whole time, I kept waiting for him to turn to Cissy Houston and say something direct and personal to her about Whitney, and that moment never came.

What I heard was a’ many a well-turned phrase, some basic catchphrase theology, his Pentecostal and therefore theologically conservative theology conflated into a sermon that had little if any practical application.  I couldn’t even give him the benefit of the doubt that he was really making a plea for persons to take this moment to get saved and get right with Christ which is sometimes par for the course when preachers have to preach the eulogies of persons who have died through violent means.  I couldn’t say that because he gave no practical applications, and he use of ecclesiastical language meant that he was only talking to church people.

The sermon Marvin Winans preached was more fitting for a Sunday morning service than for a eulogy for someone so famous and iconic.  Personally, I don’t care about an altar call, or really calling for persons to get saved, that’s not really what I look for in preaching, but rather something that raises, or at least broadens one’s consciousness culturally, socially, political etc. all while having a conversation with theology.  If I wasn’t already self-identified as Christian, there was nothing Marvin said that really piqued my interest enough; there was nothing digestible that he said.  It was if one were eating rice cake–no flavor, no taste, and little if any nutritional value, certainly nothing that could solely sustain you for any length of time.

Winans did nothing to raise or broaden the Houston family’s consciousness, let alone the nation’s consciousness, about Whitney Houston, nor God or Jesus for that matter.  Using extremely churchy language did nothing to open the door and give someone with little or no church experience to want to come into the conversation and sit and listen for a while.

Alas, I know I’m being hyper-critical of Pastor Winans, but preaching what amounts to a national eulogy opens him up to the criticism.  I am not suggesting that because of a national audience one ought to put on a show so that larger society doesn’t look at us as caricatures, but I honestly hope that people who are not a part of the black church tradition don’t think that Marvin Winans’ preaching is a middle-of-the-road and representative of the comprehensive black church experience–it is not.  Rather, I believe Marvin preached out of his context.

Some say he didn’t let loose as he might have wanted to given another setting.  I disagree.  Well to an extent. Obviously Marvin is a whooper and he obviously didn’t do that, and I wish he had.  I think if he had closed, it would have done wonders for how his sermon went over with many persons.  Based on Facebook statuses and tweets, people were expecting that performative aspect that has become unique and synonymous with a black church experience.

Ironically, where I believe Marvin Winans failed, Tyler Perry excelled.

Tyler had the first word of encouragement and in recalling the life of Whitney.  He related a text to her life, and the life of her preach the text.  Granted it was short and simple, it still did the job.

Given the confines he had to work with, Matthew chapter six, verse 25, Winans had an opportunity to raise the level of consciousness beyond our earthly lives and to prioritize the things in life that matter.  That is to say, we should leave a legacy, as Whitney did, through her talents.  The talents that are given to us and those gifts that we pick up on our journey are not for our own self-aggrandizement but for the betterment of our own sisters and brothers whom we encounter daily.  I would have suggested that we prioritize the people we have in our lives in addition to the things that we do in life.  And I believe by the time you get to verse 33, it provides a proper close for a Christian context about seeking first the reigndom of God and everything else will fall into place.

Personally, I would have went back to Romans 8, as Tyler Perry did simply because I find great joy in understanding God as Love, an inseparable love indeed.

To that end, Whitney, we love you, we miss, take your rest and go on home.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

We miss you Whitney!

Uppity Updates: Week of February 5, 2012

13 Feb

Every once in a while, the news cycle of the life and times of the goings-on of America produces a completely blog worthy week–and usually that’s the week or so I didn’t blog.  For long, long time readers, you all know that last week was a wonderful week to be a blogger.  From Roland Martin getting suspended by CNN, to Dr. Cornel West calling MSNBC darling Melissa Harris-Perry a “fake” and a “fraud” and a seemingly return of Sarah Palin at the God-awful CPAC convention this was certainly week to be in the blogging business.

Luckily, there are Uppity Updates.

Here’s my rundown of what happened last week.

1.  Roland Martin Gets Suspended from CNN for his Tweets

When GLAAD, the pro-LGBT alliance group made the charge that Martin should be suspended from CNN for homophobic tweets he tweeted during the SuperBowl, I immediately rushed to see what exactly he had tweeted.  Specifically, he tweeted,

If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl

and

Ain’t no real bruhs going to H&M to buy some damn David Beckham underwear! #superbowl

Roland Martin

Well, personally, I didn’t see either of those tweets at homophobic.  Not unless the definition of homophobic has changed, I understood the working definition to be any rhetoric or action that specifically disparages those who identify as homosexual.  I didn’t see Martin doing that with those tweets.  What I did see was Martin being anti-masculinist.

The anti-masculinist sentiment was that Martin seemed to be challenging the manhood of any man who wanted to see the David Beckham commercial.  Challenging one’s manhood doesn’t necessarily translate into alleging that one is gay.  Let’s remember words like “sissy” and “punk” do just as much about challenging one’s masculinity as they do to identify one as being gay.

In that regard, I think since Martin didn’t go out overboard with the tweet to say that any man who was hyped about the David Beckham ad was gay, I don’t think it’s fair to charge homophobia—for a few reasons.  If what Martin said were to wholly be categorized as homophobia, I believe that it negates a nuanced conversation that marginalized communities, such as the LGBT community, need to have to see true change occur in this country.  It’s as though GLAAD is a hammer, and therefore sees everything else as a nail, rather than a screw or some other tool.

More so for me, it negates a conversation that we haven’t really held in this country: one on masculinity, manhood and gender as separate entities from sexuality.  While yes all of these can be and are intertwined, we must try and raise the level of conversation.  In this instance, most persons didn’t hold the conversation about masculinity, which is what I particularly saw; everyone raced to have the homophobia discussion.  While one shouldn’t supersede the other, we must not forsake an easier target for one that is more nebulous in the public sphere.

The only article I saw was by a Charles Blow entitled “Real Men And Pink Suits“ out of the New York Times that attempted to have this masculinist and manhood conversation.  I think where Martin lost his witness was when he advocated violence.  In a time and place where violence against gay youth in the form of bullying has led to youth suicides, Martin’s tweets had the finesse of a wild boar hunting for prey.

Martin shouldn’t have tweeted it, but I don’t think it was worthy of a suspension either.

2.  Melissa Harris-Perry, Cornel West and the “Fraud” Alert

Perhaps Dr. Cornel West is the guy who sits and red flags your debit or credit card when it sees and out of town purchase simply because you decided to go on vacation randomly.   Or perhaps, maybe Dr. Harris-Perry is a fraud.

Who knows?

What I do know is that yet again, West came under fire for a war of words from an interview with Diverse magazine (p. 14) concerning some of his fellow public intellectuals.  Specifically, Rev. Al Sharpton and Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry.  We all remember the rather public and vehement disagreement Al Sharpton and West had last year on MSNBC with Ed Schultz looking a bit befuddled.  The two were having the classic activist versus academic debate.  I remember watching a bit chagrined having respect for both gentlemen and saying to myself, so it was obvious, these two don’t talk often.  That is to suggest, how could neither of them not be working with the other.

However, recently, I had a long discussion with a friend about the nature of the rhetoric of the likes of Cornel West.  While I’m not the biggest fan of his “jazz improvisation” speeches, I think mostly what Cornel does is attempt to raise the consciousness of the masses.  The likes of Dr. Harris-Perry and Al Sharpton do nothing more than broaden the conversation.  And yes, I am specifically valuing these theories.  To raise the consciousness requires a different rhetoric, and usually is missed on the majority of people, and West’s, at times, bombastic nature, doesn’t help.

We can all agree, calling your protegé a “fake” and a “fraud” doesn’t help your case at all.

But, if I understand West correctly, I can see why.

If Harris-Perry is your protegé and primarily, you have issue with their level of scholarship, and then they turn around, leave the institution you brought them to only to bad-mouth you the first chance you get, and then to fall in lockstep with the liberal establishment–then yes, to West, you are a fake.  Granted, I’m highly speculating, but perhaps West knows that Harris-Perry sold out some of her core ideals for the sake of getting the MSNBC nod.

I have always understood, however, that the work that I am about requires this and that, not one or the other.  A movement needs people who can work in the system and those outside of the system.  However, tension constantly will arise.  While West clearly stands outside of the larger system critiquing the system itself, the likes of Harris-Perry and Sharpton even to some extent, operate within the confines of that system.  It’s hard for an intellectual ideologue such as West to critique the system when people such as Sharpton have to operate within the system.

