Change can be fearful. Procrastination carries consequences. Anxiety is habit-forming. However, possessing wisdom with a sense of urgency is fearlessness combined with a drop of faith. It’s all we need to create the change we desire.
During our waking hours, some of us are indeed offering encouragement and educating all generations on reasons to take the nation’s midterm elections seriously and exercise our right to vote. Yet more recently, while we lay down to sleep, our democracy was threatened and our political landscape changed drastically overnight. Many saw it happening live on the 24-hour news cycle, but even more of us woke to senseless chaos, uncertainty, and doubt on all levels. That’s what an attack feels like. Perhaps it was even more disturbing to those who are not aware of our historic circumstances.
High drama is not new to the faith community and the African-American church in particular. Our ancestors kept each other “woke” at all times. Under the covering of God’s amazing grace and prayer, spirit-filled people strengthened themselves and their strategic interests. They dog-whistled like others influencers we hear today, but only among each other without shame or political correctness. Whether attending church, visiting the local grocery store, or at work in plain sight of their oppressors, Black Christians made their plight to obtain civil rights and equality clear. They took time to teach the illiterate, educate their children, and, most importantly, communicate with little regard for political affiliation.
Much has changed since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of 1964, ending both segregation and granting equal voting rights. Today we have many platforms of social media. We don’t own them, but we spend millions of dollars to invest in them using the latest technologies. We have somehow become cozy with these conveniences. Let’s face it; we enjoy our toys that keep us entertained causing us to become less engaged with humanity.
Technical inanimate objects allow us to keep in touch with those we care about without human voice or touch. It is appreciated as an asset in our society. Yes, we digitally celebrate birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, achievements and such, but we must be cautious about what is shared through these mediums. Perhaps it is also a brilliant distraction as the megabytes we use can literally tick away our freedoms when abused.
As a researcher and writer, I posted one simple question to my modestly sized social media audience one day prior to the bomb threats.
Question: “Given your personal history or social concerns that may affect you or individuals within your life or community, why will you choose to vote in this 2018 midterm election?”
For nearly 24 hours, everyone was silent. Then one response was received. That individual sincerely shared that her faith is in “Jehovah, not man.”
Even in our silence, we should reach deep into our mustard seed of faith and wake up, fearless and ready to take action. Voting is the most active resistance we have as a civil right. Our enthusiasm should empower us and encourage others.
Weren’t we told to “Wake Up Everybody” 43 years ago by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes ironically in November 1975? Singer and songwriter Elton John told us to “hold the borders open” in 1970. Are we even aware of the message that Rev. Dr. Frank Thomas encouraged in his book “How to Preach a Dangerous Sermon(2018)?” He shares with us a simple truth, “When we do not choose productive options and constructively confront issues…the issue does not go away…buried feelings do not die.”
When we are socially or spiritually asleep, we become more involved with our own personal daily agendas. I offer here a bit of nutrition for spiritual thought. The Bible teaches us in Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV) “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
Are we asleep in spite of our own best interest or complacent to our own demise? Are we aware of how high the stakes are for ourselves if we chose not to vote? Are we proactively awake enough to effectively communicate and participate in this critical process to educate both the eligible or disenfranchised voter?
If our choice is to remain silent, then perhaps the real question is — what are we doing with our stewardship? Wake Up! Stay Woke! Make the change you desire. It requires both prayer and action. Obviously, others who may not have our best interests at heart have a well-planned strategy. What’s ours? Make sure you at least use your right to vote now while you still have that right!
The number of children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has reached more than 10 percent, a significant increase during the past 20 years, according to a recent study.
The rise was most pronounced in minority groups, suggesting that better access to health insurance and mental health treatment through the Affordable Care Act might have played some role in the increase. The rate of diagnosis during that time period doubled in girls, although it was still much lower than in boys.
But the researchers say they found no evidence confirming frequent complaints that the condition is overdiagnosed or misdiagnosed.
The U.S. has significantly more instances of ADHD than other developed countries, which researchers said has led some to think Americans are overdiagnosing children. Dr. Wei Bao, the lead author of the study, said in an interview that a review of studies around the world doesn’t support that.
”I don’t think overdiagnosis is the main issue,” he said.
Nonetheless, those doubts persist. Dr. Stephen Hinshaw, who co-authored a 2014 book called “The ADHD Explosion: Myths, Medication, Money, and Today’s Push for Performance,” compared ADHD to depression. He said in an interview that neither condition has unequivocal biological markers, so it makes it hard to determine if a patient truly has the condition without lengthy psychological evaluations. Symptoms of ADHD can include inattention, fidgety behavior and impulsivity.
