When Santa Claus Went to the Ghetto

Everybody has been so worked up over the Duck Dynasty/Phil Robertson controversy (and, before that, Megyn Kelly’s “white Santa” drama) that it feels like we’ve misplaced our “peace on earth and good will toward men.” I really appreciate Jen Hatmaker’s wise and passionate words on the subject, but frankly I’d prefer not to add any more volume to the cacophony. Instead, I’ve come out of blogging hibernation to offer my reflections on something a little more fitting for the season. A couple days ago, I heard an engaging segment on NPR about sad Christmas songs.

“Bundled up in Christmas is hopefully a lot of joy and a lot of family and a lot of happiness, but that’s always going to be touched with an element of sadness,” said NPR’s Stephen Thompson, and I agree. Whether it’s Nat King Cole’s classic “The Christmas Song” or Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmastime Is Here,” our favorite holiday tunes usually come with a dash of melancholy. It’s what I used to refer to during my teen years as a “happy sadness.”

Every Christmas I have at least one or two songs that wind up defining the holiday for me that year. The last couple of years, the tracks from Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas comprised my go-to holiday playlist. But this year, I can’t seem to get away from the funky “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” by James Brown. The tune has been in heavy rotation on my iPod for the past couple weeks.

As a child of the 1970s and ’80s, I was a bit too young to witness James Brown in his original glory. My initial impressions of him were informed more by the mild spoofs of himself that he did in The Blues Brothers or Rocky IV. While those performances were genuine James Brown, they were more riffs on his former greatness than fresh manifestations of his true artistic brilliance. James Brown is remembered as “the Godfather of Soul,” “Soul Brother No. 1,” and “the Hardest Working Man in Show Business.” Signature James Brown hits like “I Feel Good” and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” are not just great R&B songs; they’re among the greatest entries in the American songbook. It’s not hyperbole to say James Brown was one of the most influential artists in popular music. Without him, it’s difficult to imagine how any of today’s variations of pop music—rock, R&B, hip-hop—would exist in their fullness.

“Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” was released in 1968 as part of Brown’s A Soulful Christmas album. When I first heard the song  a few years ago, I confess that I listened to it through the filter of the latter-day James Brown caricature. It’s the funky Godfather of Soul talking about Santa Claus going to the ghetto. That’s pure fun and silliness, right? Upon further listens, however, I was struck by how urgent the song is. Not only is it filled with an understated poignancy, at moments it virtually seethes with a biting desperation. This, after all, was 1968—the year that saw Brown moving from being one of America’s most popular entertainers to one of its most vocal activists.

Most notably, 1968 was the year that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a motel balcony in Memphis. All at once, the anger and hopelessness of black people boiled over in the form of riots across American cities. As the nation both figuratively and literally burned, James Brown was called upon to help bring peace to a tenuous situation. On April 5, 1968, the day after King’s murder, Brown had been scheduled to perform a concert at the Boston Garden. In the wake of the Memphis tragedy, however, the performance was initially canceled by Boston Garden management until Boston’s first African American city councilman, Tom Atkins, persuaded Boston mayor Kevin White that the James Brown concert should go on and be televised on local public television as a means of unifying the black community and directing its attention away from the despondency and rage that were hanging in the air. James Brown not only supplied a thrilling performance, he was credited with calming the city’s nerves and keeping Boston residents safely away from the troubled streets.

The full story is chronicled wonderfully in James Sullivan’s book The Hardest Working Man: How James Brown Saved the Soul of America. Indeed, the Boston concert marked something of a turning point in Brown’s career. After that show, President Lyndon Johnson implored the singer to perform a benefit concert in Washington, D.C., to promote a message of nonviolence. And later in the year, Brown would release his groundbreaking hit “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud,” which placed him squarely in the fray of the civil rights movement’s struggle for racial justice in America.

It’s against this backdrop that Brown recorded “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto.” And once you get past the initial funkiness of the track (check out the quick burst of “Jingle Bells” during the saxophone solo), it’s hard not to hear it as a type of subversive protest song.

Santa Claus, go straight to the ghetto

Hitch up your reindeer, uh!

And go straight to the ghetto

Santa Claus, go straight to the ghetto

Fill every stocking you find

The kids are gonna love you so, uh!

What’s most striking about the song to me is how Brown acts as the tour guide for Santa, the one man whom you’d suppose knew his way around all parts of the world. But in 1968, Brown understood that Santa Claus, and all he might represent in this context—the government? the church? white America?—needed instructions for navigating their way around the ghetto, a place that was presumably foreign to them.

