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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

Make Your Revolution Relevant: Why I’ve Been Silent About Trayvon Martin

26 Mar

I had to be honest with myself over the last few days about why I have been silent about what I consider to be the epitome of one of the greatest travesties of justice that I have seen in the recent years.

I heard about Trayvon Martin’s death about a week after it happened and I saw a few people tweet about it.  I read the circumstances and shook my head and refused to read more about it.  It hit home for me.  It hit too close to home to be quite honest.  The next couple of days I did my tweets to Rev. Al Sharpton in hopes that the story would gain national attention, and thankfully, I wasn’t the only one that felt the same way.  About two weeks after his death, the name Trayvon Martin was seen all over Twitter and various bloggers, essayists and journalists had weighed in on the topic.

Yet, I stayed silent.

I wrote a small piece over at FWDNation but I generally spoke about the pornography of violence in our culture and the “violent normalcy of civilization” in a broad topic and used Trayvon Martin as a lens to discuss it.  However, I never really fully engaged the issue, I remained silent on the blogging subject.  Then one morning as I was getting ready for work the Today Show on NBC covered the story in it’s lead half-hour and that’s when I heard the 911 tapes.  The rapport of the gunshot coming through the caller’s phone shook me to my core.

Still, I stayed silent.

I went on for a few days and I read articles concerning black male image in this country and the issue about how black men look and are perceived; from wearing hoodies to wearing business suits and what message are we sending and what message is being received in this country solely based on how we are dressed.

Then suddenly I was jerked to being 12 years old myself.

I remember my mother telling me the first time I rode the bus solo from a class I was taking downtown and back to school midday about how I appeared to everyone.  She always told me that I looked older than what I was and that people were going to see me as being older.  That was her way of trying to tell me that most everyone is going to see a young black male and a possible threat to their lives; that people were going to readily see me as a potential hoodlum ready to rob them or terrorize them.  That was her way of saying that people paint young black males with a wide brush and that I need to be prepared for it.

I remember the first time I consciously remember a white woman walking on a downtown street move her purse to the other side of her body because she was approaching me and move it back as soon as she had passed.  I remember the first time entering an elevator and seeing a white woman clutch her purse tighter as I entered.  I remember walking home from school when it was dark and seeing another neighborhood white girl see me coming and begin to run full tilt until she reached the house on the same block which I lived.  These are all small memories, the ones in which we don’t talk about.

And yet I stayed silent about Trayvon.

The great equalizer surrounding Trayvon’s death that hit home for me was that essentially there wasn’t much preventing anyone from having had stopped me on the street and question my whereabouts when I was 16 or 17 walking home in the dark from school.  There’s nothing preventing the police from rolling on me just because I’m walking home in my own neighborhood from when I was 17 or to even my age right now.  Growing up in the 90′s and and the very early 2000′s the black male image was acutely determined by how much of a “hyper-masculine thug” you looked like.  This meant wearing oversized jeans, oversized shirts–and yes hoodies.

Even still, I remained silent concerning Trayvon.

Commentators from Rev. Al Sharpton to Melissa Harris-Perry began discussing the disparities of this “stand your ground” law which has allowed Trayvon’s killer George Zimmerman to maintain a self-defense argument.  The commentary discussing why the use of “deadly force” as justifiable in self-defense almost defeats the point of the law in the first place.  The questions finally gor raised about black male imagery in a public atmosphere.  Does wearing a hoodie, carrying sweet tea and a bag of Skittles equate to suspicious behavior?  Does it warrant a self-appointed neighborhood watchman to pursue a 17 year old while carrying a loaded gun?

The answer is of course no, but still I couldn’t bring myself to write about Trayvon.

President Obama answers a reporter's question about the death of Trayvon Martin, Friday, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington.
Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP

Last Friday, a reporter asked Obama specifically about Trayvon Martin and more questions ensued and Obama, now famously, said “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”  He went on to say “I think all of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen,” and encouraged a full investigation on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice, headed by fellow black man, Eric Holder.  Certainly, Obama invoked the specter of race in his comments nearly four years to the date when he gave his famous speech on race in Philadelphia prompted by his affiliation with Jeremiah Wright.

Again, I remained silent.

However, over the weekend as “hoodie Sunday” ensued in churches across this country with clergy proudly wearing hooded sweatshirts and black male ministers armed with Skittles and Arizona brand sweet tea proclaimed from the pulpits “Do I look suspicious?”; and Newt Gingrich, in the death throes of his campaign assailed Obama for playing the race card; as sentiments concerning the countless deaths of young black men at the hands of other young black men who remain nameless in the face of the now household name of Trayvon Martin…

….I decided to say something.

There is a parable in the Markan account of the Jesus narrative in the canonized New Testament that speaks about tenant farmers who rebel against the landowner by killing his son in revenge.  Essentially, these are sharecroppers who band together and stage a revolt against the landowners, probably mad about their economic plight, unhappy about their living conditions and are well aware that there is absolutely nothing they can do to be upwardly mobile.  The only thing they did to be in that situation is to have been born in that caste.  Moreover, some were probably aware that the landowners were in the back pocket of the Roman officials that had occupied the Roman controlled territory.  That is to suggest, that their immediate enemy, the landowner, looked like them, but the reigning control had a different skin color and was of a different nationality.

When I had to preach this text, I realized that the tenants, the sharecroppers were protesting the economic injustices of the era.  Protesting so much that they staged a revolt.  But, I’m sure, like Nat Turner, they met their fate in rather unpleasant terms as the text implies.  To that end, what happens?  Nat Turner’s rebellion, or revolt, did nothing to end slavery.  If nothing else, some say it lead to harsher treatment of slaves in that region, and things got worse before they got better.  Turner is no more than a footnote in some history books and his full story is only known in very particular circles, namely within the black community.

