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It’s a Democracy, Not a Theocracy: How The Black Church Gets it Wrong

12 May

Let me put a clear disclaimer before I launch into the deep with this blog post:

The institutional Black Church as we know it, something that is a proper noun, has entered it’s final stages of life.  The metonymical phrase “the Black Church” is rather black churches that have a different socio-economic and political outlook on their American lifestyle and their theology is framed around that.  This is not to say that the theology of black church-goers throughout the last two centuries or so have not been shaped by sociology, economics and politics in the past, it’s just that that trifecta has seen a major shift in the last half-century that indeed, the theology has now caught up with it.

I said all that to say that when Rev. Dr. Jamal-Harrison Bryant got on CNN and decided to speak about “the Black Church” and its response to President Barack Obama personally affirming same-sex marriages, he unfortunately and egregiously missed that nuance.

Anyone who has read my blog for any period of time knows that Bryant is a favorite whipping post of mine.  I said that whenever I wrote a book in the near future, I would use his personality, his church, Empowerment Temple A.M.E. in Baltimore as a case study because his story and what he has offered up as influence in the black community consistently astounds me.  His latest remarks are no different.

In the short hours after Obama’s interview on ABC was released, my Twitter timeline was all flooded.  Mostly, I’m surrounded  on social networking by progressives and bleeding heart liberals who were happy that Obama took a stand–whether he lost in November or not.  I tip-toed over to some of the more theologically conservative timelines and I saw the exchanges and Leviticus and Old Testament verses being thrown like darts from one side and Jesus quotes from the New Testament being aimed back like an arrow as though this was some cyberspace holy Hunger Games war where one side must prevail at all costs.

I’ve been following Bryant for some time now, and let’s be honest, for anyone that does, his comments shouldn’t come as any shock.  What’s particular about Bryant though is how he approached the subject on two different venues.  On the Tom Joyner Morning Show that has a clear and almost solely black market (and let’s just be honest, those that listen to TJMS are the same demographic that runs to go see the latest gospel play with it’s Sunday School theology) versus talking on CNN to a much broader audience.

Below is the quote that Bryant had from the Tom Joyner Morning Show:

I absolutely, vehemently disagree with the president,” Bryant said. “I agree with his presidency, but with this policy, I do not agree. Marriage is the original institution of the church.”

Asked if he would switch over and vote for Mitt Romney, Bryant said, “I think, given the option I’ve got, which is Mitt Romney, I’ve got no choice.”

“Black people are not going to switch over to the Republican party or put Romney signs on their front lawn. The critical concern is whether they will vote with apathy and not show up at the polls,” Bryant said.

“The reality is, President Obama better be in some black churches real soon clapping his hands, singing Amazing Grace and waving that right hand because the black vote is going to be very critical and apathy may win this election if we don’t get on the ground,” Pastor Bryant warned.

This is where Bryant gets it wrong–on so many levels.

Primarily, this is early May, and not late October.  The economy and job growth is still going to be the number one issue if Department of Labor statistic continue this painfully slow growth.  Only when the economy is doing well will we revert back to the culture wars on which American politics thrive.  Painfully, Bryant makes the mockery of the black church worship experience and caricatures the black preacher all in one statement saying “Obama better be in some black churches real soon clapping his hands, singing Amazing Grace and waving that right hand.”

Really Jamal?

I’ve not joined the chorus over the years of decrying Jamal Bryant and his indiscretions with his marriage and the public divorce that reverberated throughout the black ecclesiastical community because frankly, I didn’t care, but his statement about marriage both on TMJS and on CNN clearly point to his own indiscretion: two kids from previous women, three kids with his ex-wife, who left because of infidelity.

To use the line that gay marriage threatens the foundation of the institution of marriage is complete rigmarole that deserves to be situated with the food that passed through a garbage disposal.  What’s threatening the institution of marriage, if you ask me is people’s inability to communicate and compromise and probably that they got married for the wrong reasons; more people are in love with the idea of marriage, than actually being married to someone for the long haul.

Pastor Rev. Dr. Jamal-Harrison Bryant

All of my churchy friends know of at least one couple or one friend that got married at about 20 or so, and possibly had a baby or two and by 25 they were divorced.  Why, you may ask.  Often times the older adults, many times coming from the families that were at church four and five times a week, and the sons and daughters of pastors, were pressured into getting married–just to have sex.  The wanting of having sex combined with the guilt of doing prior to marriage made them move up that marriage date way too early.