To West’s point about the lack of critique that Sharpton and Harris-Perry give to the Obama administration, I have to agree with him without any reservation.  I believe praise should be given when it is earned, and criticism should be given as well.  The moment we fall lockstep into any system, we have compromised ourselves; we are indeed a carbon copy, living on the ends of strings pulled by another.

Or else, he’s saying none of her work is her own.

Whatever, the case, I do think it should be noted that Harris-Perry is the only sitting tenured professor with a news program and that does say something about public intellectualism entering the broader discussion.

3.  President Obama, Birth Control and “Religious Freedom”

Since, I’m not Roman Catholic, I really don’t give a damn about contraceptives as it relates to religious beliefs.  And since I believe public health care should be considered a right under the law, which means I was, am and will always be in favor of a public option, I’m sure you can figure where I come down on this topic.

I really don’t know what Obama’s political strategy was in waging this debate in favor of women’s health knowing he was probably going to have to compromise on the topic.  I don’t know if it was a hat tip to pro-choice and other women’s groups going into the election cycle or was this a true political blunder.  I think the White House can use it in a general election as far as saying Obama stood his ground but was blocked by the GOP operation, blah blah blah.

However, it gets spun, I think women overall lost the debate.  Even those women who were against it in the first place.

I think if you want to offer a health service to the public, you need to play by public rules.  But, let’s remember much of the hubbub was coming from a party where current and former presidential candidates created a hypothetical scene where a non-insured injured person would be turned away from a hospital’s emergency room.  Catholic priests were alleging that their “religious freedom” was being trampled, and suddenly you started seeing black suits and white clergy collars appearing on all the news talk shows.

First things first.

Why are people taking sexual cues from a body of predominantly older white males who have taken a vow of chastity?  Even if they are off having sex somewhere, doesn’t that even still nullify the previously nullified position in which to sit and critique.  And let’s not mention, this is a seriously flawed body of men when it comes to the issue of sexual actions.  The Catholic priest sexual abuse cases still are not over yet.

Secondly, I fail to recognise how is one’s religious freedom opposed when forcing to provide a service for the public.  If the Catholic sponsored hospitals only hired Catholics, I could see how they could make the argument, but we all know that’s highly discriminatory and illegal in a public sector such as health care.  Or even if Catholic hospitals only treated Catholic patients, I could buy this, but we all know how ludicrous it is.  Out of all the debates I heard, none of them really made sense.  The various priests I saw on the news programs spoke as thought they were a part of divine aristocracy in which the rest of us had better get on board.

I do think the deeper, and much more legalistic debate is truly whether or not what precedent does this set as to what rights does a government have about forcing a religious institution to provide a service or a good that given other avenues is free.  To that end, I encourage you to check out another blogging source, Constitutional law really isn’t my strong suit.

Finally, and of the most importance to me, I thought it was quite curious that the country immediately jumped into the conversation about “religious freedom” as a means of protecting this concept, to which I immediately asked where was this level of conversation four years ago when Obama’s church and Jeremiah Wright entered the public sphere.  No one argued religious freedom when the concepts of Black liberation theology were discussed and dissected.  If you let the conservatives tell the story, including the likes of Rick Warren, just the basic tenets of liberation theology are heretical.

All in all, I think the White House could have handled it better, but still, the Catholic church was more of the loser in this case.  Yet, again, the Catholic church came off as a old curmudgeon wielding the same power Constantine exerted over his dynasty.  The fact that I live in a country that legislates policies on contraceptives while at the same time hollering about teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS rates and from an institution that comments on children born out of wedlock is mind boggling indeed.

4.  Sarah Palin is Still Here.

This one will be short and sweet.

As to why they decided to trot out Sarah Palin from under whatever rock Fox News had her hidden is beyond me.  Her digs were per usual at the President and full of venom filled one liners that would make a rattlesnake jealous.  What bothered me, was the presence of this character called Peter Brimelow who was asked to speak on a panel entitled ““The Failure of Multiculturalism:  How the Pursuit of Diversity is Weakening the American Identity.”  This guy is considered a white nationalist by some accounts.  Check out the clip below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtkA2yNuARg

And to think Herman Cain was on a stage with the likes of Peter Brimelow.  Diversity indeed.

5.  Chris Brown Come-back or Female Insensitivity

There was immediate backlash amongst those who felt that Chris Brown shouldn’t have been on stage at the Grammy’s last night nor should he have received any awards because it displays that domestic abuse is okay.  I disagree.  I have always disagreed with this line of reasoning.  What I’ve noticed in the three years since the incident happened between him and Rihanna is that women, in generall (emphasis on in general) are going to take a hardline approach as it relates to how they interpret justice in matters such as this.  Men, on the other hand, take a much more restorative approach toward justice.

I think, I comfortably fall in the latter part.

Part of the reason is that usually when I read these blog posts and status messages and tweets that are decidedly anti-Chris Brown, I don’t see them offering any type of logical ways for reconciliation, just retribution.  Many are saying he needs to be in counseling.  Okay, but for how long?  What type of counseling?  Does he need to be medicated?  Hospitalized?  Institutionalized, even?   Some say, he shouldn’t be up on the Grammy’s performing.  Okay, why not?  For how long?  What’s an appropriate punishment.  Usually these are questions that are never answered in their discourse.  If you’re ready to mete out punishment, that means that there will be a time when the punishment ends and then what does that mean for re-introduction back into society.

Moreover, what does that mean for Chris Brown doing what he does?  The music industry isn’t one controlled by a board where you can be demoted or what not as a means of punishment.  As far as I am concerned the Grammy nominating committee nominated who they thought was a good artist, not as a socio-political statement to say domestic abuse is alright.  The Grammy nominating committee isn’t, or rather, shouldn’t be judging based on one’s moral and ethical character, but rather the musical talent and offering of an artist.

Obviously, we have the black female blogosphere to judge Chris Brown’s moral and ethical character; the Grammy nominating committee need not offer their two cents.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Red Tails: Another Tuskegee Experiment Gone Bad

23 Jan

I had had a long day, a very long and tiring day at work.  I felt like Mr. Clark in “Lean On Me” when he decided to go to the parent meeting after his first day at Eastside High.  I didn’t get home until about 10:15 that night after being at work for about 10 hours and I saw that “Red Tails,” the George Lucas movie about the Tuskegee Airmen had a 12:01 showing at the local theaters.  After the hype on Twitter and Facebook with blacks rallying around George Lucas who by all accounts was trying to mainstream an all black cast after not getting major backing from producers and distributors, I figured why the hell not.

At 12:05 the trailers began to roll and I endured the prospect of a “The Three Stooges” movie and the thought of a movie produced based on Steve Harvey’s god-awful concept of “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.”  My uneasiness was further compounded as I saw Blair Underwood playing yet another crazy and deranged black man in a T.D. Jakes production that sounded like it was already made for BET called “Woman Thou Art Loosed — on the Seventh Day.”

No seriously, that’s really the name of it.

Finally, Lucas’ name appears on the screen and without much fanfare, rather nondescript credits begin to roll and the movie opens with a fight scene some couple of thousand feet in the air.  The next thing you see is the scene set in Italy 1944.

When I saw that the movie took place in Italy, a growing knot began in my stomach.  I found myself asking why didn’t we start in Alabama and I was saying to myself, this movie is starting off with all kinds of wrong.  Unfortunately, for me, the movie never recovered.  However, to say that it never recovered is to somehow allow that the movie actually was going somewhere in the first place.

George Lucas, now famously, sat at Jon Stewart’s desk on “The Daily Show” and recounted with lucid interest about how Hollywood, the metonymical monster that it can be, refused to back a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen because they didn’t know to market a movie with a mostly black cast.  According to Lucas, this movie has been in the works since the early 1980s.  Be that as it may, Lucas’ comments stirred up enough sentiment in the black social networking community that there were endless tweets and status updates pushing the movie.  To the point that the people were equating the future of black actresses and actors getting top billing with the future of this movie; as if the success of future predominantly casted black movies hinged on the sole success of “Red Tails.”

After watching the movie, in the wee hours of this past Friday morning, I thought I had missed something — because I was so sleepy.  I refrained from making initial comments on my social networking venues because obviously everyone else was waiting until Friday night and Saturday to go see it and I didn’t want to ruin one’s viewing experience with my spoilers.  But after hearing friends’ commentary and talking to a few people, I was therefore liberated to make my social critique.

