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Defending Black Republicanism (Part 2 of 3)

The thing that most drives African-Americans away from the Republican Party today, if one excepts the perceived Republican opposition to civil rights, are deep and fundamental differences in economic and domestic policy.  Given the long disadvantaged socioeconomic station which blacks have historically occupied it is easy to see why the public spending policies of the Democratic Party would have an enduring appeal to the many of us who are poor, struggling, and who need help where we can find it. But just because a certain set of policies may have an appeal to the poor and the working class does not mean  these policies are as beneficial as we would think. For an emerging black community coming into it’s own as business owners, college graduates, innovators and professionals, a different philosophy must begin to take root, one that allows us the means and the opportunities to control our own destiny as independent individuals, as secure families and as an increasingly prosperous community.

In recent days, former Republican Speaker of the House and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has made headlines, and met with fierce allegations of racism from some, for saying at a campaign stop in South Carolina, “The African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” His words made the blood boil of many progressives generally and many blacks particularly, but it is worth curtailing the emotion to at least acknowledge the legitimacy of the point. As President Obama himself has acknowledged, there are a segment of people, and surely we observe them in our own community, who are content to live off of the public dollar as long as they can without making a serious effort at sustaining themselves. Naturally this doesn’t characterize our community as a whole, but what is more broadly true is that even for the large majority of black Americans who work hard for a living or who are trying their best in this difficult time to be able to provide for themselves and their families, there is a sense that true social mobility for us in this society is mostly a bitter mirage. Therefore we think education won’t help us. We believe that corporate America will not accept us. We expect the legal system to hinder us. In our history there have been many reasons to feel this way. But in the 21rst century too many of us cling to these limiting attitudes even as the walls of institutional oppression have crumbled around us before the advance of the black condition and the opening up of American society. For all of our problems and even given the current economic climate, black Americans are more wealthy, more educated, and more influential in recent years than we have ever been before. Yet instead of tending towards policies that would open wider the gates of our opportunities, we support initiatives designed to make sure we will fall only so far.

There is a reason that perhaps the steepest historical decline in the black unemployment rate occurred as a result of the tax cuts of Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s. There is a reason that even with cuts in investment taxes and welfare spending black unemployment reached a historic low at the end of the Clinton presidency, to only be neared again under George W. Bush’s presidency as a result of, in my opinion, the Bush tax cuts for the upper and middle class. (We’re it not for the real-estate crash and the financial collapse the national unemployment rate would probably have remained under 5% for sometime.) These periods of high employment and increase of black wealth and American wealth and employment generally came not as the result of aggressive government spending and public assistance. They came as the result of people being able to save, spend and invest more of what they had earned. There is a psychological difference of course in being able to keep more of what you yourself own or produce as opposed to simply receiving for free of what has been taken from the pockets of others. People have more appreciation for what they earn than for that which is given them without effort. Like the song says, “God bless the child who has his own.”

That is not to say that food stamps and welfare are innately bad. For the many people who are trying hard in tough times to get by and who have nothing else to rely on (believe me I know what it’s like) it’s important to have this safety net. But growing the social safety net does not grow long lasting prosperity, which is what needs to happen if things are to genuinely get better. It has been the approach of the current administration to funnel money directly into state governments, pet projects and rebates in order to stimulate economic growth. And while it should be noted that a good deal of this massive spending came in the form of tax credits, these were temporary and insufficient to generate real economic growth. Meanwhile as we spend money with little restraint, the very funds needed to fund our social welfare programs are missing because the economy is languishing. Raising taxes on the wealthy and cutting defense spending can barely begin to cover these bills. It is only economic growth that can accomplish this.

One area where President Obama deserves more credit than he has gotten is in the area of education. For as willing as many of us are to roll in the mud over the issue of Affirmative Action, the affirmative action we should all be calling for is stronger performance on behalf of our children from an education establishment that rewards seniority over ability. Consequently our children suffer while the teacher’s unions protect themselves. We keep pouring money on the education problem, but study after study have shown that government funding does not impact student achievement and neither, in fact, does class size. What matters most is not funding, or surroundings, but teacher quality. We have only been subsidizing the mediocrity of a failing union culture. President Obama has at least shown the political will to say to the left wing teacher’s unions that performance should be the deciding factor when it comes to retaining and rewarding educators. This is a conservative sentiment that Republicans have fought for for some time, and it’s unfortunate that more Democrats have not voiced support for at least this element of the President’s educational agenda.

I do not believe that black Americans will long be content to accept government programs as more than a nominal factor in ensuring the welfare of our people. I do not believe that black Americans will long tolerate an educational system that has no expectations for our children. We as a people do have a higher sense of who we are and what we can accomplish. But the interests of the Democratic Party are largely served by our dependency on federal dollars and our belief in the illusion that the poverty of our surroundings prevents us from being able to learn. These are a couple reasons why some of us are Republicans. But it doesn’t matter whether one is a Republican or Democrat. What matters is that we look at the example of an exceptional black Democrat like Barack Obama to realize the wisdom of a great black Republican like Booker T. Washington, who said that “character, not circumstances, make the man,” and furthermore, that “we should not permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.” We have the ability. It is only the embrace of freedom and opportunity that we need to able to succeed.

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A Chat With Hill Harper

It took some effort to get Hill Harper on the phone. After all, the man has an impacted schedule: series regular on CSI:NY, host of Verses & Flow, and author of The Wealth Cure: Putting Money In Its Place, his latest book that is inspiring reflective, thought-provoking conversation amongst its readers. And in the midst of all this, he has to have a personal life right?

Once we connected, I quickly learned that Mr. Harper has a passion for helping others that goes beyond the books he has written and the foundation, Manifest Your Destiny, that he has established to empower at-risk youth. Listen in, as he shares with me his thoughts on education, President Obama, the good and bad of social media, and what plans he has for 2012.

