Black History Month and Religion: Why Lord?

On February 24th Eddie Glaude, Jr., Ph.D. posted an article on The Huffington Post, “The Black Church is Dead.” Glaude, a Christian and Religious Studies Professor at Princeton, reminds us that,

Black America stands at the precipice. African American unemployment is at its highest in 25 years. Thirty-five percent of our children live in poor families. Inadequate healthcare, rampant incarceration, home foreclosures, and a general sense of helplessness overwhelm many of our fellows.

Claude laments the absence of press conferences and impassioned efforts around black children living in poverty, and organizing for jobs and healthcare reform, in lieu of anti-abortion and anti same sex-marriage protests.

For those of you who are not familiar with Humanism, they would prioritize prison reform, and value that as a "right to life." So I’d like to ask Black Christians, “Can you afford to dismiss the Humanists, the way some dismissed Malcolm X because he wasn’t a Christian?”

Two days after Glaude’s blog posting, representatives of the Obama administration met with about 60 people with the Secular Coalition for America although the President did not attend.

Leaders of the Coalition's 10 member groups billed their visit as an important meeting between a presidential administration and the nontheist community. They discussed three policy areas: child medical neglect, military proselytizing and faith-based initiatives.

Says coalition executive director Sean Faircloth:

Despite what we hear from Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin, we're in a stage in history where millions upon millions of Americans share a secular perspective on American public policy. We think the real 'silent majority,' if you will, is the Americans who say, 'Enough of this religious and even theocratic nature to American policy.

The coalition doesn't embrace all of the Obama administration's stances, but members feel that they have more of a kindred spirit in this president than in his predecessor. Obama’s late mother was spiritual but agnostic. His inaugural address was the first by a U.S. president to include explicit recognition of nonbelievers as part of the fabric of the nation.

Bishop Council Nedd, Chairman of the Christian advocacy group In God We Trust, slammed the administration, saying,

It is one thing for Administration to meet with groups of varying viewpoints, but it is quite another for a senior official to sit down with activists representing some of the most hate-filled, anti-religious groups in the nation.

I think I’ll save my commentary on the appropriation of Civil Rights language by the historically racist conservative Right for another time.

Let’s just say I wasn’t surprised that the same evening the meeting occurred, Sean Hannity went even further, accusing the Obama administration of a pattern of hostility towards religion. On his Friday evening show, his guest, the former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, said that evangelicals were disappointed because many had supported Obama.



Evidently Obama is supposed to chose: Humanism or Hannity?

It’s a flawed choice, one I’ve been struggling with for ten years. When I was going through the tenure process at Macalester College, I learned that my chair was a Humanist. In 2000, I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. I spent a lot of time in his office and he would point out that, since the time of slavery, American Blacks have been critiquing the questionable, traditional Christian narrative that suffering is redemptive and should therefore be accepted and rather than resisted.

The Humanist alternative in African American spiritual life traces its roots at least as far back as the criticism of reactionary tendencies within religion by thinkers Frederick Douglas and W.E.B. Du Bois, the agnosticism of former Pentecostal child preacher James Baldwin, the socialist-influenced irreligious stances of Langston Hughes and Huey P. Newton, the full-fledged modern Humanism of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker, recipient of the prestigious American Humanist of the Year award in 1997.

And if there was anyone who decried the redemptive value of suffering by Black people, it was Malcolm. Some of it though, may have been hard for African American Christians to hear:

Brothers and sisters, the white man has brainwashed us black people to fasten our gaze upon a blond haired, blue-eyed Jesus! We're worshiping a Jesus that doesn't even look like us! …..The white man has taught us to shout and sing and pray until we die, to wait until death, for some dreamy heaven-in-the-hereafter, when we're dead, while this white man his milk and honey in the streets paved with golden dollars here on this earth!

Even Malcolm eventually saw the limitations that strict adherence to dogma can create, and took a more humanistic view. Towards the end of his life, he wrote a friend,

Here I am, back in Mecca. I am still traveling, trying to broaden my mind, for I've seen too much of the damage narrow-mindedness can make of things, and when I return home to America, I will devote what energies I have to repairing the damage.

My chair’s first book was called, “Why Lord?: Suffering and Evil in Black Theology.”

