In the November Sojourners, Lisa Sharon Harper (Shop 'til They Drop) writes: "One of the greatest myths of American history is that the Civil War ended slavery." I agree. Here is her documentation:
"The 13th Amendment abolished slavery 'except as punishment for crime'. In the years following the Civil War, Southern and Midwestern states struggled to recover from the economic impacts of war and sudden loss of 4 million unpaid laborers. These states leveraged the constitutional exception [loophole] to revive flailing economies. They turned to the only thing they knew for the previous 250 years---free labor. . . . "
"Peonage laws (aka 'black codes') sprung up in states throughout the South and West. They lowered the bar of criminality, transforming noncriminal acts, such as sitting on a bench too long, into criminal offenses. Black codes required servitude [slavery] if prisoners could not pay their fines. The business would pay the fine to the state in return for the prisoners' labor. . . . by 1898 as much as 73 percent of Alabama's total state revenue came from convict leasing."
Today racial profiling, mass incarceration and prison labor are combining to create a new form of slavery. "37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations who bring their operations inside prison walls." Corporations such as Nordstrom, Microsoft, IBM, Boeing, and Target.
Using the criminal justice system to enable and enforce racial oppression has a long history in America. This is why an apology for past mistreatment of blacks by the criminal justice system by Terrence Cunningham is not good enough. Congress, the Supreme Court and the larger white society, even the white church, need to repent, change, restitute and do justice. This is much more than just a police problem. For much more detail read: Douglas Blackmon's book Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II; also Ta-Nehisi Coates' article in The Atlantic, "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration."
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Church Christianity or Kingdom of God Christianity
Pope Francis has called his church to leave the security/comfort of the sanctuary and enter into the suffering of the streets. A profound insight! Do you spend more time, invest more money, in the sanctuary or the street---among the poor and oppressed? The Scripture hints that you should be hitting the streets as a top priority. The following scriptural passages are from The Message paraphrase:
Amos 5:20-24: "I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes. . . . Do you know what I want? I want justice---oceans of it. I want fairness---rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want."
Isaiah 58: "They're busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people--law-abiding, God-honoring. . . . The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. . . . The kind of fasting you do won't get your prayers off the ground. . . . This the the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts."
Jesus, from the end of Matthew 7: "Don't be impressed with charisma; look for character. . . . Knowing the correct password---saying 'Master, Master,' for instance---isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience---doing what my Father wills. . . . But you are doers of injustice (Miranda). . . . But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. . . . it collapsed like a house of cards."
Next read Matthew 23: "Your lives are roadblocks to God's kingdom."
Are you practicing only churchianity or kingdom of God Jubilee justice among the oppressed poor?
Amos 5:20-24: "I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes. . . . Do you know what I want? I want justice---oceans of it. I want fairness---rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want."
Isaiah 58: "They're busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people--law-abiding, God-honoring. . . . The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. . . . The kind of fasting you do won't get your prayers off the ground. . . . This the the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts."
Jesus, from the end of Matthew 7: "Don't be impressed with charisma; look for character. . . . Knowing the correct password---saying 'Master, Master,' for instance---isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience---doing what my Father wills. . . . But you are doers of injustice (Miranda). . . . But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. . . . it collapsed like a house of cards."
Next read Matthew 23: "Your lives are roadblocks to God's kingdom."
Are you practicing only churchianity or kingdom of God Jubilee justice among the oppressed poor?
Monday, October 17, 2016
The Relentless Ones: Jeremiah and Tutu
According to The Message, God called Jeremiah to "demolish, and then start over." Demolish not only the systems of oppression, but also "the old collapsed system of belief, holding on for dear life to an illusion."
Desmond Tutu was called to demolish apartheid in South Africa and then pursue peace and justice. In 2014 ("Never Give Up," Sojourners, November 2016), John Dear reported that Tutu said, "we have to keep working for peace and justice till the day we die." Then Dear wrote: "I was amazed to hear that he planned to leave the next day for Iran. He was in his 80s, in bad health, and relentless."
Later Dear asked, "How do you keep going?" Tutu replied, "My favorite prophet is Jeremiah. . . . Because he cries [weeps] a lot. . . . I cry a lot too. . . . I cry every day." Over oppression caused suffering.
Tutu described Cape Town: "We have the ultimate First World wealth and the worst Third World poverty, the biggest gap between rich and poor in the world." Tutu, Mandela and others had ended racial apartheid, but not economic apartheid. Suffering and oppression are widespread in South Africa today. There is much to weep about.
In Jeremiah 6, and repeated in chapter 8, Jeremiah (The Message) describes the condition of Israel:
"Everyone is after the dishonest dollar,
little people and big people alike.
Prophets and priests and everyone in between
twist words and doctor truth.
My people are broken---shattered!---
and they put on band-aids,
Saying [shalom, shalom], "It's not so bad. You'll be just fine."
But things are not just fine."
Read Jeremiah 7 to discover the depth of oppression, the deception, the distortion, of truth.
Desmond Tutu was called to demolish apartheid in South Africa and then pursue peace and justice. In 2014 ("Never Give Up," Sojourners, November 2016), John Dear reported that Tutu said, "we have to keep working for peace and justice till the day we die." Then Dear wrote: "I was amazed to hear that he planned to leave the next day for Iran. He was in his 80s, in bad health, and relentless."