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The Controversy Behind Obama’s New Defense Bill

Obama’s first presidential act of 2012 was the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act. This new strategy gets rid of the old strategy of the United States being able to wage two wars simultaneously and promises budget cuts over the next ten years.  The tide of war was receding and the US must renew its economic power the president said in a January 5th press conference

“Our military will be leaner,” Obama told reporters, “but the world must know – the United States is going to maintain our military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats.”

So far so good right? Obama kept his promise of ending the Iraq war. Troop drawdown in Afghanistan is already under way and the United States is shifting its policy away from long-term nation building. And these things are good since everyone witnessed how the cost for both wars drained the economy. The media reported this as the unveiling of a new strategy as America goes into a new direction post the Iraq War. What the media didn’t report was the provisions in the bill, which allow for the indefinite military detention of Americans without trial; and Obama just signed that into law. Remember the Patriot Act? Remember who passed it? The fuss behind the Patriot Act still continues and now there is fuss behind Obama’s new legislation.

Obama expressed reservations about the bill, but still signed it. The Senate tried on two occasions to amend the bill that specifically forbids the indefinite military detention of Americans. Senator Mark Udall introduced an amendment intended to forbid the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens that got rejected by a vote of 37–61 and also Senator Dianee Feinstein attempted to add an amendment to instead say that Americans are exempt from detention under the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists act of 2001, which was signed by President George W Bush. That also was rejected by a 55 to 45 vote. Senator and Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and ranking Republican committee member Sen. John McCain supported the original bill in its entirety and unchanged. It was passed unchanged by the senate and signed unchanged by the President.

The criticism drawn from other politicians, government watch groups, and media outlets about the bill is because of the text in sections 1021 and 1022 as they have been called a violation of constitutional principles and the Bill of Rights. Section 1021 (c-1) allows “Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of hostilities.” A President can declare that he is in a war without an end and justify any actions taken under this text.  It also states in section (b-2) states that the law applies not just to members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but to any person who has “substantially supported” “associated forces.” The language is loose and is only left up to interpretation by Obama or any other future president.

Obama’s official statement  states that his administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. If Obama really wanted to he could ask Congress to amend the controversial sections listed, but there is no intention of him doing that as his administration and supporters of the bill continue to dismiss the contention that American citizens can be detained indefinitely. But the bill does not dismiss the AUMF act of 2001, plus the language causes alarm for groups like the ACLU and Human Rights Watch.

“The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States” is stated in section 1022 (b-1) of the bill. Notice the word “requirement”. It is not “required” to detain Americans, but the President can still do so. Remember what happened to Japanese Americans in World War 2? Remember the McCarthyism and the Red Scare, which blacklisted many innocent Americans because of alleged ties to communism? Keep in mind Guantanamo Bay is still open for business and one of Obama’s campaign promises was to close Guantanamo Bay. No detainee has left Guantanamo Bay in a year because of restrictions on transfers. Now we see a law passed condoning the indefinite military detention without trial, it makes you wonder if we are indeed moving forward post the Bush Presidency,

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), called Obama’s action “a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law. Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today.”

 

 

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Defending Black Republicanism (Part 1 of 3)

There is an interesting psychological phenomenon that persists in black politics and in African-American society generally; one that has stubbornly bore down roots since at least the early seventies and beyond. It is a striking manifestation of identity politics that has gone too far for too long, retarding the political, and arguably the socioeconomic, growth of black America. That phenomenon is the near totality of our people’s unyielding devotion to one political party, our correspondingly bitter and intractable opposition to the main alternative,  and the anti-intellectual and, frankly, hurtful dismissiveness with which the large majority of blacks who pay allegiance to one  party treat the small minority who hold with the other. What I am referring to is, of course, the now longstanding black reliance on, and attachment to, the Democratic Party, and our longstanding opposition to, and reviling of, the Republican Party. This, believe it or not, is not a good thing. The potential progress of black America in the twenty-first century will be essentially capped until we outgrow this ideological bigotry.

I say ideological bigotry because that, for far too many black liberals and democrats, is what their opposition to conservatism and Republicans generally, amounts to. You see it expressed in film, stand up comedy and on the street level. Republicans and black Republicans particularly are portrayed as greedy, naive, uncle Toms, etc. That’s no way to characterize people we disagree with. But furthermore this ignores the broader history of the Republican party and the historical relationship it has had with the black community.

Let’s begin with the origins of black animosity towards the Republican party, for which there is a legitimate cause. Only a minority of black people nowadays seem to know or remember the fact that the vast majority of black Americans were Republicans all the way until the late sixties. That ended with the polarizing divisions wrought by the battles of the Civil Rights Movement and then with the adoption of the “Southern Strategy,” a term then popularized by prominent GOP strategist Kevin Phillips, who described it thusly:

“From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don’t need any more than that… but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.”

There was then in the late sixties a vast constituency swap, whereupon black Republicans almost en masse became Democrats and southern (mostly middle class) white Democrats became Republicans. Given that this were the case one might be tempted to think that the Republican party must have fought tooth and nail against the Civil Rights Act and the movement towards integration, but the truth is far more mixed. The greatest political opposition to the movement came from southern white Democrats, who would eventually become Republicans. At the same time western, mid-western and northern Democrats like John Kennedy, and some southern Democrats (particularly President Lyndon Johnson) were on the side of racial progress and President Johnson in particular showed great courage in pushing the Civil Rights Act through congress. (Johnson knew that to sign the bill would be to, in his own words, “sign away the south for fifty years,” but he did it anyway.) The support of Democrats like Kennedy, Johnson and others in congress and across the country gives Democrats a viable claim to much of the success of the Civil Rights era. Still, in congress roughly 80% of Republicans voted for passage of the bill in both the House and Senate, as opposed to roughly 60% of Democrats in the House and a little less than 70% in the Senate. The triumph of civil rights was a bipartisan triumph therefore, but in congress there was more unified support for these landmark changes among Republicans than Democrats.

