Let's Chat About Church

Not too long ago, we had visitors in our home from a neighborhood congregation. They have actually been visiting on a regular basis to meet with my husband and my son. I am usually on my way so the most I have time to do is say hello and goodbye in the same breath.

This particular afternoon, however, I was home and able to actually sit in on the discussion. We had a lively debate about a number of issues. One of the most heated discussions centered on church.

The word "church" to me always signifies the people and not the edifice. Upon checking the dictionary, however, the building is always listed as the first definition followed by the clergy and then the people who actually make up the church. There are a number of passages in the Bible that mention church and congregation but none of these references pertain to a particular building. They refer to a gathering of people. The Bible does say "where two or three are gathered in my name, that's where my church shall be." So using that methodology, church can be anywhere - a home, a club, a hall or a sanctuary. It's not the building that makes the church, it's the people gathered there.

For several years, I worked at the headquarter office of a Christian denomination. People would always be shocked when the powers that be did something that was blatantly unfair. They would exclaim 'How could they do that? This is the church!" My response was always the same - this is not the church. This is the headquarter office. Many people found it hard to reconcile the headquarter office with the church. They assumed the two were synonymous. But they are not. There was and continues to be very little God in that building.

So what is the church, you may be wondering, if it's not the headquarter office or the district office or the building where you worship each week? The simple answer is you. You are the church. It doesn't matter if it's a church or temple or mosque or synagogue or ashram. You are the church. In the end, you are not only the church but you are also the ultimate reflection of God no matter the path you choose.

It's very easy to disregard the church if you think of it as a building for worship once a week. It's easy to point a finger and judge when you think of the church as it or them or they. But it's not so easy to ignore if the words used are we or us or ours. We ask why isn't the church saying something about health care. It doesn't speak out because we don't. Why isn't the church seeking a solution to homelessness? It isn’t because we're not seeking a solution. Since we are the church, the church can't do what we don't do. If we take two steps forward, the church does too. If we take three steps back, the church does as well. To add insult to injury, when a church leader does speak out again an injustice, that cleric is chastised for not focusing on people’s souls. It is illogical to think a hungry person can focus on feeding his soul when his daily struggle is to feed his body. The body, mind and spirit are inextricably linked and one cannot be fed if the others are starving. Why would we expect the church to recognize the hunger of one and not the other?

In the end, it doesn't really matter what the building is in which you worship. You can pray or praise anywhere you feel the desire. If you do so among a group of two or more, you're having church. Don't dissuade yourself from having church if the need is there. You may never know who might need church at that moment. Remember it is not they or them who make up the church. It is us. We have always been and will always be the church. To borrow from Webster, we are "the total complex of relation between people and society." The church goes as we go for we are the church politic in all its glory.

His Life Was Worthless

Once again, the United States has decided a young Black man’s life is worthless. Just several minutes ago, the jury returned a “Not guilty” verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman. You may recall last year George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin. He claimed he shot in self-defense. It was found, however, that Trayvon was armed only with a can of soda and a bag of Skittles, dangerous only if you have diabetes.

Zimmerman called the police department when seeing the young Black man in the gated community he patrolled and was told emphatically to stay in the car while backup came. Zimmerman chose to ignore the command and decided to approach the teen. The teen, quite rightly, questioned Zimmerman’s authority and a fight ensued. Zimmerman then shot the unarmed teen claiming he was in a fight for his life.

This has been debated ad nauseum by the various political pundits, civil rights leaders, police officials, and the general public. Regardless of whether or not Zimmerman felt threatened, one fact is abundantly clear. He made a conscious decision to ignore the advice of season professional police officers and instead targeted a young man he felt did not belong in the gated community in which this tragedy took place. Zimmerman profiled Martin, decided he was the one in charge and then when he realized he could not contain the situation, chose to end the life of someone he had no business bothering in the first place. His racist, unwarranted decisions led to the death of a young man, the devastation of a family and another victory for the racist judicial system people of color have to contend with decade after decade.

What does today’s verdict say to the Black youth, particularly Black males, in America? No matter who you are, no matter what you say or what you do, America will only see a threat to be removed from this life. Young Black men are vermin who must be exterminated. Black men are unworthy of justice. Young Black men are unworthy of life itself.

With all the hoopla that has surrounded the election and subsequent re-election of Barack Obama as president, isn’t it ironic that in a country that has been trumpeting the supposed end of racism can look a Black family in the eye and proclaim that the elections were all for nothing. Your son’s life is worth nothing. And we have the verdict to prove it.