Primarily, I think why the movie fell flat was very basic: the movie didn’t live up to the hype.  This had nothing to do with a predominantly black cast or Lucas being the director.  Now I could write about how horrible Ne-Yo’s accent was and why was he dippping snuff or chewing tobacco the whole movie or I could ask why was Marcus T. Paulk (the actor who will always be known as Miles from the sitcom “Moesha”) and his “praise black Jesus” meme such a cheeseball character.  Why I think the movie fell bankrupt to some blacks who watched it was because the movie wasn’t socially attractive to how we, Black America, traditionally tell our story.

Let me be clear, I’m not faulting anyone for making this decision; I’m not holding Aaron McGruder who was a script writer or Lucas responsible for this movie possibly taking a massive nose dive.  Traditionally, however, when a story steeped in black culture is told, we tend to start from the beginning of some sorts and bring the story forward.  If you look at many classic stories that heavily focus on blacks (think “The Color Purple” or “Malcolm X” or even “Antwone Fisher” to “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman”) most times these movies show a clear progression from one stage of life to the current one in which the movie is set.  Some movies accomplish this task through flashback sequences.

Tuskegee Airmen - Circa May 1942 to Aug 1943 Location unknown, likely Southern Italy or North Africa

For me, and I’m sure for many others who had a basic working knowledge of the Tuskegee Airmen beyond just being an all black fighting air squadron and beyond the widely circulated idea that they never lost a bomber, this movie lacked the heavily historical context.  Granted Lucas said in his interview with Jon Stewart that given the success of this movie he would be interested in doing a sequel and even a prequel to this movie.  That sounded all well and good, but sequel and prequels only seem to work for works of fiction.  In the universe where people have wars amongst the stars, and in the land of Middle Earth and in nameless countrysides that house cities named Gotham and simply Metropolis, perhaps.  But in real life — just no.

To understand what the Tuskegee Airmen were fighting for, one must understand that blacks weren’t allowed to fly in World War 1 and had returned home to the segregation.  Specifically in the crucible that was Macon County, Alabama in the early 1940s would take one to know about the Tuskegee Experiment when untreated cases of syphillis were left to incubate in the the black male population so that studies could be done to see what were the effects of this STD on humans.  Where some men who were apart of the experiment [it could hardly be called a study] joined the military and were able to get the penicillin shot.  What did it mean for those men in the early 1940s to operate in an atmosphere stifled with such deep-seated hatred and bigotry.

"Keep us flying. Buy War Bonds." Color poster of a Tuskegee Airman (probably Lt. Robert W. Diez) by an unidentified artist. 1943

The fact that Eleanor Roosevelt made a trip to Alabama in 1941 as the First Lady, that Tuskegee Airmen were shown on war bonds posters nor the personhood of Gen. Benjamin O. Davis weren’t at all mentioned somewhat was a disappointment to me.

Perhaps, I had too lofty an expectation of this movie.

Does telling black history preclude it from ever being a part of socially accepted American history?  I think the answer, sadly, is still yes.  My 10th grade U.S. History professor did a very good job of teaching both.  He did such a good job one of my white friends, the son of Polish immigrants (he himself was born in Poland) opined to me freely one day that this was a U.S. history class and why did the teacher always talk about black history.  Lucas, apparently, was trying to put out an action film that happened to be told through the eyes of the Tuskegee Airmen, that’s it and that’s all.

Once I came to that revelation, I realized that I, myself, had brought far too many of my own prejudices to watching the movie.  I realized that the whole time I had been expecting this movie to mainstream a story rooted in black American culture–how foolish of me!  The movie, sad to say, just never captured my imagination enough to ever take off.  By the time I muddled past the failed mechanics of Ne-yo’s wretched accent, the cheeseball character of Deke, the abandoned character development of the new guy Maurice, the underwhelming performance of Terrance Howard (to the point where I was asking where is Denzel Washington when you need him–or Samuel L. Jackson for that matter), and the complete lack of background development of Easy’s character, I was far too fatigued in the mind to try and make a mediocre script and directing make up for the other lack.

Now this movie had four intricate fight scenes, including the opening sequence, that took place in the air–and they were a sight to behold!  Great, I say!  Even epic!  The movie had some great one-liners among my favorite being “…you can live your whole life as an Atlanta compromise if you want…” was my all-time favorite.  However, after all was said and done, this venture, this experiment Lucas decided to endeavor as a result of Hollywood not supporting an all black case was a failure in my book.

I call it an experiment because based on that interview with Jon Stewart, he didn’t sound too sure of what the outcome would be; as though he took some disperate parts, threw them together just to see what would happen.  I hope the participants in the experiement don’t come out worse for wear because of Lucas et. al. misjudging the market.  Hopefully this experiment will teach us that if you want to tell a story, anybody’s story, you just have to actually tell the story.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Mormonism vs. Universalism: A Post-Racial Evangelical Dilemma

13 Jan

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are pictured in this June 2011 file photo. (Jim Cole/AP Photo)

With the Iowa Caucuses a distant past and the New Hampshire primaries fading to black, all eyes are now focused on the South Carolina primaries for the Republican Party nominee.   The Republican field has had its plethora of changes with candidates like Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum thrust onto center stage as of late, after being nearly absent in the media and debates late last year.  With the likes of Herman Cain and Rep. Michelle Bachmann no longer in contention to occupy the White House, more attention has no been focused on front runner candidates of Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and I guess we might as well add Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman.

Let’s be honest, Mitt Romney is probably going to get the nomination after all of this is said and done, but can he win South Carolina?

Northern candidates have historically had a tough time in the South Carolina primary due to old hold outs of Confederate tribalism and the like, but this go round, the religious right has to deal with a slightly different factor that contributes to this millieu:  the presumptive nominee and current front runner is Mormon.

Well, to be totally politcally correct, Mitt Romney is a member of the Latter Day Saints church and is a believer in Mormonism.

How’s that?

Without going too deep, Mormonism is one of those religious beliefs that has sparked numerous side-eyes from the rest of the Protestant country.  Not trying to be too sensational, but this a belief that practices polygamy and believes that there are a specific number of persons who are going to heaven–and believe that if Jesus comes back he’ll be coming back to Missouri.   More germane to me, this is a belief that until the second half of the 20th century did not believe blacks were to be counted in the number of the saved.

Whatever the case is, oddly enough, the Church of Latter-Day Saints is uniquely American.

Joseph Smith’s vision to move he and his fellow believers to a place where they were free to practice their faith free from governmental religious persecution could only happen in a place called the United States.  So much so that they launch out as emigrants and settle and even apply for statehood.  Generations later, they’re still going strong.  What more American story do you know of that speaks of rugged individualism, hardwork, self-determination, struggle and progress?

Well, I could think of several, but you get my point.

Nonetheless, what’s not to love about the story of how Mormonism came to be about?  Oh, just discount the part that they don’t believe in the singular authoritative existence of the Holy Bible, but believe in also the Book of Mormon which corrects the inaccuracies that exist.  And just forget the part where the cosmological agents of the universe spoke directly to Joseph Smith and he then recorded the Book of Mormon himself.  So, yeah, if you forget all of that, what’s not to love about the story?

Enter Barack Obama.

In 2004 Obama was first receiving his rise to stardom as a U.S. senatorial candidate that he was interviewed by religion reporter Cathleen Falsani and she point-blank asked him “Who is Jesus to you?” and the first words out of Obama’s mouth were “Jesus is an historical figure for me.”

Prior to the question Falsani asks him, Obama says

I am a Christian.  So, I have a deep faith. So I draw from the Christian faith.  On the other hand, I was born in Hawaii where obviously there are a lot of Eastern influences.  I lived in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, between the ages of six and 10.  My father was from Kenya, and although he was probably most accurately labeled an agnostic, his father was Muslim.

So, I’m rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there’s an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived.  And so, part of my project in life was probably to spend the first 40 years of my life figuring out what I did believe – I’m 42 now – and it’s not that I had it all completely worked out, but I’m spending a lot of time now trying to apply what I believe and trying to live up to those values.

Such a quote lands Obama relatively comfortable in the arena of universalist thought.  Universalist thought, succinctly put, is the belief that there are many paths to some universal truths; that there is no one way to one truth.  Now I’m not sure if Obama was aware of his personal beliefs in concert with politics on a national arena, but it makes perfect sense why Obama and his family would have ended up at Trinity United Church of Christ.  The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a denomination with its official inception in 1957 birthed out of the Congregationalist Church that is considered the most liberal Protestant denomination in the country.  The next step toward the left is outside of the realm of socially acceptable American and Protestant beliefs.