There are other positive things to be said about the Democratic Party and it’s historical relationship to African-Americans. Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court Justice and a champion of civil liberties, was a black Democrat. Adam Clayton Powell, the first black congressman in New York’s history and the first from any northern state outside Illinois since reconstruction, was a Democrat (served 1945-1971). But Martin Luther King, Jr., the single most important figure in the Civil Rights Movement, was a Republican and an active one at that. He endorsed Richard Nixon for the governorship of California in 1964, something that is not widely known. Furthermore, he encouraged the presidential candidacy of the anti-segregationist Republican governor of Michigan, Governor George Romney, who was of course the father of Mitt Romney, ironically the man who is favored to carry the GOP banner against Barack Obama this year.

Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, and although some  have cast doubt upon the legacy of Lincoln as the “Great Emancipator,” the fact remains that he legally freed the slaves and that he  was always an abolitionist, as most Republicans were. Frederick Douglass, (to whom Lincoln bequeathed his iconic walking stick upon his death), was a Republican and even received a vote in the electoral college for the presidency (obviously the first for a black American). Every black elected politician and appointed official was almost certainly Republican during the reconstruction era. That changed after the Civil Rights Movement reached it’s zenith in the sixties of course, and after that a strong faction of segregationists did emerge in the Republican Party because they came from the Democratic party (invited in by cynical GOP strategists and political elites). Even so, it was Ronald Reagan who signed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day into law, and while he probably did not really wish to do so, then Vice-President George H.W. Bush fought hard behind the scenes to see its passage and ultimately both parties voted for it by wide margins.

Black Americans have always had a home in the Republican Party. Those of us who have remained in it or returned to it should be respected, I feel, for to us it is not just the party of Reagan, but the party of Lincoln, of Douglass, of Booker T. Washington, and of King.

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Bringing Efficiency (and Sensibility) Back to Washington D.C.

Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair. – George Burns

It is October 2011. We are 13 months away from the next presidential campaign. However, President Obama officially kicked off his reelection bid last month. That’s right the president with 14 months before reelection has started pounding the pavement shortly after the summer from hell where the country almost defaulted on its debt obligations. The Republicans started trying to discredit the president’s ability to lead the nation on the other hand….the day after his inauguration. At some point I’m going to get to when these people actually do some governing or some dysfunctional form of it.

First lets get to my favorite thing – the money. The 2012 election price tag for all candidates is being estimated to cost $8 billion. Not really sure if that’s a lot? You remember the debt ceiling debacle I referred to earlier. Well the final deal which in the end agreed to reduce the federal deficit $200 billion a year, taking it from $1.2 trillion down to $1 trillion annually, the election will equal 4% of that reduction. $8 billion could give every man, woman, and child in the U.S. $27 per person. How many people in the U.S. are worth more than $8 billion? 35. American college & university endowments, providing scholarships to students and help pay faculty and staff, which have more than $8 billion? 6 (America has over 4,000 colleges and universities). The U.S. Department of Education has a budget of $70 billion. That’s right we’re going to spend the equivalent of 11% of that in the coming election.

Now let’s talk about who gets elected and connect it with what I just told you. President Obama alone is expected to raise over $1 billion for his 2012 campaign, not one African American college or university has a $1 billion endowment (Howard sits at $400 million), which means he’s going to need either donors with very deep pockets (who want deep influence) or a lot of donors will small donations. The latter being how he raised quite a bit of money in his last campaign. The difference between then and now is an economy in even worse shape and showing no signs of coming off life support. This would lead one to conclude that wealthy individuals and organizations will play an enormous role in this election on both sides of the aisle. According to Forbes Magazine, the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans conservative donors have out funded campaigns in 5 of the last 6 election cycles their liberal counterparts.

The point I’m driving home here is that political campaigns or offices are not accessible to the average Joe or Jane in America’s poor or middle class. They simply do not have the finances and access to resources typically to garner the amount of money needed to make a legitimate run at a congressional or senate seat let alone the presidency. This becomes apparently obvious when we look at the financial makeup of the congress and senate. In 2009, 44% of congress were millionaires. The median net worth of the house in 2008 was $622, 254 and for senators was $1.8 million – median net worth for African America $2,170. What is the number of African American senators? 0. To gain access to the town “where the streets are paved of gold” Washington D.C. as Eddie Murphy said in Distinguished Gentleman requires money and access to even more money. But what if it didn’t?

Key problems with the current process start with politicians being who they are governing to get reelected. As such they do what’s in the best interest of their reelection not necessarily the best interest of their constituency. They are careful not to make any major out of the box decision that could be long term beneficial because in the short term they need to get reelected. Time that could be spent governing is spent focusing on reelection. President Obama and his presidential predecessors before him typically spend 14 months of their 1st 48 month term or approximately 30% of their term seeking a 2nd 48 months. Assuming they get reelected they then basically have 24 months to get something done in case the opposing party gets control of the house in the midterm election at which time they become a lame duck president. This means potentially almost 40% of a president’s time in office is taken from governing because he’s either trying to get reelected or a lame duck that can’t get anything done. In the house it is even worse since they only have two year terms. So one could estimate that almost 60% of their time is spent seeking reelection. The senators who serve six year terms come in with the least wasted time at approximately 20% of their time spent seeking reelection. The need for large amounts of times donated to major donor usually at dinners where some pay over $25,000 for a meal just to eat and be near the candidate. But being near means you get to influence and be heard in a way very few ever will about the direction of the country and its policies. Extra cheese anyone?