As an empathetic person, I hurt for Trayvon Martin’s family. As a spiritual person, I pray for Trayvon’s soul for it will never be at peace. As an American, I hope the mockery that was made of justice today will soon be over although history and the present prison industrial complex system are proving otherwise. As a Black person in America, I dream of a day when justice is no longer blind to injustice. But as a mother of a young, Black man, I hope to hell I am never in the position Trayvon Martin’s mother is in today. Because I would make sure that only hell could hide someone like George Zimmerman from me. And I wouldn’t bet the house money on that!

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

There is a group of people who are celebrating around the country. They celebrate because the sermon they have been preaching for years has finally come to light. Those celebrants are the conspiracy theorists who can point to alleged NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and declare “I told you so!”

For decades, I’ve been hearing that the federal government has been spying on us. We know, for example, that the late J. Edgar Hoover, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, kept files on citizens he felt were subversive. It has come to light that he had the single largest collection of pornography in order to blackmail individuals to cease and desist in behavior he felt was detrimental to his agenda. His files on members of the Black Panther Party, Martin Luther King, John and Robert Kennedy to name a few, were legendary. Although Hoover blatantly violated the civil liberties of many American citizens, he can almost be forgiven for his dictatorial, myopic view of the world as he knew it.

Fast forward from the reign of Hoover to the current spate of US intelligence agencies. We have the FBI which is charged with investigating terrorism, civil rights, public corruption, kidnapping and organized crime. And each of us is aware of the infamous FBI’s most wanted list – one of the visible and effective means of law enforcement communication ever.

The Central Intelligence Agency is charged with collecting, analyzing and disseminating foreign intelligence to the president and other government decision makers relating to national security. The CIA is not a law enforcement agency and is not authorized to conduct operations in the US. However, in matters of national security like counterterrorism, the CIA works closely with the FBI.

The Department of Homeland Security, the knee jerk response to the September 11th attacks, is charged with one goal which is to keep America safe. Although the goal is clear and direct, this department has, in just 11 years, become the third largest cabinet department and the single biggest violator of civil liberties in recent history.

The highly secretive National Security Agency (NSA) and its newer arm, the Central Security Service (CSS) are charged with providing services and products to the Department of Defense, the aforementioned intelligence agencies, government agencies, select allies and coalition partners. This was the agency that employed Edward Snowden and this is the agency we should all fear.

Snowden blew the whistle on his bosses at the NSA informing the American people that this agency has been listening in on our phone calls, monitoring our emails and scanning our mail in the name of national security for quite some time. This blatant violation of the Constitution would be funny if it were not so dangerous.

NSA/CSS officials claim this invasion of privacy has allowed them to curtail various terrorist activities and arrest potential terrorists. None of these plots or the possible perpetrators has been seen nor has it been reported that these individuals will be standing trial for these supposed actions. What this tells me and many others is this government sanctioned spying of American citizens is another way of weeding out potential activists who would gain a voice in the way this country is governed. When the government has the means, the motive and the opportunity to crush their opponents before the opponents can even get a foot in the door, it is a very viable method of control.

Snowden has brought to light more than the fact that the US government is committing the same abuses it claims were committed by the former Soviet Union and are currently being committed by Communist China is just one of the many ways our government is playing fast and loose with the Constitution under the guise of keeping us safe. Not to mention the fact that our government is being blatantly hypocritical. Their idea of keeping us safe is keeping us ignorant of what they do and how they do it. Keeping us safe, as they define it, is keeping us in fear.

At this juncture, it is not enough to declare Snowden a hero when he is being demonized by our government. It is not enough to hope he finds asylum somewhere and continues to bring NSA abuses to light. It is not enough for us to recognize that our communication has been and continues to be monitored by a government maintaining we are free from oppression. And it is not enough to sign the various online petitions exhorting our elected officials to order the NSA to stop spying on American citizens.

It is time for us to say enough is enough. We need to flood Congress, President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and the directors of each agency and department with calls, emails, letters, tweets, faxes and postcards reminding them of the commitment they made to observe our constitutional rights. We need to remind them that they work for us. We need to let them know that keeping us safe does not mean they have the right to spy on us and we will not allow any of them to work against us in the name of national security.

Edward Snowden sounded the alarm. It is time for us to get up and get to work. If we don’t, we will have taken one giant step towards a future none of us wishes for, the future as predicted in George Orwell’s prophetic novel 1984. Then we really will have something to fear.

The Beholden Eye

People Magazine publishes a most beautiful people issue annually.  The usual suspects are there – Pamela Anderson, Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie and the usual two Black women, Halle Berry and Beyonce Knowles.