That instance is what threatens the foundation of marriage, just to name one.

Moreover, what made me at odds with Bryant’s statement both on CNN and on TJMS was that I feel he was catering more toward a national audience that’s conservative, both black and white for the sake of staying on good terms with them.  If you think I’m saying Bryant is a sellout, then yes, you’re reading this correctly.

We all sellout, we all have an asking price, for some it’s low and others it’s high.  I’m not suggesting that Bryant is a sellout in the traditional sense of being a handkerchief head Negro or an Uncle Tom, but Bryant’s statement was one that played into church politics.  Truth be told, I think if Bryant had said nothing about the issue, the vast majority of his congregation in Baltimore would have eventually forgotten about it once it moved from the media cycle (which it kind of already has by the publishing of this post) and they would have been released to think and hopefully vote how they feel.  But, Bryant’s stance gives black church folk, those that subscribe to his theology, the permission to possibly engage in bigoted behaviour.

What always amazes me though is that in many of these larger black churches, you have openly gay men in the tenor section, directing the choir and leading the praise team.  It makes no sense to come out against gay marriages but you say nothing about what’s in your face.  And to my knowledge, Bryant, of all the foolishness I’ve heard come out of his mouth in a pulpit from the the soaring rhetoric and the excellent social critique to the tragic neo-Pentecostal theology and the outright ahistorical lies* he’s told, he’s not known for being a gay basher in the pulpit–that’s just not what he does.

So I ask, then why take this stance?

Bryant, as I said, subscribes to this neo-Pentecostal movement we’ve seen since the rise of Eddie Long, T.D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar and what some say, was started by the now ostracized Carlton Pearson.  The neo-Pentecostal theology, something that Harvard Divinity School professor Jonathan Walton discussed in his book Watch This!: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism, is something that varies from pastor and preacher and doesn’t have real tangible tenets in the traditional sense of other historical black denominations.

This is why I said the Black Church has gotten it wrong.

Perhaps I fell victim to what I have accused Bryant of by naming my post as such (but for the sake of titles, I didn’t know what else to do), but many of the articles of confederation and constitutions agreed upon in the historical denominations that have been around for more than one century seemed to understand that America was not a theocracy, but a democracy.  That what they chose to believe and even fight for, was because those beliefs were protected under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution in their right to freedom of religion.

The neo-Black Church, if you will, has crafted a theology that aligns itself more with the politics and social economy of the latest gospel album or latest black megachurch pastor or preacher that shows up on black night on TBN.  This neo-Pentecostal movement allows us to create “Sundays Best” on BET and gives preachers the license to place a preaching clip of their latest whooping acrobats on YouTube.  I’m saying all that to say that the theology goes after the low-hanging fruit rather launching into the deep to see what’s out there.

Christian evangelicals, as we all know, have dominated the political landscape coming from the liberal leanings of public theologians in a post-World War II society as we entered the 1960s.  Perhaps the “God is dead” movement and the theothanotological thought that emerged since then was enough for people to retrench so violently that names like Jerry Fallwell and the Moral Majority are household names and which secured a Ronald Reagan presidency.  Nonetheless, even till today, Christian liberals are a quiet, yet strong minority that has consistently been a part of progressive religion.

The black Christian liberals are a unique breed, and yes, in the minority.  Now yes they do exist, but they exist in a dual system.  Many people I have encountered say that they may attend a church that espouses a conservative theology, but they don’t personally believe it.  Others made the jump and joined a local congregation that may be mixed race and clearly has a liberal theology that they practice.  Or they may be like me when I was in seminary, went to a liberal downtown church and at night when to the local COGIC church because I appreciated the music better.  A dual system indeed.

Which then begs the question, why are some of these pastors who have congregations that probably identify as liberal when it comes to politics, make a hot button issue out of this one policy?  God help the people that may hear all types of vile and bigoted hate speech directed at the LGBT community and of course directly at the personhood of Obama on this coming Sunday.  May God shut their ears to the spiteful rhetoric that spews from the mouth of those who know what they do.

Jamal Bryant, oddly enough, can’t help to show his skill package when on CNN, however.

Mind you this is a brother that dropped out of college in 11th grade, got into Morehouse College, was the president of the NAACP Youth Division and was a dynamic—yes, dynamic–speaker.  Bucked the AME tradition of going to an AME seminary and graduated from Duke Divinity School with an Master of Divinity and earned his Doctorate of Ministry from Graduate Theological Foundation.  His credentials speak for themselves.