If time is money we are wasting a lot of it as a country. Both on account of the amount of money we spend on elections and the amount of time we spend watching our elected officials in DC try to stay there. I’m a solutions oriented person so let me offer a few. The creation of local, state, and national campaign funds paid for by tax dollars that has a hard cap which removes the slush money for starters. It is amazing to me that the NFL and NHL (and soon the NBA) have figured out in order to keep expenses under control you need to set a limit on how much can be spent. On any level each race would have a pre-set amount that would be evenly divided among the qualified candidates to run their campaign. In my world the entire national election would not cost more than $1 billion. That’s local, state, and national combined. The major cost of any campaign quite frankly is TV time. Running ads on TV and getting the message out. Allow ads and debates to only be run on PBS for one to three months depending on if it’s a local, state, or national campaign. Remember 99% of Americans own a TV. Even if you don’t have cable you have access to PBS. Make the time allotted for campaigning to be reduced. Local races have to be completed in one month, state offices have two months, and national offices three months. Move voting from during the week to the weekend. We’re losing valuable work productivity by forcing people to vote during the week. Whoever thought that was a bright idea clearly did not want an involved population in the voting process or an efficient and productive economy. Make the congress, senators, and the president a 6 year one term office. They can run for office again but only after they sit out a cycle. You’ll actually have to govern for 6 years imagine that.

If both parties examine my proposal they’ll see both of their fundamentals values in place. An increased interaction with more of the population based on the PBS involvement and higher voter turnout on a weekend should please Democrats. Less money spent on elections is money that can be used for business creation, job creation, and voting on a weekend which will increase economic productivity should please Republicans. I make no bones about the fact I’m a fiscal conservative and social moderate. I want to see this country get its financial house in order from the White House to the everyday Joe and Jane’s house. To spend $8 billion on Democrats and Republicans who pride themselves on being efficiently inefficient does not bode well for my belief in this country’s financial future or its priorities. I also believe we need more social access to the voting process and political offices. Right now the latter appears virtually impossible for a citizen with a great idea and leadership but lack of wealth. Great ideas can come from all economic classes and we should promote the ability for all those groups to have access to the halls of policy. Thankfully we can do it in a more cost effective manner. These are just a few common sense suggestions of mine. Unfortunately, as I use to tell my students – common sense is not so common.

Mr. Foster is the Interim Executive Director of HBCU Endowment Foundation, sits on the board of directors at the Center for HBCU Media Advocacy, & CEO of Sechen Imara Solutions, Inc. A former banker & financial analyst who earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics & Finance from Virginia State University as well his master’s degree in Community Development & Urban Planning from Prairie View A&M University. Publishing research on the agriculture economics of food waste as well as writing articles for other African American media outlets.

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The Ascendancy of Black America (Part Four of Four)

I believe that the sun shines brightly on the African American future, just as I ultimately believe that this country’s best days are still ahead of it. I believe in the cliche that the future is what you make it. I believe in the power of belief itself, and that faith in a righteous cause is in time rewarded. Those black American’s who will accept it have before them a righteous cause in which to believe. It is the cause of black nationalism but it is also the cause of black patriotism. It is the reclamation of black culture from the hands of degenerate cultural influences and amoral corporate interests. It is the understanding that, whether we originally chose it or not we have 400 hundred years of blood and sweat invested in this country and are only now coming to understand that we have both the right and the ability to lead it. Barack Obama, whether he remains in office but another one and a half years or another five and a half years, will not be president forever. Let his ascendency not be the end of The Ascendancy of Black America. Let it be but another great step forward on the way to the promised land that King saw long before.

The dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. is the vision that has propelled black America to this fateful moment in time, just as it has guided America towards the fuller realization of the spirit of freedom and equality contained in her founding documents. King’s dream that one day “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers” calls us to remember that even as black Americans our ultimate allegiance in this world is to the human race as a whole, recognizing that in God we are one human family. This was the vision of Dr. King and this is the conclusion drawn by our founding ideals as illuminated in the simple words that “all men are created equal.” The election of President Obama was indeed striking proof of the power of these ideals as they have matured and developed throughout our collective American experience, culminating in in the compelling story of a single man who found himself poised to scale the heights of history in an election which justified the faith that her citizens and the world have placed in America as the single greatest beacon of freedom and opportunity on earth. It was therefore easy to think, for a brief moment, that we had come to the promised land that King prophesied from his mountain top. But we have a long way to go before we come to that place.  For King did not pursue a primarily political agenda; though he fought segregation, though he tried to see to it that all Americans, black and white, could have jobs if they were willing to work, and though he strove to turn America away from rash wars waged over seas, he had a higher cause than politics for which he struggled. Neither was his aim primarily social, for although he persevered in the effort to bridge the gaps between whites and blacks and more broadly all people everywhere, he had a higher calling than even this. Martin Luther King, Jr. waged a spiritual battle, against sin itself if you will. He wanted to remind people that there is only one truth, one power and one moral absolute at the end of the day and that is that of love. He wished to return love to the center of America’s consciousness, and to rally the righteous behind it’s banner. But as he said:

“In speaking of love at this point, we are not referring to some sentimental emotion. It would be nonsense to urge men to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. “Love” in this connection means understanding good will…we speak of a love which is expressed in the Greek word agape. Agape means nothing sentimental or basically affectionate; it means understanding, redeeming good will for all men, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. It is the love of God working in the lives of men. When we love on the agape level we love men not because we like them, not because their attitudes and ways appeal to us, but because God loves them. Here we rise to the position of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed he does.”

Earlier in this series I briefly mentioned my white Grandfather, saying that he felt my father had committed a disgrace by marrying my mother. But I should clarify, it was not that he himself felt disgraced but rather that he felt, even in the mid-eighties, that the world would see it that way and that my father had committed a grave error by doing what he did. Nevertheless, and though my grandparents may have felt once upon a time that the reality of segregation was something that had to be accepted, I do know that that my Grandfather told my father once once with respect to black people that “they’re smarter than we are. They have to be to survive.” But though the cleverness of black people may derive in large measure from the direness of our historical circumstance, the wisdom of black people has been the hard understanding that in spite of all our wounds, and though they have been received at the hands of a people different from us, there is nevertheless reason to love our oppressors just as there is reason for us, in spite of our long tragedies, to love ourselves.