Later Dear asked, "How do you keep going?" Tutu replied, "My favorite prophet is Jeremiah. . . . Because he cries [weeps] a lot. . . . I cry a lot too. . . . I cry every day." Over oppression caused suffering.
Tutu described Cape Town: "We have the ultimate First World wealth and the worst Third World poverty, the biggest gap between rich and poor in the world." Tutu, Mandela and others had ended racial apartheid, but not economic apartheid. Suffering and oppression are widespread in South Africa today. There is much to weep about.
In Jeremiah 6, and repeated in chapter 8, Jeremiah (The Message) describes the condition of Israel:
"Everyone is after the dishonest dollar,
little people and big people alike.
Prophets and priests and everyone in between
twist words and doctor truth.
My people are broken---shattered!---
and they put on band-aids,
Saying [shalom, shalom], "It's not so bad. You'll be just fine."
But things are not just fine."
Read Jeremiah 7 to discover the depth of oppression, the deception, the distortion, of truth.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
Natural Disasters and Social Disasters/Oppression
The damage from a hurricane is dramatically visual, physical and impressive. The damage from systems of oppression are not as dramatically visible and obvious; it is more long term, not immediate.
I have talked with a number of Christians who have been to Haiti; they have been shocked and appalled by the poverty, bad roads, corruption, the voodoo. But none of them have ever mentioned the 500 years of oppression that has caused most of the poverty, lack of education, etc., People instantly grasp the seriousness of physical devastation, but they are slow to understand the seriousness of social oppression.
To hurricane Katrina.
My wife and I have been volunteers in Mississippi for most of each year since our retirement in 1994. We have made a number of trips into the Delta region that stretches from Vicksburg to Memphis. We were not in Mississippi when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, but we returned shortly thereafter.
The American church's response to the Katrina catastrophe was impressive. An example: A group of California churches built prefabricated house in panels, put the panels in railroad cars, and shipped them to Mississippi where locals assembled the houses. Dozens of similar stories could be recounted. This, in my opinion, was the American church's finest hour.
Ironically, some of the mission teams from the North would have driven down I-55, passing along the east side of the Mississippi Delta on their way down to the Gulf Coast. Some studies say that the Delta is the poorest, most oppressed region in the country. Decades of slavery, segregation and sharecropping have done enormous damage to poor blacks. There has been little church response to this social disaster which has done more human damage than Katrina. The weak response by the church represents the church's worst hour.
Back to Haiti and hurricane Matthew.
Hait is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere primarily because for 500 years Haiti has been the most oppressed nation in the western hemisphere. How does social oppression impact the severity of hurricane damage? An example: For over a 100 years, Haiti was a debt slave to France. In 1800, Haitian slaves revolted and expelled their French masters. France threatened to invade and reinslave. To prevent reinslavement, Haiti reluctantly agreed to make yearly massive extortion debt payments---debt slave payments that amounted to as much as 80 percent of their national budget. The U.S. supported this financial extortion.
During this time period, the U.S. was investing large sums on railroads, schools, hospitals and land grant colleges. Haiti due to excessive debt payments had little to spend on roads, schools, housing etc., Houses were poorly constructed, roads were not built properly and were not maintained. So when a hurricane hits, the damage is much greater. Natural disasters and social disasters/oppression are intertwined.
Application to the Haiti Christian Development Fund
The 30 plus year ministry of Haiti Christian Development Fund in rural Fond-des-Blancs Haiti has been responding to crisis after crisis. In the midst of the 500 years of various systems of socioeconomic oppression which makes every other type of crisis worse, HCDF has responded to:
1. The lack of clean water by capping a spring and piping the water to an accessible
'road'.
2. The deforestation crisis by planting millions of trees.
3. The pig disease crisis by creating a pig nursery that repopulated the pigs in the area.
4. The education crisis by establishing a school system that educates around 1500 students.
5. The food crisis by establishing a farming project that has enough corn stored in Sukup donated grain bins to feed 1500 school children lunch for most of the coming year. This is an absolute blessing in light of the crop and garden destruction by hurricane Matthew.
I have talked with a number of Christians who have been to Haiti; they have been shocked and appalled by the poverty, bad roads, corruption, the voodoo. But none of them have ever mentioned the 500 years of oppression that has caused most of the poverty, lack of education, etc., People instantly grasp the seriousness of physical devastation, but they are slow to understand the seriousness of social oppression.
To hurricane Katrina.
My wife and I have been volunteers in Mississippi for most of each year since our retirement in 1994. We have made a number of trips into the Delta region that stretches from Vicksburg to Memphis. We were not in Mississippi when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, but we returned shortly thereafter.
The American church's response to the Katrina catastrophe was impressive. An example: A group of California churches built prefabricated house in panels, put the panels in railroad cars, and shipped them to Mississippi where locals assembled the houses. Dozens of similar stories could be recounted. This, in my opinion, was the American church's finest hour.
Ironically, some of the mission teams from the North would have driven down I-55, passing along the east side of the Mississippi Delta on their way down to the Gulf Coast. Some studies say that the Delta is the poorest, most oppressed region in the country. Decades of slavery, segregation and sharecropping have done enormous damage to poor blacks. There has been little church response to this social disaster which has done more human damage than Katrina. The weak response by the church represents the church's worst hour.
