by Alvin Sanders | Mar 5, 2012 | Feature |
RACIAL PROVOCATEUR: Touré, the outspoken journalist and cultural critic, takes the post-racial conversation to another level with 'Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness?'.
Cultural critic and Rolling Stone contributing editor Touré is not one to shy away from breaking Black racial norms, and he does exactly that in his racially rowdy book, Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?: What It Means to Be Black Now. The title refers to the notion that in the 21st century there exists a new understanding of the Black identity. He interviewed 105 well-known Black personalities from a variety of vocations on his journey to unpack “Post-Blackness.”
Post-Blackness like most terms under the post-modernist umbrella is an attempt to redefine meaning. Touré borrowed the term from the art world where Black artists were envisioning a way to practice their craft without being pigeonholed into the genre of “Black Art.” So to define their shows and artistic pieces they constructed the term Post-Black. This term is not to be confused with the more controversial “Post-Racial,” a term that suggests race does not play a significant role in America anymore. Post-Blackness is contrarian to such a notion (“It doesn’t mean we’re over Blackness; it means we’re over our narrow understanding of what Blackness means.”)
Racially Touré believes one age has ended and another begun (“the age of Obama.”) When using this term, he is not talking politics but rather using it as a signifier of a new racial day. Obama’s racial identity is “rooted in, but not restricted by, his Blackness” as interviewee Dr. Michael Eric Dyson puts it. Obama’s refusal to engage in racial identity politics, while at the same time maintaining a strong connection to Black America, has been nothing short of a political revolution. By taking such a posture, he was able to move from fighting the power to being the power. The same could be said of the President Obama’s good friend Oprah Winfrey (“She ruffled a lot of Black feathers by turning Blackness inside out and allowing it to breathe in the white world on its own with little explanation or apology.”)
For the author, both Oprah and Obama serve as metaphors for a new generation of Blacks that refuses to be pigeonholed into a stereotypical racial Black narrative. This generation vigorously defends their rights to individualism while at the same time value the history of the collective Black experience. Concerning that experience, they refuse to be limited or totally defined by it. This is the author’s core argument (“the number of ways of being Black is infinite” and “what it means to be Black has grown so staggeringly broad, so unpredictable, so diffuse that Blackness itself is undefinable.”)
Of course the “age of Obama” and corresponding Post-Black posture doesn’t necessarily sit well with all. For instance, Dr. Cornel West and broadcasting luminary Tavis Smiley have been super critical of Post-Black posture and have publicly accused the president of ignoring issues specific to the Black community. Really the charge is Obama has not been Black enough. Anyone who has been Black for more than a few minutes knows this charge is not limited to politics. There are “racial police” in all venues enforcing all kinds of chameleon-like rules of Blackness.
One incident the author addresses happened while he was a college student at Emory University. At 2:30 a.m. he entered into a discussion with some fellow Black students concerning always being stuck with cleaning up after a party. A linebacker-sized Black man who wasn’t even in the conversation silenced the whole room by shouting angrily, “Shut up, Touré! You ain’t Black!” He talks about the embarrassment of being charged with being an Uncle Tom and reflects on the racial wrestling that followed. Touré desires this type of attitude to be abolished (“I wish for every Black American to have the freedom to be Black however he or she chooses and to banish from the collective mind the bankrupt, fraudulent concept of ‘authentic’ Blackness.”)
So how does the Post-Black dynamic affect us in Christian circles? Historically, seven major denominations comprise the traditional Black church — the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church; the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church; the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church; the National Baptist Convention, USA., Incorporated (NBC); the National Baptist Convention of America, Unincorporated (NBCA); the Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC); and the Church of God in Christ (COGIC). Blacks have also had a significant presence in historic White denominations such as the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregational, United Methodist, and Roman Catholic churches. Over the last century, the primary perspectives of the Black Christian experience have arisen from those two groups (traditional Black denominations and historic White denominations) with good reason.
Today we need to acknowledge the existence of a significant Post-Black church movement. Over the last 40 years, many Blacks have come to faith through White parachurch ministries such as Navigators, InterVarsity, and the like. Many have matured in their faith within independent evangelical churches, been educated in predominately White Seminaries, and found homes in White denominations looking to become multiethnic. This group has a set of distinctives that differs from the historic Black church. Will the Post-Black Christian generation be grafted into the overall Black church experience?