Leave a toy for Johnny

Leave a doll for Mary

Leave something pretty for Donnie

And don’t forget about Gary

“Tell ’em James Brown sent you,” the singer goes on to say, at once offering himself up as the conduit for connecting with the hidden pain of the black community.

I confess, “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” is an odd candidate for the Christmas canon. It does not receive the acclaim of R&B holiday classics such as Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” or the Temptations’ rendition of “Silent Night.”  It will never be sung by neighborhood carolers or during a church Christmas Eve service. But 45 years after the song’s release, in a 21st-century era that still boasts disturbing social and economic disparities between rich and poor, black and white, immigrant and non-immigrant, it might do us well to take Soul Brother No. 1’s desperate plea to heart. Could it be that he’s calling us to pack up our sleighs and remember the contemporary “ghettos” in our midst?

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Haunted by Lincoln, MLK, and Louie Giglio

Illustration: “Change” by artist Charles Criner at the Museum of Printing History in Houston, Texas. (http://www.printingmuseum.org/crinerprint.php)

At the 2008 Democratic National Convention it was Joel Hunter. At the 2009 presidential inauguration it was Rick Warren. This year it was Louie Giglio. Evangelical pastors who drew criticism for their associations with Barack Obama. The rancor is bipartisan — stones are thrown from both the right and the left. And it’s not just pastors who are targeted: anyone remember the controversies involving magazine publisher Cameron Strang or gospel singer Donnie McClurkin? Regardless of your politics, if you’re a Christian leader who has ever taken your job seriously, becoming yoked with Barack Obama can be public-relations kryptonite.

Giglio, a popular Atlanta-based pastor, was set to offer the benediction at next week’s inauguration ceremony. But he withdrew after coming under fire from gay-rights activists for a 15-year-old sermon in which he was critical of the homosexual lifestyle. For many evangelical Christians, it was just further proof of the rampant political correctness that now pervades society, making it nearly impossible for people of faith to, you know, say and do the stuff that defines them as people of faith. For many gay-rights activists, it was viewed as another victory and a message to the nation that anything smacking of homophobic intolerance will not be tolerated.

This points to the first rule any pastor aspiring to rub shoulders with the president or others in high places should heed in this age of Google and YouTube: your sermons are not just for the ears of churchgoers anymore, and they may be held against you at some future date by those who have no interest in the contextual nuances of your biblical preaching.

But is that it, then? Is the culture war settled? Have all Christians with beliefs that conflict with the agendas of certain political-interest groups been served notice that they are now persona non grata at public ceremonies like the presidential inauguration because their values are considered hateful or out of step with mainstream ideas?

Or is it possible for both Christians and their cultural opponents to extend an olive branch, seek common ground, and in the words of the Lord via the prophet Isaiah, “come and reason together”?

 

Obama the Reconciler

What gets lost in these sad but predictable controversies is the fact that we have a president who perhaps more than any other modern occupant of the White House has befriended a wide range of evangelical leaders. Though evangelical voters generally do not support President Obama, this hasn’t stopped him from seeking commonality with them. The president selected Giglio in part because of the work he’s done to battle child slavery and sex trafficking. In fact, someday when the first real histories are written on such matters, it might be argued that Barack Obama was not just our nation’s “first gay president” but its most evangelical one as well.

The irony of this latest debacle is that it undermines Obama’s intentional efforts to be a president of inclusivity. When you’re the nation’s first African American president, the expectation (or, unfortunately for some, suspicion) is that you’re going to be a president who promotes diversity. For the same reason, President Obama has been obliged to demonstrate that he’s the president of conservative white people too, and not just people of color or those who agree with his policies.

That’s why the lineup for the inauguration was so inspired: it offered a little bit for everyone. President Obama’s civil rights side was represented in the choice of Medgar Evers’s widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams, giving the opening prayer; his support of both Hispanics and the homosexual community was reflected in the choice of having gay Latino poet Richard Blanco recite a poem; and his identification and shared aims with evangelical Christians was reflected in the choice of Louie Giglio closing out the proceedings.

Some might say he’s a calculating politician playing identity politics, and they probably aren’t wrong. But it’s also important to recognize that Barack Obama’s background uniquely prepared him to be a president of many groups and constituencies.