Back to Haiti and hurricane Matthew.
Hait is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere primarily because for 500 years Haiti has been the most oppressed nation in the western hemisphere. How does social oppression impact the severity of hurricane damage? An example: For over a 100 years, Haiti was a debt slave to France. In 1800, Haitian slaves revolted and expelled their French masters. France threatened to invade and reinslave. To prevent reinslavement, Haiti reluctantly agreed to make yearly massive extortion debt payments---debt slave payments that amounted to as much as 80 percent of their national budget. The U.S. supported this financial extortion.
During this time period, the U.S. was investing large sums on railroads, schools, hospitals and land grant colleges. Haiti due to excessive debt payments had little to spend on roads, schools, housing etc., Houses were poorly constructed, roads were not built properly and were not maintained. So when a hurricane hits, the damage is much greater. Natural disasters and social disasters/oppression are intertwined.
Application to the Haiti Christian Development Fund
The 30 plus year ministry of Haiti Christian Development Fund in rural Fond-des-Blancs Haiti has been responding to crisis after crisis. In the midst of the 500 years of various systems of socioeconomic oppression which makes every other type of crisis worse, HCDF has responded to:
1. The lack of clean water by capping a spring and piping the water to an accessible
'road'.
2. The deforestation crisis by planting millions of trees.
3. The pig disease crisis by creating a pig nursery that repopulated the pigs in the area.
4. The education crisis by establishing a school system that educates around 1500 students.
5. The food crisis by establishing a farming project that has enough corn stored in Sukup donated grain bins to feed 1500 school children lunch for most of the coming year. This is an absolute blessing in light of the crop and garden destruction by hurricane Matthew.
Friday, October 14, 2016
Michelle Alexander to UTS
Hey, have you heard? Michelle Alexander, author of the best-selling New Jim Crow, has resigned as law professor and has entered Union Theological Seminary as both a student and a teacher. She realizes that unjust mass incarceration and the racial profiling that often accompanies it, is primarily a moral problem, an ethical problem, not just a political or legal problem.
She's right, but I am afraid that, in the end, she will also be profoundly disappointed in the American church. As Pope Francis has said most of the church prefers the comfort, the security, of the sanctuary over the suffering in the streets; stained glass windows over justice for the poor and oppressed. The white church, as a whole, is more a part of the problem than it is leading the way toward a solution. 400 years of oppression. If the church becomes more biblical, it could lead society toward a solution.
Next some quotations from Alexander which reveal the depth of our problem:
"Much of black progress is a myth."
"African Americans, as a group, are no better off than they were in 1968 in many respects. In fact, to some extent, they are worse off. When the incarcerated population is counted in unemployment and poverty rates, the best of times for the rest of America have become among the worst of times for African Americans, particularly black men. As sociologist Bruce Western has shown, the notion that the 1990s---the Clinton years---were good times for African Americans, . . . is pure fiction. As unemployment rates sank to historically low levels in the late 1990s for the general population, jobless rates among non college black men in their twenties rose to their highest levels ever, propelled by skyrocketing incarceration rates. . . . Prisoners are literally erased from the nation's economic picture, leading standard estimates to underestimate the true jobless rate by as much as 24 percentage points for less-educated black men."
She's right, but I am afraid that, in the end, she will also be profoundly disappointed in the American church. As Pope Francis has said most of the church prefers the comfort, the security, of the sanctuary over the suffering in the streets; stained glass windows over justice for the poor and oppressed. The white church, as a whole, is more a part of the problem than it is leading the way toward a solution. 400 years of oppression. If the church becomes more biblical, it could lead society toward a solution.
Next some quotations from Alexander which reveal the depth of our problem:
"Much of black progress is a myth."
"African Americans, as a group, are no better off than they were in 1968 in many respects. In fact, to some extent, they are worse off. When the incarcerated population is counted in unemployment and poverty rates, the best of times for the rest of America have become among the worst of times for African Americans, particularly black men. As sociologist Bruce Western has shown, the notion that the 1990s---the Clinton years---were good times for African Americans, . . . is pure fiction. As unemployment rates sank to historically low levels in the late 1990s for the general population, jobless rates among non college black men in their twenties rose to their highest levels ever, propelled by skyrocketing incarceration rates. . . . Prisoners are literally erased from the nation's economic picture, leading standard estimates to underestimate the true jobless rate by as much as 24 percentage points for less-educated black men."
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Prooftexts or the Whole Truth
Prooftexts divorced from the larger context become misleading facts or even dangerous half truths. We need to be careful that facts are not presented as isolated facts. Some examples:
1. The widely used statement that the country of Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere is both true and very misleading. Or the statement that Haiti's basic problem is corruption. The fuller truth, seldom mentioned, is that Haiti has been and is the most oppressed nation in the Western Hemisphere, that oppression is the primary cause of poverty. Spanish genocide and slavery, French slavery and debt slavery, U.S. neocolonialism equal 500 years of devastating oppression.
2. Another misleading fact: black on black crime, and a higher murder rate in the ghetto. Put in its larger context, we must talk about white on black oppression which has caused high abortion rates, high infant mortality rates, high incarceration rates and high separation and divorce rates.