Thankfully, he shifted the conversation into the number of other social issues that are affecting the black community other than whether or not gay people should be able to get married and he did begin to address seeing this issue as a human rights issue and not one solely located in the confines of theology.

But that’s just it: this is a basic human rights issue as I see it.

If they had called on me, the Uppity Negro I would have spoke based on my personal beliefs and I would have challenged black church members to raise their consciousness and to see this as a human rights issue and not one solely located in theology. Moreover, I would have politely highlighted that as blacks we challenged racist white interpretation about biblical passages that says “slaves obey your masters.”  I would have noted that women in ministry challenge Paul’s clear mandate in his epistle to the church at Corinth that “women should remain silent” in the church setting.  I would have closed and said the liberty of God allows us to challenge the patriarchal and heteronormative ideals that are located within the biblical text.

But since they didn’t, I leave you with the words from the firefighting mayor of Newark, New Jersey, His Honor Cory Booker.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

* I have a Jamal-Harrison Bryant sermon on podcast entitled “You Have to End It” posted on November 28, 2011 in which he made a theological assertion that “God was silent” between the the writing of the Old Testament book of Malachi and the beginning of Matthew.  He said that this was known as the intertestamental period (which is true) but that it was a period of about 2,000 years (grossly wrong and false).  The period between the life of the prophet Malachi and 1 century C.E. with John the Baptist is about 400 years. It’s always been 400 years and will always be about 400 years–not two whole millenia!  

Moreover, the history of the Jews and Persian history is well documented in the Apocryphal texts in which the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church accept as canon and found in the plethora of archaeological studies.  To understand this as a period of blankness is sad miscarriage of knowledge and of one’s scholarship and duty to their congregation.

Student Loans Are Killing Black Wealth Building Efforts

25 Apr

Sounds about right.

I just paid my bi-monthly bills two mornings ago.

Comfortably so, I might add.

But that was because my car is still relatively new and I haven’t run into any costly repairs.  I rent an apartment so any problems that occur rests on the building’s management and not out of pocket and I finally paid off my MacBook on the store credit card.  I can only imagine if I was working a dead end job, had a POS car, with gas right under the $4 mark in my city and working a dead-end job or hustling from music gig to music gig.

And then I paid my Sallie Mae bill.

I logged on to see the amount owed for both undergrad and grad school and I broke out in hives.  I’m writing this blog in an urgent care facility where they’re trying to pump me with something to get rid of the rash that broke out all on my face.  Well, okay, I didn’t break out in anything and there are no rashes on my body, but that’s how I felt.  When I clicked the “pay” button I felt not only my checking out decrease, but a piece of my soul become snatched by the devil named Sallie Mae.

Honestly, Sallie Mae is an agent of Sheol.  She snatches your soul with a phone call from an area code you’ve never heard of or a toll-free number to remind you about the bill you owe.  As if any of us who have been by some institution magically forgot that we owe a debt that includes five digits.  How you know that she’s a minion of Hell is that they offer you forbearance.  Forbearance is a trick of the enemy, a tool of the devil.  You simply apply for deferred payment, which they grant you, yet interest accrues and then when that date is come due, you owe even more and you haven’t even paid it down.  Forbearance exists because Sallie Mae knows she’s going to get her money, either today, tomorrow, next year, or in the next 30 years.

What stunned me was that I looked at what I was paying and I said to myself, am I even making a difference?  It was a feeling that was even worse than the couple of times I was making a minimum payment on that credit card bill for Best Buy and my laptop.  The tugs of Sallie Mae dragging me deeper into her clutches was combined with her partner in crime, Direct Student Loans–the ones that paid for my grad school.  That bill…..well, in the words of Sweet Brown all I can say is “oh Lordt sweet Jesus.”

I called Direct Loans and according to what I make annually, they told me I can afford the $270 minimum monthly payment.  Really? So you know what my monthly bills are and what I need to pay?  I’m so glad between Say-tun Sallie Mae and Direct Loans they know what my monthly obligations are.  Could I get rid of my cable bill?  Why yes, yes I could.  Could I stop eating out quite as much?  Yes, yes I could do that as well.  Could I stop dropping goo-gobs of money going to the movies?  I could do that as well, yes indeed.  Could I stop my random weekend jaunts all over the regional South?  Yes, I could stop that as well.