One reason why many Christians have supported this president, even though they’ve disagreed with some of his policies, is because they sense that he gets it, that he’s willing to try to see the world from perspectives other than his own. He wants to understand the other point of view. Even though he might support an opposing position, he demonstrates empathy and a willingness to listen to others. This is an invaluable trait that we’ve rarely seen in other presidents. It seemed to emerge in Lincoln as both his presidency and the Civil War unfolded. FDR appeared able to step outside his privilege and display it. LBJ, for all his defects, had it enough to pass landmark civil rights statutes. Jimmy Carter has shown it more since leaving office. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush demonstrated flashes of it at various times, especially in the early parts of their presidencies. But Obama gets it honest because as a mixed-race kid who grew up in rural, urban, and international settings, he’s lived it. As biographer David Maraniss observed:

Obama … spent ten crucial years of his life, from the time he left Hawaii at age 17 to start college at Occidental in L.A. to the time at age 27 that he drove up to Cambridge to start at Harvard Law, trying to sort out the problems that life presented him, to work out his identity and resolve the contradictions of growing up … a mixed and cross-cultural kid. He worked his way through his problems so thoroughly and effectively that it helped him reach the White House, and once there this fact both helped and hurt him. In some sense, he thought that if he could resolve the contradictions of his own life, people and factions should be able to figure out how to resolve their differences just as he did.

There was no greater evidence of Barack Obama’s intrinsic empathy than his brilliant “race speech” in Philadelphia during the 2008 campaign. Though presented in part to do damage control after YouTube videos of his former pastor’s blistering critique of America surfaced, it became Obama’s signature statement on race relations and reconciliation in America — his most eloquent and comprehensive comment on the subject to date. “I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas,” he said. “I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression…. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners…. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.”

In that speech, Obama revealed the depth of his understanding of race and class in America — his empathy for the “the doctor and the welfare mom … and the former gang-banger” who all occupy pews at black churches like Trinity Christian in Chicago, as well as for “working- and middle-class white Americans” who have “worked hard all their lives … only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor.” No other presidential candidate has spoken with more realness and credibility about the modern American condition because he was a product of it all.

Unfortunately, both that speech and President Obama’s gestures to show inclusivity at the inauguration were politicized by warring factions. The cynicism runs so deep that it has become impossible for our nation’s political parties to view their ideological rivals as anything but the enemy.

 

Lincoln, King, and Our House Divided

It was announced last week that for his swearing-in ceremony President Obama will use Bibles that belonged to Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. — two leaders who thoroughly understood the importance of dialogue and conciliation with those from “the other side.” President Obama has been symbolically and directly tied to both of these leaders’ legacies from Day One for a variety of reasons. Like Lincoln, the tall and lanky law expert Obama earned his political wings in Illinois and went on to become an unlikely occupant of the White House, where he now presides over a divided nation. And journalists and scholars have written breathlessly about Obama as the human fulfillment of King’s “dream” of racial integration.

But the comparisons are not unwarranted. Lincoln presided over a nation that was ripped in half by a literal culture war whose manifold consequences continue to stymie and divide our nation today. “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” he presciently said as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, echoing the words of Jesus. He worked boldly, first to keep the Union together but later to eradicate the sin of slavery that enslaved it. Many have compared the state of contemporary American politics to that of a new civil war, with Obama charged with somehow bringing the Union back together.

And King, the southern Baptist preacher trained at northern theological schools, brought a social-gospel vision and evangelistic impulse to the challenge of leading African Americans and eventually the entire nation toward a new understanding of community and citizenship. On segregated battlegrounds such as Montgomery and Birmingham, King was able to work out the ideas of nonviolent resistance that he had studied and witnessed in the activism of Gandhi, the writings of Thoreau, and the New Testament teachings of Christ. Obama likewise has tried to work out his ideas about a multicultural citizenry in the Red State/Blue State context of our current segregated culture.

When President Obama decided upon the symbolism of using Bibles from these two great men, he surely was cognizant of their legacies, as well as the legacy he would like to leave.

 

Our Shrinking Humanity

The historic symbolism of the inauguration — and the tragedy of Louie Giglios’s withdrawal from it — is underscored even more by the fact that the public event falls on January 21, which this year marks the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. It has become popular to suppose which positions Dr. King would take on contemporary issues such as affirmative action, immigration, and same-sex marriage. The truth is, conjecture can be fun but no one knows for sure how King would have evolved on specific matters. I am willing, however, to go out on a limb and say King would be supportive of Barack Obama’s efforts to represent and reach out to America in all its complicated and contradictory diversity.