3. It is widely stated or implied that poor blacks are dysfunctional; their individual, family, community and cultural dysfunction proves that blacks are an inferior people. The larger truth is that prolonged white systems of oppression such as slavery cause individual, family, community and cultural PTSD. Oppression damage precedes and causes cultural dysfunction.
Since we are a highly individualistic society, 9 out of 10 white Americans tend to begin with a blaming the victim approach rather than an identifying the oppressor approach. So we will consciously have to work on putting the identifying the oppressor approach first. Another reason we begin with a blaming the victim approach is that if we begin with an identifying the oppressor approach, it might implicate us.
Another example of a misleading prooftext:
This might be the most important and most serious misleading prooftext of all time---the John 3:16 text. John 3:16 contains an important biblical truth---personal salvation through Jesus Christ. But standing ALONE, it represents only a half truth.
The whole biblical truth about the complete gospel adds Luke 4:18-19, Matthew 6:33 and Romans 14:17 to the mix; Luke 4:18-9---the Spirit, the poor, the oppressed and Jubilee justice; 6:33---"
Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice above everything else" NEB; Romans 14:17---"The kingdom of God is justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Noble paraphrase).
Acts 8:12; 28:23, 31 include both the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ as the whole, complete gospel. Another variation of the same holistic theme: Ephesian two asserts that both personal reconciliation and social reconciliation are based on the cross. Yet another variation: James two declares that faith without works [of justice] is dead.
1. The widely used statement that the country of Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere is both true and very misleading. Or the statement that Haiti's basic problem is corruption. The fuller truth, seldom mentioned, is that Haiti has been and is the most oppressed nation in the Western Hemisphere, that oppression is the primary cause of poverty. Spanish genocide and slavery, French slavery and debt slavery, U.S. neocolonialism equal 500 years of devastating oppression.
2. Another misleading fact: black on black crime, and a higher murder rate in the ghetto. Put in its larger context, we must talk about white on black oppression which has caused high abortion rates, high infant mortality rates, high incarceration rates and high separation and divorce rates.
3. It is widely stated or implied that poor blacks are dysfunctional; their individual, family, community and cultural dysfunction proves that blacks are an inferior people. The larger truth is that prolonged white systems of oppression such as slavery cause individual, family, community and cultural PTSD. Oppression damage precedes and causes cultural dysfunction.
Since we are a highly individualistic society, 9 out of 10 white Americans tend to begin with a blaming the victim approach rather than an identifying the oppressor approach. So we will consciously have to work on putting the identifying the oppressor approach first. Another reason we begin with a blaming the victim approach is that if we begin with an identifying the oppressor approach, it might implicate us.
Another example of a misleading prooftext:
This might be the most important and most serious misleading prooftext of all time---the John 3:16 text. John 3:16 contains an important biblical truth---personal salvation through Jesus Christ. But standing ALONE, it represents only a half truth.
The whole biblical truth about the complete gospel adds Luke 4:18-19, Matthew 6:33 and Romans 14:17 to the mix; Luke 4:18-9---the Spirit, the poor, the oppressed and Jubilee justice; 6:33---"
Set your mind on God's kingdom and his justice above everything else" NEB; Romans 14:17---"The kingdom of God is justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Noble paraphrase).
Acts 8:12; 28:23, 31 include both the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ as the whole, complete gospel. Another variation of the same holistic theme: Ephesian two asserts that both personal reconciliation and social reconciliation are based on the cross. Yet another variation: James two declares that faith without works [of justice] is dead.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Rich, White Males---Class, Race, Gender
Rich, White Males---Class, Race, Gender
Oppressors can use/misuse either class, race or gender in order to discriminate against either a person or a group. Or an oppressive system can use all three at the same time; example, poor black women.
41 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were slaveholders.
Half of the writers of the Constitution owned slaves. 12 U.S. presidents owned slaves. During his lifetime, Jefferson owned 600 slaves.
Our founding fathers were a group of rich, white males; women, the poor, Native Americans and African Americans could not vote. There was no equality from the very beginning of this country; no government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
"All men are created equal" apparently did not mean all persons had to be treated equal. From the beginning, a group of mostly deists created the American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism/racism which dominated society. The Christian Trinity was holed up inside the church and even there the American trinity found its way inside.
Rich, white males created and maintained systems of oppression which discriminated against women, the poor, all non-whites and many non-rich whites.
Once systems of oppression are established---slaves and women couldn't vote, tax loopholes for the rich and corporations, subsidies for already rich oil companies---they become a normal part of the functioning political and economic systems.
Oppressors sometimes actively oppress and exploit; but many just let the system operate according to unjust but established law. Today many oppressors sin by omission---neglect justice and the love of God. Either by commission or omission, the poor, women, ethnics are exploited.
Today, the white poor and working class are being exploited by class, not race; they are hurting and feel neglected, ignored. So when a demagogue pays them respect, attention, gives them empty promises, they respond positively, hoping for the best but not realizing they will be even worse off should they vote for the demagogue.
Ezekiel 16:
"The sin of your sister Sodom was this: She lived in the lap of luxury---proud, gluttonous, and lazy. They ignore the oppressed and the poor. . . . I did away with them."
Oppressors can use/misuse either class, race or gender in order to discriminate against either a person or a group. Or an oppressive system can use all three at the same time; example, poor black women.
41 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were slaveholders.
Half of the writers of the Constitution owned slaves. 12 U.S. presidents owned slaves. During his lifetime, Jefferson owned 600 slaves.