Which brings me to my point, the inability for me even with a professional job to begin serious wealth building is going to cause a ripple effect for generations to come.  Yes, I could move to a bare bones existence and I definitely could have gotten a cheaper car ergo a cheaper car note and there have been some financial decisions I should have made differently, but, still with ol’ Sallie hawking down my neck like a fire breathing dragon, some of this is for naught.  If I was in a position to save anything based on my current lifestyle, the $270 required is a king’s ransom in exchange for my wealth building prospects.

In an economy with dollars aren’t able to buy the same amount of commodities that it once did, and a job market that still has much room to grow, this glorious lifetime debt of student loans can’t be more inopportune.  Granted this is a problem for kids across racial boundaries, but tied by the similar economic situations.  Working middle class families across the country with baby boomer parents were never situated in the best position for this economic crisis we find ourselves.

But here’s the difference, and why I drew this on race lines as well.

White families , the baby boomer families, sons and daughters of World War II vets had the GI bill which set them up in decent housing and gave them the “American dream.”  Meanwhile black soldiers either returned to a Jim Crow South or ended up in federal housing in the urban city centers of Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York that ultimately became the existential hell called public housing.  Those white families that were settled middle class were able to send their children to college, or their sons fought in Vietnam which again provided them the opportunity for education.  Black soldiers again, returned unfair housing practices and seeing no-bid contracts go to white politicians’ cronies.  In the early 1970s, the black middle class was a piddling small percentage of the whole black population.  It wasn’t until the 1980s that blacks saw a major increase in the the middle class income segment of this demographic.

So let’s do some simple math.  While the gap between 1946 and let’s just say 1980 to be fair is 34 years, easily one whole generation behind where their white counterparts started.  That’s a whole lifetime of work at any place; 34 years qualifies you for retirement with a full benefits package.  But mind you for that whole time, blacks were the last hired and first fired with any company that wasn’t black owned.  Suffice it to say, black working class families that do send off their children to school don’t always have the money to pay for it.

Most HBCU institutional advancement and enrollment offices will tell you the millions of dollars that come from Sallie Mae as debt incurred by the students and not personal checks from families paying for their education. Not to mention, many of the private donors are not independently wealthy black people, but white charitable institutions that have a history with the university that goes back to pre-World War II era.  Just the fact that many of these donors are headed by the progeny of these wealthy white men proves my point.  Whereas other families have this generational wealth passed down from the 19th century, blacks are barely out of the starting gate.

Many will read this and point to persons like Robert Johnson or Oprah Winfrey or even more erroneously point to Sean “P.whateverhesgoingbyrightnow” Combs or Jay-Z and ask how did they make it.  First let’s cross the hip hop moguls from this equation because none of them darkened the door to any institution of higher education and were never strapped with student loan debt.  And obviously, the likes of Oprah almost supercede race; name me one woman who has controlled that much of a media empire and has made so much of an impact globally irrespective of race.  Yes, for Oprah to have been born black and a female in Kosciusko, Mississippi and make to where she is amazing, but it’s amazing just because she’s in the stratosphere at all–it’s just amazing she’s there anyway.

So, I’m not buying the Oprah argument.  You can leave that at the doorstep.

Actually, I think who better illustrates this point is Barack and Michelle Obama.  It was famously known during his 2008 campaign that Barack and Michelle didn’t pay off their student loan debt until he happened to write a bestselling book.

I’m going to let that soak in.

Two people, two lawyers who are making big bucks, can’t afford to pay off their student loans until they’re in their 40s.  Their combined student loan debt was more than their mortgage.  You can’t tell me that that’s not the work of SAY-TUN.  Essentially you’re telling me I have to hope to strike it rich or else I’m going to be paying on this crap until I die or Jesus comes back — or God sticks a toe out from the clouds and ends this foolishness immediately.

In comparison, look at the generational wealth that came on behalf George W. Bush and a family that was able to get in with the Texas oil industry.  Or in the case of John Kerry who simply married into a billion dollar family.  The likes of Mitt Romney who had the benefit of Bain Capital corporation and investing techniques in which they reap the benefits of their private investments.  That is to say, Romney and his family bring in over $20 million a year in investment income in recent years, and has put their current net worth upwards of $200 million.

Consequently, the Obamas net worth as of 2010 is slightly over $7,ooo,ooo and I’m sure hasn’t budged much since then.

