A POTENT STEW: RACISM, SLAVERY AND BAD RELIGION

               

There is a movement afoot in this country- a movement that is so vile and evil that, just a few years ago, I would have accused anyone who reported it of being a conspiracy theorist.  That movement is to justify slavery as a first step, I believe, toward re-instituting it.

The most troubling aspect of this neo-slavery movement is that its proponents are not (ostensibly) Klansmen or Neo –Nazis.  They are pillars of the community, businessmen and women; talk show hosts with millions of followers, and at least one presidential candidate, Michelle Bachman.

Consider that the Texas Board of Education just a year ago tried to eliminate the word “slavery” from the slave trade in textbooks and rename it the “Atlantic triangular trade.”  There were a lot of other silly lies this Board wanted instituted in the textbooks as well, such as the large role Christianity played in the actions of the founding fathers (Most of the were Deists).   There is a strange but NOT funny irony in Texas folks denying slavery, considering all the propaganda with which we’ve been assaulted purporting how brave Texans died for freedom.  The part the propaganda leaves out is that the freedom for which they died was the freedom to own slaves!

Then there is the pledge, signed by presidential candidate, Michelle Bachman, yes, the very same Michelle Bachman who said Obama had failed Black people.  Part of that pledge stated that a black child born in slavery had a better chance of having two parents than one born today.  This same Woman Who Would BE President kept on her list of “must read” books, a tome that asserted that Black people were blessed to have been enslaved and that race relations were excellent during slavery!  (I couldn’t make this up if I tried)

 And what blog on ignorant racism would be complete without a reference to Glenn Beck who has added his own creative interpretation of slavery.  Beck has, astonishingly, asserted that Blacks in America had the option of resettling in Liberia or staying here, and that things couldn’t have been that bad during slavery or else all those Black folks would not have opted to stay!

It is difficult to get one’s head around the enormity of the lies these people are perpetrating.  Ever since Barak Obama became president, these people have discarded any parameters on the lying and have gone off the deep end proclaiming Obama to be an anti-imperialist Kenyan, a Muslim, a racist, and basically anything  else they could think of.

Yet what might be most troubling about all this outlandish lying (other than the fact that the media treats these people with respect) lies in the fact that they all have at least one thing in common: they are all allegedly devout Christians.  All three of the major religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, have produced movements and individuals who have stood for peace, kindness, justice and all that sane people hold dear.  They have also provided the rationale for chattel slavery, genocide and oppression.

So why are some religious people so loving while others, while praying to the same God, so hateful and violent?  The answer lies in whether the religion is based in any kind of spirituality.  More and more people are coming to understand that while religion and spirituality can and often do intersect, they are not the same thing.  Religion is basically a belief in a specific dogma.  Christians believe that God, in the form of His Son, sacrificed Himself for the redemption of our sins.  Jews believe in the God of the Old Testament.  And Muslims believe that Mohammed was the true prophet of God, whose proper name is Allah.  Spirituality can be found within the teachings of all three of these religions, although it is not tied to any particular dogma.

Religionists without spirituality are arrogant and judgmental.  They seek to remain separate from others to whom they feel superior.  They cannot learn from history because they are constantly rewriting it.   They ignore Scriptures that condemn their arrogance, like Luke 18:11.   They often presume to speak for God, attributing natural disasters to God’s wrath at those whom they disdain.  Remember Pat Robertson gleefully explaining the earthquake in Haiti as God’s retribution for the Haitians making a deal with the Devil during their revolution?  Michelle Bachman just stated that Hurricane Irene was God telling Washington to cut spending. (She later claimed to have been joking).

Several years ago, at the request of some alienated and isolated African American students, I delivered a lecture on spirituality at a conservative Christian College just outside Chicago.   I began- I thought innocuously- by stating that the first law of spirituality is that we all have more in common than that which separates us and that we should understand that for the majority of people their particular religion is an accident of birth; people born in Islamic countries tend to be Muslims and people born in Christian countries tend to be Christians.  The reaction could not have been stronger had I tried to kill them.   Little did I realize that by saying we are all the same, I was attacking the very foundation of all they held dear: their status as God’s Chosen People.

We are now faced with a new and invigorated army of slavery advocates.  I cannot overstate how evil it is for people to try to justify one of-if not the greatest- moral stains on the soul of the planet.  They can look themselves in the mirror and go to church every week because, rather than serve God; they are served by a God (of their own invention) Whose sole purpose is to feed their greed and insecurities.  Many members of my generation feel that they have marched and protested enough.  They just want to live comfortably.  Quite understandable.  But these neo-slavery advocates demand vigilance.  

If I could sum up the antidote to these fools, I’d quote a personal hero of mine, the ridiculously profound African American theologian, Howard Thurman, who once said, “I always look for my own scent when I meet another man.”