Now then is the time for us to call upon the instruments of our love, our spirit, our wisdom and our righteousness, to move the world forward. Love has overcome the divide between white and black, so too can understanding defeat the chasm between liberalism and conservatism that was truly the promise of the Obama candidacy. (Martin Luther King, Jr. loved George Wallace and Bull Connor, never disparaging them personally, so do you think we might somehow be righteous enough to do the same for Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin?) Love gave us music and literature and poetry to inspire Americans and people around he world for generations, so too can it inspire artistry and intellect in our own time to beat back the relentless waves of materialism, sexual gratuitousness, cynicism and moral relativism running rampant in our culture and our American society at large. Websites like Black Is are a part of the movement to reclaim our black nobility, our intellectual honesty, and to assert ourselves at the helm of American society. Every poem and every song that a child writes in the name of love and the honor of black women is a step in this direction, a declaration against the false Rap, Hip-Hop and BET culture that says we are better than what you are telling us we are. (Shout out to my girls Watoto from the Nile for really keeping it real. Google it if you don’t know.) Let us understand then that we do not need BET or big record labels to be the arbiters of our cultural expression. You can start a blog, a YouTube channel, a website and communicate a higher level of cultural consciousness to our people in whatever way you are gifted to do so. You can speak out in your church about our moral complacency and urge the people of your community to recognize that they do not have to accept Roc-A-Fella and Bad Boy records as the standard of black art and culture, not even in this time. If you have children, play for them your old Sam Cooke albums, your Motown records. Add some Miles Davis and some Duke Ellington if you have it, and you can always find some Ella Fitzgerald and some Billie Holiday if you look. And by all means, let them hear some Tupac too: let them hear “Mama’s Just a Little Girl,” “Changes,” I Ain’t Mad at You,” and and the many thoughtful and provocative RAP songs that have been and still are being made in some circles. Progress is about winning the future, not living in the past. But we cannot win the future without knowing our past. Soon black people who know their history and who understand their true importance and necessity in America will join hands and stand firm to change the cultural equation, in and beyond black America. We can only live with our ethnic hypocrisy for so long. Every time we look in the mirror, we see a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, who should be a priest of grace and righteousness, but the face we paint before the world is something less. But we are, we are meant to be, a holy tribe with a commission to do right. The opportunity to do so is coming and has come. Black America will take a stand before it has gone.

 

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The Ascendancy of Black America (Part Two of Four)

What does it mean to be an American? I suppose it would mean, or should mean at least, that one stands for liberty, for equal opportunity, and the right of all peoples to have a say in the governing system that oversees their existence. In this, we as black Americans are Americans like any other. But to be an African American does make one the heir of  a unique history and a powerful legacy that runs through the heart of the overall American experience. It is a history that gives us strength, but only in proportion to the degree to which we know it and embrace it. In my opinion therefore, it is important for us to claim this legacy knowing that ours is an American legacy. We, as much as the whites who brought us here, built this country. We, man for man, woman for woman, have helped to shape it by our endurance and our innovation as much as  European Americans. Our struggle has been different from theirs. Indeed, our struggle has been against them, to a significant degree. Yet our pains followed us here from Africa as well, sold into the hands of one group of slave owners by slave owners whose colors were our own. As such we were forced to start over, in a way that perhaps no people has ever had to before. Indeed, we are still starting over. In the last fifty years we have called ourselves negro, black, African-American, then Nigga with an “a” because, (I suppose), that makes a difference, and indeed some black people will take exception to any of these labels because as a whole people we have still not agreed upon who precisely we are. No, not after all this time. Part of the reason for this, I’ve decided, is because we are still uncertain as to whether or not we with our tormented history at the hands of the mighty in this country should really consider ourselves American at all. The answer to this question is that we should because we are, and that our Americanism is more than just a technicality. Our experience has colored the American experience, our culture lies at the heart of America’s culture, and our minds claim great shares in the authorship of America’s ideals as they’ve been further defined through the many generations succeeding the moment of this nations founding. But all of that is for not if we don’t see ourselves as Americans.

Though I was never ignorant of the struggles of African-Americans in this country, I was raised by both my white father and my black mother to think of myself as an American, and to be proud of that fact. That’s why, one day in the seventh grade, I was more than a little shocked when, after we we’re all asked to stand for the pledge of allegiance, one of the black girls in my class pointedly refused. Our teacher asked why she refused and she said, “why should I? This is the country that enslaved me, that wouldn’t let my people use the same bathroom or go to the same schools as white people. Why the hell should I pledge allegiance to that?” Though she wasn’t talking to me I vividly remember feeling hurt by her words. “We’re all in the same schools now,” I thought. Still, her anger struck me and I wondered, was I naive to love this country? Later in my life, and after having argued the case for black American patriotism many times, many ways, I heard another man artfully put in words what I had long understood and had long tried to explain to those black friends of mine who wanted still to hold tightly to their anger towards this country.

When Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was shaken by the uproar over the anti-American tirade of Pastor Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church in Chicago,(then Senator Obama’s longtime pastor), Barack Obama delivered a speech in Philadelphia to address the issue. In this speech he said a thing that sounded curious to many people, that didn’t satisfy many of his critics, but which I understood perfectly well. His words were as follows:

“I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother — a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are part of America, this country that I love.”