Again, let’s do the math: $200 million versus $7 million.  Which one really has the capacity to build wealth?  The Obamas in true black family form, don’t have their money in major investments and nothing long-term that puts them in a position to better effect their family and their community outside from the automatic government assistance.  Consequently, the Clintons combined wealth is over $100 million much of which has come from the same income source as Obama’s: book sales royalties.  Not to mention, Bill Clinton has a speaking fee of $150,000 — yes, a whole house.

Wealth, in case you’re wondering is your overall assets minus your liabilities.  This becomes particularly direct and poignant when a couple of years ago, black women on the blogosphere and social media were in an uproar when it was announced their median wealth as a demographic was only $5.  I guess they could grab meal from McDonald’s $1 menu and not go into debt for it.  This assets minus liabilities equation is serious when it means what can you give over to the next generation is a serious deal.  Part of my point is that even still for a black family that has reached the status that only 43 prior families had enjoyed, the Obamas are far behind the pack.

Gloriously rich by my standards, but still you get the point.

Are student loans the singular thing preventing black wealth?  No of course not.  All of my friends telling me to put black rims and red brake pads on my car is what’s holding us back.  Seriously, for what purpose?  I bought a car that I can only afford with this job I have, and the car clearly is depreciating in long-term value and I have a $19,000 liability on my hands.  Add that $19K to the school loans I have amassed and I don’t even know how much anti-wealth I have.

Not to mention the effect that this recession had on the black community.  It’s a documented fact and not a twisting of facts that indeed in some parts of the black community, the recession felt a lot more like a depression. With black earning power a fraction of that for their white counterparts, it’s no wonder when you lop student loan debt on top of that, the prospects of legitimate wealth building are about as probable as winning the lottery.

President Barack Obama "slow jams" the news on the Jimmy Fallon Show. 4/24/2012

Take my parents for instance.  My father worked his whole life, 39 years he consistently held employment and provided for my family, but it took his whole life to work and provide enough of a middle class lifestyle, yet retirement comes and those savings, pension pay outs and Social Security checks are barely covering monthly expenses.  Even if my parents had made the best financial decisions over the years, they still wouldn’t be in a position to do anything with regards to wealth building and passing on something to me.  Perhaps the house would be bigger and the car would be a bit fancier, but there would never have been a trust passed on nor endowments to give to _______ University in their name.

Even before the “POTUS with the mostus” the Preezy of the United Steezy Barack Obama “slow jammed” the news with Jimmy Fallon last night, I was going to write this, but Obama further illuminated my point last night.  This level of debt is crippling.  The sliver of hope that you may have that one day you’ll

Just as a side question though, if you had $25,000,00 free and clear, married with children, what would you do with it?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Touré, Hip Hop Provocateur or Social Media Pimp: A Devolution of Postblackness

10 Apr

If I had to give this piece a subtitle to the subtitle it would be what the name of the article I have over at FWDNation ”a devolution of postblackness in primetime.”

In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about, it stems from an interview that Touré gave on Piers Morgan’s CNN show two weeks ago.  Touré  was being interviewed about the cultural implications surrounding the Trayvon Martin case and this was on the heels of an interview that Piers had with Robert Zimmerman, the brother of Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman.  I watched the interview that Piers gave it was borderline uncomfortable to watch his brother fish for answers in the face of highly circumstantial facts and even higher speculations about what really happened between the end of the 911 tape and when police arrived on the scene to see a dead Trayvon Martin.

Touré, true to form, took issue with Piers Morgan for what he took as a softball interview apparently.  As if that wasn’t enough, Touré directly challenged Piers’ journalistic integrity and by extension that of CNN for allowing Robert Zimmerman to be interviewed.  Piers’ followed up about the flap that Touré had very recently found himself embroiled in concerning a tweet about “Zimmermaning” which Touré had used as a euphemism for murder.  He called it “dark humor” during the interview.

The icing on the cake came when Touré claimed that Piers wasn’t even qualified to discuss maters of race here in this country because of him only being 6 years a resident here in the United States.  Piers responded, in a terse British fashion “What a load of fatuous nonsense” and I promptly burst into laughter.  Honestly, what else could you say there?  I kept expecting Piers to really lose his cool because if it had been me, it would have been a repeat of Lawrence O’Donnell going off on George Zimmerman’s lawyer who walked out on an interview.  Piers held his cool and then lobbed a final barb as the last word that Touré definitely didn’t have the journalistic skills by saying “So we are different people.  I like to think that I’m a professional journalist, Toure.  I think you are something else,” and it goes to commercial break.

