I hope he doesn’t mind me doing this, but I have a stepson who is going through some stuff right now. And while on my walk yesterday, I felt God put this message on my heart for him. I’d like to post it here as well because I know that there are so many young men who need to hear it. I realize that young … Continue reading A Letter to a Young Black Man
I have written before about issues of race, especially as pertains to conservative’s perceptions about race before. My basic premise is that I do not think that conservatives have an accurate or often even rational view of race in America. Now, mind you, I’m not some goofy lefty here to incite white guilt and pander for more government programs. I am coming at this from a conservative perspective myself. For me this is both a moral issue and a practical imperative. I say a practical imperative because if we think that we can keep the problems which arise in impoverished, minority communities isolated, we’re not paying attention. Over and over, we can see that things from social breakdown to styles of music and dress spread outwards from our cities into the lives of middle class white suburbanites. So my point is, it matters. If you are a conservative who cares about the breakdown of the family or porn posing as music, then you need to care as much about issues of race as you do about what goes on in leafy suburban neighborhoods.
As I have argued before, one of the main barriers to dealing realistically with matters of race and the ongoing fall-out of the history of race relations in this country, is an almost complete denial of race as a real issue worth dealing with. What is crazy, and what I did not realize was that this is not at all a new phenomena. We like to think that race is not an issue anymore because we have made so much progress. Anyone claiming that race is an obstacle for them must be trying to “play the race card” and “make themselves the victim”. However, it turns out that even back when we would all agree that the state of affairs for African Americans was horrid, unequal and morally indefensible, white Americans thought pretty much exactly the same thing!
I came across some statistics today which I think we all need to remember the next time we are tempted to write off race as an actual issue today: Continue reading “Check Yourself”
Over at Christianity Today there’s an article titled “Black Power from the Pulpit” about Jeremiah Wright which places him and black liberation theology in the context of the black church and the message of Christianity. It is actually an interview with Thabiti Anyabwile who wrote the book: The Decline of African American Theology. Mr. Anyabwile is a critic of both black liberation theology and the state of many black churches, without being one of the many jingoists we’ve heard from lately who think saying, “they’re racist” constitutes a legitimate critique. He is speaking from a position of understanding and respecting the history and tradition of the black church as well as the struggles of African Americans. Wouldn’t it have been nice if more people who were disturbed by Rev. Wright’s ranting would have turned to someone with this perspective for their critiques rather than the craptastic nonsense we’ve been subjected to?
At any rate, I recommend reading the article, but here are some of my favorite take-away points:
On the way the controversy played out in the media:
Q: Has anything surprised you about the wave of indignation that has followed news of these sermons?
A: I’ve been surprised that so much effort has been made to saddle Obama with the views of his pastor . . . I’ve also been surprised at how deep the ignorance of the African American church and its preaching tradition goes.
It is interesting that some of those who were particularly upset over Wright’s remarks didn’t initially see them as being racial. They seemed to them to simply be anti-American. Continue reading “The Context of Jeremiah Wright”
Last week I wrote a post titled “Transcending Race and Delusional Conservatives” outlining several ways that mainstream conservative thinking about race is wrong. (And I am coming at this as a conservative myself, mind you.) Today, in the Washington Post, Gary MacDougal wrote a column titled “Jeremiah Wright’s Wider Toll” which is one of the worst examples another conservative misconception about race that I have seen: the “if they would just get over it, they would be successful” meme. The premise of the column is that Jeremiah Wright’s worst offense is preaching a message of racial grievance which leads to a lack of personal responsibility and effort by those stuck in inner city communities.
Now, there is a grain of truth behind the idea that an emphasis on racial barriers can create the perception that it is not worth trying because failure is inevitable. It can also contribute to an inability to overcome normal setbacks and obstacles, since their presence may well be seen as evidence of the futility of trying to attain success as an African American. However, in the hands of many conservatives this relatively small factor in the disparity of outcomes between whites and blacks becomes the entire explanation for problems in black America. The thinking is that if African Americans would just let go of their anger and resentment, stop seeing themselves as victims and take responsibility for their own actions, African Americans would experience as much success as any other group in America.