In the preface he states, “I could not accept the idea that the suffering of those I saw on a daily basis had any value at all. …I believe that human liberation is more important than the maintenance of any religious symbol, sign, cannon, or icon. It must be accomplished—both psychologically and physically –despite the damage done to cherished religious principles and traditions. Holding this belief, I will stand or fall.” (p. 11)

The events of the last week have made me wonder, will Black Christians unite with non-theists because human liberation is more important than divisiveness? Can we learn to put our theological differences aside for the good of humanity? Or will we turn our backs to the real suffering at hand, and ask, “Why Lord?”

In the Nov./Dec. issue of Utne Magazine, Alexes Pauline Gumbs was recognized as a “media activist” in an article entitled “50 People Who Are Changing Your World.” I initially discovered her work in a November 2009 op-ed piece, “The Revolution Will Be Blogged” for Wiretap Magazine, a re-envisioning of Gil Scott Heron’s famous 1970’s poem/song The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

I have to admit, forty definitely feels old when people are recognized for things that you haven’t even heard of (media activism?), but then I’m sure Gil Scott Heron can relate. Who could even have imagined the immediate and pervasive power of the internet back in the 70’s when the only mass medium was television, and the only roles for Black people were either based on or touched by minstrel stereotypes (remember Jimmy Walker’s Kid-a-Dy-no-mite?).

In her Wiretap piece, Gumbs writes:

“If capitalism slept, it would have nightmares about us. … But capitalism doesn't sleep. So neither do we. We stay up all night, or wake up early and refresh the screen. We live on each others' words and prove the lie of the hourly news story about our worthlessness. We speak for far-flung intimate audiences, and when we wind up wounded, we don't stop because slowly we learn that these words are salve. We stay up, stay connected, send love letters every way we know how. These words are salve. Halfway to salvation.”

What I’ve learned from Gumbs is that blogging is the 21st century version of “consciousness raising groups.” Consciousness raising groups were pioneered by Women’s Liberation groups in New York City, and quickly spread throughout the United States. In November 1967, groups began meeting in apartments. Meetings often involved women going around the room and “rapping" about issues in their own lives. Forty-two years later, Gumbs has gotten on the internet highway to embrace Queer Black women and their allies.

Why is this important? Heteronormativity dominates America in general and Black communities in particular, so much so, that one of the only ways CNN talks about Black women is in relationship to marriage, the box office thinks we are Precious, but not precious, and Disney has cast us more as frog than princess. In the midst of distortion and hysteria, Gumbs has created the School of Our Lorde, a series of courses that allow participants to deeply engage and build on the work of Audre Lorde.

Gumbs focuses on the poetics, teaching practices, political implications and publishing interventions of Audre Lorde’s work. For those who can attend sessions in Durham, NC, engaging, interactive poetic childcare is provided at every session. For those out of state, Gumbs is providing framework for a virtual classroom.

Alexis can be found at MobileHomeComing, Broken Beautiful Press, and the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind. She will be defending her dissertation, "We Can Learn to Mother Ourselves": The Queer Survival of Black Feminism 1968-1996” next month at Duke University.

I can’t think of anything more important for Black women in 2010, than to focus on Lorde’s mantra: “We can learn to mother ourselves.” This, in and of itself, is a revolutionary idea, and we can create the supportive communities needed to actualize this vision online. We are not separated anymore, by class, by state, by distance or ideology. If you’re a Queer woman, you can create a space that embraces women loving women. If you’re a straight woman, maybe you need an emotional support network so that you don’t lament your single status, or obsess about your man if you do have a partner. The true power of the internet is that it gives us the chance to do something different – focus on ourselves for a change. That indeed, would be visionary.

Nine Memorable Days between 2000 and 2009

On September 17, 2006 I called my Dad to wish him well. He was going in the hospital the next day to get a fibrillator.

“Are you nervous?” I asked him.

“Not at all,” he responded.

So we moved on to talk about our favorite subject: politics. We were both excited for the probable election of Keith Ellison to Congress. Even though my Dad was living in North Carolina, he was following the story every day. I told Dad that I planned to drop off my law school application the next morning, and we were both anticipating their response; this would be a new chapter in my life. I was 37, eight months pregnant with my third child, and ready for this new phase to begin.