Helping Obama Stand Up To Republcans

                President Obama is a smart guy who understands the issues and what needs to be done.  He might have become the greatest president ever, were it not for the viral condition that has plagued the Democratic Party for decades, but seems to have hit him more than anyone else:  his weakness is his weakness.   When you stop and think about what the Democrats and Republicans stand for, it’s amazing that there is such a thing as the Republican Party.   They want to deregulate the financial industry so that they can steal billions and wreck the economy again as they did under both Bush administrations.  They bust unions, not just now, but going back to the greatest Republican of all, Ronald Reagan, who started his presidency by busting the air traffic controllers union.  They are absolutely fine with allowing oil companies and mining companies to destroy the planet.  They balance budgets on the backs of the working class people, the sick, and college students while protecting tax loopholes for the wealthy.  Yet, they consistently beat up on Democrats, especially Obama; cheered on by the very people they are hurting.  Amazing!

                I don’t know why the Republicans are so strong, and the Democrats so weak.  I do know that the Republicans have proudly staked out their position on the political spectrum as conservatives.  They transmogrified the word “liberal” into something dirty, and the Democrats whimpered along with it.  While John Kerry was running for the presidency, he appeared on the “Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” Stewart pitched him the biggest, slowest softball imaginable, “Are you the most liberal member of Congress?”   It was the perfect platform for Kerry to launch into a response that said, “If being liberal means that I care about the elderly, and the working class people, then, yes.  If it means making a tax code that finally gives a break to working class people, then, yes.  If it means that I want all Americans, and not just the wealthy to have an opportunity to get a great education, then yes.”  He could have said all those things and more and reclaimed the left from a position of strength.  Instead, Kerry’s response was?  Drum Roll please!  “No.”

                Obama elevated the Democratic practice of being weak and not fighting back to an art form. Democrat Joseph Lieberman  supported Obama’s Republican opponent, Jon McCain, and stood quietly with the Republicans while Obama’s character was being assassinated during the election.   When McCain lost, Lieberman crawled back to the Democratic Party.  The word from Obama was that there would be no retaliation for Lieberman’s defection.  First chance he got, Lieberman voted against  Obama’s health care bill.  The tone was set.  No matter what you do to this guy, there will be no repercussions.   

                I have to admit that as a staunch Obama supporter, I tried to rationalize his weakness when it first came out.  I claimed he was being metaphysical, citing Romans 12:20 "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."   Then I realized that scripture was intended for interpersonal relationships, not for the running of the government or of a business.

                There is no need to go on documenting Obama’s weakness against the Republicans.  A mention of the folding on the Public Option on the Health Care bill and the capitulation on increased revenues on the debt ceiling/ budget debate should more than suffice.  The only time Obama has shown any anger, was when he directed it against his own supporters.  For African Americans and other Progressives, this is a one Party system.  The only recourse we have is to either voter Democrat or sit the elections out.  So what can we do about our first African American President consistently wimping out on us?  How can we get him to effectively deal with those big bad Republicans?

                First he needs to establish a cabinet level position of liaison to the Republicans.  Of course he couldn’t call it that.  He could make up some name for it, like Department of Enterprise, Actualization, Taxation and Health, or DEATH!  Next he’d have to find the right person to chair that department.  He’d need someone with executive experience.  The person would have to be plain spoken, where the President is professorial.  Bold where the President is timid.  He’d inspire fear and respect instead of the insolence and impudence that is currently heaped on Obama.  It also would not hurt if he were an African American man.  After all, Obama is the only president in history who does not have a single senior advisor who matches him demographically.  There is one person, whom I know of, who would fit the bill: Suge Knight.

                Knight is known to be a violent thug who works through intimidation.  Normally, those qualities would disqualify him for most positions.  Yet for Obama’s purposes, these qualities are exactly what is needed.  There would obviously have to be some modifications in doing business as usual with Suge on board.  He would be the only cabinet member excused from all cabinet meetings and state dinners, and not charged with informing the president of his actions.  In fact, his job description would include NOT telling the president.  He also might have to be the first cabinet member listed as a foreign national for diplomatic immunity purposes.  Normally that might be difficult, but since they don’t want to believe Barak is an American citizen, it shouldn’t be too difficult to pass Suge off as a foreign diplomat/cabinet member.

Suge would have to be free to hire his own staff members, none of whom would be subject to background checks.  His sole purpose would be to persuade Republicans to be more reasonable in negotiating with the president.  This may all sound a bit farfetched.  But if Suge had been in this position during the debt ceiling/budget debate, I can guarantee that John Boehner would not have come out of it bragging, “I got 98% of what I wanted.”