In Stride Toward Freedom, King said that one can only “close the gap in broken community” by meeting conflict with love. “[I]f I meet hate with hate,” he added, “I become depersonalized, because creation is so designed that my personality can only be fulfilled in the context of community.” For King, the systematic depersonalization of other human beings was at the root of our nation’s sins of racism and social inequality. It doesn’t take much effort to realize how we continue to depersonalize other human beings today through sexism and classicism, xenophobia and homophobia, and — yes — through political smear campaigns as were done on Shirley Sherrod and now Pastor Giglio.

Though his organizing committee may be backpedaling now, President Obama knew there would be stark differences in the worldviews of those he invited to participate in his inauguration. At some intrinsic level, I’m betting he saw value in putting those differing ideas on the same platform together.  It’s a shame that our nation’s collective imagination and humanity are no longer big enough to tolerate an America where we can practice loving our neighbors, even as we disagree with their politics.

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Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, and Eric Metaxas

I have a question. It’s one I think I know the answer to already, but I’m still reckless enough to “go there” anyway. See, there’s this author whom I like and respect who tweeted something earlier today that, after giving it some thought, I decided was (among other things) insensitive. Another word that came to mind for his tweet was “offensive,” but I didn’t want to overreact. That’s partly why I’d like to solicit some opinions from others out here in Social Media Land. The tweet came from the bestselling author Eric Metaxas, whose biography on Bonhoeffer was an undeniably impressive literary achievement albeit controversial for many. Anyway, though I enjoy his writing, I’ve determined that he and I probably don’t reside in the same vicinity on the ideological spectrum — he being outspokenly conservative and me striving to remain as politically independent as possible. In any event, earlier today I spotted this in my string of Twitter updates:

Can someone explain this supremely creepy photo to me?Maya Angelou looks like Satchmo in a dress. fb.me/1iBdejhvp

— Eric Metaxas (@ericmetaxas) January 8, 2013

You’ll need to click on the link to view said photo, but I’ll quickly describe it here as a weird photoshopped image of the poet Maya Angelou cradling an adoring Barack Obama’s head. I agree with Metaxas that it’s creepy. However, it doesn’t take much searching on Google to discover that the image was a manipulation of a shot from this 2011 event where President Obama honored Ms. Angelou with the U.S. Medal of Freedom. The “creepy” image was clearly created by someone who is not a fan of either President Obama or Ms. Angelou — for instance, it was used in this person’s blog post. You can expect this type of political silliness from ideologues from both sides of the political spectrum. But the thing that bothers me most is Metaxas’ observation at the end: “Maya Angelou looks like Satchmo in a dress.” What does that mean?

Maya Angelou is now 84 years old. I will go ahead and confess my admiration for the woman as an artist and a tireless voice for freedom. But even if I didn’t care for her, I would hope I wouldn’t nonchalantly suggest that she looks like a man. To me, when I see Maya Angelou, I see a woman who looks like mothers and aunts and grandmothers and great-grandmothers that I’ve known both from my family and the families of others. Hers is the appearance of a woman of grace, experience, and hard-earned wisdom. It never occurred to me to compare her to someone of the opposite gender. So, yes, I guess I’m offended. And a little confused.

I believe I spoke to Mr. Metaxas once or twice when I worked at Christianity Today a decade ago. I think he’s a talented writer with a great sense of humor. As a wannabe historian, I admire his ability to write massive works of biographical history. I’ve been inspired by his deep expressions of faith. What I don’t understand is whether he meant the Maya Angelou crack as a mischievous political jab (given Ms. Angelou’s fondness for President Obama), or whether he meant it as something more hurtful. In my preference for avoiding controversy whenever possible, I’m going to assume it’s the former option. But somebody please tell me if I’m over — or under — reacting to a tweet that just doesn’t feel right.

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The Sad State of Illinois Prisons

WBEZ, the local public radio station here in Chicago, has been doing some noteworthy investigative reporting on the pathetic state of Illinois prisons — overcrowded facilities, broken windows, insect infestations. Worst of all, hundreds upon hundreds of men sitting in their cells, doing nothing productive (or rehabilitative) with their time.

The WBEZ coverage started in earnest earlier this year when Governor Pat Quinn refused to allow reporter Rob Wildeboer to view the conditions inside state prisons. After months of petitioning, Quinn finally relented, but only after WBEZ threatened him and the Department of Corrections with a lawsuit.