“It’s probably not a true epidemic of ADHD,” said Hinshaw, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Berkeley and a professor of psychiatry at UC-San Francisco. “It might be an epidemic of diagnosing it.”
In interpreting their results, however, the study’s authors tied the higher numbers to better understanding of the condition by doctors and the public, new standards for diagnosis and an increase in access to health insurance through the ACA.
Because of the ACA, “some low-income families have improved access to services and referrals,” said Bao, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa College of Public Health.
The study, published in JAMA Network, used data from the National Health Interview Survey, an annual federal survey of about 35,000 households. It found a steady increase in diagnoses among children from about 6 percent of children between 1997 and 1998 to more than 10 percent between 2015 and 2016.
Advances in medical technology also may have contributed to the increase, according to the research. Twenty years ago, preterm or low-weight babies had a harder time surviving. Those factors increase the risk of being diagnosed with ADHD.
The study also suggests that fewer stigmas about mental health care in minority communities may also lead to more people receiving an ADHD diagnosis.
In the late 1990s, 7.2 percent of non-Hispanic white children, 4.7 percent of non-Hispanic black children and 3.6 of Hispanic children were diagnosed with ADHD, according to the study.
By 2016, it was 12 percent of white kids, 12.8 percent of blacks and 6.1 percent of Hispanics.
Over the past several decades, Hinshaw said, there’s been an expanded view of who can develop ADHD. It’s no longer viewed as a disease that affects only white middle-class boys, as eating disorders are no longer seen as afflicting only white middle-class girls.
Still, he cautioned against over-diagnosing ADHD in communities where behavioral issues could be the result of social or environmental factors such as overcrowded classrooms.
The study found rates of ADHD among girls rose from 3 to more than 6 percent over the study period. It said that was partly a result of a change in how the condition is classified. For years, ADHD pertained to children who were hyperactive. But in recent years, the American Psychiatric Association added to its guide of mental health conditions that diagnosis should also include some children who are inattentive, Bao said. That raised the number of girls, he explained, because it seems they are more likely to be in that second subtype.
“If we compare these two, you can easily imagine people will easily recognize hyperactivity,” he said.
That rang true for Ruth Hay, a 25-year-old student and cook from New York who now lives in Jerusalem. She was diagnosed with what was then called ADD the summer between second and third grade.
Hay said her hyperactive tendencies aren’t as “loud” as some people’s. She’s less likely to bounce around a room than she is to bounce in her chair, she said.
Yet despite her early diagnosis, Hay said, no one ever told her about other symptoms. For example, she said, she suffers from executive dysfunction, which leaves her feeling unable to accomplish tasks, no matter how much she wanted to or tried.
“I grew up being called lazy in periods of time when I wasn’t,” Hay said. “If you look at a list of all the various ADHD symptoms, I have all of them to one degree or another, but the only ones ever discussed with me was you might be less focused and more fidgety.”
“I don’t know how my brain would be if I didn’t have it,” she added. “I don’t know if I’d still be me, but all it has been for me is a disability.”
Religious leaders and politicians react to the Saturday morning shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, where a man killed 11 people and wounded six in one of the deadliest attacks on Jews in U.S. history:
“This evil Anti-Semitic attack is an assault on humanity. It will take all of us working together to extract the poison of Anti-Semitism from our world. We must unite to conquer hate.” — President Donald Trump.
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“We grieve for the Americans murdered in Pittsburgh. All of us have to fight the rise of anti-Semitism and hateful rhetoric against those who look, love, or pray differently. And we have to stop making it so easy for those who want to harm the innocent to get their hands on a gun.” — former President Barack Obama.
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“The actions of Robert Bowers represent the worst of humanity.” — Scott Brady, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
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“Today, we saw another horrific act of hate at a house of worship — this time, the murder of at least eight congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue … It reminds us of the slaughter of nine African American worshippers at Charleston’s Mother Emmanuel Church in 2015, the killings of six Sikh worshippers at a temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in 2014, and, of course, the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 that left four young African American girls dead. The violence in Pittsburgh follows on the heels of a string of attempted pipe bombings by a white supremacist who targeted frequent critics of President Trump. Our hearts go out to the families of the most recent shootings.” — Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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“We are devastated. Jews targeted on Shabbat morning at synagogue, a holy place of worship, is unconscionable. Our hearts break for the victims, their families, and the entire Jewish community.” — Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League.
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“I was heartbroken and appalled by the murderous attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue today. The entire people of Israel grieve with the families of the dead. We stand together with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh. We stand together with the American people in the face of this horrendous anti-Semitic brutality. And we all pray for the speedy recovery of the wounded.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video message posted online.
