Afro-Netizen

Obama and the Politics of Race and Religion in America

The Ground Didn't Shift

By M. Shahid Alam
CounterPunch

It is perhaps a bit late in the day, nearly two weeks after November 4, to be writing about Barack Obama’s electoral victory. This want of alacrity, however, is intentional.

I thought it would be cruel to write any sooner, when whites and blacks alike were so effusively celebrating Obama’s victory. It would be unseemly to strike a discordant note when a clear majority of Americans was savoring this putative post-racial moment in their history.

Did this victory signal a shift in America's racial tectonic plates?

Memories are so short. In the weeks following his choice of Sarah Palin on August 29, John McCain began closing the gap behind Obama.  The election got closer after Palin electrified the Republican Convention with her line about how “We grow good people in our small towns…”  The message to blacks, Hispanics and Asians in America’s cities was clear: they are not “good people.”

In the absence of the financial meltdown that began in early September, the election could have easily gone the other way. Sarah Palin too may have helped Obama a bit when she began displaying the breathless scope of her ignorance.

Who should we thank for Obama’s victory?

The answer is sobering. We can thank the financial meltdown and, in some measure, the threat of an Armageddon – likely to follow Palin’s succession to a geriatric McCain – for Obama’s victory. There was no shifting of tectonic plates on this continent.

If anything, America’s unquestioning identification of Obama as a ‘black’ candidate is deeply problematic. It demonstrates that the United States remains firmly rooted in ideas of race that go back to the era of slavery and Jim Crow Laws.  

Obama’s mother was white and, apparently, so were all her forebears; while his father was a black African and, apparently, so were all his forebears. Obama is biracial – half-black and half-white. Why did that, automatically, make him black? If being half-black makes Obama black, by the same logic we could identify him as white.

Why didn’t we?

Read more to find out here.

Minister, a Bush Ally, Gives Church as Site for Alito Rally

By Laurie Goodstein
New York Times

The Rev. Herbert H. Lusk II is a maverick black minister who took to his pulpit in Philadelphia in 2000 and pledged his support for a Bush presidency, a speech broadcast live at the Republican National Convention. Two years later, Mr. Lusk was criticized when he received a $1 million grant through the president's new religion-based initiative to run a housing program for the poor.

This Sunday, Mr. Lusk has offered his church in Philadelphia as the site for a major political rally intended to whip up support for the president's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., whose confirmation hearings begin on Monday.

The event, dubbed "Justice Sunday III," will be broadcast by satellite nationwide to churches and Christian radio and television stations, and organizers say it will reach 80 million households.

The speaking lineup includes the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University; James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a multimedia ministry in Colorado Springs; and Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Lusk said he agreed to be the host of the event at his Greater Exodus Baptist Church more out of loyalty to Mr. Bush - "a friend of mine" - than out of support for Judge Alito.

"I don't know enough about him to say I actually think he's the right man to do the job," Mr. Lusk said in a telephone interview on Wednesday about Judge Alito. "I'm saying I trust a friend of mine who promised me that he would appoint people to the justice system that would be attentive to the needs I care about" - stopping same-sex marriage, assisted suicide and abortions for minors, and supporting prayer and Christmas celebrations in schools.

Other black pastors criticized Mr. Lusk for providing a black church as a stage for a pro-Alito event when they say Judge Alito has a poor record on civil rights. The Rev. Robert P. Shine Sr., president of the Pennsylvania State Wide Coalition of Black Clergy, said, "The rights gained by blacks and other minorities are subject to reversal in the event that Alito, along with Roberts, sits on the court."

Mr. Lusk says he is accustomed to controversy. After his speech to the Republican National Convention, he was reported to the Internal Revenue Service by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a watchdog group based in Washington, which accused him of violating tax rules that prohibit churches from endorsing political candidates.

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Pandora's Box

A deep planetary insecurity has fostered a rush to build boundaries around ourselves--psychic green zones--no matter how irrational, separating white from black or brown, Christian from Muslim, Europeans from Arabs.

Patricia J. Williams
The Nation

Some years ago, when "identity politics" first raised its contentious, snappish little head, the furor seemed almost entirely focused on African-Americans. The true complexity and importance of that debate, deemed largely academic at first, is perhaps increasingly clear. In recent times the world has shuddered with violent realignments unleashed by global challenges to line up with "them" or with "us," or with "truth" or with "treason." Identity is battered by varied appeals to conformity: Say it! prove it! swear allegiance to this or that nation, party, religion, bloodline of the moment--good or bad, for or against, red or blue, blue or gray, black or white, or many shades of other.

A deep planetary insecurity has fostered a rush to build boundaries around ourselves--psychic green zones, mental walls, panic rooms, little protective groupings--no matter how irrational. There's a Boondocks cartoon that captures the absurd tension of this moment, where young Huey excitedly tells his grandfather that there's good news abroad in the land. African-Americans are now only the third most hated group in America, he says, right after Muslims and the French. It is a bizarre phenomenon, this free-floating sense of well-being that derives comfort from being less hated rather than more loved.

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I Still Love God, But I've Lost Faith in the Black Church

By John W. Fountain
The Washington Post

Sunday morning arrived, like so many before, with a mix of sunlight and chirping birds outside my bedroom window and a warm greeting from my tiny son, lying beside my wife and me. My wife rose quickly, announcing her plan to jump in the shower and get ready for Sunday school at the Baptist church, not far from our house in suburban Chicago, that she and our two children attend.