The resulting tour of the Vienna state prison in southern Illinois provides some insightful commentary and observations on the prison business in general. Though focused on Illinois, WBEZ’s coverage has shone a light on some of the systemic problems facing many prison systems around the nation: Are they simply holding bins for people we’ve given up on (at the cost of millions of dollars), or should prisons be working to transform and rehabilitate their occupants for more productive lives after incarceration?

One of the more compelling voices in the coverage came from Dean Harper, who retired from his job as a corrections officer at Vienna in 1991. He recalled things being quite different at the prison 25 years ago. Says WBEZ’s Wildeboer:

When Harper worked at the prison he would help the inmates get jobs around town: picking apples, bailing hay, doing construction and they were paid minimum wage.

“And they sent part of that home and then kept part and then people had a different look as far as what inmates really was,” Harper said. “They’re human too.”

…. In those days, Harper says the prison offered college classes and Vienna residents would also enroll and go to the prison and sit in classes next to inmates.

Today little is done at Vienna to actually improve its prisoners’ lives. Instead, they sit around in delapidated conditions at tax-payer expense, mostly doing nothing — unless watching television is considered a rehabilitative practice.

Harper believes the mentality of those running the prison system is backward today. In what might be the most prophetic comment of the report, Harper says, “When you take away a person’s ability to do good because they have done bad, what do you leave them?”

I believe that’s a question worth pondering, especially in light of God’s heart for the prisoner and the New Testament admonition to “Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself” (Heb. 13:3). A good place to start might be to read a book such as Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, which examines the mass incarceration of people of color in America and the root causes for this phenomenon. Or you might want to get involved with a prison ministry such as Prison Fellowship, or the Philadelphia-based Healing Communities Prison Ministry and Reentry Project, which is led by my friend Dr. Harold Dean Trulear.

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Remembering a Different Time

Hello friends. It’s been almost two years since I last posted here. Inexcusable, I know. But now that my gig as the editor of UrbanFaith.com is winding down, I hope to have more time to share some thoughts here. And in the coming months, I’ll have a lot more to say about my new book project. So please stay tuned.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share briefly about a 1940 film that’s become one of my favorites for the holidays since I first discovered it three years ago. It’s called Remember the Night, and stars Fred MacMurray and the lovely Barbara Stanwyck. Written by playwright and screenwriter Preston Sturges, here’s how IMDB.com summarizes the film’s storyline:

Just before Christmas, Lee Leander (Stanwyck) is caught shoplifting. It is her third offense. She is prosecuted by assistant distric attorney John Sargent (MacMurray). He postpones the trial because it is hard to get a conviction at Christmas time. But he feels sorry for her and arranges for her bail, and ends up taking her home to his mother for Christmas. Surrounded by a loving family (in stark contrast to Lee’s own family background) they fall in love. This creates a new problem: how do they handle the upcoming trial?

I’m not sure what it is about this film that has caused me to look forward to it every Christmas season. The film isn’t as inspiring or humorous as a popular classic like It’s a Wonderful Life. And at times the pacing feels much too slow. Yet there’s something about the interaction of the two main characters and their respective transformations from self-centered individuals into giving, selfless people. It has that familiar Dickensian sort of moral arc that informs most great Christmas stories — from A Christmas Carol to Miracle on 34th Street to How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Then, of course, there’s the classic love story of an odd couple falling for each other and becoming better people for it.

But I think there’s also something sadly disturbing about the film that draws me to it each year. It has to do with the relationship between MacMurray’s character John Sargent and his African American valet Rufus (portrayed by actor Fred “Snowflake” Toones). Toones was a charactrer actor who made a career out of playing comedic supporting roles in dozens of films during the 1930s and ’40s. According to his IMDB page, Toones’s “standard characterization was that of a middle-aged ‘colored’ man with a high-pitched voice and childlike demeanor.” Some have referred to this type of character as the “loyal Tom,” others as a “Sambo.” Whatever the label, it’s clear that the filmmakers of Remember the Night viewed Rufus’s servile status as both comic relief and a natural fact of life in the world of the main characters. (It’s interesting that, again according to IMDB, Toones actually ran the shoeshine stand at Republic Pictures, where he was under contract from 1936-1947.) In fact, some of the most heartbreaking scenes in the film are not the climatic moments showing the emotional evolution of Lee and John but the demeaning and truly racist manner in which John addresses Rufus. Yet it is not something that is dwelled upon in the film. As I said, it’s mostly taken for granted as the natural backdrop of the story.