Touré has consistently, some might even say pathologically, in hot water when it comes to the systems of social media.  From his Tweets to his appearances on MSNBC as a contributor  and even to his essays that get published in various magazines and online outlets.  I always heard about this singularly named individual, but I never really followed him until recently.  I took him to task earlier this year when he suggested that “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” should no longer be the Negro [Black] National Anthem and suggested a Marvin Gaye song.  I respectfully disagreed with what he had to say–emphasis on respectfully.  Then I ran across an article he did for Time magazine in a series of other articles entitled “Black Irony.”  Again, I understood his point of view, but I took some umbrage with the situation of blackness that he decided to take.

One of the working umbrella and catch-all definitions that Touré works with the understanding of postblackness is the disavowing of one’s self with the strict and narrow definitions of what does it mean to be Black.  Yes, with a capital “B.”  For any person of darker skin who has been accused with not being black, this is undoubtedly a question and an issue that we have replayed over in our minds at one time or another.  Touré opens his book in the first chapter giving the example of when he went skydiving and three black guys walked up to him recognizing his persona and politely and quietly told him that “Black people don’t do that.”  It births one of those extremely deep and pervasive questions about our ontological blackness: what does it mean to actually be black?

We live in an era we like to throw “post-” on just about any and everything.  This is the the post-Generation X generation; we live in post-modern times; the black youth born after 1990 are growing up in a post-Hip Hop era. Touré has joined the chorus in adding postblackness to the lexicon of this pop culture.  Touré has the style, the swag and the affectations of someone who ascribes to understand the notions of postblackness.  He has the right skin color: he’s not too dark, not too light, indeed the perfect blend of coffee and cream.  His natural hair images him with the likes of Aaron McGruder and Huey Freeman of “Boondocks” fame, which for most, align him with the right side of being black.  He speaks well, which translates into him speaking like a white guy, and that seals the deal that he is indeed post-black; he has transcended traditional norms about what it means to be black and therefore we should accept him as such.

Perhaps this is my own personal bias and my own tainted understandings about postmodern thinking as a dominating metanarrative, but Touré is indicative of one who has created a concept that justifies his own sensationalist means.  To put a fine point on it, if Touré’s on-air spat with Piers Morgan last week is any indication of his true modus operandi then Touré is more interested in personal gain than enriching the common good.  For anyone that has kept up with my writings, I have consistently taken to task those who favor the sensational over the substantive.  If this is what Touré has to offer, then I want no part of his brand.

Obviously, Touré is a man of substantive intellect.  He’s well published and well-respected and has a curriculum vitae that would put anyone to shame.  What Touré has done, I believe, is to brand himself as a firebrand (post)black public intellectual.  Which in and of itself isn’t a bad thing.  But what bothers me, and I believe I’m not the only one, is that his firebrand is that of a pedantic and supercilious harpy.  As a result of this branding that he has done, I think he has rendered his postblack argument null and void.

Consistently he argues from the modernist vantage point ofbeingblack.  That there is one, universally accepted way of viewing things, or that at least there should be.  It was clear when he made the argument that Morgan was essentially unqualified to speak on the deeper matters of race in America.  This type of race privilege move is one that we’re more familiar with coming from the likes of Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton or Dr. Cornel West.  But let’s be honest, none of these men would have been so brash in making that assertion.  To do so marginalizes their fellow conversant and the main issue at hand never gets discussed.

Let’s not be confused, positing postblackness is not the same as the conversation about a postracial America.  The two do not exist in the same sphere and for the time being, I think shouldn’t.  Postracial discussion in the public square do nothing but sweep the issues of racism and fundamental racial prejudices and bigotry under the rug for the sake of avoiding a confrontation.  Postblackness specifically is asking blacks, primarily, to reify the space in which they occupy blackness.  If and only if that happens would I think we would be ready to even entertain the arguments for a postracial America.

The devolution of the postblack argument before it gained any real traction disappoints me.  The sole proponent of this concept is Touré in the form of a Generation X voice, one that usually identifies with the hip hop generation in some shape or form.  What he had to say is worth saying and probably as it’s own is a concept that carries enough of a sensationalist bent that it would sell itself.  Instead,  Touré went for the low-hanging fruit and decided to put on the brakes with this particular line of discourse.

Per the ontological black struggle, and par for the course,  Touré is both provocateur and pimp; selling his brand of intellectualism below market just to make a name for himself.  One might charge that rather than being the pimp, he is the one being pimped, out a’ whoring for a social media brand that gorges on sensationalism for their own livelihood.