There are many problems, fallacies and illogical assumptions with this line of thinking. I’ll start with the most obvious one as demonstrated by Mr. MacDougal’s column:
Imagine getting up each morning to go to work in a society that doesn’t want you, doesn’t respect you and seeks to hold you back. Your spiritual leader has told you this, after all. . . If this is the message you got from your mentor, would you expect that you could succeed? Would you try very hard, if at all?” [emphasis mine] Continue reading “Conservative Delusions About Race, Part II”
Richard Cohen at the Washington Post wrote an interesting column today titled “Words Heard Differently”. He starts by riffing off George Bernard Shaw’s observation that The USA and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language. Today, it’s white Americans and African Americans who are suffering that fate. How true that is. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned a story coming out … Continue reading Separated by a Common Language
The candidacy of Barak Obama has inspired a great deal of talk, some of it self-inflicted by Sen. Obama, about the idea of transcending race. However, as the campaign as worn on, it has become apparent that “transcend race” is one of those phrases which means different things to different people. It seems to be a Rorschach test of wishful thinking in which people see it as meaning what they want it to mean.
I want to address how this issue plays out on the conservative side. The conservative perspective is the one which is closer to what I identify with and I think we have suffered as a nation because of conservatives’ refusal to look at and think reasonably about issues of race.
In regards to transcending race, on the conservative side, I have heard a fair amount of talk which indicates a wish for “transcending race” to mean eliminating race as an issue to which we need to pay attention to or offer consideration for. Because of this, conservatives have often reacted to things like the fact that Obama attends an Afrocentric church as a betrayal of his claim to be someone who can help us move past race. However, this perspective is based on a host of completely erroneous ideas.
The first problem with this perspective is that it presumes that in order to “get past race”, we must embrace a sort of “color-blind” nirvana and assiduously pretend that we have already reached such a place. In large part, this seems to mean that we ought to reject anything which conflicts with the idea that we are and should be completely unaware of race. Continue reading “Transcending Race and Delusional Conservatives”
Northwestern University just put out a study which found that white people avoid dealing with black people or discussions of race out of fear of doing something which will cause them to be accused of bigotry. This is probably one of those “We need researchers to tell us this?” things.
As many of my readers know, I am married to an African American man, so we’ve had many of those conversations which most white people avoid like the plague. I’ll just say that it’s been interesting.
Over time, I’ve come to see the relationship between white Americans and black Americans as being like a bad marriage. Neither side trusts the other, each attributes the worst possible motivations to anything the other side does, neither is willing to listen to the other but continually demands that their concerns be taken seriously, etc., etc. The solution to a bad marriage generally requires the two parties to stop being so self defensive, listen to each other, avoid responding negatively at all costs, be willing to do the right things for the relationship irregardless of what the other person may or may not do, etc. I believe that it will take the same sorts of actions between white and black Americans to actually move past the distrust and hostility which we generally deal with each other with.
I think that one of the biggest problems with the black-white relationship is that we fail to understand or appreciate how things look from the other’s perspective and then insist on assigning the worst possible motivations to what the other group does (or does not do). I believe that if we are willing to start making a real effort to understand the other group’s perspective (not necessarily agree with – just understand that POV as sincere and real), it would allow us to stop being so defensive and hostile with each other.
I bring this and this study up because my husband recently shared an idea he has about just the sort of “white persons inadvertently messes up, black people go ballistic” interaction which seems to have made white people so nervous that they avoid race at all costs. Continue reading “Black-White Conversations We’re Afraid To Have”
Over at Crunchy Cons, Rod has a post up linking to a rather unfunny piece by Diogenes on Catholic World Daily which is meant to mock those who have or would like others to, ask for forgiveness for the sins of our ancestors. A clip from the piece:
It’s back in style: the political fashion of issuing official “apologies” for wrongs committed by others — especially long-dead others — in order to cash-in on the compassion sweepstakes and dutch rub the opposition in the process. Australia’s Labour Government apologized to the aboriginals last month, and now Canada appears ready to follow suit. Perhaps the following Mea Culpa, first offered in response to the initial wave of vicarious mortification, might bear repeating:
Bless me, Father, for my ancestors have sinned. It has been two episodes of 60 Minutes since my last confession.
— My parents were unwelcoming of government mandated integration in their working class neighborhood. At least, I ‘m not absolutely sure they were unwelcoming, but they had a statue of the Sacred Heart in the parlor, and that was typical of the kind of people that put property values before justice in those days. For these and all their other sins of bigotry I ask pardon and penance.
I think it’s safe to say that our pastors are doing a really, really bad teaching the flock how God wants us to deal with the sins of our ancestors. The gap between what God calls us to do and how many Christians, even good faithful Christians, think about what is the right way to deal with the sins of our for-bearers could hardly be greater. A commentator on the Catholic World News sight where the item was put up had this to say: Continue reading “The sins of the fathers”
The Upside Down World 