So what’s an evangelical Christian  to do?  How is this “born again” demographic supposed to vote in a general election?  One choice is a non-Protestant dispensation of Christianity that holds orthodox and highly non-orthodox views relative to the Christian belief system.  The other is a Christian universalist–where the person believes in Jesus (purposely leaving off Christ) as a great historical figure from which we can draw truths from and the figure acts as a bridge between God and humanity.

What I do think is very interesting is that Mitt Romney is a proud member of the LDS and it is without dispute.  Four years ago, the news media was all up in arms debating Obama’s Christianity.  So much so to the point that people were willing to calling him a Muslim (pronounced Moos-slim).  No mainstream network has called in numerous talking heads to discuss the veracity of the Mormon faith as was the case with Black Liberation Theology.  Four years ago, Obama was forced to give a speech about why he associated with Trinity and how his faith intertwined with his life, race and politics in general.   Will Mitt Romney be forced to do the same?

Frankly, I don’t think so.

To be bold, there’s a double standard that is drawn along racial lines.  Even with the frittering of the Tea Party as a possible force to be reckoned with in this 2012 political season, staunch social conservatives tend to also identify themselves as being evangelical Christians and a part of this “born again” demographic.  For the state of South Carolina, the likes of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have a better chance in the coming days because of their recent employ of the “Southern strategy.”  The use of fear tactics by Gingrich and Santorum to discuss blacks and food stamps is utterly deplorable.

But this is the same man who said Occupy protesters should got take a shower and get a job.  And in turn, Rick Santorum began to discuss blacks as blah people.

White social conservatives, who have a higher chance of identifying as evangelicals have an easy choice in South Carolina.  But in terms of getting a candidate who can run against Obama sucessfully, they’re probably going to be stuck between the Mormon and the Universalist.

What boggles my mind is that the likes of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann proudly go around touting that this country was founded on Christian values.  Without running the gamut of Constitutional framers who had decidedly unorthodox Christian beliefs, I was under the impression that “freedom of religion” was one of the major cornerstones of this country.  How pathetically hypocritical can one be to push a myopic and narrow view of Christianity while at the same time arguing for 1st and 2nd Amendment rights?

To be blunt, I think these evangelicals aren’t going to think twice and vote for the white guy.

Granted there’s 10 more months of political wrangling to be had and things change.  What I think helped Obama win some of those swing states last time was that some whites in conservative regions of the country actually thought twice about the state of the economy and about universal health care when they walked into that voting booth.  But unfortunately for Obama, his public image isn’t stellar, though his record may be for all intents and purposes.

What I will think will be interesting to watch is to see these two go head to head.  Personally, I’m not convinced of Romney’s conservatism.  I believe he’s a fiscal conservative beyond the shadow of a doubt.  Even when he ran before he was advocating getting rid of the capital gains tax and that fits right in with concepts of fiscal conservatism.  But a social conservative?  Not by a long stretch.  Somehow I think if Romney gets the nod, there will be a debate where it all comes tumbling down and Romney simply says “Mr. Obama, I’m sorry, you’re right. I can’t do this anymore,” and walks off the stage leaving a stunned GOP party.

Romney hasn’t made any brutal racial statements since he’s been in the spotlight and even questionable quotes concerning his firing practices have gotten totally misconstrued by his opponents.  But Romney isn’t guilty of harping on old bigoted and racist sentiments as a means to further his brand nor his potential presidential politcies.

But none of these are reason enough to vote for Obama.

I think the social conservative base (i.e. Tea Party) is so utterly peeved at the mere existence of Obama, and his wife, living in the White House that people are willing to contrive anything for the sake of their political ideology.  FoxNews cannot go one week, and probably not one day (sorry, I don’t watch it enough to make the latter claim) and not utter the name of Jeremiah Wright.  Even still watching the news in the days leading up to the 2012 Iowa caucuses, social conservatives interviewed were invoking the name of Jeremiah Wright with acute ire.

Post-racial my foot.

Concepts of post-racial theory are rendered null in void if attributes that are deemed to be right and wrong, good and evil, sacred and profane can also be delineated by racial lines as well.  Given Romney’s probably nomination, I think it’s safe to say these two candidates will probably run a clean race, but so much can’t be said for other parts of the country.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

In Tim Tebow We Trust

12 Dec

December 11, 2011, Broncos defeat Bears 13-10 in overtime

Let me be upfront: I’m a Chicago native born and raised.  I tried running away from it when I graduated high school.  I didn’t want to be associated with those that ate polish sausages from Maxwell Street and I didn’t want to be engaged in the lifelong South Side versus West Side and Harold’s mild sauce versus Uncle Remus’ chicken.  I didn’t like to be associated with “all y’all people still from Mississippi” type of people.  Nevertheless, the more I was away from Chicago, the more I identified with Chicago.

I said all that to say, I’m having aught with God seeing as how da Bears got Tebowed on this past Sunday.

Now, I hope all of my usual readers have cleaned off the coffee and food stains from their keyboards and computer screens as yes, I’m more or less doing a sports post.

Yikes!

Yeah, I know.  But, my usual readers probably know where I’m going with this one.

God and sports has always been an interesting combination to me.  Even as someone who dabbled in sports here and there from early on, high school and one quick stint in baseball in college, the two never quite made sense to me.  I remember saying a couple of small prayers to myself before I’d step into a batters box, one of which was God don’t let me get hit by a 70 mph fastball.  I wasn’t so much praying that we win, but for God to help us do the best we, or I, can.

Based on that, me and Tim Tebow are praying just about the same thing.

So what’s the big hoopla about?

"Tebowing." Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow (15) bows his head on the sidelines after scoring a touchdown against the New York Jets in the fourth quarter of an NFL football game, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011, in Denver. The Broncos won 17-13.(AP Photo/Barry Gutierrez)

Well, for one, I wasn’t visibly seen “uppitying” in the dugout the same way Tim is “tebowing” like Rodin’s the Thinker on the sidelines.  Nor had I posed in a controversial pro-life commercial that aired during the Super Bowl.  And come to think of it, I wasn’t starting off press conference with the tried and true “First giving honor to God who’s the head of my life….” speech.  The difference is that in sports, particularly the most American of them all, football (so American that it’s international designation is American football), the intersection of God and sports is indeed a religion itself.

Football engages the most American of ideals from Friday night football games  that unite rural and urban communities alike to college and professional teams.  American ideals that attempt to mix rugged individualism with teamwork are all played out on the gridiron.  Little children learn to watch mothers cater to fathers and other patriarchs when “the game is on” and gender roles get defined early; “good” wives and women learn how to just go with the flow or even get into the game with their significant other.  We learn in life that there are always winners and always losers; it’s no wonder I could preach football if I had too.  The countless sermon analogies I’ve heard in the pulpit with Jesus as a quarterback in the game of life are no shock.

Jesus as a quarterback; Tim Tebow, rookie quarterback.

No doubt, Denver area pastors will have a field day in their midweek Bible studies and even into next Sunday’s sermon, it still doesn’t get at the why behind all of this.  Being on the losing side of the most recent victim of Tebow’s Broncos, I’m quite tempted to just dismiss this as a bunch of hooey and spinkster inkdum unremitted, but 7-1?  Who argues with the odds of winning the last seven of eight games when Tebow started.  He must be on to something, right?

Tim Tebow, meet Aaron Rodgers.

….or Drew Brees, or Joe Flacco.

You get my point.

Personally, I blame the world that its sports commentary.  Sports commentators from local networks all the way to the major networks and ESPN, they get paid to make inflammatory comments, tweet incendiary tweets and just fan the flames in general.  In a society that lives on the edge of evangelical thought at times, it didn’t take much to make the claim that “God, bless Tebow–and no one else”  was a fair enough assertion.

New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Bruni put it this way:

Tebow performs a sort of self-righteous bait-and-switch — you come for scrimmages and he subjects you to scriptures — and the displeasure with that is also writ colorfully on the Web, in Tebow-ridiculing Twitter feeds and Facebook pages, one devoted entirely to snapshots through time of Tebow in tears. An emotional man, he has traveled a weepy path to this point.

What Tebow has and is doing stands in stark contrast to what Tebow-nation has done: Tebow comes off as fake.  Yes, I said it.  The overposturing of “my Lord and savior Jesus Christs” when a microphone is stuck in his face mixed in with images of him going down into prayer mode on the sidelines for long stretches make it seem like he has a hook up that no one else has.  That indeed, Tebow has the unique ability to treat God, as what Henry Emerson Fosdick once opined, like a “cosmic bellhop” being able summon wins out of the 4th quarter like nothing.