Our founding fathers were a group of rich, white males; women, the poor, Native Americans and African Americans could not vote. There was no equality from the very beginning of this country; no government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
"All men are created equal" apparently did not mean all persons had to be treated equal. From the beginning, a group of mostly deists created the American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism/racism which dominated society. The Christian Trinity was holed up inside the church and even there the American trinity found its way inside.
Rich, white males created and maintained systems of oppression which discriminated against women, the poor, all non-whites and many non-rich whites.
Once systems of oppression are established---slaves and women couldn't vote, tax loopholes for the rich and corporations, subsidies for already rich oil companies---they become a normal part of the functioning political and economic systems.
Oppressors sometimes actively oppress and exploit; but many just let the system operate according to unjust but established law. Today many oppressors sin by omission---neglect justice and the love of God. Either by commission or omission, the poor, women, ethnics are exploited.
Today, the white poor and working class are being exploited by class, not race; they are hurting and feel neglected, ignored. So when a demagogue pays them respect, attention, gives them empty promises, they respond positively, hoping for the best but not realizing they will be even worse off should they vote for the demagogue.
Ezekiel 16:
"The sin of your sister Sodom was this: She lived in the lap of luxury---proud, gluttonous, and lazy. They ignore the oppressed and the poor. . . . I did away with them."
Monday, October 10, 2016
"The Road to Freedom"
In the Sept., 2016 issue of Smithsonian, there is an article titled "The Road to Freedom," about the great migration of southern blacks to the North. At best it was partial freedom, a freedom without justice. It turned out that the North was almost as oppressive as the South.
The author mentions Richard Wright as an example:
"Richard Wright relocated several times in his quest for other suns, fleeing Mississippi for Memphis and Memphis for Chicago and Chicago for New York, where, living in Greenwich Village, barbers refused to serve him and some restaurents refused to seat him. In 1946, near the height of the Great migration, he came to the disheartening recognition that, wherever he went, he faced hostility. So he went to France."
How did the North react to the Great Migration? "white flight, police brutality, systemic ills flowing from government policy restricting fair access to safe housing and good schools. In recent years, the North, which never had to confront its own injustices, has moved toward a crisis that seems to have reached a boiling point in our current day."
"Thus the eternal question is: Where can African-Americans go? It is the same question their ancestors asked and answered only to discover upon arriving that the racial caste system was not Southern but American."
This tragic story reminds me of Ezekiel 16:46, The Message:
"The sin [social evil] of your sister Sodom was this: she lived in the lap of luxury---proud, gluttonous, and lazy. She ignored the oppressed and the poor. . . . I did away with them." Do justice or face judgment.
The author mentions Richard Wright as an example:
"Richard Wright relocated several times in his quest for other suns, fleeing Mississippi for Memphis and Memphis for Chicago and Chicago for New York, where, living in Greenwich Village, barbers refused to serve him and some restaurents refused to seat him. In 1946, near the height of the Great migration, he came to the disheartening recognition that, wherever he went, he faced hostility. So he went to France."
How did the North react to the Great Migration? "white flight, police brutality, systemic ills flowing from government policy restricting fair access to safe housing and good schools. In recent years, the North, which never had to confront its own injustices, has moved toward a crisis that seems to have reached a boiling point in our current day."
"Thus the eternal question is: Where can African-Americans go? It is the same question their ancestors asked and answered only to discover upon arriving that the racial caste system was not Southern but American."
This tragic story reminds me of Ezekiel 16:46, The Message:
"The sin [social evil] of your sister Sodom was this: she lived in the lap of luxury---proud, gluttonous, and lazy. She ignored the oppressed and the poor. . . . I did away with them." Do justice or face judgment.
HCDF Summer Institute
HCDF Summer Institute
The following is my brainstorming only; I have not spoken to any of the prospective teachers about this projected institute.
Motto: Christ, kingdom, church, community, cooperative
1. Jesus Christ: personal salvation, discipleship, justification by faith
2. Kingdom of God: Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor.
3. Church: the body of Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit to incarnate the kingdom of God.
4. Community: teams of Christians rebuilding oppressed communities following CCD principles.
5. Cooperatives: best balance combining individual initiative and community interests.
The first week:
Topic: Comparative examination of U.S. systems of oppression and Haitian systems of oppression.
Teacher: Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow. I think she is the best analyst of U.S. systems of oppression, past and current---unjust mass incarceration of young black and Hispanic males.
Content: A cross cultural comparison of U.S. and Haitian systems of oppression. In the U.S. systems of oppression never end; they are only redesigned. A Haitian should assist Alexander in teaching this course.
The second week:
Topic: How generations of oppression cause individual, family, community and cultural PTSD.
Teacher: Joy Leary, Afro American with a doctorate in social work; done research in Africa; wrote Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.
Content: Prolonged oppression creates deep and pervasive trauma with lasting consequences.
Weeks three and four:
Topic: A comparison of Haiti and Rwanda, two devastated countries; the role of women leaders.
Teacher: Didi Farmer, a Haitian with a doctorate in anthropology, who has lived in Rwanda.
Content: How Rwanda women have provided leadership to begin a rather impressive change in Rwanda; how this model could be applied in Haiti.
Weeks five and six:
Topic: Developing a biblical kingdom of God theology with a present and social emphasis.