So what about these tenants, these sharecroppers?  My message to those tenants, and my message to those donning hoodies and armed with Skittles and cans of iced tea, is to make your revolution relevant.

There’s a decided difference between a revolt and a revolution.  A revolt is marked by a direct response to a direct issue.  Revolts can be when when union workers stage a work stoppage for better pay or better work conditions.  Or the violent revolts that happen when military coups overthrow dictatorships or the like.  A revolution, on the other hand, is usually the elongated fights and protests that happen in many different areas over the course of a time span that result in a change in the meta-narrative.  Revolutions are characterised by a movement.  The French Revolution, as we know it, was the result of the forward progress over years.  The modern Civil Rights movement, as we know it, was the result of calculated events that took place ever since enslaved Africans landed on the shores of North America and realized their status as humans had been revoked by the ruling class.

Those who revolt in the name of a direct issue and fail to focus on the larger issues at play, sadly are not making the revolution relevant.  What my fellow white conservative brothers and sisters are failing to do is to realize the racial implications of all of this.  Freelance journalist Reniqua Allen put it this way in a Washington Post article:

Obama’s measured words on [last] Friday only highlighted  how removed the president seems from the candidate who gave that stirring speech on race four years ago. Obama was asked directly about “allegations of lingering racism in our society,” but he shied away. He rightly used caution in talking about a case that the Justice Department is investigating, and he offered a moving sentiment for Martin’s parents, saying, “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.” But he hasn’t grappled with this tragedy, or with racial disparities and divisions, along with us, guiding us in a way that only he can — as the commander-in-chief, as a lawyer, as a community leader and as a black man.

The Obama presidency is “post-racial” only in the sense that it gives us an excuse not to grapple with race anymore.

While our conservative cohorts are quick to claim a post-racial America, fact of the matter is that if Barack and Michelle had a son and he was still just Senator Obama who lived in the neighborhood where I grew up and walked the same streets where I grew up, he very well could be stopped and harassed by police.  Or other random white citizens.  Lest Chicago Southsiders forget the story of Lenard Clark who suffered irreparable brain damage after white citizens decided he didn’t belong in their neighborhood.  Sound familiar?  And no, this didn’t happen in the 1960s, this was in 1997.

What is problematic for me is that we live in a country where we operate from sound bytes and we fail to ever have the conversation about the nuances of the major issues that affect our everyday lives.  Trayvon Martin’s death is a clear enough cut case that can be summed up in three sentences–a soundbite.  Whereas the issue of black on black crimes in the inner cities of our country cannot and shouldnot be summed up so concisely.  Therefore, to protest or to march on those issues isn’t quite as easy.  While some might argue if we got as angry over Trayvon’s death as we do over our sons and daughters shot intentionally and randomly then it we wouldn’t be burying them senselessly every week.

Maybe.

The frequency of black on black murder makes us inured to it’s occurences.  Especially when so many of us who have the means of which to blog, to comment, to be journalists and to have this conversation live well outside of the neighborhoods where violence is so commonplace, we comment from our ivory towers and our obvious place of privilege.  We sit and try and make sense of deadly occurrences when we see black and brown faces as both perpetrator and victim.  We try and figure out what it is we are supposed to do; what are we supposed to be angry about and what can be done about this!

That is to suggest, that when we decided to protest, we have to be clear about what it is we are protesting against.  Newt Gingrich calling the president’s comments “disgraceful” about Trayvon Martin and trying to steer the conversation toward why isn’t he concerned about the deaths of black males in the District are nothing more than mere distractions to the current issue at hand.  The hoodies in Twitter avis and Facebook profile pictures represent the hundreds of “Trayvons” that have died senselessly at the hands of police and of other persons because they “looked suspicious.”  The protest is to get the “stand your ground/make my day” law changed from allowing justifiable deadly force.  The protest is directly so that if there is factual evidence to give George Zimmerman a day in court, that it will indeed happen.

These protests, this revolt, if you will, exists so that when the revolution happens, we will be able to say that it has relevancy in our lives.  We must refrain from always focusing on staging one revolt to the next revolt; one protest to the next protest.  We are required to frame these exercises of our freedoms and these fights for liberation in the context of a revolution.  I couldn’t bring myself to write about Trayvon Martin until now, hence my silence, until I was clear what the fight was about.  God forbid I jump on the bandwagon for a cause I know nothing about.  Until now, my focus wasn’t clear, but now it it.  Let us not be focused on the revolt, but let us focus on the revolution; and I dare say, make it relevant.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

The Black Church, Homegoing Services and Whitney Houston

18 Feb

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I cringed in my seat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

We miss you Whitney!

Uppity Updates: Week of February 5, 2012

13 Feb

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

Luckily, there are Uppity Updates.

Here’s my rundown of what happened last week.

1.  Roland Martin Gets Suspended from CNN for his Tweets

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

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

and

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

Roland Martin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who knows?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First things first.

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

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

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

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

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

4.  Sarah Palin is Still Here.

This one will be short and sweet.

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

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

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

5.  Chris Brown Come-back or Female Insensitivity

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

I think, I comfortably fall in the latter part.

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

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

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

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Red Tails: Another Tuskegee Experiment Gone Bad

23 Jan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Mormonism vs. Universalism: A Post-Racial Evangelical Dilemma

13 Jan

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

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

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

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

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

How’s that?

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

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

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

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

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

Enter Barack Obama.

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

Prior to the question Falsani asks him, Obama says

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

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

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

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

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

Frankly, I don’t think so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Post-racial my foot.

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

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

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

8 Dec

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

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

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

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

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

This presents a theological and moral connundrum.

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

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

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

Frankly, we have a sex problem here.

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

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

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

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

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

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

 

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

21 Nov

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enter “Reed Between the Lines.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

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