And it works.

Ask Chicago Bear fans yesterday.

I knew it was bad when I saw Facebook and Twitter feeds with life long Bears’ fans claiming South Dakota as their residency are threatening to defect to Green Bay rather than succumb to the awesomeness that was Tim Tebow.

Tebow seems like a good guy, he really does, but I think he’s being a naive scapegoat for a bigger movement.  In a nation so divisive on the triumvirate of taboo subjects of race, religion and politics, Tebow’s public displays of religiosity seem to do nothing more than buttress the idea that religion, namely Christianity, doesn’t require much deep thought.  Tebow’s endorsement of Jesus Christ is better suited for a Christian summer camp than for the NFL.   In a politically charged atmosphere where GOP candidate Rick Perry makes a direct plea to evangelicals with an anti-gay and anti-non Christian message in a commercial, I can’t help but wonder where does Tebow fall in any of this–in a larger sense at least.

Oh yeah, he falls there.

What bothers about Tebow, truly, notwithstanding the cultish atmosphere of sports at times, is really more America’s inherent problem with how we view religions.  From a larger narrative, Tebow is just a pawn once history gets written.  My problem is how we, as a nation, religify just about anything that we come in contact with.  Everything we extrapolate to a larger example of God and/or Jesus Christ (or both at the same time) or something about good versus evil.  What makes Tebow’s personhood just annoying is that it’s the basic in-your-face type of proselytizing that rivals only Jehovah’s Witness’ on Saturday morning waking people up at 9:00 am dropping off Watch Tower magazine.

Those of us, like myself, are left asking, is this the face of Christianity?

This Jesus Christ fella who Tebow keeps calling on has been reduced to a verb called “tebowing” that’s nothing more than glorified genuflecting on a sideline.  I guess since the planking phase is over and done with, we can expect to see people post pics of “tebowing.”  Lowercase please and thank you.  Tebow, the actual guy, the human quarterback, has now left himself to be perfect.  We don’t expect any scandals, any random swear words, not even a speeding ticket zooming up I-25.  In fact, we expect you to go find some lake in the foothills and walk on water just we’ll believe in your perfectness.  Because when you fall, as most of us do, it’ll be yet another nail in the coffin of progressive Christians who are fighting an ideological war about the image of Christianity.

Many of us are battling the projection that “Christians [or church folk] are a buncha hypocrites” as a traditional attack for non-Christians to say about those of us who were born and raised in the church.  For many people, the very mention of the name Jesus, let alone the full Jesus Christ, heaps a ton of expectations some reasonable and others not so much.  In a country that practices freedom of religion, I’m not suggesting that he be stopped or banned from mentioning the J name in a presser, but actually, I am asking him to tone it down.  In a country that doesn’t really know how to handle the embraces of differing religions all that well, we’re just asking for trouble.

As far as the football gods are concerned, I really think this is a no-brainer.  Even Tebow has said God doesn’t care about football.  And Icouldn’t agree more.  But the Bible does say “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and he shall direct thine paths”; and what does it say about a God who isn’t concerned about the goings-on God’s creation.  Further proof that members of religion are just empty-headed zealots who don’t really think?

Perhaps.  I can be that for a moment in time.

At least, in the time being, if Rick Perry is still in the race, we can look forward to Tim Tebow making a cameo appearance…

…and we’re not the Indianapolis Colts.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

The Good Reverend Doctor Herman “Feelgood” Cain: To Minister or Not to Minister?

8 Dec

I was perusing HuffPo late last week and came upon a question posed by commentator Martin Bashir posing what I thought was a thought-provoking and appropriate question: Should Herman Cain resign from his post as associate minister at his home church?

To be fair, Bashir was positing this thought prior to Cain’s “suspension” of his campaign and made the assumption that his quitting was going to be an admission of guilt on Cain’s part.  Not only did Cain essentially quit, but Cain didn’t own up to anything–other than paying a random lady over the course of 13 years.  His wife stood by his side no less, but just like that the Cain train derailed, or simply found a station at to stay parked–for the time being.

I’ve heard the murmuring amongs bloggers that Cain is the male, and black male equivalent of Sarah Palin.  That is to suggest that we aren’t done hearing from him.  Even I myself have wondered will he end up on someone’s ticket as a vice-presidential nominee.  Nonetheless, as Cain moves out of significance from the mainstream media, I would like to broach the topic of his ministerial status at his church.

The allegations from Ginger White don’t immediately bother me, this is almost normal for random women to come out of the woodwork through the media vetting process these days, but its the fact that Cain is 1) a black Republican and 2) a licensed minister in a black church that probably has more liberal political leanings.  What bothered me about Bashir’s commentary on this subject was that Bashir took a very direct approach and connected dots that I don’t believe were automatically connected.

What Bashir failed to understand was that Cain is an associate minister and according to reports, he’s only licensed, not ordained.  It’s not like Cain is over some grand ministry or delievering sermons every other week.  Bashir presents the story as though Cain is second-in-command to the senior pastor.  However, I think Bashir made a typical knee-jerk reaction that I think most people would; we’re okay with hypocrisy in the pulpit, but we don’t want it from our church leaders

This presents a theological and moral connundrum.

On the one hand congregants exalt their leaders, often times blindly, to the point where the clergyperson can do no wrong.  While all at the same time, you hear some clergy always acknowledging that they’re human just like everyone else and put on pants one leg a time like the rest of the pants wearing world.  The theological connundrum is based on the biblical scriptures that obviously exalt the prophets and the priests and other ecclesiastical leaders over that of the rest of the people  and that doesn’t jive with a clergy rhetoric that says “I’m human just like everyone else.”

The moral connundrum mixes in theological quandries as well.  For a congregant, issues of forgiveness and moral repugnance are at play.  Society tells us that cheating on one’s wife isn’t right and therefore we should shun it, while certain aspects of Christianity speak about forgiveness while also retributive justice which would say that said offender should be punished or sanctioned in some manner.  Unfortunately, too many cases occur where neither forgiveness or justice is meted out and the offender continues on because people would rather sweep the situation under the rug rather than deal with the options on the table.

As with the cases of Eddie Long, Earl Paulk, Ted Haggard, the Catholic church priest abuse scandal, dozens of pastors who cheat on their wives with other women in the church–sex is obviously not enough to immediately get you forced out of your church.  In the cases of Eddie Long, Earl Paulk, Ted Haggard and the Catholic priests, those were officially legal proceedings, but cheating on your wife with another woman is socially acceptable in many ecclesiastical settings.  It may be frowned upon, but its not enough to break up a congregation or for a congregation to force one out of the pulpit.

Frankly, we have a sex problem here.

People aren’t so much moved by sexual scandal as they are by money scandals in many black churches.  For instance, if Cain had been using the money from the church to pay off Ginger White, then perhaps, they would have excommunicated him, but I can pretty much guarantee that he’ll still keep his position as associate pastor.  As it stands, there is no evidence to concretely say who’s telling the truth and this just exists as he-said, she-said problem.  (Although, I say to Ginger White that in 13 years, you can’t produce any evidence that you had a sexual affair with the guy?)

To go a step further, I think much of this problem stems from theological patriarchy.  We image God as a “he” 99% of the time, and the vast majority of pastors are indeed male and certainly in a theologically conservative association such as National Baptist Convention, USA and most church people believe that their pastors not only talk to an invisible being, but hear from it as well.  Mash all of this together and throw in some esoteric concepts about right and wrong based on writings where the newest document is quickly approaching its second millenium in existence and you get people who believe the “manD of Gawdt” can do no wrong.  Ingrained beliefs, even what I committed in the parenthetical comment, tell us that the onus of proof rests on the woman as the accuser and the man is presumed innocent until otherwise.

To ask whether Cain should step down or not is the wrong question and somewhat misses the larger issues at play.  Asking him to step down is not a definitive stance against the alleged behavior nor a disavowal any forms of patriarchy nor taking a step to free the minds of those enslaved by oppressive theological concepts.

Personally, I doubt anything is going to happen at the church as it regards Cain’s status at least nothing that hasn’t already happened.  In a black church arena that has consistantly walked the line between being politically liberal and theologically conservative, I think more and more people are no longer operating out of such a dichotomy.  Asking Cain to step down or even ignoring it completely is still a status quo approach.  Taking him to task on his comments that black are “brainwashed” to vote Democratic would do more good than to strip him of his ministerial title.