Teacher: Josiah Thomas who was born and raised in Haiti.
Content: Understanding the kingdom as Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor.
Weeks seven and eight:
Topic: The kingdom of God applied: the HCDF model.
Teacher: Jean Thomas, a Haitian with 30 plus years doing Christian Community Development.
Content: The principles and practice of CCD in Haiti.
Weeks nine and ten:
Topic: Student internships in community; teams of two, three or four.
Teacher: Jennifer Nelson, a white American with a doctorate in sociology.
Content: teaching and applying the kingdom of God in poor communities.
Week eleven:
Topic: Debriefing and writing a paper on the above.
Teacher: Jennifer Nelson, an American with a doctorate in sociology.
Comment: This would be more training than the Nashville Eight had under Rev. James Lawson. The Nashville Eight became the elite special forces unit of the civil rights movement. Without parental or pastoral support, the Nashville Eight continued the Freedom Rides after the first group of Freedom Riders had been beaten into submission and stopped their freedom rides.
Jean, Is this summer institute feasible? It could stand alone or become the foundation of a university education.
Perspective: I would like to quote at length from a chapter by Didi Farmer, "Mothers and Daughters of Haiti," in Paul Farmer's book Haiti: After the Earthquake.
"In March 2011, just over a year after the quake, a Rwandan colleague of mine put it this way: 'Rwanda and Haiti, they are the same. People lost family members. They lost husbands. They lost wives. They lost children. People's homes were destroyed and everything they owned was taken away from them. And afterward, people had to keep on living.' My colleague is a warm and generous woman with a ready smile and an indefatigable spirit. Even after her husband, a Tutsi, was killed by a neighbor during the genocide, she took in six Hutu orphans to live alongside her own five children, and she has supported all of them ever since. When I asked her how she kept on living in the wake of so much loss, she replied simply: "I worked." And she smiled as she said it."
"As of 1994, 70 percent of Rwanda's population was female. It was largely on the backs of these women---victims of rape and physical violence, wives abandoned by husbands imprisoned or fleeing imprisonment, women who had lost family members, friends, neighbors, lovers, children---that Ruanda was rebuilt. As Paul often likes to say, it was built back better. In Haiti, we often wax poetic about the role of women as the center post of the nation, but Rwanda has actually put this idea into practice, with an emphasis on female leadership, economic empowerment, and education."
"Women are organized into associations and cooperatives. . . .agricultural cooperatives. . . . solidarity and entrepreneurship of its working women."
The following is my brainstorming only; I have not spoken to any of the prospective teachers about this projected institute.
Motto: Christ, kingdom, church, community, cooperative
1. Jesus Christ: personal salvation, discipleship, justification by faith
2. Kingdom of God: Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor.
3. Church: the body of Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit to incarnate the kingdom of God.
4. Community: teams of Christians rebuilding oppressed communities following CCD principles.
5. Cooperatives: best balance combining individual initiative and community interests.
The first week:
Topic: Comparative examination of U.S. systems of oppression and Haitian systems of oppression.
Teacher: Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow. I think she is the best analyst of U.S. systems of oppression, past and current---unjust mass incarceration of young black and Hispanic males.
Content: A cross cultural comparison of U.S. and Haitian systems of oppression. In the U.S. systems of oppression never end; they are only redesigned. A Haitian should assist Alexander in teaching this course.
The second week:
Topic: How generations of oppression cause individual, family, community and cultural PTSD.
Teacher: Joy Leary, Afro American with a doctorate in social work; done research in Africa; wrote Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.
Content: Prolonged oppression creates deep and pervasive trauma with lasting consequences.
Weeks three and four:
Topic: A comparison of Haiti and Rwanda, two devastated countries; the role of women leaders.
Teacher: Didi Farmer, a Haitian with a doctorate in anthropology, who has lived in Rwanda.
Content: How Rwanda women have provided leadership to begin a rather impressive change in Rwanda; how this model could be applied in Haiti.
Weeks five and six:
Topic: Developing a biblical kingdom of God theology with a present and social emphasis.
Teacher: Josiah Thomas who was born and raised in Haiti.
Content: Understanding the kingdom as Jubilee justice for the oppressed poor.
Weeks seven and eight:
Topic: The kingdom of God applied: the HCDF model.
Teacher: Jean Thomas, a Haitian with 30 plus years doing Christian Community Development.
Content: The principles and practice of CCD in Haiti.
Weeks nine and ten:
Topic: Student internships in community; teams of two, three or four.
Teacher: Jennifer Nelson, a white American with a doctorate in sociology.
Content: teaching and applying the kingdom of God in poor communities.
Week eleven:
Topic: Debriefing and writing a paper on the above.
Teacher: Jennifer Nelson, an American with a doctorate in sociology.
Comment: This would be more training than the Nashville Eight had under Rev. James Lawson. The Nashville Eight became the elite special forces unit of the civil rights movement. Without parental or pastoral support, the Nashville Eight continued the Freedom Rides after the first group of Freedom Riders had been beaten into submission and stopped their freedom rides.
Jean, Is this summer institute feasible? It could stand alone or become the foundation of a university education.
Perspective: I would like to quote at length from a chapter by Didi Farmer, "Mothers and Daughters of Haiti," in Paul Farmer's book Haiti: After the Earthquake.