Black women have entered every major area in American society.  They have become well-known doctors, lawyers, athletes, actors, astronauts and even captains of industry.  Yet Black women have yet to break into what would seemingly be the easiest glass ceiling in the world to break – the most beautiful list.  How is it in the land that has given birth to such beautiful Black women as Dorothy Dandridge, Kerry Washington, Angela Bassett, Gloria Foster, Diahann Carroll, Beverly Johnson and Lena Horne, list only two Black women? 

Greta Garbo, Carole Lombard, Betty Grable, Jane Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, Twiggy, Pamela Anderson – they’re all blond bombshells.  And throughout the history of beauty in the United States, being White and blonde assured a woman of her.  But what of the women of color, those women who could certainly change their hair color but not the color of their skin?  Who considered them beautiful?  And what of the damage done to the psyche of women who look but never see themselves on the beautiful list?  What happens to them?

For years the images of Black women (and Black people) was almost nonexistent in popular media.  Eventually filmmakers like Oscar Micheax began to make race films that were made for Black audiences.  In mainstream film, Black women were usually portrayed as mammies, those large, wise Black women beholden to their white masters or employers.  The only other roles for Black women, especially pretty Black women, was that of the tragic mulatto.  For years, beautiful Black women found themselves in the same old role.  It was because Hollywood had no use for beautiful Black women.  When Black women were not relegated to playing mulattoes, they were usually given a scene to shine as a singer like Lena Horne did in a number of films.  Then Dorothy Dandridge arrived on the scene.  Dandridge was a rare talent.  She could sing, dance, act and she was lovely.  Cast in two mainstream Hollywood movies -Porgy and Bess and Carmen Jones - Dandridge laid to rest the image of the Black woman as simply window dressing in a movie.  So talented was she that the Academy of Movie Picture Arts and Sciences nominated her for a Best Actress Award for the riveting portrayal of Carmen Jones.  Unfortunately she died before showing the world all her God given talent.

If the image of Black women in the cinema was given short shrift, the world of print media was non-existent.  The popular magazines of the first half of the 20^th century like Look, Life, Time, Newsweek, Photoplay always found ways to glorify the beauty of White women and the debonair looks of White men.  But Black people were once again relegated to the background although there was no lack of beauty within the Black community at that time.  Yet it was not until the late 1950’s that Hollywood and New York began to notice the smoldering good looks of Eartha Kitt and Diahann Carroll along with handsome leading men like Sidney Portier and Harry Belafonte.  It took good looks along with undeniable talent that made Hollywood start to open its mind to the fact that Black people were beautiful in their own right. 

Still it wasn’t until 1974 that Beverly Johnson paved the way by becoming the first Black woman to appear on the cover of Vogue Magazine.  Johnson and Naomi Sims gave Black women and Black girls the image that had been missing for two hundred years.

Since the 1970’s Black women have graced the pages of magazines internationally and walked the catwalks in New York and London.  Black women as diverse as Oprah Winfrey and Tyra Banks are invited into homes all across America.  Kerry Washington, Angela Bassett, Halle Berry and Monique have all made films that millions of dollars for their studios.  Yet, the United States can only agree that two and only two Black women are good enough to be included in their Most Beautiful List.  After more than 100 years in the public eye, the damage to young Black girls is still being done.

These messages, unfortunately, are not only reinforced by popular culture but also by public institutions.  Recently, an inner-city high school was found to be constructing practices that supported racial hierarchy utilizing dance classes.  

It would seem that in this particular area, Black women are taking a huge leap backwards.  In the past, even without the great number of beautiful women of color commonly seen, that women of color and particularly Black women, had a great deal of self confidence.  Women in the Black community were acknowledged no matter their size, definitive African features and myriad shades.  This view of Black beauty was evident and the real arbiters of beauty in the community, Black men, seemingly agreed.  Both Black and Latino men have always been more receptive to larger body types and ethnic features as opposed to their White counterparts.  Thus the image of beauty, regardless of what popular culture deemed worthy, was not an image originally shared by communities of color.

The impossible standards set by the media and the fashion industries have not only been detrimental to women of color but Caucasian women as well.  The harm crosses racial lines and age barriers also.  As the image of beauty has changed, so have the methods of achieving said beauty.  The diet industry has grown exponentially with the rise of the thin, White ideal.  For those girls and women for whom dieting is not enough, starvation or eating disorders have become the norm.  It had always been presumed that such methods were solely the province of young, Caucasian women.  However studies have shown that these extremely harmful methods of reaching and maintaining those impossible standards have crossed the lines of both color and age. 