I have a significant dog in this fight. Post-Blackness presents to us the idea of being rooted in, but not restricted by, Blackness. That is where I, and many Black Christians, live today. I have historic roots in the traditional Black church, but possess a Post-Black Christian identity. Which leads me to wonder, is there room for people like me in the traditional Black church? And, frankly, what does a Post-Black future signify for Christianity as a whole?
by Wil LaVeist | Aug 19, 2011 | Feature, Headline News |
ON THE ROAD: Dr. Cornel West and journalist Tavis Smiley recently concluded their 14-city "Poverty Tour" to bring attention to the plight of America's poor.
Last week media personality Tavis Smiley and his radio show sidekick, Princeton professor Cornel West, wrapped up their seven-day 14-city “Poverty Tour,” for which they caught plenty of hell. Launched to raise awareness to the plight of America’s expanding poor in this depressed economy, critics, from regular folks on social networking websites, to bloggers, to media personalities, labeled Smiley and West everything from “Obama haters” to “cry babies” to “poverty pimps” and worse. Comedian and radio show host Steve Harvey recently branded them “Uncle Toms,” on air, the ultimate diss for black people who are disloyal to their race — in this case their criticism of President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black President.
As a journalist, I’ve met both Smiley and West on occasion but don’t know either of them personally. Still, calling them “Toms” seems overboard. Both men believed their critique of the president and cause for the poor is just and in the spirit of their Christian faith. They deserve praise for using their platforms to take action. Attendees at their tour stops reportedly showed love. What concerns me as a Christian and observer is why these two intelligent brothers chose to advocate in a way they know won’t move the needle one bit for the poor. Why a model that more resembles what Glenn Beck would do than what Jesus would?
Servant Leaders or Advocate Entrepreneurs?
Smiley and West could’ve chosen the servant leader model, exemplified by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other disciples of the civil rights movement. Through nonviolent passive resistance, they raised the nation’s consciousness and got policies changed. King was unfortunately assassinated in 1968 in the midst of leading the Poor People’s Campaign calling for an economic Bill of Rights (sound familiar?) to end poverty among all Americans. There’s also Mohandas Gandhi, the Hindu philosopher who inspired King. Through nonviolence, hunger strikes, and skillfully mobilizing peasant farmers, Gandhi led India to independence from Great Britain. A trained lawyer, Gandhi eloquently confronted Britain’s most powerful, yet related equally to the poor, though, like King, he was of a higher socioeconomic class.
Jesus Christ — the ultimate divine servant leader — inspired both King and Gandhi and obviously changed the world. Servant leaders succeed because of their moral fortitude, skillful planning, and ability to inspire and empower people in concrete ways. Most importantly, they are committed to self-sacrifice.
That’s the problem with Smiley and West.
As Smiley complained of perceived slights, such as Obama being the first president to not invite him to the White House, and West whined that Obama didn’t hook him up with a ticket to his inauguration, their self-absorption became blatantly clear. Could you picture King or Gandhi voicing such drivel? If advocating nationally for the poor is truly your calling (it’s not mine) why not lead a hunger strike or a fast? How about camping out in a tent near the White House or Capitol Hill until change comes? How about organizing and mobilizing voters in the way the Tea Party advocates have done to elect politicians who would pass a poor people’s Stimulus Bill? You both evoke King’s words concerning the poor, why not his manner?
Smiley and West’s method was more like Beck, the multimillion-dollar right-wing media mogul/talk show host who fashions himself as an evangelical bullhorn for angry whites. Beck has done road shows, packed auditoriums, and even held a rally on the National Mall on the day commemorating the historic 1963 March of Washington. Beck’s is the “Entrepreneur Advocate” model, where the speaker to the crowd is the only one whose wallet gets enriched. Beck has mastered this hustle. Smiley has long been associated with it, too.
So what are Smiley and West really peddling?
Besides selling books and a Poverty Tour TV special and DVD that I suspect will be released later, I believe Smiley and West’s goal is to hustle their way into President Obama’s inner circle. The tour was part of their angling for a “come to Jesus meeting” like the “beer summit” that Henry Louis Gates Jr., West’s black contemporary at Harvard, enjoyed after his spat with a white police officer made headlines. Smiley and West would love to commune with the prez at the White House on red wine, crackers and cheese. They likely would want to broadcast the meeting/interview on Smiley’s TV show.
Don’t be shocked if it happens close to Election Day 2012.
And, in the meantime, the poor will remain among us.