Many critics of the president’s felt this to be not but an artful alibi for suffering the anti-American rhetoric of a radical religious figure, something that should have disqualified any candidate seeking the presidency from obtaining that office. But as a black and as a (if you will) mulatto myself, I recognized both sides of the coin which he described. For many of the people I love most in my life, black people of intelligence and integrity, have disparaged America in my presence in similar terms, something I have often cringed at. Yet how can I be angry at them for reacting to a pain that didn’t end with the passage of the Civil Rights Act? How can I judge them for expressing the bitterness that still trickles into our hearts as African-Americans from the time of slavery to now? I need inform no black person with the slightest bit of awareness of our circumstance of the statistics: we are the poorest people in the nation. We are the most undereducated people in the nation. We are the most imprisoned, the most murdered, and the latter by our own. We are self-hating so why would we not hate the country that left us this legacy of poverty, that actively sought to turn us against each other, destroying our hearts and minds and all that in the name of God? Yet hatred and distrust is not the only dynamic that exists between white and black in our society. For while we can bare witness to the prejudice of whites directed towards us throughout our history, we can also see that the power of love and God has also been present in the midst of our American confusion. How else could Barack Obama’s grandmother love him as she did in spite of the fear she may occasionally of felt towards black men? How could I myself have come to be so loved by my own white grandparents in spite of their segregationist tendencies, in spite of the fact that at the time my grandfather learned of my father’s marriage to my mother he angrily felt that my father had committed a disgrace? But love transcended these fading lines of color, both for Senator Obama and myself, and through the painful process of time for America herself to a great degree. So then did Barack Obama identify the mistaken cynicism of Jeremiah Wright and the many blacks who share his point of view regarding America, saying:

“The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress had been made; as if this country — a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black, Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen — is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope — the audacity to hope — for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

Some countries never change. Throughout history, many nations have not emerged from their tribal conflicts but have burned to the ground in such fires. America however has changed. Not enough of course, but enough to where we whose faith is not so great as a warrior like Martin Luther King, Jr. can too say that we have glimpsed the mountain top of which he spoke. We must recognize the moment we’ve come to as black people, a moment that allows for us to take the lead in rescuing our country from itself, a moment when our nation and our children white and black need us most. For today our national peril is not so dissimilar from what we faced back in the 1960’s, except that today the roots of our divisions are not-primarily-racial, but rather we suffer from an ideological and a cultural divide that prevents us both from solving problems in our government and coming together as a people. With respect to these near insurmountable problems they cannot be solved unless the lessons of the African-American experience are applied and our special position on the societal spectrum utilized. How will we do this? By digging deep into the soil of our pain to raise the flower of our faith as a people, which once made us the moral leaders of a nation. We, the African-American people, have the power to move hearts and minds because of who we are and what we’ve been through, and in this potential lies our power to lift ourselves out of our own tragic circumstances in the process. We who have healed from the wounds of generations long persecution must now be the delivers of healing for an injured nation and our injured brothers and sisters who struggle to see the power that they have. In this is the Christian promise of triumph and reconciliation of which King wrote when he penned these words that are as relevant to our time and mission as they were to his: “Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our condition.”

Black America, we have a choice to make…

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The Ascendancy of Black America (Part One of Four)

How far we’ve come from the days of our bondage. How far we’ve come from the days of our most brutal persecution. We were uprooted from our homeland only to watch our families torn asunder, beneath the lash of petty southern tyrants and more broadly speaking an economic system and a system of government which, however conflictingly, allowed for the institutionalized dehumanization of an entire race of people by which it’s preferred subjects were enriched and empowered. How far we’ve come from those days, and the days of Jim Crow and the century of only slightly less insidious persecution that followed. How far we’ve come. Yet it is worth asking where we have come to, and even more so, where we are going.

In the Old Testament the Lord through Moses, in revealing the ten commandments to the Israelites, commanded them to remember the blessing of their liberation, saying: “And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm…” (Deuteronomy 15:15). For black Christians, we have an advantage (one for which we should really be thankful) in understanding and relating to the liberation of God’s people in the Bible because for us the memory of slavery in our blood and in our culture is sharper and more immediate than it can be for our European brothers and sisters. The humility that the Bible stresses that God’s spiritual children must have can only come through the purifying agony of degradation and pain. (What was Christ trying to show in his death on the cross?) All people suffer of course, but ours in America has been a culture of suffering and in as much as we have suffered patiently we have seen miracles, for God has delivered us by a mighty hand and that more than once. Whether you believe in God or not however, you must surely see how vast seas were parted in both the material and political circumstances leading up to the ending of slavery, and then the ending of segregation. Moreover, and more importantly, great waters were parted in the consciences of our oppressors as well as those many whites Americans who were just indifferent to our struggle in both the 1860’s and the 1960’s. Through all these times our people as a whole did not have power in this society. (In the four hundred and fifty plus years since the slave trade began to when we achieved real equality under the law with the Civil Rights Act we went from none to not much.) Because of this, our power in these times of powerlessness could only come from man’s true source of power and that lies in humility, righteousness, and the simple indomitable resolve that comes from knowing one’s cause is just.

This is our history as African-Americans. It is one that is moving and proud, inspiring to us and people of all colors in this country and around the globe. But a triumphal past does necessarily lead to a glorious future and this brings me to the point of these four articles of which this is the first. We, as African-Americans have reached a critical point in our history, one which demands that a collective decision be made in the hearts and minds of our people. In the age of Colin Powell, Kobe Bryant, Oprah Winfrey and, most tellingly, Barack Obama, we can no longer think that we, for all the myriad and considerable disadvantages we still labor under, have no power in this society. We are African-Americans, yes, but we the children of slaves are Americans every bit as much as the children of slave owners. As such we have as great a stake in the success of this nation as the white majority that has had the lion share of the governing power for all of its history. We have as much a claim on America as any of the descendants of Quakers and Pilgrims who once in a spirit of great faith and courage set out for the promise of a new world which fate would destine us to share. What we must understand, then, is that we also have an equal obligation as they to lead it. Marcus Garvey once said, “Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm.” That is precisely where we are today…

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The Black Church Today

From: Our Weekly

Being a Black preacher in the post-civil rights era can be very costly. From the fiery, prophetic voice of the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor emeritus of famed Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, to the unrepentant militancy of Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, clergy in the tradition of Black liberation theology find themselves in the cross-hairs of media pundits and across the line from many popular Black mega-church pastors.

Wright gained greater prominence in 2008 as his most nationally recognized congregant, then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, launched his campaign for president of the United States of America.