My simple advice to  Touré: it’s not worth it.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

The Troubling Theology of Rick Santorum

27 Feb

All Hail the Great Theocrat, Rick Santorum the First!

I guess that’s what the conservative right wing party is saying in certain corners.  I guess I’m taking my cue from the biblical story about Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah who refused to bow to the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, who has set up a statue of a Babylonian deity, and I’m just refusing to conform to the theology Rick Santorum is putting forth.

As the economy has limped forward, the last two months have seen unemployment numbers drop.  With unemployment numbers being a lagging economic indicator, and job crreation numbers actually going up, the Dow Jones hitting the 13,000 mark once again, it’s safe to say that the economy is getting better.  Certainly seeing housing starts and housing sales go up with probably be the final sign that we have climbed out of the recession, but we are certainly moving in the right direction.

How unfortunate for the Republican party.

Their 12-month stance as the horse race for the GOP nomination began last year was that Obama’s policies were negatively affecting the economy.  From Obama’s tax plan to the budgets submitted by the White House which led to the type death defying congressional standoffs that introduced the word “brinksmanship” into the newsmedia lexicon to describe just how deadlocked Congress was.  Every chance a Republican in front of a microphone had, they took a pot shot at Obama’s handling of the economy.

Then suddenly, as 2011 turned into 2012, the rhetoric against Obama stopped.

The next thing you know, no one was talking about how bad Obama was handling the economy and then we were hearing debates about birth control, women’s rights and the Roman Catholic church, and the issue of abortions was back in front page news.  And then, much to my shock and chagrin, the Great Theocrat, Rick Santorum the First brought up Obama’s “phony theology.”

I’ts not just that Rick Santorum and Barack Obama have opposing theologies, which I’m quite sure they do, but using religion as a focal point for culture wars disturbs me.  This comment that Santorum made was first of the many statements concerning religion and Obama that were talking points for mainstream media last week.   Specifically, the “phony theology” quote was in reference to Obama’s stance on contraceptive coverage with faith-based institutions.  Santorum was making the claim that Obama was “antithetical” to the Judeo-Christian values of this country.

What Santorum did was lay the foundation for labeling Obama as not a Christian.  This of course, opens up the discussion for the extreme right wing faction of the party to label Obama a Muslim yet again.  What startles me about this argument is the blatant hypocrisy that they employ in their logic.  Elected GOP officials teeter on the edge of calling him a Muslim and certainly allow their un-elected operatives to call him as a such, yet they tout his attendance at Trinity United Church of Christ under the pastorate of Jeremiah Wright as evidence of him not being a Christian.

All hail the Sweater Vest King, Theocrat Rick Santorum, the First!

Regardless, this time, the argument seems to be nuanced differently.

Santorum is carelessly trying to paint Obama as being unChristian and because he is not a Christian, he will not support the moral values of this country.  In 2008, the argument was more heavily framed in the ideology of religion, this time it is the religion of the ideology.  It is as though we’re waiting on the Santorum campaign is throwing the combination of religion and ideological attacks on the wall to see which one will stick.  To me, it seems as if Santorum won’t care if they paint Obama as either a Muslim or a non-Christian secularist who doesn’t hold the values of this country.

And he has help in doing so.

Seeing Franklin Graham, the son of great American evangelist Billy Graham get on MSNBCs “Morning Joe” last week and outright question the Christianity of Obama was absolutely shameful.  Personally, it was a low moment in the realm of public theology.  First of all, it’s just bad public theology to speak with any degree of certainty the soteriological ramifications of another individual.  If Franklin Graham was to be so bold as to outwardly favor one candidate or even one political party over the other, he would have been best to defer the question of “Do you think ________ [insert candidate name] is a Christian?” He could have simply answered “I don’t know, you have to ask him” as he did for Obama and give the reasons yay or nay for why he thinks so.  But to be so bold as to clearly declare that the three white men in the GOP field are Christians over the questionable salvation of Obama is just tacky.

This type of jingoistic tripe reduces the validity of religious conversations in this country.  Indeed it conflated the conversation of Christianity with the unabashed religion of Americanity.  This underlying religion of Americanity that no one ever admits to being a dutiful follower of allows this “manifest destiny” type of hegemony to proliferate through the consciousness of American thought.  That’s why one’s veracity as a Christian has been reduced to whether or not one supports the Roman Catholic church on the issue of contraceptive usage and coverage.