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“This has always been a thought in the back of my mind, scenarios just like this. During the week the building is locked. We have a security camera to see who comes. But on Sabbath it’s an open door. And there are people right there where he would have walked in.” — Chuck Diamond, former Rabbi at the Tree of Life Synagogue.
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“When Jews are murdered in Pittsburgh, the people of Israel feel pain. All Israel are responsible for one another.” — Naftali Bennett, Minister of Education and Minister of Diaspora Affairs in Israel.
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“We are thinking of ‘our brothers and sisters, the whole house of Israel, in this time of trouble,’ as we say in the morning prayers. We are thinking of the families of those who were murdered and praying for the quick recovery of those who were injured. I am sure that the law enforcement agencies and the legal authorities in the U.S. will investigate this horrific event thoroughly and that justice will be served on the despicable murderer.” — Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.
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“We send our thoughts and prayers to those affected by this morning’s tragedy in Pittsburgh. We will continue to pray for everyone involved.” — Pittsburgh Steelers.
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“We are incredibly saddened to hear of this morning’s tragedy at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. We send our thoughts and prayers to all those affected.” — Pittsburgh Penguins.
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“We are sickened by this horrific attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s historic Jewish neighborhood. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the dead and injured as well as the rest of the congregation and Jewish community.” — Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Playwright, poet and author Ntozake Shange, whose most acclaimed theater piece is the 1975 Tony Award-nominated play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf,” died Saturday, according to her daughter. She was 70.
Shange’s “For Colored Girls” describes the racism, sexism, violence and rape experienced by seven black women. It has been influential to generations of progressive thinkers, from #MeToo architect Tarana Burke to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. After learning of Shange’s death, Nottage called her “our warrior poet/dramatist.”
Poet, playwright and actress Ntozake Shange is shown in New York City in July 1976. (AP Photo)
Savannah Shange, a professor of anthropology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, said Saturday that her mother died in her sleep at an assisted living facility in Bowie, Maryland. She had suffered a series of strokes in 2004.
“She spoke for, and in fact embodied, the ongoing struggle of black women and girls to live with dignity and respect in the context of systemic racism, sexism and oppression,” Savannah Shange said.
“For Colored Girls” is an interwoven series of poetic monologues set to music — Shange coined the form a “choreopoem” for it — by African-American women, each identified only by a color that she wears.
Shange used idiosyncratic punctuation and nonstandard spellings in her work, challenging conventions. One of her characters shouts, “i will raise my voice / & scream & holler / & break things & race the engine / & tell all yr secrets bout yrself to yr face.”
Author Ntozake Shange attends a special screening of ‘For Colored Girls’ at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Monday, Oct. 25, 2010 in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)
It played some 750 performances on Broadway — only the second play by an African-American woman after “A Raisin in the Sun” — and was turned into a feature film by Tyler Perry starring Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington and Janet Jackson.
Born Paulette Williams in Trenton, New Jersey, she went on to graduate from Barnard College and got a master’s degree from the University of Southern California. Her father, Dr. Paul T. Williams, was a surgeon. Her mother, Eloise Owens Williams, was a professor of social work. She later assumed a new Zulu name: Ntozake means “She who comes with her own things” and Shange means “She who walks like a lion.”
“For Colored Girls” opened at the Public Theater in downtown Manhattan, with Shange, then 27, performing as one of the women. The New York Times reviewer called it “extraordinary and wonderful” and “a very humbling but inspiring thing for a white man to experience.” It earned Shange an Obie Award and she won a second such award in 1981 for her adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” at the Public Theater.
Shange’s other 15 plays include “A Photograph: A Study of Cruelty” (1977), “Boogie Woogie Landscapes” (1977), “Spell No. 7” (1979) and “Black and White Two Dimensional Planes” (1979).
Her list of published works includes 19 poetry collections, six novels, five children’s books and three collections of essays. Some of her novels are “Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo” (1982) and “Some Sing, Some Cry,” with her sister, Ifa Bayeza. Her poetry collections include “I Live in Music” (1994) and “The Sweet Breath of Life: A Poetic Narrative of the African-American Family” (2004). She appeared in an episode of “Transparent” and helped narrate the 2002 documentary “Standing in the Shadows of Motown.”
She worked with such black theater companies as the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco; the New Freedom Theater in Philadelphia; Crossroads Theatre Company in New Brunswick, New Jersey; St. Louis Black Rep; Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota; and The Ensemble Theatre in Houston, Texas.