Members of the media delved into Pastor Wright’s ministerial background, unfurled snippets of his sermons and widely broadcast 10- and 15-second sound bites that were manipulated to portray him as a hate-monger and an unpatriotic, “God damn America” preacher.

The media-controlled interpretations of Wright’s theological perspective created such a furor, presidential candidate Obama publicly severed the 20-year relationship with his pastor. Wright’s consistent sermons based on Black liberation theology preached from his Chicago Southside pulpit fueled the attacks against him.

Twenty-four years earlier in 1984, Minister Farrakhan experienced similar treatment, after the Rev. Jesse Jackson announced his candidacy for president. Minister Farrakhan, the head of the Nation of Islam, was accused of being anti-Semitic, because he criticized religious people who failed to live up to the tenets of their faiths including Christians, Muslims and Jews.

Media personalities edited Minister Farrakhan’s messages to short clips and disseminated them as actual statements without either context or further reference. His words were reduced to single sentences, although the length of his Black liberation orations usually exceeded an hour.

On the other hand, less traditional Black preachers who spew a gospel of prosperity, feel-good-about-yourself theology, and keep-the-people-entertained doctrine found their soft-pedaled messages attracted churchgoers without too much distraction.

“Members of the Black Church are flocking to ‘religious’ leaders who are totally out of touch with the liberation agenda and who are wholeheartedly preaching greed as the ‘new level’ of spirituality to which they have transitioned,” says the Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith Jr., pastor of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, Calif.

Theology professor Dwight N. Hopkins of the University of Chicago Divinity School, named some celebrity preachers whose non-traditional Black religious approach won favor with former President George W. Bush.

“You’ve got Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, T.D. Jakes, and there are about two others,” Dr. Hopkins told BeliefNet, the online religious source. “They’ve had access to President Bush, and he’s actually promoted them. I’m not saying it’s good or bad. I’m just saying they have similar theologies that have political consequences with the president.”

Smith is less opaque in his criticism of Black preachers, who have found salvation through money collection and prosperity promotion. In a sermon delivered at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles last year, Smith decried the absence of prophetic sermons in exchange for easy listening, soul stirring rhetoric.

“What is going on in the Black church with 50,000 believers gathering to get high spiritually is comparable to 80,000 Blacks gathering to hear Nelly or 50 Cent,” he warned. “Between Nelly and Negro preachers, between Dollar and 50 Cent, the Black church in North America is on the verge of a breakdown.”

Professor Hopkins agrees and adds, “America sees that and thinks ‘We thought that was the Black church.’ Prosperity gospel is a recent development, but the whole personal salvation and social justice has been there since the Black church began.”

Smith chided, “Black parishioners are interested in large gatherings of praise where Darfur, Sudan, Angola, the Congo, and Colombia never get mentioned. (They) are interested in large gatherings of praise where they can gather for an entire week of getting their praise on and getting their shout on, speaking in tongues and spending their dollars.”

A national conference of Black clergy convened in Los Angeles in 2005, where conveners were urged to stand against popular culture, secularism and violence. The African American Church Strategy Team, a coalition of eight Black Presbyterian churches, brought together 121 preachers and lay Christian leaders from 10 states. The theme of the four-day gathering was “Reflecting Scripture in a Post-Civil Rights Era: Declaring Our Lord Jesus from the Pulpit, in the Pew, on the Pavement.”

The Rev. Dr. Cecil “Chip” Murray, a senior fellow of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the USC and the former pastor of First A.M.E. Church in Los Angeles, takes exception to the term “post civil rights” in his criticism of what has happened in many Black churches.

“Today we hear talk of the post civil rights era and that is precisely a problem we meet with the so-called post civil rights church,” he says. “When you speak of Black clergy now, you are speaking of a large percentage who have yielded to materialism,” Murray complains. “They have yielded to consumerism. They have yielded to ‘me too-ism’ just going to preach and work people’s emotions up and then say, “I’ll see you next Sunday,” and those people walk out to go through hell.”

The Rev. Dr. Cain Hope Felder, professor of biblical languages and literature at Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, D.C., staunchly criticizes secular Christianity. He told the Los Angeles Times six years ago, “Too many preachers have become so enamored with fame, money, large congregations and the art of preaching as entertainment that they have forgotten their calling.”

At the Claremont School of Theology, Murray instructed students preparing to serve Black churches, “I define Black preaching as liberation preaching: ‘I have come to set the captives free’. It isn’t the elevator of social acceptance that sets us free. It isn’t the occasional flashbulb that goes off in your face. It is the understanding that I have been sent to set free the captive: the captive mind, heart, and spirit.”

Despite criticism about the shifting emphasis from liberation preaching to enriching preachers’ pocketbooks, Black clergy continue to retain high regard within the African American community. But, there are cautions that respect may be eroding.

The Rev. Dr. C. Dennis Williams, pastor of Brookins Community African Methodist Epsicopal Church in Los Angeles, is concerned about behaviors of some high-profile preachers which placed them in a negative public light.

“Many of us have been plagued by scandal and character flaws which have forfeited efforts and cast a cloud of distrust within the community,” said Williams. “Our respect level as African American leaders has lost a tremendous amount of momentum.”

Murray has a prescription to change course and correct the direction many preachers are headed.

“We are going to need a certain percentage of churches to coalesce. If we can just get a consortium of churches that say, ‘we must reconstruct the church, we must reinvent the church, we must re-empower the church,’ then we can go on with economics, education, imaging, family and all because we will have a format that we need in the 21st century.”

“Let us reclaim our prophetic voice,” Oakland’s Smith preached at Bethel A.M.E. on Jan. 31, 2010, “and address the fact that more African American males in California enter our prison system on a weekly basis than the number of African American males who enter U.C. Berkeley on a yearly basis. Fifty times more African Americans enter our prison system than our leading universities.”