This Americanity has also produced the polar opposite of dominionist theology.  Taking their cue from Genesis 1 and the creation story when the story depicts Yahweh creating humans and giving humans dominion over the earth.  The progressives have chosen to understand it as though humans ought to be taking care of the planet and to preserve natural resources as much as possible.  Rick Santorum and his ilk laugh in the face of basic science, scoff at global warming and believe that since we’re here as humans, we’re supposed to use it for all it’s worth–and this is indeed the will of God.

Disgracefully, Santorum’s isses concerning Obama’s theology have not stopped there.  Calling Obama “weak” when it came to him apologizing on behalf of American soldiers who burned the Qur’an was the epitome of why we shouldn’t want him as the head of state.  As basic fact-checking has gone, even George W. Bush apologized on behalf of the American soldiers and the situation at Abu-Ghraib prison.  Yes, presidential apologies are rare, but certainly in this case, necessary.

What further pissed me off, to be blunt, about the Qur’an burning situation it was that the soldiers who burned were alleging that they contained ‘extremist messages or inscriptions” was that isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to the battle of holy books?  Now I’m not sure if that literally means that certain people were using passages as covert messages to start an insurrection, or were these books burned solely with the understanding that the scriptures themselves contain “extremist messages or inscriptions.”  Either way, let’s be honest, if anyone in this country commenced to burning Bibles in a public fashion, whatever  municipality this was located in would have a riot on their hands.  Furthermore, let’s recall the national outrage Pastor Terry Jones faced in Florida last year when he planned to burn the Qu’ran in our own country.  For Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to label Obama as weak for apologizing and then using it as a platform to say that he’s a Muslim apologist essentially is unforgivable.

The latest in this bigoted conversation coming from the Santorum camp has been this meme that has caught fire is this concept that higher education is turning what should be a fundamentally conservative generation into a flock of indoctrinated liberals.  Over this past weekend, Santorum went on a Glenn Beck show and started talking about how a college education is nothing more than liberal indoctrination.  This was followed by a stump speech in Troy, Michigan where Santorum said the following quote:

“Not all folks are gifted in the same way…Some people have incredible gifts with their hands. Some people have incredible gifts and … want to work out there making things. President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob….There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.”

If you want the stunning visual, here it is:

Specifically when Santorum said “He wants to remake you in his image” sounds like theological-speak to me.  Personally, I think it’s a set up to see if Santorum can play his hand right and fashion Obama as an antichrist of sorts.  Given all of the imaging of Obama as a christological character back in 2008 from both sides of the political party aisle, I think it wouldn’t be hard for the Santorum camp to make that sale.  While Santorum might not ever use the word “antichrist” in relationship to Obama, painting Obama as a demagogue-who’s-anti-Christian-and-a-Muslim-apologist-who-went-to-Jeremiah-Wright’s-church-and-is-threatening-to-indoctrinate-your-children-if-they-go-to-college would certainly be up his alley.

Honestly, the level of disingenuousness that Santorum is displaying is unconscionable.  In 2006 he spoke of his committment to college education on his website, as Talking Points Memo reports and let’s not forget his recent on-the-air committment to funding Historically “Blah” College and Universities and how in favor of that he was.

 

Finally, Rick Santorum stepped in it even more than Sarah Palin ever did.  Rick Santorum went so far as to attack posthumously an assassinated president to get across his ideology on the separation of church of state.  While of course the Constitution never explicitly uses that language, the provisions of the First Amendment certainly prohibit the establishment of a state authorized religion, and it certainly prohibits the creation of a theocracy.  The Supreme Court over the years has certainly done well to create a culture of keeping clear the separation of church and state–and rightly so.

Even erroneously Sarah Palin spoke of the Christian beliefs of the founding fathers of the country and all their religious beliefs that, according to her, went into the Constitution, but even Sarah Palin never said that she was against the “separation of church and state.”  Even the social conservatives that try and have Decalogue statues placed on courthouse lawns never come out and say “I’m against the separation of the church and state.”

To that end, O Great Theocrat Rick Santorum, the First, you’re shown your ineptness when it comes to 1) basic foreign policy matters concerning Afghanistan and what a president needs to do in certain situations, 2) your understanding of higher education in this country (especially from a guy with three advanced degrees) and 3) your inability to uphold and “faithfully execute” the duties of a head of state in defending the concepts and basic ideals of the Constitution.

The end of the Santorum Dynasty c. 2012

May your reign of terror end swiftly.

Keep it uppity and truthfully radical, JLL

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

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

 

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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