If You Were Not Moved

I don’t care what your political persuasion, race, ethnicity, or nationality if you were not moved by today’s inauguration then I am afraid you have no idea what America is about. The America that you stand for is crumbling around you under the weight of its own inadequacies. If your idea of America is based in fear, intolerance, and division the inauguration of President Barack Obama has sounded the death knell to your vision. I hope that the remaining Republican politicians that are left soaked up the spectacle of 2 million Americans from all races and walks of life coming together to witness the changing of the guard and I think in a way to ensure its completion. Let there be no doubt that the people will no longer tolerate politics as usual.

There is a new spirit in America and it was palpable at the inauguration. You could see it on the faces of the people and not just the average person but also the politicians, celebrities, and the security personnel. This level of excitement I personally have not witnessed since the days of John Kennedy. Though still a child at the time I sensed that something was different on that day and unfortunately I have not sensed it since. Not until today.

We as a nation have been given a call to arms and I am curious to see our response to it. Is this generation willing to as President Obama put it; “to pick itself up, dust itself off, and get to work” cleaning up the mess that America has become? Not only are we willing to do it, but can we do it in a way that provides opportunity for all and sacrifice by all? That I think will be the difficulty of our task to be able to put aside the defects and faults of the past and move forward together. Let’s not be fooled there are still those who have profited from our petty bickering and resentments from past wrongs and they will not for a moment just sit idly by while their years of sowing discord is dismissed without a fight. I believe that the election of Barack Obama has demonstrated for those who have eyes to see that the tide has turned. There are now more of us seeking change and reconciliation than there are those who continue to be haunted by the past. There will be no national unity trials for past grievances. President Obama has made it abundantly clear that his focus is on the future and not blinded by the past.

I think the image that stood out the most to me and I think will have the biggest impact in the days and years to come was the image of Malia and Sasha walking into the inauguration. That image was so powerful on so many levels. It spoke to the old in that it signaled newness of life and it spoke to the young that today anything is indeed possible. The image of two little black girls being catered to and fawned over by a nation is mindboggling and in my opinion way overdue. How many times have we had pictures of lost and murdered little white girls splashed across our screens and little if any acknowledgment of their young black sisters who had suffered the same fate? Maybe, just maybe this will demonstrate that we as a nation have enough love for all of our children, even those who don’t look like us.

I don’t know about you but in my sight the Statue of Liberty is standing just a little taller and her flame just a little brighter today.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! – Dr. Martin Luther King

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You Can Be Whatever You Want To Be?

With today’s historic inauguration of President Barack Obama as the nation’s first black President I wanted to try and put into words what it meant to me as a black man in America. I also wanted to try and put it into an historical content for myself and other black children who grew up during the civil rights era of this country. However, as I began to contemplate the enormity of the event and the history I realized that I was overcome with so many conflicting emotions that I would not be able to present them in any coherent manner and still stay within the constraints of this medium. So I decided to take one aspect and try to focus in on it.

For many black children growing up during and immediately following the civil rights era in America our parents and grandparents began to tell us that we could grow up and be anything we wanted to be. We were told that for the first time in our history we would have opportunities to become engineers, doctors and business people. We were told that if we studied and worked hard we could better ourselves and no longer would we be relegated to being janitors, porters, and sanitation workers. We were told that the dream that was America was slowly unfolding for all of us. In retrospect I wonder how many of these parents and grandparents truly believed those words to be true?

Then we enter 2008, and the implausible and what many considered impossible happened. A majority of Americans were able to overcome our nation’s racist history and stereotypes and elect our first black President. But has the election of President Barack Obama suddenly made these words true? Has his election really taken these words from wishful thinking to reality? I think before we answer we must look at who and what Barack Obama is and what he represents. Unlike many black leaders who came before him Barack Obama did not come out of the civil rights movement or the black church. President Obama is not a child of slavery, but of immigration. President Obama was not raised in the traditional black family, but by whites. So we see that in every basic area of importance to traditional black leadership he is different. How do these differences translate to his ascendancy to power and what are the lessons to be learned for our black children today wanting to make a similar journey?

I think the most important lesson is we as black Americans have to move away from racial identity politics. We have to begin to build collaborations with others. For too long it has been no one can relate to our pain, that pain has become our identity. For too long our leaders have sold us and our children a false narrative. They have clung to an ideology and to tactics that no longer have relevancy or resonate with the people. While these tactics have managed to provide wealth and power to these men they have done little to raise the consciousness or the status of black people as a whole. While these leaders have stressed the responsibility of others they have done little to stress our own responsibility for our conditions. Instead of teaching that with opportunity there is responsibilities they have taught that responsibility owes opportunities. What this has resulted in is a loss of wealth between generations instead of a growth in wealth. Many black children today are in worse economic shape than their parents. Why is this? Why have black children in so many cases been unable to build on the successes of their parents?