This got me to thinking about both this movie and other pieces of pop culture that I’ve liked in the past that also feature questionable racial elements. Should I view these things as being offensive and reject them outright, throwing out the good with the bad? Or should I simply view them as a historical statement about the times in which they were made? In the case of Remember the Night, I’ve chosen the latter course. I confess that the film fascinates me in odd ways. I wonder about the interaction of the actors on the set in real life: Did Mr. Toones face actual racism from the cast and crew in addition to the insults that were piled upon his character in the movie? Did director Mitchell Leisen and Mr. MacMurray understand that John Sargent’s condescending tone toward Rufus was wrong, and were they hoping to demonstrate this injustice by their film’s portrayal of the white man-black man relationship in 1940? Or was this just the way it was, both in art and life, for this group of people?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I still plan to watch Remember the Night again this year and study the actors’ faces for clues. The movie will air tonight at 9:45 ET on Turner Classic Movies channel (TCM). If you have a chance, please watch it (or DVR it to watch later) and let me know what you think.

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That Other Arizona Law Is in Effect

Let’s talk about the law that the state of Arizona passed last year shortly after its infamous anti-immigration legislation. The anti-immigration bill received most of the attention, understandably so, but this one feels more troubling to me. At its core this new law, which went into effect January 1, “prohibits a school district or charter school from including in its program of instruction any courses or classes that promote the overthrow of the United States government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” Check out this story of a Latino ethnic studies class at a Tucson, Arizona, high school to get a real-life sense for how this law will be targeting ethnic-based courses and programs. And below is a PBS news report on the issue from late last year.

On the one hand, it’s obvious that no public-school program should be teaching insurrection against the government or hatred against another race. But who gets to decide what constitutes those things? (Just a guess, it likely will not be folks of a non-white ethnic heritage.)

At its heart, this law seems to be driven by xenophobic fear and paranoia.  It troubles me that it gives the state the power to imperiously assign sinister motives to courses and programs designed to expose students to aspects of American history that often get overlooked or ignored in the regular curriculum. While there certainly may be situations where these ethnic-based programs challenge the typical majority-culture American view on history and politics, it’s a stretch to suggest that this naturally promotes “the overthrow of the United States” or “resentment toward a race or class of people.” In fact, isn’t that kind of insulting to the teachers and students who participate in these courses?

I don’t know, folks. This one really bothers me. The American classroom should be a place where the reality of our history can be honestly discussed, debated, and wrestled with. This law feels just a tad “un-American.” But what do you think? Unlike the architects of this legislation, I’d love to hear some other perspectives.

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‘Divided by Faith’ Conference Highlights

I had the honor of interviewing Michael Emerson at the 'Divided by Faith' 10th-anniversary conference.

Finally, by popular demand, here is video footage from the opening night of the Divided by Faith tenth anniversary conference that took place back in October at Indiana Wesleyan University. You may recall my earlier blog post about the event. Thanks much to conference coordinator Rusty Hawkins for organizing the event and making this video availabe. The first night of the conference begins with yours truly interviewing Rice University socilogist and Divided by Faith co-author Michael Emerson. (Feel free to fast-forward through my rambling and go directly to the “meat” of Dr. Emerson’s responses.)

The interview segment is followed by a panel discussion on pursuing diversity in the church that features Dr. Wayne Schmidt (Wesley Seminary at Indiana Wesleyan University), Rev. Alvin Bibbs (executive director of Multicultural Church Relations, Willow Creek Association), Dr. Curtiss DeYoung (Bethel University), and Rev. Kyle Ray (Lead Pastor, Kentwood Community Church in Michigan). Dr. Emerson and I were called back up during the concluding Q & A session.

All in all, it was a very engaging conference, with provocative and insightful presentations from a variety of Christian scholars who all share a passion for reconciliation and unity in the church. I’m so grateful to have been a part of it.

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‘Divided by Faith,’ 10 Years Later

It was ten years ago that my Christianity Today colleague, Mark Galli, and I moderated a forum based on issues raised by the then-new book Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith. That CT forum featured an illustrious panel of pastors and theologians, including Elward Ellis, Robert Franklin, Charles Lyons, John Ortberg, and J. I. Packer. We discussed the book’s central theme (that evangelical theology actually contributes to the race problem in America) and grappled with its implications for the church. It was an important moment and hopefully a helpful article for CT’s readers.

