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“Repairing
and Renewing the World!”
(Kwanzaa)
INTRODUCTION:
When my daughter, Laura, was between two and three year’s old, her
mother and I had been discussing her pre-school educational options. We
were not simply seeking a quality pre-school. For us, as White liberal
religious, race was also increasingly important, and in ways that might
seem strange from this perspective.
We were the beneficiaries
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s prophetic proclamations that America
was not only a racist nation in our schools, churches, transportation,
employment practices, and neighborhoods, but also in the young men we
were forcing to fight in the little nation of Vietnam in Southeast Asia.
He contended that racism was woven into the very fiber of our
nationhood. That it was on the backs of black slaves that America first
began to harness its economic might. It was through the peonage of Black
Americans that much of capitalism forged its foothold in the competing
economic systems of the globe.
Knowing all of that, for
those of us who sought to put liberal beliefs into practice in our
racist society, a non-racist education for our children was most
important…starting very early. So the question became for our family,
where would we send our very special little 2 ½ year old daughter?
There were some good
educational options, including our own local United Methodist Church But
guess what? They were lily white, reflecting the neighborhoods nearby.
And so were all of the rest of the preschools in our neighborhood.
However, we finally found
a program, although it was out of our neighborhood and almost downtown,
but it had children of all races. It was also in an economically
depressed area, as well. We made the decision that this was where it
would be: where Laura would begin pre-school.
Guess what happened? When
little Laura walked in with her Mother, who had also arranged to be a
volunteer, Laura immediately toddled over to the two other little White
girls in the room and began playing with them. She ignored all the
little Black kids, the Native American kids, and the Asians, so she
could play with the two White children.
My first thought upon
hearing the report of the first day was, we went through all of this for
that! I was stunned. But on reflection, Laura’s mother and I realized
that Laura had been conditioned – as sweet and precious as she was – to
be culturally racist. She innately chose White children to play with,
because her playmates in her neighborhood and at her church were White,
at the grocery store the staff was White, as were most of its customers,
so was her physician, so was her dentist, so was nearly everyone she saw
and heard and interacted with. She preferred White children to play with
because that’s who she regularly played with: White kids. Even though
she was only between two and three years of age, she was already
conditioned towards an attitude of White preference…a nascent form of
racism...even with a tiny toddler.
The point I’m making is
this: My little daughter did not intentionally have a racist bone in her
body. In fact, we had worked hard to insure just the opposite. But
because she lived and learned in an all-white neighborhood, supported
and sustained by a White, racist nation in its television, advertising,
and religion, she was culturally conditioned towards White racism and
didn’t know it. She was born into it, and had it ingrained in her from a
very early age despite the best efforts of her parents to preclude that
from happening.
SCRIPTURE.
It was out of that context
in the mid-1960s, that the Black Nationalist Movement arose. It’s
important to note that for Black people in America, their experience was
the reverse of what my daughter’s parents had felt. Blacks in America in
the 1960s were programmed to think that White was best. There were even
lotions that could make one’s skin less dark (at the same time
that Whites were sitting on the beach destroying their skin trying to be
more dark!).
That’s also when White America heard African
Americans saying for the first time, “Black is beautiful.” Further,
Black people don’t need to try to look like White people. It is okay if
their hair is different, their skin different, their nose or lips
different. Because, they are
Black and Black is beautiful! In fact, Black Nationalism appealed for
them to, “Think black, talk black, act black, create black, buy
black, vote black, and live black.”
During this same era on
Dec. 26, 1966, in California, Ron Karenga, a young man whose life
mirrors the struggle of Black Americans to be able to realize the
American dream, founded for the first time, a seven day holiday meant to
highlight the contributions and unique experience of Black Americans.
There were a lot of candles, Swahili language, and African dress. It
emphasized blackness, pride, and self-awareness.
Since then, Kwanzaa has
broadened its base so that it is not seen merely as an alternative to
other religions or holidays, but rather, a day for self-affirmation…a
clear and self-conscious option to affirm the gift of being a human
being…a Black African American human being. In recognition of its
mission, the U.S. Post Office issued a couple of stamps commemorating
Kwanzaa, and President Bush honored it as well in a special radio
address in 2004.
EXPOSITION.
While I would not want in
any way to pose as knowing a whole lot about Kwanzaa, I do feel at
liberty to offer this critique as we come to the time for Kwanzaa 2009.
First is that its observance has begun to wane. That may well be the
Obama Effect. Which, is another way of saying that, many Black Americans
have concluded that they should not have to invest in highlighting their
unique contribution, as much as underscoring their unique
American heritage, and their constitutionally guaranteed right
to all the benefits that citizenship in this nation is supposed to
entail, regardless of race. African Americans are Americans first, and
Black Americans next.