In Detroit, Mich., the Rev. Dr. Kevin M. Turman, pastor of Second Baptist Church, sees hope for Black churches to redeem significant standing in African American communities. He contends, “The church, its values, its vision and its priorities are consistently countercultural, especially in capitalist, self-centered, immediate-gratification-oriented times such as these.”

Celebrating his church’s 175th anniversary, Turman says efforts to gain greater attention are countered by competing forces beyond the control of most Black preachers.

“What is new is that our congregations and communities share the ‘moral microphone’ with so many other voices. The Internet has opened a world of possibilities for influencing the perspectives of members and interested parties on what the Bible means and how to apply its teaching,” Turman explains. “In many ways, the adversary of clergy, in particular, and the church, in general, is always the tide of contemporary culture.”

Turman confesses, “Cultural conservatism means that unless the congregation understands the issue, many pastors are hesitant to get too far out front on the matter. We cannot always be sure what ‘thus says the Lord’ on some of these issues and the lack of clarity has an effect on fervor.”

Black preachers are challenged to resist temptations of popular trends that gravitate toward mega-church attractions at the expense of pressing issues affecting Black people. There is no shortage of desperate conditions among African Americans that require the attention of the Black church.

In Los Angeles, Williams says, “The main issue that affects the Black community from my perspective is HIV/AIDS, homelessness, and drugs.” He cites, “All three of them have a certain correlation. The church is silent on them, but could be a stellar voice in the community and bring about change if we only move beyond the walls of the church.”

Some changes taking place in many churches Turman believes are not helpful to meet people’s needs. “What is new is that the rise and profitability of spiritual music has surpassed the role and impact of Gospel music, rendering the melody and music often more important than the message.”

Black churches are facing are other troubles as well. Turman contends, “They are being depleted of role models, leaders, officers and income needed to provide the breadth and depth of ministry our broader community sorely needs.”

Looking back, Murray remembers, “During the civil rights renaissance and revolution, the church exercised leadership such as Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young and others coming out of the Black church.”

Murray indicates a false sense of accomplishment may contribute to what appears to be a leadership gap in Black churches. “When you talk about post civil rights, then you are acting as if we have arrived, when we have not arrived. Yes, there is someone who looks like us in the White House. Yes, slave labor built the foundations of the White House, but under no circumstances does that mean the manifold problems are solved.”

“With the advent of Dr. Martin Luther King as a preacher and leader,” says Dr. Williams, “many Black preachers received their call to the ministry during that time and wanted to imitate his leadership and oratorical skills. The Civil Rights Movement gave them the opportunity they needed to do that.”

The inspirational sermons of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that motivated the cadre of Black preachers who surrounded him along with “church-going, kitchen-working, and basement-praying women” to elevate the Civil Rights Movement, no longer have the power or appeal to capture media attention.

Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington and “The Mountain Top,” his last sermon on the eve of his assassination in Memphis, Tenn., in 1968, fill airwaves during commemorations of his birthday and memorial.

His strident calls for nonviolent, direct action have waned in the wave of mushy messages to advance privatization and personal profits. As a result, Black liberation clergy face the daunting demand to demonstrate a relevant, upbeat presence in society.

“This is for a number of reasons. Racism, segregation, lynching and the bombing of churches and buses were and remain clear and clearly understood moral and theological matters,” Turman says.

“Immigration reform, securing regional equity, rights of the mother versus rights of the fetus, bailing out the banks versus bailing out the car companies,” Turman continues, “the rate and necessity of government spending versus the size of government debt along with so many other issues, can be more challenging to understand and for which to find a clear moral or theological handle.”

“Our challenges are much more extensive and broad now,” as Williams sees it. “We are not contending with just issues of race, and discrimination. We have (an) other onus to deal with such as cyberspace demons on the Internet that appeal to our young African American genre. The infusion of fast food restaurants that are replete in our communities moreso than any other area, which then cause our African American youth to grow up with health issues such as obesity and diabetes.”

Prioritizing the urgency exemplifies the difficulty Black preachers have to deal with daily. Turman begins by saying, “While access to quality healthcare, obtaining quality employment in a changing economy and the deterioration of family and neighborhoods all vie for a close second, I believe that access to quality public education is the most critical issue we face.

“There is a reason that it was against the law to teach slaves to read,” he continues. “There is a reason that access to schools was segregated. There is a reason that equal funding for public education regardless of school systems remains an unmet social challenge.”

He argues, “The opened and enlightened mind is an instrument, a tool, a gift that keeps on giving.

Too many of the bright minds of our communities are drying up like raisins in the sun. The ensuring of access to and opportunity for quality public education has been so removed from local jurisdictions that local pastors, educators, administrators, parents and community activists cannot help but be frustrated in our efforts to affect the substandard status quo.

“But we must, in Bible study, pulpit and community settings remain true to our calling. We may not be able to win the battle by ourselves, but we can still call out and point to the promised land,” Turman surmises.

The long litany of contemporary issues across the United States requires a greater reach for ministers to keep their sermons focused on cutting-edge challenges without compromise. They are expected to do more than preach. They must live their sermons and enter the social fray in the streets where people too often die prematurely. Moving from the sanctuary into the streets allows churchgoers “to pray with their feet,” as Rabbi Abraham Hershel explained while marching with Dr. King through Selma, Ala.

The plethora of critical concerns forming into crises has plunged Black families and individuals into the depths of depression, both mentally and financially. Spiritual support to sustain them through prolonged periods of deprivation has been short-changed in part by too many Black clergy turning away from the power of prophetic preaching.

“You’ve got the preachers who say we are here for getting you into heaven,” reminds Dr. Murray, “but the church exists for more than getting you into heaven. It exists also for getting you out of hell, and for getting the hell out of you, and that is where we are going to have to reinvent ourselves. We are going to be in hell, because we are no longer a predominant minority in the consciousness of a majority that says, ‘we don’t want to hear you folks crying no more. Look at the White House’.”