As this story, as the personhood of Cain cycles out of mainstream media to make way for Newt Gingrich, the GOP candidate du jour and we gear up for the Iowa caucuses merely days and a couple of weeks away, Cain will fade to the backdrop from which he came.  This will be a non-issue and the potential victims in this case will never see justice in the eyes of the public, but just have the memories of the public humiliation.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

 

“Reed Between the Lines” is Asking us to do Just That

21 Nov

When we think of black themed television networks, our minds usually drift toward Black Entertainment Television–BET and it conjures a myriad of mixed sentiments.  A generation divided by Robert Johnson years and the post-Robert Johnson years remember BET fondly and others that regard it as the sugary snacks of hip hop culture; that which our youth consume at unhealthy rates begging for a type-2 diabetes type of warped cultural worldview to take hold of their minds.  There are still members of my close circle that reminisce about the days when AJ and Free hosted 106 & Park and not someone named Rocsi and Terrence J.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately for others, we have other options.  With my new treasure trove of right-below-premium-cable-package I discovered that there are other options than just BET.  The next most familiar is TVOne, but I discovered this other channel called Centric as well.  So now you don’t have to catch your “227″ reruns on just one station, but you have a few other choices.  But that’s just the problem with these black culturally themed networks: you seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all.  As it stands for me, black culturally centered networks are the dumping ground for black syndicated television shows and sit-coms.

Now on the surface that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but honestly, between reruns of “Good Times” and “Martin” and the obligatory Tyler Perry movie or “The Color Purple” I realised that the black entertainment industry had offered us a pitiably small amount of culture on the silver and small screen.  When I’m flipping channels, whatever is on either of these channels at a given day is either a) something I’ve seen before or b) something I can find on the other 300 channels I have.

One of the problems with BET programming is that it follows everyone else.  BET, naturally, is the leader of the black television entertaniment world if for no other reason that it beat everyone else out the gate by considerable years.  However, BET wasn’t revolutionary in much of it’s original programming even in years past.  Jacque Reid doing the nightly news was simply an answer to every other news program at 11/10pm central in America and Tavis Smiley’s program at 11:30/10:30pm central was an answer to Nightline and an attempt to compete with the Tonight Show and David Letterman.

Not the end of the world, but then the comparisons became odious.

As if not to be outdone, BET launched 106 & Park which was a top ten countdown of music videos with a live studio audience that was the black version of Total Request Live (TRL) from MTV.  Well that was fine I suppose.  No one was really complaining about seeing a constant stream of lack entertainers and the obligatory white ones with street cred (shoutouts to Eminem and Paul Wall), but anyone with a critical eye could see what was being done.  As if that wasn’t enough, though, BET introduced “College Hill” which everyone identified as a rip off of MTV’s “Real World.”  Again, while it was nice to see HBCUs highlighted, it caused so much strife in black communities across the country that it is still being discussed till this day.  Then we got the string of “Baldwin Hills” and “Harlem Heights” that attempted to highlight the black middle class through the distorted lens that is reality television.  Yet again, anyone with a critical eye could see the aping of MTV with just black faces.

Perhaps I’m being overly critical because all of the aforementioned shows I had watched before and yes, I will flip on and watch an episode of “Amen” or “227″ if I see it on the TV guide grid, but most of us are stuck living in liminality when it comes to how we, blacks, are presented to a larger audience even if it is on “our” network.  Is this an ingrained idea of “don’t go out showing your color” adages that our grandmothers and aunts instilled in us as young children or is it an overcompensation of trying to abolish stereotypes with archetypal images of what it means to be black in America.

One of the conversations surrounding “College Hill” was centered in what image did it portray HBCUs that would allow this type of behavior from their students and to be displayed for national dissection.  It led to black college students at other HBCUs to say that their school would never allow cameras on campus to display their students as such.  I’ll never forget the young girl at Southern University from that first season known as “No Drawz” who was rumored to be the daughter of one of the upper-level administrative heads at the school or Dru-Ski’s famous “Booty Talk” freestyle.  To which me and my friends sneered and said how could she go on camera and do that.  The irony behind it all was that much of what was going on at those campuses was just about the same at all the other ones–we just didn’t have cameras to capture it.

So you have all of this discussion about how to reframe the image of black Americans in a positive light, or should I say a positive enough light.  The problem with “The Cosby Show” was that you had two different factions of which one was finally relieved to see a television show that mirrored their life of an upper middle class black family and another that said the Huxtables were not real life.  Perhaps this is where my inner uppity Negro rears its ugly head.  I would rather see the images of the Huxtables portrayed than the cooning of “Martin” and certainly the abominable “The PJs.”

Enter “Reed Between the Lines.”

BET’s latest foray into original programming has obviously tried to hearken back to what we all consider the pinnacle of black television: “The Cosby Show.”  They went so far as to even cast Malcolm-Jamal Warner as the patriarch of the family.  The beautiful Tracy Ellis-Ross is his wife and they together form a blended family.  It’s the rather typical sit-com style of family problems with marriage and kids from school, to work and then back home all succinctly solved in 22 to 24 minutes of script time.  Frankly, there’s nothing all that unique about the show.

Being branded as milquetoast and in the words of a Facebook status I noticed during a two hour series premier block (yes, two hours of the exact same show that just premiered) that “Reed” was the black equivalent of “Green Acres” birthed out of a television era that had produced “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best.”  After watching a couple of episodes of “Reed” it was obvious it wasn’t “The Cosby Show,” but then I thought, why should it be?  I think part of the challenge that people always have, particularly in the black communities across this country, is that we too often and too easily look at history through the lens of the present.  Anyone who studies history or anthropology of the past understands that gravity to which one must look at the then-current conditions of the situation to understand the  matrix out of which an event or a person was birthed.

The only reason “The Cosby Show” worked was because it was a novel idea.  They were dangerously close to letting Cliff Huxtable’s character be a truck driver.  While there’s nothing wrong with Cliff as a truck driver for a show,  it would have been following in the tradition of most other sitcoms where some of the basic worries about existence played a central part.  Not to mentioning the burgeoning black middle class in the 1908s certainly made “The Cosby Show” somewhat of a reality show.  Nearly 30 years later, the Reed family brings nothing new to the table than a blended family and a young black kid with a mohawk.

While there may be nothing new about the image that the Reed family is portraying, I think we ought to read between the lines and give the show a chance.  I consider myself a harsh critic of sitcoms having been raised in the era of “live studio audiences” where actors had to really deliver a line and the writers had to give them a good script to elicit a laugh, and actually there have been a line or two where I literally laughed out loud.  In the face of black sitcoms such as “House of Payne” and “Meet the Browns” neither of which have acted as entertainment for me beyond moving artwork in the background, I think “Reed” offers a departure from the current norm.

The viewer is also asked to read between the lines because the sitcom as we once knew it has been dead since the year 2000 in my opinion.  Especially the black sitcom.  Even though we have the modern classics of “The Bernie Mac Show” and “Everybody Hates Chris” they are certainly the departure from the three camera model and no laugh track.  I’m not offering up support for “Reed Between the Lines” just to quell the comedic critique of the show nor to say that other image criticisms aren’t valid, but I think the show indeed does offer us a chance to dig a bit deeper. Who we are and how we align ourselves in the crooked room that is this country at times, say a lot about where we plan on going in the days ahead.

And at all costs, I think we owe it to ourselves to simply read between the lines.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Should We Change the Black National Anthem? My Response to Toure

17 Nov

This morning I log onto Facebook and I see a link to an article entitled “It’s Time for a New Black National Anthem” entitled by black cultural critic and favorite provocateur  Touré.  He’s making the claim from his opening paragraph that there might be a need for a new Black National Anthem given that the one we pull out during February and HBCU commencements is nearing its 112th year of use.  Usually I’m up for discussion when it comes to things of antiquity as to whether or not we’re beating a dead horse and whether or not the joys of postmodernity have offered us a newer and better alternative.

Touré has the gift of challenging subtle thoughts while provoking angst.  The true artist.  Recently  Touré has been the whipping post for the black blogosphere with some of his random musings on black culture as it intersects the triumvirate of cultural taboos: politics, race and religion.  Toure represents, to me, the better part of what it means to think critically and be situated squarely within a post-modern Civil Rights Black America.  As with most essayists young and old, the sarcastic wit and humor go a long way to illustrate a point–this is a field where hyperbole is your friend not your enemy.  So when I read Toure commentary on “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” I had to remember to not respond with a blatant knee-jerk reaction, but dig just a bit deeper.