Well, in a stunning reminder of how quickly time flies (and how old I’m getting), we are now looking at the ten-year anniversary of that seminal book’s release. In commemoration of this event, Indiana Wesleyan University is hosting “Divided by Faith: A Decade Retrospective” next weekend (Oct. 15-16). This unique conference will use that 10th anniversary as an occasion to reflect on the progress and missteps made in the arena of racial reconciliation and diversity among evangelicals over the past decade, and will feature a variety of scholars and panel discussions. You can find out more here. I’ll have the honor of interviewing Michael Emerson during the Friday-evening session.

If you’re in the area (or can swing a quick flight to Indiana), please think about attending. I’d love to see you there.

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Does the R-word = the N-word?

There’s a great conversation going on at David Swanson’s blog regarding something I said in my commentary on Shirley Sherrod that was published at UrbanFaith.com. At one point in that commentary, I suggest that, to the minds of some white people, being called a “racist” might feel like the equivalent of calling a black person a “nigger.” It was just one of those secondary thoughts that occurred to me while I was writing that I decided to include in the article, but it turned out to be the line that David, and I’m sure many others, got stuck on. So, the discussion at David’s blog revolves around whether that observation is true. Most of the participants over there disagree with my suggestion, but I think their thoughtful responses prove that it’s a worthwhile idea to ponder.

Anyway, my good friend Shlomo chimed in at David’s blog to defend me against some of the mild criticism I was getting there, which I thought was very generous on his part. Thanks, Shlomo. But, as I noted in a comment that I left there, I’m not offended by those who disagree with my statement. In fact, I love it when folks can wrestle honestly with this race stuff.

All that to say, I thought I’d post the response that I left at David’s blog here too, just in case you’d like to read it.

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I was a bit reluctant to comment here at first, because I don’t want to come across as sounding defensive. But I do want to thank David for getting this excellent discussion going, and my dear brother Shlomo for coming to my defense.

But, I must say, I was not offended by Tomi’s statement. Part of my purpose in writing the Sherrod post (and most of the race-related commentaries that I write) is to get people thinking about the issue from different perspectives. I’m black, but as I write I try to place myself in the shoes of the white or Asian or Latino or Native American persons whom I hope will read my stuff. With the Sherrod piece, in particular, I was trying to imagine the situation from the perspective of the white conservative who has heard the “racist” label pointed in his direction for too long, even as he observes in our culture what seems to him to be racist and hateful talk coming from the very black folk who would dare accuse him of prejudice and hate.

As I’ve listened to Breitbart, Glenn Beck, and other lesser-known but still outspoken conservatives, it occurred to me that, to their minds, the “racist” tag must hurt in the same way that they believe the n-word hurts black people. How else to explain the fervent expressions of anger and resentment that the r-word elicits from some white conservatives? In making that observation, I was not suggesting that the two words are truly equal in their historical power to hurt and humiliate. But in this current era of racial change and upheaval (some of us might call it progress), where many whites feel threatened by what they sense as a loss of their rights and privileges, that r-word may feel to them like an unassailable weapon that smears and dehumanizes them and, more or less, shuts down the possibility of any further discussion.

So, on the one hand, I agree with Tomi that it was a “ridiculous” comparison for me to make. But I suspect it doesn’t sound as far-fetched to some of our more conservative brothers and sisters.

Last week, after the Sherrod story blew up, NPR’s Tell Me More had playwright Anna Deavere Smith on to discuss how Americans talk about race in politics, media, and personal relationships. As she chatted with host Michel Martin, she said something that really stuck with me. She said:

“Everybody thinks they know about race because everybody has one. But knowing about race has less to do with the race you have; it has to do with the race you don’t have. It has to do with the extent to which you seek out that which is different from you to have knowledge and to create collaborations. And I think that’s what we don’t know enough about right now.”

I thought that was a brilliant assessment of where we are in America with race—and where we need to go.

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The Parable of Shirley Sherrod

I’ve intentionally held off on commenting on the Shirley Sherrod story until now. I guess I didn’t want to make the same mistake as all the other folks who chimed in before all the facts were known. Of course, any story about race is a constantly moving target, so who knows what new wrinkles the saga will bring this week? In any event, you can now read my reflections on last week’s developments at UrbanFaith.com.

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