Shange taught at Brown University, Rice University, Villanova University, DePaul University, Prairie View University and Sonoma State University. She also lectured at Yale, Howard, New York University, among others.
In addition to her daughter and sister, Shange is survived by sister Bisa Williams, brother Paul T. Williams, Jr. and a granddaughter, Harriet Shange-Watkins
Cory Booker meets with demonstrators at a protest in Washington, D.C., on June 28, 2017. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins
Questions about religion can paralyze some politicians, but not Cory Booker.
If anything, the topic seems to relax him. Sitting in his spacious but spartan office on Capitol Hill in early October, the senator propped his sneakered feet up on his desk and waxed poetic about spiritual matters, bouncing between discussions of Jesus’ disciples, housing policy and his own religious practices.
“When I get up in the morning, I meditate,” the New Jersey Democrat said, a practice he has often linked to his spiritual health. He paused for a moment, then quickly corrected himself: “Actually, I pray on my knees, and then I meditate.”
Booker’s comfort with his faith is unusual for Democrats in Washington, but it’s standard fare for the 49-year-old former mayor of Newark and has even become a mainstay of his blossoming political persona: Even the hyperbole-averse Associated Press recently compared him to an “evangelical minister” after Booker addressed a group of Democrats in Iowa.
AP had good cause: The decidedly progressive speech, which many speculated was a warmup for a 2020 presidential run, was peppered with talk about “faithfulness” and “grace.” Booker closed by citing Amos 5:24 (“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”) before shouting “Amen!” over the roaring crowd.
Asked about his tendency to fuse the political with the spiritual, Booker shrugged.
“I don’t know how many speeches of mine you can listen to and not have me bring up faith,” he said. He noted he had just come from a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting where he had lifted a line from his stump speech: “Before you tell me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people.”
The sentiment, along with a message of unity that he brands as a “new civic gospel,” is generating buzz among Democrats. But Booker’s brand of public religiosity is especially attractive to an oft-forgotten but increasingly powerful group: the amorphous subset of religious Americans sometimes known as the religious left.
If he does run for president, as many expect, Booker may be one of the first Democratic candidates in decades to actively cultivate support from religious progressives.
A favorite of lefty faithful
Raised in an African Methodist Episcopal church and now a member of a National Baptist church in Newark, Booker has become a fixture at left-leaning religious gatherings as far back as 2014, when he showed up at a summit hosted by Sojourners, a Christian social justice organization. He “basically preached a sermon at the opening reception,” tweeted one organizer of the event.
In 2017, Booker attended a protest outside the U.S. Capitol hosted by the Rev. William Barber II, a prominent religious progressive who was there to denounce the Republican-led effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Earlier this year, Booker spoke at the Festival of Homiletics, a preaching conference attended by primarily white, liberal mainline clergy.
His appearance at these events has often resulted in standing ovations, and near endorsements.
“I don’t hope to move to New Jersey, but I do hope to vote for you someday, if you catch my drift,” the Rev. David Howell, the Presbyterian founder of the Festival of Homiletics, said while introducing Booker in May.
Booker claims that his faith is not partisan: He said religion is a way to reach across the aisle, and Republican Sen. John Thune is reportedly a member of his Bible study (along with New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, another potential Democratic presidential hopeful). But if Booker is unapologetic about his faith, he’s also unapologetic about the potential political effect of his God-talk.
“I think Democrats make the mistake often of ceding that territory to Republicans of faith,” Booker said.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., in his Washington office on Oct. 17, 2018. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins
Eric Gregory, who studied with Booker at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar and at Yale, said the senator’s fascination with faith is nothing new.
“He certainly has always been religiously musical,” said Gregory, now a professor of religion and chair of the humanities council at Princeton University.
“He was always curious about diving deeply into different religious traditions and trying to understand them but also find wisdom within them,” said Gregory.
Still, Booker roots his personal faith in Christianity, particularly the black church tradition in which he was reared.
“I will talk about my faith, and I also talk about other faiths I study,” Booker told Religion News Service, sitting beneath an image of Mahatma Gandhi, one of the few adornments on his office walls. “I’ve studied Torah for years. Hinduism I’ve studied a lot. Islam, I’ve studied some, and I’ve been enriched by my study. But, for me, the values of my life are guided by my belief in the Bible and in Jesus.”
It’s an approach to religion — multifaith, LGBTQ-inclusive, liberation theology-influenced and social-justice focused — that jibes perfectly with the makeup of the liberal coalition.
“The life of Jesus is very impactful to me and very important to me,” he said. “He lived a life committed to dealing with issues of the poor and the sick. The folks that other folks disregard, disrespect or often oppress. He lived this life of radical love that is a standard that I fail to reach every single day, but that really motivates me in what I do.”