What I revealed was a reflection of a culture through the lens of being a member of Generation X.  By in large that generation of Americans were taught to question the ideals and mores of yesteryear–nothing, for the most part, is off limits.   Touré was making the claim in this article that we should substitute “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” for Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man.”  One of the benefits being that the latter is actually a song you can dance to at a party versus the former.  My knee-jerk reaction that Toure doesn’t know the difference between a soul ballad and an anthem or that even the title “Trouble Man” poses some problems that would undoubtedly draw the ire of those reading through a feminist or womanist lens.  Not to mention that the lyrics don’t evoke the antiquity that the tried and true anthem does.

While I agree that “Trouble Man” certainly does illuminate the “multiplicity of multiplicities” that is the black experience, the difference between the anthem and the soul song is the difference between one nation and one man respectively.  The anthem is a song about a collective and united body lifting every voice to sing and and shout with a oneness, a second stanza that acknowledges the hardships of the past and a third stanza that invokes a prayer and a rallying cry rooted in the present but looking toward the future.  Don’t get me wrong, “Trouble Man” conjures up emotions and imagery that aren’t present in “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” of which Toure notes when he says

“Trouble Man” is a unique song in that it draws from many sonic aspects of Blackness. It’s a blues song in spirit, but the blues isn’t about sadness, it’s about survival in spite of adversity and that sense is at the heart of this song….The song also captures the sense that our history remains a work in progress. We’re not “there,” we’re not at Dr. King’s mountaintop, but we’ve made gains, yet those gains are often washed away with the tides as if we’re always taking two steps forward and one back. The growth of the Black middle class in the ’80s has been stripped away by a recession that hit Blacks harder than anyone. The cool brilliance of Barack Obama is followed on the national stage by the small-minded buffoonery of Herman Cain. This sense of gains and losses that has marked our history is captured by the deep line, “I had to win, then start all over, and win again.”

Touré’s lens for understanding this is dead on for his generation, my generation included, but I think he somewhat misses the point.  The anthem attempts to speak for a united people while the soulful song voices one man’s lament about being a black man in certainly what then, these yet-to-be United States.  A poem set to music written at the turn of the previous century before DuBois commented on the “souls of black folk,” and before Martin had a “dream” didn’t carry the same baggage that a troubled man would have.

Favoring the individual over that of the national is a hallmark of post-modern thinking.   Touré, undoubtedly would err on the side of postmodernity before he would take an apologetic stance on the tenets of modernity.  Whenever you publish a book Who’s  Afraid of Postblackness?  What it Means to be Black Now? you are certainly stepping all in the area of postmodern ideals.  While most black people probably don’t give “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” a second thought, to understand it as the Negro National Anthem invokes such a clear defiance of the established and dominant culture it still sends chills down my back.  The Negro National Anthem should do for blacks what “Dixeland” did (and still does) for those who refer to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression.

The words for me even through my, at times, unwavering allegiance to postmodern ideals, pushes the envelope and still speaks toward some of the collective emotions of those located in black America irrespective of class.  Perhaps  Touré had issues with the assured Christian tone of the anthem as it does mention God a few times and “Trouble Man” certainly does move away from that.  But still, I could see black women having a problem with “Trouble Man” as it does not give voice to black women relegating them to romantic and perhaps even sexual objects such as “baby” and “sugar.”

The black experience, or should I say, the Black Experience, is more than just here in America.  It’s bigger than hip hop, it’s bigger than the Civil Rights movement, it’s bigger than Obama, bigger than slavery and the Middle Passage and it’s bigger than Mother Africa herself.  To encapsulate the Black Experience in a song  through the eyes of a singular troubled black man somewhat falls short of the greater glory that is blackness.  The “multiplicity of multiplicities” that make up our is-ness and our being should not be confined to one song.  Seeing as how we have the parameters of human language, when we attempt to embody the human spirit in an art form such as a song, I am quite sure that we can do better than “Trouble Man.”

Be that as it may, I think Toure’s article this morning did what I’m sure he set out to do: it made the reader think.  To that end, job well done sir.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2011/11/17/its-time-for-a-new-black-national-anthem/#ixzz1dyjMx2XL

Hollywood Social Commentary is just ‘In Time’

6 Nov

I frequent the movies often enough so I had probably seen trailers for the Justin Timberlake movie “In Time” before most people and the concept that time itself was a commodity had certainly piqued my interest.  It aroused my senses because being descendants of African slaves here in this country, time as we know it, is a wonder to behold.

Any study of ancient African cultures birthed on the west coast would discover that time is not linear; it does not progress seamlessly on a continuum stretching in a straight line from one end to another, but rather it has creases and buckles and even at times becomes circular.  Please believe it was not circumstance that when Disney decided to do a movie set in the east African serengeti plains that the major theme of the movie was the “circle of life.”

Time within the context of the African American community has often times placed us at odds with dominant society.  Historically blacks were seen as shiftless and lazy because of a failure to be on time.  So much so that there’s a running theme across this country about “CP time.”  It could be an event and they tell people to be there at nine o’clock and without fail someone will murmur “is that CP time?”  No, not some weird concoction of “Central Pacific” but in fact, “Colored People’s time.”  No, this isn’t birthed out of an inherent laziness or some innate inability to be on time, but rather it is a sense of “when it happens, [whatever it is], it will happen at the right time.”  It’s almost a direct resignation and surrender to forces outside of human existence that are in control of earthly happenings; whatever time and under whatever circumstances it happens, is when it was supposed to happen.

While I had seen the trailer, I was unaware of the level of which time had become a commodity.  The movie was set in a typical dystopian near future I suppose and time was the only commodity.  To exchange goods and services one exchanged time.  With a glowing neon green counter on the left arm of every individual counting the years, months, days, minutes and seconds, if one had enough resources, one could virtually garner a level of immortality.

“For a few to be immortal, many must die,” was a quote uttered more than once in the movie as the main character, Will Salas, played by Justin Timberlake experienced his journey in time.  After living a day to day existence getting doled out mere minutes and hours from factory working, he forces his own destiny and winds up getting a century’s worth of time.  Living in general ghetto of Dayton (although obviously the movie was filmed in Los Angeles), he uses his new found wealth to travel between time zones to the place of New Greenwich where everyone can tell he’s not from around there–because he does things too quickly.

Without ruining too much of the movie, it was an interesting forward and liberal movie plot that saw the target of the concept of wealth redistribution and aimed for the bullseye.  I thought the movie couldn’t be more on time given the Occupy Wall Street movement and this concept of the 99% versus the 1%.  In a day an age where Youtube and other social networking has fueled much of the protest, to see the likes of “South Park” parody the police as overbearing and mindless, and to paint the media as clueless (as it was an “Occupy Red Robin” movement, not the intended target of the protest in the episode), this movie was certainly an eye opened.

Much of the plot discussed how in order for the few (read: the 1%) had the power and ability to stay immortal at the expense of the many, (read: the 99%).  In a society where persons genetically didn’t age past 25, years after that were spent trying to get as many years as possible.  This movie explored predatory lending practices of banks, and I daresay payday loan sharks in poor communities, the day-to-day grind of working class persons who have to struggle daily to make ends meet.  To see a dead person on the street wasn’t uncommon in this movie–people just “timed out.”

I think it’s safe to say that Hollywood has a decidedly liberal agenda.

And that’s fine by me of course.  But we all remember those “special episodes” of the family friendly and kid friendly sit-coms of the 1980s and 1990s that discussed everything from drug use, to bullying to divorce, teen pregnancy, gang violence and tolerance.  I’ll never forget the “Family Matters” episode when “nigger” was written on Laura’s locker, or even the “Moesha” episode when they dealt with a young man who was in the closet with his sexuality.  We don’t see a lot of movies and stories that laud the conservative point of view.  Most of the classic books that take the dystopian world view from Brave New World  to 1984 and movies such as “Soylent Greens” all take a liberal approach to politics and social matters–this movie is no different.

I think it is interesting that these movies, these books, these works of art get such wide acclaim.  In lieu of neo-conservatism running rampant thanks to the Tea Party movement and an ever increasing irresponsible batch of politicians who say and do whatever acting in sheer impunity I fail to see how does an electorate fail to connect the dots.  It wasn’t coincidence that the poor people in the ghettos were always “timing out” of life because they were always rushing to get more time, never enjoying the luxuries of time to sit back and relax.  For poor people, the “time is money” concept means that if they aren’t working, they aren’t making money.  For the rich, the few, the 1%, they’ve reached a level where their money works for them even when they’re our of time–so to speak.