The next day I woke up, planning to turn in my application in person, and then have lunch with friends. I stopped home before noon and there was a blinking message on my answering machine. I hit play.

It was Mom. “I’m still in the hospital—call me.”

I rushed to call her back, and when I asked what was wrong she said, “Oxygen didn’t go to Dad’s brain for three minutes, he hasn’t woken up.” I asked when he would.

There was a long pause.

Then, in a tone I had never heard her use before, she said, “The doctors say he might not ever wake up.”

If I thought my post-35 third trimester was difficult, the next nine days proved to be the hardest of my life. Each day I woke up, hoping there would be good news, but each day he didn’t wake up, and it was like the first day of my Mom’s distressed call all over again.

On September 26th I went into premature labor. My Dad was still in a coma. I didn’t want to do this without him, but the doctors started to prepare me for a c-section while my mind thought “it’s not supposed to be this way.”

Then my cell rang. My Mom’s phone number. My heart stopped again - was he gone?

“Mom?” My voice was already choked with grief.

“Dad woke up, now go have that baby.”

Nine days after my Dad went into a coma, I gave birth to a little boy. We named him Zachary, which means. “The Lord remembers.” My Dad lived seven more months, and I was able to fly to North Carolina to say goodbye.

I’ll never forget September 26, 2006 because I felt like the real meaning of our Zachary’s name is, “Dad remembers.” I can tell him when he gets older that my Dad always was, and always will be there for us when we need him most. Love is like that. And nothing, not distance, not illness, not even death, can ever, truly separate us.

Happy Holidays to everyone who has supported my Sister Scholar blog.

Digitally United for a Day

Two weeks ago, I challenged you to swap your daily blog habits, and I promised that I’d report back. I did not get many responses, and the ones I did receive reflect that we visit sites that resonate with our interests.

The last sentence of my recent blog was, “Who knows, maybe the digital divide begins with us?” I was determined to find a story about the Internet bringing people together, so I’ve decided to share my own.

I was inspired to leave my comfort zone by my five-year-old daughter.

My middle child, who is the only girl, made a friend she loves with such intensity it reminded me how I felt about my childhood friends. My daughter’s friendship crosses racial lines, which is unremarkable in the age of Obama.

Watching her made me realize that my friendships at that age hadn’t crossed a racial line, but a racial divide, because it was a different time and a different place.

My parents integrated a bedroom town north of Boston in 1971. To give you some context, forced bussing and race rebellions were the backdrop of my formative years. Because of my dad’s career, we moved away in 1977.

When I tell people now that even though we were one of the only Black families in town, those were some of the best years of my life, many of my Minnesota friends respond with disbelief. My family moved to this racially segregated space in Massachusetts, three years after King was killed during the height of Black Power.

I was curious to see if my childhood memories had been “true.” Once I digitally re-connected with my friends (whom I had not seen in 32 years), I decided to fly to Boston.

Last weekend, I spent one day with my two closest playmates.

They were still best friends and I conspired with one to surprise the other. Once we had connected, settled from the shock and told stories about our grown up lives, we had a “real” conversation.

We reflected on how we were too young to understand at the time what a big deal it was that my family lived there. I told them I had no memories of racial trauma, and my Minnesota friends now wondered if I was being overly nostalgic.

One friend remembered that her older brother had called me “brownie” once. Her mother started yelling at him, only to look out the window to see that I was wearing my Brownie Girl Scout uniform.

My other friend’s aunt remembered that she wanted the family to “look at me.” They were afraid that she would say something awkward about my skin or hair, but in true childhood delight, she couldn’t believe we had the same sneakers.

My one-day visit made me realize that post racial blogging only happens with post racial living. As I walked the old neighborhood I learned that another playmate still lived there. I knocked on her door and we recognized each other from Facebook.

She told me that she liked visiting my page because my friends were so “smart” and lived all over the country. I was slightly embarrassed because I realized that my inner circle consists of the few Black academics who hang out on www.theroot.com.

I realized then that my life is no less parochial than my friend who lives three doors from where her parents still live. I had also gravitated toward what was familiar and had stayed with it.

Crossing the digital and racial divide really begins with us. I have Facebook “friended” and in real life befriended the mom of my daughter’s best friend. At first glance, we couldn’t be more different, but my friends in Massachusetts reminded me that what brings kids and moms together during kindergarten can last a lifetime.