(I hope you’re like me in
being amazed at how many incredibly qualified Black Americans have
entered public service since President Obama’s election. It’s not that
they were not there all the time; rather, they were not on we White
America’s radar screen. Like my little daughter, previously those White
officials in high public office were White, went to church and school
with Whites, and sought out White people for important posts.)
Despite the
phenomenal progress that President Obama’s election symbolizes, we have
to realize that prejudice, no matter what sewer it is operating
from, is always spewing the same stench. That’s so, whether we are
speaking of racism against Black people, anti-Semitism against Jews,
nativism against immigrants, or homophobia against persons of same-sex
orientation.
We like to think that
racism is no longer on the shelf, especially since an African-American
occupies the White House, along with his beautiful wife and two
children. But to think that, would ignore some very disturbing realities
for anyone who is Black in America:
n
The first
reality is that African Americans are disproportionately represented
among the two million Americans populating our prisons.
n
Second, one
in four 18 to 25 year old African American young men will pass through
some phase of the criminal justice system.
n
Third,
Blacks benefit least from our schools, and suffer most from an inferior
education. That’s why the after school tutoring work that people like
All Faiths members’ Frankie Jennings and Roy Kennix are doing in the
minority community is so critically important.
I can still remember my
sister Gracie reporting to me on an 8th grade African
American athlete in her English class in Middle School in Guthrie,
Oklahoma a few years ago. The rule of the school system was that no one
could play in that week’s football game if he had a zero, even if it was
the final game of the season and would determine who would win the
conference title. Young Eddie had a zero and Grace refused to sign off
just so he could play that week. It so happened that Eddie was the star
player on the team. Grace reported that even at that early stage in
public school education, the eighth grade, there was serious pressure to
give a bye to good athletes, even though they were failing.
But it did not matter with
Gracie. She loved her Black students, and by choice had worked at an
historically Black institution of higher learning, before becoming a
high school English teacher. She was convinced that letting Eddie get a
bye to play football when he had a zero was not in his best interests.
She told the coach that. She told her principal that. And she even told
the secretary to the Superintendent of Schools that, when the secretary
called to report that the Superintendent, a former football coach,
wanted her to know he was concerned that the school system might be
charged with racism were Eddie not to get to play football that Thursday
night.
The coach came back to
make a final plea for Eddie to get to play. Gracie finally relented and
said, “All right, already! If it’s that important, here’s what I will
do. Instead of Eddie practicing football after school today, you send
him to my classroom. If need be, I will stay the rest of the day to help
him study for the test, before taking it again. If he passes, I will
sign off. But only if he passes.”
Sure enough, shortly after
the last bell rang, here came Eddie. She said he was a handsome young
boy, with a ready smile. She gave him the study sheet on a particular
portion of English grammar. Then item by item she worked with him so he
could understand what was being taught.
Eddie took the test again
and passed. But what frustrated Grace so much was that after he had
passed and was getting ready to leave, he said, “Ms. Shipley, that was
kind of fun.” He enjoyed learning. He wasn’t dumb. But a system had
thought it was okay to let him pass through without learning!
Unfortunately, there are
not enough Ms Shipleys around. But we have to understand that we are
losing the contributions of millions of young minds because our system
not only has failed to adapt to the unique needs of the African American
community – the pervasive crime, the poverty, the homes without fathers
present.
APPLICATION.
So, what do we do? First,
we have to understand that diversity enriches. Were there no color,
everything would be White, White, White! Color adds not only diversity,
but hues and shades that bring beauty.
Secondly, diversity is at
the root of our evolutionary development. Without it, there would only
be simple, single-cells replicating themselves over and over and over.
Diversity brought variation and mutation, and ultimately the millions of
species that inhabit Planet Earth today. That enrichment and diversity
are to be prized.
CONCLUSION.
All Faiths has been a work
in progress since our founding in 2001. One piece of that work has been
the following statement of my beliefs as the minister of All Faiths. And
since I worked it out in concert with many of you, it passes for
something of a creed in this non-creedal congregation. I want to close
on this last Sunday of the year 2009, by reading it now. I invite your
attention as it addresses four questions: who God is, what religious
language is, why we cherish diversity, and why we do not have a creed
per se:
We believe in the
encompassing Mystery of existence, which many of us call God…
We believe
that religious language and sacred scriptures can be thought of as the
poetry of faith, which is why we repeat creeds, sing hymns, meditate,
pray, and affirm the uniqueness of each other’s spiritual search…
We believe
that diversity enriches us all, whether it’s differences of gender, age,
political affiliation, sexual orientation, race or religious heritage…
We believe
that ultimately, faith is not so much the creeds we say, as it is the
lives we live, which is why we seek constantly to be involved in issues
that matter.
Shalom. Salaam Aleikum. Amen. And
blessed be.
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