What we see with President Obama is that he was raised with the true belief that if he worked hard he could be anything, not just the words. If a child does not see or hear the conviction behind the words that are spoken he will not believe them. If a child believes that even with hard work they cannot succeed then many will give up hope and not even try. And that is what is happening in the black community today, a child believes that they have a better chance to become a rapper or an athlete than to become a doctor or an engineer. In my opinion the most egregious insult to Dr. King’s legacy perpetrated by the so-called black leadership that followed him was that it lost the hope that was Dr. King. Dr. King always looked to tomorrow to be a better day than today and he offered this hope and belief to millions of others. It was this hope that allowed so many to ignore personal hardship and tragedy and to continue to push for equality and justice.

President Obama embodies that hope because when opportunity presented itself he worked hard to be able to take advantage of it. He didn’t believe that just because he was black it was owed to him. Instead of focusing on the past he looked to the future. For so many of us we can’t see tomorrow because we refuse to let go of yesterday. Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Everyone wants to be successful, but nobody wants to put in the hard work. In order for us to move forward we must begin to change our culture towards education, hard work, and responsibility.

You can be anything you want to be black child, but it is going to require hard work, discipline, and hope.

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Jeremiah Wright Is Not The Problem

Why is it that in America we always look for the easy and the convenient. We always want everything to fit into a nice neat box. That’s right, no contemplative thought, no analyzing, just give it to me in a form that will not require a lot of work or thought on my part. It is a simple task to chalk up the Reverend Jeremiah Wright as some angry black lunatic who is going to single handedly destroy the Obamania tour. It is amazing to me how so many people blogging will write all these prose and essays extolling the virtues of the American electorate and how badly they want policy white papers and how hungry they are for detailed plans. When the truth of the matter, as the fall-out from Reverend Wright has once again displayed, is that the majority of voters could care less about timetables and figures. Not when there is some juicy story floating around about some crazy black man and his relationship to the leading Democratic Presidential contender.

For those who prefer to accept the Cliffs notes version of events I would suggest you not read any further, because that is not what I will provide. What I will provide is a provocative analysis of the real underlying problem as to why we are having this dust up about a relatively small-time pastor. You see the real problem has nothing to do with Jeremiah Wright. The real problem was exposed 40 years ago by Dr. Martin Luther King in an interview he gave at Western Michigan University. In the interview Dr. King stated that the most segregated hour in America is Sunday morning. You see the problem is that because we do not interact not only Monday through Friday, but also on Sunday we have no concept as to what each other are thinking. We, as blacks are given a better glimpse into white society because we are bombarded with its images on a constant basis. Whites on the other hand have little or no conception of what is going on in the black community aside from the caricatures from television and movies.

The Church in America as a whole has done little to reconcile and heal the wounds of the past. The modern Church instead of preaching the Gospel has instead chose to preach the world. Just the fact that we have a black Church and a white Church should be alarming to anyone who professes to be a Christian. Many whites have asked how could Barack Obama have remained a member of his church when the minister was making the statements he was making. Those of you who are not prejudice how could you have remained in families where racial slurs and prejudice where present? I have known countless whites who have confessed that they have parents, brothers, or sisters have often times used racial slurs and had racial biases. Or that they have attended social events and parties where there were no minorities present and the racial jokes and the N-word were being cast around like lures at a bass fishing tournament. My point is that there is enough blame to go around and if we all just look into our own lives honestly we will see it.

The question I have is this. If you are attending a church and you look around and everyone in that church looks like you and acts like you, then why are you there? I present this question to both black and white. Newsflash – If you call yourself a Christian and everyone at your church looks just like you then you are in the wrong church. How can we expect to worship the same God when we can’t even come together and worship him here and now. It is no wonder so many people have such bad opinions of Christians. We preach togetherness and one Church, one Lord, and one God, but where is that unity on Sunday? We each run off to our safe little church communities and talk about all of these virtues and once the sermon is over we climb right back into our cars and go right back to our segregated worlds. The problem is not this one preacher, no my friends the problem is the Church as a whole in America. If we are ever to overcome the many obstacles that divide us we must begin with the One who unites us.

Martin Luther King Jr. said America’s most segregated major institution is the church.