People say you can never go home again. Last week, I did, even if it was only for a day. To paraphrase the writer in the movie, “Stand by Me,” “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was eight. Jesus, does anybody?”

Getting to “The Root” of the Digital Divide

Those who know me well are VERY aware of my somewhat shameless enthusiasm about blog culture. So, when my favorite blog The Root (yes, I visit it daily), featured my book Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton, I was thrilled.

You know The Root, right? Editor in chief the now infamous Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, the online magazine launched by the Washington Post Company no-less, focusing on the many facets of black culture. Are you excited now?

<imagine crickets chirping>

Haven’t heard of The Root? Apparently most of my colleagues in Minnesota haven’t either, at least to judge from the politely blank stares I received after sharing my news. Which made me wonder – is cyberspace bridging our cultural divides, or adding more space to them?

Over the past year I’ve delved deeply into cyberspace with the launch of a website, blog, Facebook group and even Twitter account. What I’ve found is that cyberspace, like “reality space” is divided by class, race, gender, and other disparities.

This is not what the marketing industry has sold us (you know the commercials –Tibetan monks with laptops, poor children in India with eyes aglow from their computer screens). We’ve been told that technology spells the 'end of geography' and promises universal, democratic entree to the electronic highways of the world economy and community.

In 2008 The Washington Post Company bought into that vision, hoping that The Root, despite its theme, would expand its online audience. If predominately white Minnesota is a litmus test, it hasn’t worked.

Flash forward to 2009, and you’ll find the Internet creates and reflects a distinct spatial structure interlaced with, and often reinforcing, existing separate spheres. Two weeks ago, CNN.Com/technology published a piece entitled, “Does your social class determine your online social network?”

A recent study by market research firm Nielsen Claritas found that people in more affluent demographics are 25 percent more likely to be found “friending” on Facebook, while the less affluent are 37 percent more likely to connect on MySpace.

More specifically, almost 23 percent of Facebook users earn more than $100,000 a year, compared to slightly more than 16 percent of MySpace users. On the other end of the spectrum, 37 percent of MySpace members earn less than $50,000 annually, compared with about 28 percent of Facebook users.

MySpace users tend to be "in middle-class, blue-collar neighborhoods," said Mike Mancini, vice president of data product management for Nielsen, which used an online panel of more than 200,000 social media users in the United States in August. "They're on their way up, or perhaps not college educated."

By contrast, Mancini said, "Facebook [use] goes off the charts in the upscale suburbs," driven by a demographic that for Nielsen is represented by white or Asian married couples between the ages of 45-64 with kids and high levels of education.

Even more affluent are users of Twitter, the micro-blogging site, and LinkedIn, a networking site geared to white-collar professionals. Almost 38 percent of LinkedIn users earn more than $100,000 a year.

So who are we friending and linking with anyway? Are we just expanding our comfort zones of race/class folks, reinforcing our own ideas with people who think like us? How can we use this opportunity of “The Information Age” to actually, well, connect to different people?

I plead guilty to staying in my own circumference of the black academic life blogosphere, but I want to change that. I’m recommending The Root to my fellow Minnesotans – what blogs do you all think I should visit? Let’s swap our daily blog habits for a week –and then I’ll report back on what we find out about each other.

Who knows, maybe bridging the digital divide begins with us?

AMERICAN GIRL RESPONDS

Just when I thought my fan club had a limited membership, I opened my e-mail and found a letter from the American Girl Company.

Before I read their letter I just knew it was an apology. The perspective of a Minnesotan who lives in a town of 13,000 had shown them the error of their ways. Instead I read:

Dear Prof. Harris,

Since I know you’ve been following the American Girl issue I wanted to pass along an updated statement from the company and their partner HomeAid on the matter.

Thanks,

Heather Wilson
For American Girl

American Girl Statement

Since its inception in 1986, American Girl's historical and contemporary books have addressed a wide range of important social issues that have had a significant impact on the lives of girls and women. The contemporary 2009 Girl of the Year line, of which Gwen is a part, specifically addresses the issue of relational aggression or bullying, which has become a growing concern for girls and their parents today.