"In March 2011, just over a year after the quake, a Rwandan colleague of mine put it this way: 'Rwanda and Haiti, they are the same. People lost family members. They lost husbands. They lost wives. They lost children. People's homes were destroyed and everything they owned was taken away from them. And afterward, people had to keep on living.' My colleague is a warm and generous woman with a ready smile and an indefatigable spirit. Even after her husband, a Tutsi, was killed by a neighbor during the genocide, she took in six Hutu orphans to live alongside her own five children, and she has supported all of them ever since. When I asked her how she kept on living in the wake of so much loss, she replied simply: "I worked." And she smiled as she said it."
"As of 1994, 70 percent of Rwanda's population was female. It was largely on the backs of these women---victims of rape and physical violence, wives abandoned by husbands imprisoned or fleeing imprisonment, women who had lost family members, friends, neighbors, lovers, children---that Ruanda was rebuilt. As Paul often likes to say, it was built back better. In Haiti, we often wax poetic about the role of women as the center post of the nation, but Rwanda has actually put this idea into practice, with an emphasis on female leadership, economic empowerment, and education."
"Women are organized into associations and cooperatives. . . .agricultural cooperatives. . . . solidarity and entrepreneurship of its working women."
Monday, October 3, 2016
Smithsonian
To: Smithsonian Editorial Office
From: Lowell Noble
Re: Article for Smithsonian Magazine
Date: October 3, 2016
Congratulations on your magnificent issue on the NMAAHC.
A suggestion for a future related article.
Director Bunch correctly observed:
"Of course, the subject of slavery went to the very core of the American dilemma, the contradiction of a nation built on freedom while denying that right to the enslaved. . . . Smithsonian regents voted to put the museum on the Mall, next to the Washington Monument and within the shadow of the White House."
A title for my proposed article: "The Mall: America's hallowed ground that sanctified white oppression."
The article should put the NMAAHC in its larger local geographical context---Monuments, Memorials and other buildings and show their historical connections to slavery.
1. Washington Monument---our first president owned from 123-318 slaves.
2. White House---built using slave labor; 12 presidents owned slaves.
3. Jefferson Memorial---owned 600 slaves during his lifetime.
4. Capitol Building---built using slave labor.
5. Lincoln Memorial---civil war fought, in part, to end slavery; ended legal slavery, but not systems of oppression to deny freedom and justice to blacks.
6. Supreme Court---made decisions that legitimated first slavery, then segregation, and now mass incarceration---Dred Scott, Plessy, and McCleskey.
7. Declaration of Independence---41 signers owned slaves.
8. Constitution---half of the writers owned slaves.
Suggestion: Use Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, as a consultant or co-author of the article.
Sincerely,
Lowell Noble
From: Lowell Noble
Re: Article for Smithsonian Magazine
Date: October 3, 2016
Congratulations on your magnificent issue on the NMAAHC.
A suggestion for a future related article.
Director Bunch correctly observed:
"Of course, the subject of slavery went to the very core of the American dilemma, the contradiction of a nation built on freedom while denying that right to the enslaved. . . . Smithsonian regents voted to put the museum on the Mall, next to the Washington Monument and within the shadow of the White House."
A title for my proposed article: "The Mall: America's hallowed ground that sanctified white oppression."
The article should put the NMAAHC in its larger local geographical context---Monuments, Memorials and other buildings and show their historical connections to slavery.
1. Washington Monument---our first president owned from 123-318 slaves.
2. White House---built using slave labor; 12 presidents owned slaves.
3. Jefferson Memorial---owned 600 slaves during his lifetime.
4. Capitol Building---built using slave labor.
5. Lincoln Memorial---civil war fought, in part, to end slavery; ended legal slavery, but not systems of oppression to deny freedom and justice to blacks.
6. Supreme Court---made decisions that legitimated first slavery, then segregation, and now mass incarceration---Dred Scott, Plessy, and McCleskey.
7. Declaration of Independence---41 signers owned slaves.
8. Constitution---half of the writers owned slaves.
Suggestion: Use Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, as a consultant or co-author of the article.
Sincerely,
Lowell Noble
Smithsonian
To: Smithsonian Editorial Office
From: Lowell Noble
Re: Article for Smithsonian Magazine
Date: October 3, 2016
Congratulations on your magnificent issue on the NMAAHC.
A suggestion for a future related article.
Director Bunch correctly observed:
"Of course, the subject of slavery went to the very core of the American dilemma, the contradiction of a nation built on freedom while denying that right to the enslaved. . . . Smithsonian regents voted to put the museum on the Mall, next to the Washington Monument and within the shadow of the White House."
A title for my proposed article: "The Mall: America's hallowed ground that sanctified white oppression."
The article should put the NMAAHC in its larger local geographical context---Monuments, Memorials and other buildings and show their historical connections to slavery.
1. Washington Monument---our first president owned from 123-318 slaves.
2. White House---built using slave labor; 12 presidents owned slaves.
3. Jefferson Memorial---owned 600 slaves during his lifetime.
4. Capitol Building---built using slave labor.
5. Lincoln Memorial---civil war fought, in part, to end slavery; ended legal slavery, but not systems of oppression to deny freedom and justice to blacks.
6. Supreme Court---made decisions that legitimated first slavery, then segregation, and now mass incarceration---Dred Scott, Plessy, and McCleskey.