“At 11:00 on Sunday morning when we stand and sing and Christ has no east or west, we stand at the most segregated hour in this nation,” King said in 1963. “This is tragic. Nobody of honesty can overlook this.”

Only 7 percent of America’s churches are racially mixed. On June 29, Biggers is planning a nationwide Mission Sunday. He hopes to organize 1,000 churches across the United States to visit churches that “look different from one another.”[1]

How can this be? We talk about love, honesty, and fairness yet we don’t have a clue how to worship God together. The problem is hypocrisy in the Church. Jesus had His harshest criticisms against hypocrites[2] because of their damaging effect on the Church. Hypocrites destroy the Church from inside as well as outside. They destroy it from the inside by undermining the faith of others. How can I trust the preacher when he is running around with the deacon’s wife? They destroy it from the outside by preventing those who want to join the Church from doing so. Why should I join the Church when they are doing the exact same things that the world is doing? I beseech anyone who claims to be a disciple of Christ to look back at what He did. He went out into the world, he didn’t just stay in “His” community. Can we not also do the same? I would ask all true Christians and non-Christians alike to step out of your comfort zone and reach out to those who appear different from you. You may be surprised how much they may be like you.

[1] http://blog.newsok.com/newsroom/2008/01/21/the-most-segregated-hour/
[2] Matthew 23:13-36

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Is Obama Safe?

I happened to stop by and see my folks this weekend as is usually my custom and it is amazing how the conversation has changed in the last month. Originally we discussed the remote possibility of Senator Obama getting elected, then whether his agenda included black issues and would whites vote for him, and now as he is continuing to win a much more ominous question is being discussed. I wish I could say these conversations were only limited to my parents, but unfortunately they aren’t. The question and concern starting to arise among many blacks in America and maybe worldwide is the safety of Barack Obama.

The questions started arising during a visit to Dallas when it was reported the security detail assigned to the Senator were stopped from using metal detectors and searching bags and purses at a rally held by the Senator in which about 17,000 people attended. According to published reports the order came from the Secret Service and was considered by many of the Dallas Police as a security breach. Of course the rally went off without any violence, but it still highlights a growing fear among blacks, especially older blacks concerning the safety of Senator Obama as he gets closer to possibly becoming President of the United States.

But concern about Obama's safety transcends racial lines. He has white supporters who see him as an inspiring, youthful advocate of change in the mold of Robert F. Kennedy, and they are mindful of Kennedy's assassination just two months after King's.

Obama received Secret Service protection last May - the earliest ever for any presidential candidate. At the time, federal officials said they were not aware of any direct threats to Obama, but Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin - who was among those recommending the Secret Service deployment - acknowledged receiving information, some with racial overtones, that made him concerned for Obama's safety.

Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, a former executive director of the Black Leadership Forum, noted that political leaders of any race face risks in a society where mass shootings and other violence by aggrieved or deranged assailants is all too common.[1]

It never fails whenever I go to the barbershop or a restaurant in my neighborhood the talk is about the possibility of harm coming to the Senator. Many times it is carried out in hushed tones as if the actual speaking of it out loud will in some eerie way cause it to happen, as if the forces that would choose to harm the Senator needed to hear the suggestion. It’s strange how the majority of concern is coming from older blacks and I wonder if that is because they have historical recollection of other former leaders being gunned down during a more restive period of our history. They have first hand knowledge of how the dreams and hopes of a people can be snuffed out in the blink of an eye.

Is Obama more at risk today than say political and social leaders of the past? Are the security forces better able and more willing to protect him? The truth of the matter is no one knows the minds and hearts of men. I do know that yes children there are things that go bump in the night, there are evil forces that lurk in this world. For us to deny them and hide under the bed may have worked as a child, but as the many shootings taking place in our society daily can attest we live in a very violent place. Are there people who are intimidated by the very real possibility of the first “real” black President? Of course there are. Would they be willing to prevent this through some act of violence? I think history has shown that this is a fact. I am glad to say though that I believe these people are in the minority. The reality though is simply this if anyone is willing to die in the process there is no one safe in this world that lives in the public eye.

The reason I don’t fear this scenario is not because I am naïve, on the contrary I am very aware of the evil that lies in men’s hearts, but I believe that if we allow our fears to prevent us from accomplishing our goals then we will never accomplish anything. I am a firm believer in fate and if it is meant for someone to die then nothing can prevent it. One thing is sure and that is no one leaves this world alive. Malcom X once said, “That if a man has not found anything he was willing to die for, then he wasn’t worth living.” Now is the time for this particular chapter to be played out in America and no one knows how it will end, but it must be played none the less.