I think in the next three to four centuries, this “experiment” of global capitalism will  have wound itself down.  At this current trajectory, the world market isn’t in the position to maintain such highly concentrated levels of wealth.  Am I arguing for wealth redistribution?  No, on the basis of impracticability.  I am, however, siding with the progressive idea that people should pay proportionately to their income.  The flat tax idea is laughable because it unfair taxes the poor, and the progressive tax structure we’re on right now still doesn’t appropriately take into account those at the opposite ends of the income spectrum leaving the majority of the tax burden on the middle income makers.  It’s absurd that we’ve elected politicians who think that taxing the rich, and imposing a “millionaires” tax will dissuade businesses from hiring.  The typical GOP talking point operates on the idea that everyone, based on hard work and a rugged individualist work ethic is going to be a millionaire flies in the face of the fundamental concept that “for a few to be immortal, many must die.”

Unfortunately, the white poor of conservative bastions such as Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia and south central Pennsylvania that make up the Appalachians are just as disenfranchised as blacks and Latinos in the urban ghettos.  These poor people can’t afford to move across “time zones” as in the movie.  These people, these poor people, are locked into their geographical regions unable to afford basic transportation, unaware of a world going on outside of their immediate surrounding.  Where their lack of time is a constant stresser that leads to serious health problems.

Or maybe….

….this was a movie to let the 1% know that there will be a day when the proletariat will rise up and challenge the system of capitalism.  Forgive me if I sound a bit Marxist, but I think anyone with a brain can see that eventually one day, our exit to capitalism will come and it would make sense for us not to be in the left lane and have to cut across five lanes of traffic to exit and cause a pile up in the process!  I think when the history books are written they will have to point to the Occupy Wall Street movement and the severe financial problems facing many of these European countries–who are in the Eurozone mind you.  It’s barely been past one decade and these countries on the Euro as a monetary unit are facing these severe austerity measures.

Whatever the case is, let it be known that there are people who are awake.  I encourage all of us to stay vigilant.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

P.S.  On an unrelated trivial note, Wikipedia informed me that characters in the movie were named after real life watch brandnames.

Herman Cain, the Magical Negro…and Other Topics on Ontological Blackness

2 Nov

Carlos Osorio/AP Photos

Let me just be up front and honest: I don’t like Herman Cain.

Granted I dislike his opponent Texas Governor Rick Perry even less, and Rep. Michelle Bachmann has devolved into a “Love Boat” joke, I just really don’t care for Herman Cain.  His politics seems to hearken back to a Brady Bunch or even “Leave It to Beaver” era of this country–one that never truly existed–and people are eating it up.  Maybe that’s what it is; I’m just mad people are actually buying what he’s shoveling.

But why not?  He’s a magical Negro.

Yes, the phrase “magical Negro” is a bit of a tongue-and-cheek mash up and probably draws more questions that it answers, but if you will go with me, I would like to explore this magical Negro called Herman Cain.

Let’s be honest, since we’re not in a post-racial society despite what mainstream media continues to assert, more and more people are trying to wrap their minds around the now seeable possibility of having two men of color run for the office of the President of the United States.  What is interesting to me, is that both of these men have had the core of their blackness challenged.  For Barack Obama it was his mixed ancestral heritage, being raised by his white grandparents in part and for Herman Cain his affiliation with the Republican party and aligning himself with the likes of other GOP’ers who take such conservative stances when it comes to the disenfranchised of this country.

So how is Herman Cain able to ascend to the point he has now despite being black?  I think very much the same way Obama did for the Democrats: there’s a level of “safeness” about both of these men.  This country isn’t ready for a black man to be president (( wink wink )).  By black man, one need only reference the 2004 nomination process for the Democrats and Al Sharpton didn’t make it past South Carolina.  While Sharpton was able to parlay himself into a nationally syndicated radio talk show and now a full time slot on MSNBC, an elected official he is not!

It’s easy to call Herman Cain a sellout for his political position when it comes to his comments on the Occupy Wall Street movement by inferring persons need to simply go get a job.  Even the most simple of political commentaries understands that with a 9.1% unemployment rate nationwide to suggest protesters need to just get a job wholly oversimplifies the problem.  And that’s Cain’s political achilles heel to me: he oversimplifies relatively complex problems.  While his 9-9-9 plan (( think 9 pizzas, 9 toppings for the low low price of $9.99 )) is easily repeatable, it’s a rather basic solution to a real complex problem.  Even in the last debate, after I finally got the gist of it, Cain was left comparing apples and oranges, literally, to an audience and debaters who could see through it.

This is the problem that Cain faces when it comes to his blackness being challenged.

Most political commentators with any validity to their reputation (so this excludes most anyone who appears on Fox News) and across color lines will admit that the issue of race is not a simple one: it never has been and will probably never be.  Cain’s haste to oversimplify things flies in the face of conventional wisdom in many of the black communities across this country.  This is why Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia in 2008 following the initial fallout behind Jeremiah Wright was so poignant and resonated with many people.  It was the first time in recent memory we heard a speech that tackled the issue of race head-on and didn’t use euphemisms to address it.  Obama’s speech was the only speech on race I had heard in my lifetime coming from somone with the high level of political status as he, it at least did not dismiss race nor add to the apathy and disillusionment that often characterizes the lives of disenfranchised people.

A potential GOP nomination of Herman Cain could actually be a political jackpot for the GOP when it comes to issues of race.  The GOP has been facing ever increasing flak from the black communities across this nation when it comes endearing blacks to their party.  It’s a joke worthy only of the black blogosphere, Facebook and Twitter when GOP events are aired on national TV and we sit back and count the number of black faces we see in the crowd.  Usually we never run out of fingers.  With the recent chairperson of the GOP, Michael Steele, being black he was forced to deal with these questions directly, and the GOP as a party was able to point and say “Look, we’re not racist.  Our chairperson is a black guy!”

But, as I noted above, that oversimplifies the issue of race.

What the GOP obviously fails to realize is that running a black conservative candidate against Obama runs the risk of political suicide.

Just ask Alan Keyes.

Granted the GOP in the state of Illinois had Barack Obama running unopposed for a U.S. Sentate seat for six whole weeks, but Alan Keyes, as the paragon of foot-in-the-mouth conservatism was the absolutely worst candidate to run against an Obama campaign.  But Obama won 70% of the vote with over four million votes cast in a state that outside of the Chicago metropolitan area consistently voted Republican and in a state that has no qualms about electing a Republican governor when they feel like it.

70-percent.

For social conservatives to vote for a black man in a political office is the equivalent of the “oh, I have black friends” meme.  It somehow tells them that they’re really not that conservative–or prejudiced, or bigoted, or racist–deep down.  What makes this a falsehood one tells one’s self to sleep easy at night is the fact that voting for the likes of a Herman Cain don’t require much of a leap.  Herman Cain’s rhetoric, for the most part is interchangeable with that of Mitt Romney or Rick Perry at this stage of the game.  Nothing Cain stands for or has spoken about would look any different coming from a white GOP politician–no one would raise an eyebrow.

With the latest political bungle lain at the doorstep of Herman Cain surrounding this sexual misconduct from years ago, he seems like a Manchurian candidate of sorts to me.  He seems out of his political element–like Sarah Palin.  The folksy-ness comes off as aloof and unaware of the stakes of the game.  While I don’t mind perceived flip-flopping on the issues when new information is available, Herman Cain’s doublespeak is pushing the appalling level.  And his speaking in unknown tongues referring to not knowing the capital of “Uz-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan” doesn’t show salt-of-the-earth values, but rather a frightening dearth of knowledge of foreign affairs.

Launching into a rendition of “He Looked Beyond My Faults” at the National Press Club earlier this week–as though he were singing a sermonic selection before he preached…

…doth not a presidential candidate make.

Honestly, I don’t like the guy, but as a fellow black man, it felt like Cain set us back the proverbial 400 years when I saw him launch into song.  It came off as a minstrel production; that to placate to white conservative sensibilities he felt the need to sing a song.  It hearkened back to a time when racist whites of the antebellum and Jim Crow era dismissed Negro work songs as songs sung because we were happy to be doing the back breaking labor.  Certainly it roused images of blacks portrayed as mere entertainment and advertisement with black face, exaggerated lips and noses plastered on billboards, food labels and the like.

Notwithstanding Cain’s matriculation at Morehouse College or his parents insistence to not get involved with Civil Rights protests in Atlanta, to be unaware of the consequences of singing as he did disturbs me.

But so is this Magical Negro–the one Herman Cain.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

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