Suggestion: Use Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, as a consultant or co-author of the article.
Sincerely,
Lowell Noble
From: Lowell Noble
Re: Article for Smithsonian Magazine
Date: October 3, 2016
Congratulations on your magnificent issue on the NMAAHC.
A suggestion for a future related article.
Director Bunch correctly observed:
"Of course, the subject of slavery went to the very core of the American dilemma, the contradiction of a nation built on freedom while denying that right to the enslaved. . . . Smithsonian regents voted to put the museum on the Mall, next to the Washington Monument and within the shadow of the White House."
A title for my proposed article: "The Mall: America's hallowed ground that sanctified white oppression."
The article should put the NMAAHC in its larger local geographical context---Monuments, Memorials and other buildings and show their historical connections to slavery.
1. Washington Monument---our first president owned from 123-318 slaves.
2. White House---built using slave labor; 12 presidents owned slaves.
3. Jefferson Memorial---owned 600 slaves during his lifetime.
4. Capitol Building---built using slave labor.
5. Lincoln Memorial---civil war fought, in part, to end slavery; ended legal slavery, but not systems of oppression to deny freedom and justice to blacks.
6. Supreme Court---made decisions that legitimated first slavery, then segregation, and now mass incarceration---Dred Scott, Plessy, and McCleskey.
Suggestion: Use Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, as a consultant or co-author of the article.
Sincerely,
Lowell Noble
Implicit Bias or Planned Oppression
Implicit bias or unconscious cultural stereotypes is all the rage today as an explanation of widespread police brutality, of the killing of unarmed blacks. There is some truth in the implicit bias theory, but it is a dangerous, misleading truth if it is taken as the primary explanation of police violence. I suggest implicit bias is 20 percent and planned oppression is 80 percent of the cause.
The use of the criminal justice system to control 'dangerous black males' has a long history in this country, going back hundreds of years, even before the official founding of this country. This misuse of the criminal justice system is a deliberate, planned strategy to PRESERVE white superiority and CONTROL black inferiority.
This is not accidental or incidental. To those who are biblically ignorant and uninformed, who choose to be biblically uninformed, this may be so. There is widespread biblical teaching on oppression---555 references in the OT---so there is no excuse for ignorance. Systems of oppression are planned, constructed, designed, deliberate.
Jeremiah 7 describes the intentional corruption of the Temple, turning it into a "den of robbers." Jesus use the same phrase "den of robbers" to describe the operation of the holy Temple in his day.
Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, describes the deliberate, planned creation of mass incarceration:
"President Ronald Reagan officially announced the current drug war in 1982, before crack became an issue in the media or a crisis in poor black neighborhoods. . . . The Reagan administration hired staff to publicize the emergence of crack cocaine in 1985 as a part of a strategic effort to build public and legislative support for the war. . . . The media bonanza surrounding the 'new demon drug' helped catapult the War on Drugs from an ambitious federal program to an actual war."
"Crime and welfare were the major themes of Reagan's campaign rhetoric. . . . Reagan's racially coded rhetoric and strategy proved extraordinary effective, as 22 percent of all Democrats defected from the party to vote for Reagan. . . . the Justice Department announced its intention to cut in half the number of specialists assigned to identify and prosecute white-collar criminals and shift its attention to street crime, especially drug-law enforcement. . . . Central to the media campaign was an effort to sensationalize the emergence of crack cocaine in inner-city neighborhoods."
The War on Drugs was deliberately combined with racial profiling to create unjust mass incarceration---the new system of oppression. Far more than implicit bias.
The use of the criminal justice system to control 'dangerous black males' has a long history in this country, going back hundreds of years, even before the official founding of this country. This misuse of the criminal justice system is a deliberate, planned strategy to PRESERVE white superiority and CONTROL black inferiority.
This is not accidental or incidental. To those who are biblically ignorant and uninformed, who choose to be biblically uninformed, this may be so. There is widespread biblical teaching on oppression---555 references in the OT---so there is no excuse for ignorance. Systems of oppression are planned, constructed, designed, deliberate.
Jeremiah 7 describes the intentional corruption of the Temple, turning it into a "den of robbers." Jesus use the same phrase "den of robbers" to describe the operation of the holy Temple in his day.
Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, describes the deliberate, planned creation of mass incarceration:
"President Ronald Reagan officially announced the current drug war in 1982, before crack became an issue in the media or a crisis in poor black neighborhoods. . . . The Reagan administration hired staff to publicize the emergence of crack cocaine in 1985 as a part of a strategic effort to build public and legislative support for the war. . . . The media bonanza surrounding the 'new demon drug' helped catapult the War on Drugs from an ambitious federal program to an actual war."
"Crime and welfare were the major themes of Reagan's campaign rhetoric. . . . Reagan's racially coded rhetoric and strategy proved extraordinary effective, as 22 percent of all Democrats defected from the party to vote for Reagan. . . . the Justice Department announced its intention to cut in half the number of specialists assigned to identify and prosecute white-collar criminals and shift its attention to street crime, especially drug-law enforcement. . . . Central to the media campaign was an effort to sensationalize the emergence of crack cocaine in inner-city neighborhoods."
The War on Drugs was deliberately combined with racial profiling to create unjust mass incarceration---the new system of oppression. Far more than implicit bias.
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