But Booker insisted his connection with religious left leaders such as Barber, who spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, has less to do with political angling and more to do with a natural overlap of shared values.
“I find kinship with people I find inspiration from — people I would love to be more like,” he said. “Rev. Barber is powerful. To me, his charisma speaks, in an instructive way, towards my heart and my being. He is somebody who believes that being poor is not a sin or that poverty is a sin.”
Riding progressive religious power
Progressive religion, drowned out in recent decades by the well-organized religious right, has been revived by the rise of President Trump. Within weeks of the 2016 election, left-leaning religious groups saw spikes in funding. Their coalitions became a crucial part of the “resistance” to Trump’s travel ban, the repeal of the ACA and the separation of families along the U.S.-Mexico border. Leaders such as Barber and Linda Sarsour, a prominent Muslim activist and core organizer of the Women’s March, have been elevated to the national stage.
As their influence increased, so too did side-by-side appearances with potential 2020 presidential hopefuls such as Booker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.; and others.
For modern religious progressives the new attention comes with a dilemma: What does it mean not only to protest power but to influence it — or even be courted by it?
“I think faith communities, particularly the religious left, need to become even more aware of the significant, for lack of a better word, lobbying power that they have,” said the Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, a theology professor and dean of Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary in New York.
Marie Griffith, director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, said the shift harks back to the era of President Carter, who ran as a Southern Baptist Democrat.
“I would absolutely see (Carter) as exemplifying this progressive Christian vision,” she said, noting that after he lost re-election the progressive religious spirit that elected him “went underground.” In a sense, the rise of Bookers and Barbers signals a return to form.
“They’ve got their boldness back, and they’re willing to speak in the name of religion and not hide their light under a bushel,” she said.
Douglas also highlighted the importance of Booker’s attachment to the black church.
“Historically, black communities have relied on the leadership and the wisdom of their faith leaders,” she said.
It’s unclear whether white Democrats of faith, whose numbers continue to dwindle, can be successfully courted along faith lines, despite numerous attempts over the years by groups such as Sojourners and others. But appealing to the faith of nonwhite Democrats, according to data unveiled earlier this year by Pew Research, suggests that may be a crucial long-term strategy for those seeking to turn red states blue. Although states with higher religious attendance and expression tend to be Republican, nonwhite populations in those states skew highly religious and deeply Democratic.
Douglas pointed out that Booker already exhibited the power of the black faith community in the 2017 Alabama senate race. As Republican Roy Moore battled accusations of child sex abuse, Democrat Doug Jones reached out to black voters, using the last days before the election to campaign at several black churches.
Standing next to Jones during those church visits was Booker.
Two days later, analysts largely credited Jones’ victory to massive black voter turnout.
Preaching a new ‘civic gospel’
Booker is not the only potential presidential hopeful vying for the religious left’s attention. Warren, Harris and others are also winning hearts among the faithful. Booker has also faced hard questions from the left, including religious progressives, for taking large donations from Wall Street.
He’d likely also have to address the concerns of slightly less than a third of Democrats who do not claim a religious affiliation, many of whom are uneasy with politicians who cite faith as a guide.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., addresses Festival of Homiletics attendees at Metropolitan AME Church on May 22, 2018, in Washington. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins
But Booker is already working out ways to talk to them, too.
“I prefer to hang out with nice, kind atheists than mean Christians any day,” he has often said.
Meanwhile, the larger struggle may be to convert the religious left into an organized political force.
Gregory identifies “a kind of paralyzing despair or prophetic critique that disables the possibility of politics more than enabling it. In some ways, I think one of the reasons why Senator Booker often gets a lot of enthusiastic reception is because he is capable of recognizing severe challenges but also not giving in to the despair or withdrawal.”
Booker’s optimism is embodied in his concept of a “civic gospel,” a vision for a politics devoid of the “meanness” and “moral vandalism” that he sees in current political discourse, especially from Trump.
“I think God is love,” Booker said, leaning across his desk. “I think God is justice. I think that the ideals of this country are in line with my faith. I don’t need to talk about religion to talk about those ideals that all Americans hold dear.”
Perhaps Booker is something of an evangelical — or at least an evangelist — for this ecumenical sense that politics and religion are not mutually exclusive, all while reaching those outside the religious fold with a broader inclusive message. Whether the faithful, literal and figurative, will rally around that idea will likely be the question of his next two years.
“Every speech I give, I will not yield from talking about that revival of civic grace,” he said.