I think Senator Obama has thought about and discussed these risks with his wife and family and come to the conclusion to trust fate and his belief in God. If God is who I believe Him to be, then whom shall I fear? There are those who have even suggested the insane notion of not voting for Obama to protect him from assassination. I believe this to be foolish and plays into the hands of those who would try to prevent his election. The men who rode around in hoods didn’t have to lynch and kill all the black men just enough to put fear in the others. The way we combat those forces of darkness is precisely by standing up and not cowering in fear. Is Obama safe? He is as safe as any one of us can be, his life is in the hands of God just like the rest of us.

[1] http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OBAMA_SAFETY_FEARS?SITE=TXSAE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-02-22-17-19-03

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The Chicken or The Egg?

In what has got to be the most insane strategy in the history of politics, the two Democratic frontrunners are debating race in an election that features a woman and a black male. While both campaigns are responding to these non-issues, the real issues facing the country are being ignored. The choice of who best represents the future direction of the country should be front and center of the debate, not the race or gender of the candidates. Both campaigns are guilty of fueling the flames and highlighting differences that don’t exist. Does anyone doubt that Hillary Clinton is committed to civil rights? Does anyone doubt that she has a healthy understanding of the civil rights movement and its leaders?

The thing that has always bothered me about politics and politicians in particular is their enormous egos and ambition. Here we have two extremely ambitious people who are driven by their chances to make history and in their efforts to separate themselves and win the nomination they have allowed their egos to trump their intellect. No one wins by them cutting each other up over race, gender, or past indiscretions. We must not allow these two to provide any chance of a Republican victory in November by taking a win at all costs philosophy. What is at stake here is greater than either one of these two even if their egos won’t allow them to see it. Our country and our futures are at stake.

There has been a lot of fall-out concerning remarks made by Hillary Clinton concerning the role of President Johnson in the civil rights movement. In her comments Ms. Clinton spoke of how it was the then President Johnson whose signing of legislation ushered in the civil rights victories being pushed by Dr. King and other civil rights leaders. According to Ms. Clinton without the legislation the marches and the speeches would have been for naught, it took a President to bring about real action. This is such a non-issue, anyone familiar with the times understood that Dr. King needed President Johnson and President Johnson needed Dr. King.

In order to understand this relationship, we must look at the motivations of both men. What did Dr. King want? He wanted equal rights for blacks. Where do rights proceed from? There are many sources of rights. There are the rights endowed by one’s Creator, which should transcend any rights bestowed by man. The problem is that when the founders of this nation started endowing rights on folks they forgot a few.

Certain rights/authority are ours having been given/delegated to us as a result of our position or office: legislators, judges, elders; some because of the responsibility laid on us by God: fathers, mothers, neighbors; and some are ours because they came with us at birth as our Declaration of Independence states: "all men are created equal, ...they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."[1]

So even though we have been granted certain rights by our Creator, here in America those rights have to also be given by the government. Dr. King knew that in order to affect the changes that he sought he would need to involve the head of the government; at that time it was LBJ. The main reason for the marches and protests was to bring political and public pressure on the government to pass legislation to make the changes. Dr. King knew that the shortest way to bring about racial change was to first enact it legally and then he hoped that as the legal barriers had been overcome that at some point the social and the personal would catch up. One has to remember that there were legal barriers that condoned and enforced segregation and Jim Crow and until those barriers were removed there could be no social change. Just like in South Africa the legal mechanisms of apartheid had to be dismantled before any real change could take place. This would involve bringing political pressure against the Congress and the President.

LBJ needed the outrage of the country as it witnessed the horrors of the “legal” responses to the protestors to galvanize support for the civil rights legislation. As the country watched in horror at the high pressure fire hoses, the attack dogs, and the police brutality against non-violent protestors the outcry became too great for the politicians to ignore. The question now becomes could LBJ or any President have enacted legislation without protests? It happens every day; Iraq, No Child Left Behind, etc. Could Dr. King have accomplished his goals without LBJ? Absolutely, the winds of change were blowing. It just would have taken a lot longer if the President had been resistant to the changes. So, like most moments in history both men needed each other to usher in the changes that were bound to happen.

So which came first the chicken or the egg? Does it really matter? What should really matter is what are the differences in the two candidates and which one embodies the changes that we all are seeking. If you don’t want to vote for Hillary that’s fine, but don’t do it because she is a racist or insensitive to black people. If you don’t want to vote for Barack that’s fine, but don’t do it because he is a black drug addict. Dr. King’s dream was that someday we would be all judged on our character; maybe we should start doing that today.