Black and Latino women and girls are not the only ones being affected by this notion of beauty and Whiteness.  In a recent survey conducted by the Mariko Morimoto of the University of Georgia and Susan Chang, it was discovered that White women were featured primarily in ads for beauty while models of other races and ethnicities were featured in ads for cars, health aids and travel.  This was found to be the case for both Japanese and other global publications.  This global phenomenon has become so prevalent in the Asian world that the most requested plastic surgery is the rounding of the eyes.  In this age of globalization, racism in the form of the western world notion of beauty, confirms its ugliness once again.

It may be asked if this trend will ever cease.  It may be asked if the world will once again recognize beauty in all its incarnations and cease to accept the Western world’s notion of beauty.  It may be asked if this notion of beauty is really important in light of the societal ills facing the world.  The answers are surely as varied as the number of people asking the questions.  Yet one fact remains.  There will always be a place in the world for beauty.  It is beauty that is valued and treasured in art, literature, music and nature.  It is beauty that is remembered when people speak of the world.  The notion of beauty is a subjective thing.  But beauty, in its many forms, is alive and well and residing amongst us all.

Supreme Injustice

As you’ve all heard by now, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to gut the Voting Rights Act.  This monumental insult has been widely vilified by citizens and organizations everywhere.  Yet there seems to be no outrage from leaders of color.

I don’t know about you but I expected to hear screams and cries of “racism” from Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  I expected Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP, to be on CNN the night the decision was read.  I thought the leaders of LaRaza would be calling on the entire Latino & Hispanic communities to be outraged.  Yet nary was a peep heard.

To give some of these folks their due, National Action Network, Rev. Al Sharpton’s organization, has a statement front and center on the website.  I signed a petition on the national NAACP site that popped up.  However there was no mention of this decision on the Jackson site for Rainbow Coalition/PUSH.  There was, however, a statement about Paula Deen.  The LaRaza site also makes no mention of the decision.  Needless to say most of the site was devoted to the Senate immigration bill and Michelle Obama attending the national convention.  There is even a report on the DOMA decision about same-sex marriage.  But nothing about the Voting Rights Act, an act that was designed to push voting rights back to the reconstruction era.

Why, you may ask, was this decision reached?  What, you may wish to know, is the purpose behind this decision?  There has been much discussion about this in my circles and I would imagine many of you are wondering the same.  Why?

Let’s look toward the future for that answer.  In almost every demographic projection by scientists, mathematicians and census bureaus, by the year 2040 the US will be majority people of color.  The single largest group will be comprised of Latino/Hispanic who are born here or will have immigrated here.  The next largest group will be Blacks followed by Asians.  Thus the majority of American citizens will look vastly different from the look of today.  Others and I believe it is that projection which has resulted in the egregious decision made by the Supreme Court.  How will it be possible for the minority to continue to rule a majority?  By enacting legislation now that will have serious impact on the future.  This decision and others like it (the horrific decision giving corporations the rights of individuals comes to mind) is a way for Whites to continue to maintain control even as they become the majority.

It is obvious that the Whites in power carefully studied their history looking at South Africa’s past practice of apartheid and giving it a modern spin.  Look at the myriad of decisions that have been enacted in Arizona.  Enslaving people by taking away their knowledge of their own history is a very insidious way of enslavement.  Giving police the right to stop and frisk as they do in New York is a method of enslavement.  Making people carry papers showing they are American citizens in a sly method of enslavement.  Within the urban areas of Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis and others, poor neighborhoods are being gentrified and suburban born Whites are moving in.  The residents who stayed through White flight and urban blight are being moved to the suburbs.  The myth of scattered housing perpetrated by HUD is another way of moving people of color to the suburbs where they will have no access to city services.  This is not happenstance.  These plans were hatched a long time ago when corporate heads, politicians and others saw the projections that have only recently become public.

Public schools have fallen prey to this plan.  Schools have become feeder systems to prisons.  Charter schools are funded by corporate heads to create workers for the companies.  Media organizations are allowed to own television stations, radio stations and newspapers in the same cities, something formerly against the law.  They have consolidated all the information and entertainment we enjoy and divide us with wedge issues like Paula Deen and same sex marriage.  Or divert our attention by making entertainment stories news or focusing on the NBA draft.

This decision is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise Black and Brown people.  There is a method to this madness and this method has been in place a lot longer than any of us would care to admit.  There is a clear and present danger (to borrow from Tom Clancy) to U.S. citizens of color and we would be well to heed it. The saying goes “Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it.”   Truer words, in this instance, have never been spoken.