The opinions expressed in this commentary belong to the writer and are not necessarily the views of UrbanFaith.com or Urban Ministries, Inc.
by Christine A. Scheller | Aug 4, 2011 | Feature, Headline News |
Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) deserves the colorful language prize of the week for describing the federal debt deal that President Obama signed into law Tuesday as a “Satan sandwich.” “There is nothing inside this sandwich that the major religions of the world will say deals with protection for the poor, the widows, the children,” Cleaver told ABC News.
But a group calling itself Christians for a Sustainable Economy (CASE) sent a letter to President Obama Monday urging him not to protect programs for the poor, as Circle of Protection signatories had recommended, but instead to protect those in need from programs that it says “demean the poor, undermine their family structures and trap them in poverty, dependency and despair for generations.”
Timothy Dalrymple, managing editor of the Evangelical portal at Patheos.com and a drafter of the CASE letter, said in a phone interview today that the early CASE signatories are a primarily white, religiously diverse group that came together at a conference about environmental issues. Dalrmyple said he would welcome more ethnic diversity.
“We referenced [Jim] Wallis and the Circle of Protection because, while we agree that the budget is a moral document, we believe that many other moral imperatives are being left out of the conversation. The Circle of Protection was rightly emphasizing the moral imperative to care for the poor … but we felt they were leaving out the moral imperative against the kind of severe, chronic crippling debt that we have, and leaving out the moral imperative of wise stewardship of resources. There are numerous moral imperatives involved here,” said Dalrymple.
“We don’t feel that drawing a circle of protection around one party’s argument is the best way to go,” he said, but pointed out that there are “broad areas of agreement” between the two groups.
“We’re certainly in agreement on the importance of caring for the poor. They are willing to acknowledge the importance of getting our fiscal house in order. There are differences in emphasis, but there is also, on our part, an effort to foster a broader and more nuanced conversation over the moral imperatives at play, and a challenging of the assumption that the measure of your compassion is the amount of money you devote toward ostensibly anti-poverty programs,” said Dalrymple.
At the Washington Post On Faith blog, Lisa Miller asked a handful of Christian ministers and scholars, including CASE member Eric Teetsel, what Jesus would cut from the federal budget. “All deferred an answer. Instead, they raised the same old liberal-conservative political debate that has raged at least since the Reagan years. Left-leaning Christians insisted that the way out of the debt crisis was to raise taxes. Those on the right supported slashing entitlements,” said Miller.
In a NewsOne/BlackPlanet poll conducted Tuesday, African Americans were divided when asked if they thought President Obama gave up too much to Republicans in the deal. Fifty-one percent said no; 46 percent said yes,” News One reported.
At The Huffington Post’s Black Voices, which launched today, Peter S. Goodman revisited a conversation he had last year with an economist who told him most Americans didn’t “get screwed” in the Great Recession. In light of depressing statistics about its impact on minorities, Goodman said, “Black and Hispanic households together comprise 28 percent of the American population. In other words, great numbers of Americans have indeed gotten screwed. And anyone who missed that essentially missed what was wrong with the American economy writ large.”
As to solutions, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is launching cross country job fairs, town hall meetings, job readiness programs, and seminars as part of its “For The People” jobs initiative resolution, News One reported. And concern about hiring discrimination against the long-term unemployed prompted Democrats in both houses of Congress to introduce legislation that would ban employment discrimination, according to Colorlines.
In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans to contribute $30 million of his own money to a $130 million initiative that will address the needs of the city’s minority populations. The program “would overhaul how the government interacts with a population of about 315,000 New Yorkers who are disproportionately undereducated, incarcerated and unemployed,” The New York Times reported.
In what may or may not be a pursuit of solutions, talk show host Tavis Smiley and Princeton University professor Cornel West are taking their “anti-poverty tour” to Chicago this weekend, The Chicago Tribune reported. The tour will shine “a spotlight on economic hardships in the president’s hometown” at a time when his former chief of staff and current Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration is, according to Chicago News Cooperative, shutting down its overnight emergency services shift for the homeless and laying off 24 employees in the city’s Department of Family and Support Services.
One can only speculate what the strain will be on affluent African and Hispanic Americans who are more likely to live in poor neighborhoods than low income whites, according to a new study by Brown University sociologist John Logan that was reported in The Wall Street Journal.
Well, it’s been a tumultuous couple of weeks talking about money, a subject financial adviser Dave Ramsey says the Bible mentions more than 800 times. Among those verses is Mathew 6:24: “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” As we debate these issues, perhaps we can remember too that 1 John 4:20 says we can’t love God and hate those with whom we disagree about causes and solutions to our nation’s economic problems.
