People Are Funny

Imagine if a group of Christians wanted to build a church.

The church is going to built in backwoods Mississippi adjacent to a plantation slave cemetery. The church, largely attended by white folks, would worship God in the traditional way.

Would that be wrong?

How about if there was a plan to build a church in a black ghetto? Would that church, again populated by white folks, be out of place, or insensitive? Would it be a slap in the face to black people?

After all, Christianity was used to justify slavery. Slave owners and their apologists used the Bible to prove that God supported slavery, and wanted slaves to be meek, docile and obedient. Later, during Jim Crow, the white church defended segregation and discrimination as the will of God; the human manifestation of the genetic segregation God ordained when he gave some folks more melanin than others.

Was not slavery a grave and terrible injustice done in the name of religion? Was not Jim Crow the same? Were these injustices less terrible and deadly than the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center? How about the horrors suffered by Native Americans in the name of God and Manifest Destiny? Do they count?

Why do some religions have to respect their surroundings, while others get to act with impunity? Have Christians opened churches and missions and organizations in areas where they are not welcome, or where the church has failed to do its mission in the past? How is opening a mosque, which practices Islam as it was meant to be practiced, disrespectful? Isn't it only disrespectful if you assume that being a Muslim means you support terrorism practiced by other Muslims? If that's your mindset, do you apply the same logic to Christians as a whole?

Are you willing to have your rights restricted based on the actions of others who claim the mantle of Christianity, but do very little to practice its tenets? Do you deserve to be lumped in with the hate groups that wrap themselves in the Christian flag and quote extensively from the Bible? How about the prosperity preacher pimps who use God to fleece the flocks and enrich their lives? Is this who people should compare you to, and the examples they should be use when making decisions?

It's funny that people can't see this very obvious comparison. It's hilarious, in a very sad way, that people are so blind to the ways they would restrict the freedoms of others, all while clamoring for their own "rights." Hypocrisy is ugly in all its shapes and forms, and so is discrimination.

People are funny that way.




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Little Brother Got It Right

Sometimes I despair about our youth.

They seem oblivious, uncouth and irresponsible. Their thoughts on race, service, marriage and life can sound like ridiculous babble. Maybe it's because I'm nearing three decades on this Earth, but I find it harder and harder to relate to life as a teenager and feel confident about the direction they are taking the world in.

But, just when I'm feeling my worst, I read something like this.

You really don't have to read the whole article. Just the portions dedicated to the young man speaking at his high school graduation. A student at exclusive Hunter College High School in New York, Justin Hudson didn't just use his speech to commiserate with his classmates about times past, or congratulate them on all they've achieved. Instead, Hudson used his speech, which was selected by a faculty panel to be the graduation address, to speak on some more difficult issues.

He talked about the practice of using a standardized test as the sole determinant for admission into the school, and challenged students to consider whether they are truly more intelligent than their black and brown peers in poorer neighborhoods or just more fortunate. He challenged the idea that entrance into the ivory tower is proof of superiority.

He challenged the status quo.

I don't know the young man. Don't know if this was an aberration or a mirage. But, I'm glad that some young person is willing to consider whether they truly deserve the largess they've been granted. It wasn't that long ago that the New York Times ran a story that painted a pretty grim picture of young people's morality and humility. Thankfully, Hudson isn't one of those people who believes that everything he got in life is solely because of his greatness and worthiness. He understands it's far more than that at work.

That makes me happy. I'm happy that he's thinking, and I'm happy that he encouraged his classmates to think as well. The Times story may have spent more time on the power struggle at the school between teachers and administrators, but I think Hudson's words stole the show. His clear and necessary challenge was much needed and appreciated.

Go 'head lil' man.





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I Just Assumed

I assumed he was white.

It's just a gut reaction whenever I hear about a mass shooting, I think "white man." Like kiddie rape and wire fraud, mass murder has been designated a "white crime" in my mind the same way crack dealing has been labeled a black one. It doesn't matter what the stats say, that's how I see the world.

I figured the man who killed nine people at a beer distributor was white, and I promptly forgot about the sad, but unsurprising incident. Consequently, I was shocked when a friend told me that the young man who killed his co-workers after coming in to be fired was a black man.

You can imagine how surprised I was when I learned his family claims that he killed all of those people because of racism.

Lately, I've been reading a lot of Walter Mosely's novels. Those of you who have read his work know that racism is a character in every single book Mosely creates. It takes different faces and it has different characteristics, but it's always stalking the pages. Mosely loves to discuss what it's like to be black in a country that ain't.

One of the themes running through his work is the anger and cowardice that lives inside the heart of an abused man. And, in Mosely's work, black men are often abused in a variety of ways. By their families, by their employers, by their lovers and, ultimately, by themselves. The abuse isn't limited to black men, but, as a man, Mosely's insight seems truest when he's talking about black men.

I don't know the young man who shot up that beer business, but I think I understand a little of his killing rage. Maybe his slights weren't as serious as those once endured by our ancestors, his degradation was likely only a pale shadow of the abuse blacks have faced in times past. But, his dreams were likely larger as well. He probably had accepted and embraced the lie of the America Martin Luther King Jr. once imagined, and which corporations tell us has been achieved every February. A color-blind America where it's only about the content of man's character, not the melanin content in his skin.

Mama Lorraine told us about dreams deferred, didn't she.

Shriveled, rotten dreams fester and ferment inside a man's mind and the bitter wine they produce is more than mildly intoxicating. The wine of the grapes of wrath does strange things to a psyche. It makes it seem reasonable to kill nine people instead of finding another job. It makes suicide seem like an acceptable ending to a day filled with the blood and pain of others.

It makes you mad.

No excuses can be made for murder. Sticks and stones have not ceded their domain to words.

But, while there is no justification, there is understanding. There is understanding of the madness that accompanies racial injustice. The madness that makes you want to lash out and forces you to distrust the aims of authority figures. That madness says that you have the right to join others at playing judge, jury and executioner.

Being told that you are less than, that you deserve death and denigration for the mere crime of your birth is a twisting thing. It twists reality, it twists minds, it twists morality. It twisted that young man who killed nine people, and it twists other people every day in large and small ways.

So, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that we ended up with a big mess. And neither should you.




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