While our outreach in support of the line will continue to focus on preventing peer aggression, we are pleased to continue our ongoing partnership with HomeAid America and its mission to support the temporarily homeless. We will do so through a variety of fundraising initiatives, such as our ongoing commitment to Project Playhouse™, special fundraising events at American Girl retail stores, as well as direct grants.

HomeAid America Statement

HomeAid America, a leading national nonprofit provider of housing for today's homeless, is proud of its ongoing partnership with American Girl. Since 2006, we have worked with American Girl on HomeAid's Project Playhouse™, an annual key fundraising event that raises money and awareness for the organization's shelter development program.

As one of our signature partners, American Girl has demonstrated a high-level of commitment and passion to help us with our mission to build dignified housing where homeless families and individuals can rebuild their lives. We are pleased to continue our relationship with American Girl and look forward to our next fundraising project with them.

Jeffrey A. Slavin

CEO

HomeAid America, Inc.

**************

So, do American Girl and HomeAid America make compelling arguments, or is Project Playhouse,™ a band aid on a scar called Gwen, that isn’t healing homelessness?

Homeless Doll Doesn't Need a Home

People on each coast have been blogging about the new homeless American Girl doll. New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser was the first to write about Gwen. In her column, she says:

For $95 -- more than your average homeless person would dream of spending on a rather mediocre baby substitute -- Gwen Thompson can be yours. A mixed message if ever there was one.

In San Francisco, Amy Graff asks:

Is Mattel presenting an important social issue to children by manufacturing a doll who faces real, present day challenges? Or is the company comodifying and prettifying the issue by slapping on a Barbie Band Aid? And how can you charge nearly $100 for a doll that's supposed to promote compassion for homeless people?

I am going to take a stab at this from the Midwest. If you are raising children in New York or San Francisco, it is required in your parenting to explain why some people are sitting on the ground and you aren’t. I make this point because Gwen probably isn’t your only exposure to homelessness. In Minnesota, this is somewhat different. Even though 2,726 children age 17 and younger experienced homelessness with their parents in Minnesota in 2006, we don’t have the problems that many cities do.

Even if our children saw as much despair as children do in other cities, toys probably aren’t the best way to learn about current social problems. This makes me wonder why every single American Girl doll EXCEPT for Gwen and her upper middle class friend Chrissa (who is girl of the year 2009), are HISTORICAL figures?

Why does this matter? All the other dolls have historically accurate happy endings. Think of the propaganda for their 1854 doll.

Kirsten Larson must leave all she’s ever known to come with her family to the New World. They settle on the Minnesota frontier, where people don’t speak her language or understand her traditions. Yet in time, Kirsten discovers the richness of her new land—and the true meaning of home.

We all know that if you are a Larson in Minnesota, things have probably worked out for you. (Can’t wait to read the comments I get for that one).

The issue that I have with Gwen is that her story has a happy ending that doesn’t truly reflect today’s homeless population. When you read about Gwen you learn that her father walked out on her and her mom. The mother and daughter lose their house, spend time living in the car, and bed down at a homeless shelter. But they eventually get their lives back together and move into an apartment.

On page 113 of the Chrissa book, Gwen's mom says, "I'd park so that we'd wake up near a wayside rest area or a restaurant--somewhere where we could use the sink for washing up--and then I'd go to work and pretend that life was just as it had always been...I was too ashamed to ask for help. Finally, when all seemed lost, we found help through the caring staff at Sunrise House. Without Sunrise House, I don't know where we'd be today."

After you read that to your child, they might ask, “What if Sunrise House is filled?” Do you explain that everyone doesn’t get their lives back together and move into an apartment? Do you say that all homelessness will go away in 2010? That homelessness is a "limited edition" like the Gwen doll, which is only slated to be available for a few more months?

If we read our children bedtime stories about homeless people who quickly get jobs and apartments at this particular economic moment; it’s both a story of triumph, and possibly a fairy tale. The American Girl Company begs to differ and issued this statement: "Our singular goal with these stories is to help girls find their inner star by becoming kind, compassionate, and loving people who make a positive and meaningful difference in the world around them."

That is easily done. If your child is old enough for a Gwen doll, he/she can go to Sharing and Caring Hands in Minneapolis. That’s a really good place to be a kind, compassionate, loving person who could make a positive and meaningful difference. And while you’re there, they could probably use $95.