[1] http://www.americanchristianhistory.com/constitution02.html

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Dr. King Belongs To Us All

I recently read an article concerning the Martin Luther King National Monument movement and some internal bickering in regards to the artist chosen to sculpt the monument. The artist that was chosen was Lei Yixin, a Chinese sculptor.

Politicizing national monuments is nothing new and dates back to the Statute of Liberty, but in this case I think it has greater significance because of whom the monument depicts and what he stood for. Dr. King dedicated his life to the pursuit of character over color and so it seems odd that there are those who would want to use color as the criteria for the artist.

Politics have dogged the King memorial since it was first suggested after his death in 1968. And trailing behind this latest squabble, like tin cans tied to a cat’s tail, are lofty concerns about cultural memory and racial sensitivities, as well as the mundane realities of turf battles, egos and flawed communication.[1]

There have been trouble-spots throughout this whole process; from the King family wanting to be paid to use the likeness of Dr. King for the monument to the argument that anyone but a Black artist could not capture the essence of Dr. King. It just goes to show you how far we have come as a nation only to see how far we as a people have not. This monument will be the first national monument dedicated to a Black man on the mall. The monument will be between the Lincoln and Jefferson Monuments and will be a testimony to the history of Blacks in helping to shape America.

The problem I have with the whole debate is this, Dr. King was more than just a Black icon, he was an international symbol of struggle against not only racial intolerance, but human intolerance. At the time of his death he was in the process of speaking out against the war against the Vietnamese and other third world countries. For a group of Black people to claim that only one group owns the legacy of Dr. King is ridiculous.

It’s funny how the only time Black people want to own the legacy of Dr. King is on his birthday and when money is involved. I look at the state of Black America and I wonder where are the values and beliefs that Dr. King espoused in our communities? Young black men are killing each other in ever increasing numbers, our communities are still under assault both internally and externally, and we continue to fall behind in education, but these people are worried about a statue.

I agree it would be cool to have a Black artists do the monument, but based on the design chosen that wasn’t possible. So, let’s just redesign the monument to accommodate the black artists that were not chosen. The only problem with that is unless all of them are chosen there will still be controversy and jealousy. It’s too bad our art community could not rise above petty jealousy and celebrate that at least we are going to have a national monument. But I guess that isn’t the important thing, the important thing is that we keep it black.

It should be noted that the majority of people on the monument selection committee are black, so this isn’t some group of white bureaucrats dictating the project. I recently went to one of the disgruntled artist’s website, a Mr. Gilbert Young and I was appalled at what I read.

For those whose only belief is that King belonged to the world—that his work, his words, and his stance was international in scope—you need only take a few moments to review history. Watch the films and look at the photographs that show what was going on in African America that prompted King to become the icon he became. The images of “White Only” signs on drinking fountains and movie houses; scores of people marching and protesting bigotry, prejudice, Jim Crow, and segregation. Look again at the black men hanging from trees lit by Klan fires. See the young black men and women and children being hosed in their faces, bitten by dogs and dragged through the streets by police. Watch the men carrying out the bodies of those four little girls.[2]

For him to invoke the memory of the fallen of the civil rights movement to attempt to shame black folks into supporting him, I found tasteless and disgusting. It is one thing to disagree with a decision, but to use the historical symbols of racial intolerance to advocate racial intolerance for personal gain is unconscionable. Dr. King does belong to the world Mr. Young, because his message was universal in nature, it may have been spoken for the black man at the time, but it was applicable to all men. Just as the words of all great men transcend their time and circumstances, so did Dr. King’s. You want to cling to Dr. King as if he were some racial ragdoll that you can bandy around and pull out when it is convenient or profitable. I wish you had argued on the merits of the issue and not resorted to the emotionalism of language to incite and divide. I don’t think Dr. King would be approving of those tactics, do you?

As for how the foundation ended up with Mr. Lei, Harry Johnson Sr., the memorial foundation’s chief executive, said the overall design dictated that Dr. King’s image be carved from stone, so the selection panel searched for someone who had experience working with granite on a monumental scale. No African-American sculptor fit that requirement, he said. “Lei was chosen to work on this not because of his political beliefs, not because of his ideology,” he said, “but because he could do the work.”

He added that two African-American artists, Jon Lockard and Ed Hamilton, are collaborating with Mr. Lei to ensure the accuracy of King’s image. Construction is supposed to begin this year and be completed in 2009.[3]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/arts/design/24statue.html
[2] http://www.kingisours.com/
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/arts/design/24statue.html

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