As for me, in what has become my ritual nowadays, I turned over and pulled the covers up around my head. Soon I overheard my 9-year-old daughter's familiar question: "Mommy, is Daddy going to church with us?"

"No-o-o-o," my wife replied. After months of my failure to accompany them, she has abandoned the excuse that "Daddy has a lot of work to do."

Sunday mornings used to mean something special to me. But I now face them with dread, with a bittersweet sorrow that tugs at my heart and a headache-inducing tension that makes me reach for the Advil. I am torn between my desire to play hooky from church and my Pentecostal indoctrination that Sunday is the Lord's day, a day of worship when real men are supposed to lead their families into the house of God.

Once, that's what I did. I am the grandson of a pastor and am myself a licensed minister. I love God and I love the church. I know church-speak and feel as comfortable shouting hallelujahs and amens and lifting my hands in the sanctuary as I do putting on my socks. I have danced in the spirit, spoken in tongues, and proclaimed Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior. I once arrived faithfully at the door of every prayer meeting and went to nearly every Bible study and month-long revival. I attended umpteen services, even the midnight musicals and my church's annual national meetings, like the one held two weeks ago in Kansas City.

Yet I now feel disconnected. I am disconnected. Not necessarily from God, but from the church.

What happened? Probably the same thing that has happened to thousands, if not tens of thousands, of African American men who now file into coffee shops or bowling alleys or baseball stadiums on Sundays instead of heading to church, or who lose themselves in the haze of mowing the lawn or waxing their cars. Somewhere along the way, for us, for me, the church -- the collective of black churches of the Christian faith, regardless of denomination -- lost its meaning, its relevance. It seems to have no discernible message for what ails the 21st-century black male soul.

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Next Pope: Diversity looms

By Zenitha Prince
AFRO Staff Writer

Cardinal Francis Arinze, 72, of Nigeria has risen to the top of a sea of candidates vying for the seat of the papacy, and if he is elected, will become the first Black Roman Catholic pope in modern history.
"It's about time," said the Rev. Donald Sterling, pastor of the 99-percent Black congregation at All Saints Catholic Church on Liberty Heights Road. "If the church is going to be the church of Jesus Christ, it must be universal. It cannot continue to [be] a European-dominated Church."

Even as Pope John Paul II is buried, the world awaits with bated breath for April 18, when the first election of a pope in 26 years will begin. The Vatican papacy is one of the most powerful positions in the world and the conclave of cardinals, whose decision will have far-reaching effects on the fate of nations and the church, will have world leaders on their toes and believers on their knees.

"All Catholics will be praying for the Spirit's guidance," said the Rev. Peter Lyons, of St. Ann's church in Baltimore. "This is the first time in 26 years for this. ... It will be difficult to follow in John Paul's footsteps and there are other issues in the church that need to be addressed."

Though Arinze stands out, the number of viable candidates are many and electors, in making their decision, will have to consider the direction of the church and its need to be relevant to the times; the continued expansion of the church into Africa, Asia and Latin America; the relationship of the Vatican to world governments; and the church's stance on issues like abortion, euthanasia and the celibacy of clergy.

"I think these cardinals who are going to elect the next pope are nervous," said the Rev. Joseph Rossi, professor of theology at Loyola College. "Only three have experience in electing a pope ... for many of these men, this is the culmination of their life because they're probably going to have only one opportunity to elect a pope."

For Blacks throughout the African Diaspora, however, this election holds a special appeal for the number of Black candidates in the field.

"I think it's very possible that the next pope could be African because the Catholic Church is growing in leaps and bounds in Africa," Rossi said.

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GOP makes gains among some black leaders

The American Debate

Its conservative social agenda, Social Security plan, and faith-based programs are being promoted.

By Dick Polman
Inquirer Political Analyst
The Philadelphia Inquirer

To understand why President Bush and the Republicans are gaining political strength in the black community, consider these remarks by Bishop Harry Jackson Jr., senior pastor at a 2,500-member church in College Park, Md.:

"I'm a registered Democrat, and I didn't vote for Bush in 2000, but now I'm a vehement supporter. Look at the moral issues. The black family is under siege in this culture, and something like same-sex marriage will take us right down the slippery slope. When I heard Bush say he supported a constitutional amendment to ban it, well, that made sense to me. Sacred rights are different from civil rights.

"The Democrats are being held hostage by their gay-rights agenda. They ignored black issues until the last weeks of the campaign. For me, that put salt in the wounds. I thought: 'Now they want to come to the churches and ask for votes? How dare they?' So I'm working with the Republicans now. And if the President follows through on reaching out to us, then more of the masses in the churches will be open to the Republicans in national elections."

Nervous Democrats fear Jackson may be right. African Americans have been loyal to the party since the civil-rights era, but Bush and the Republicans, in their drive to build a sustaining majority, are now poised to grab a significant slice of that electorate. If they can draw 20 percent of the black vote in pivotal states with large urban populations - an achievable goal - the Democrats would face serious hurdles in future presidential races.

The warning signs were obvious in November. Bush won only 11 percent of the black vote nationwide, but that figure is misleading. He drew 16 percent in pivotal Ohio (nearly doubling his 2000 share). Without the bigger black vote, he would have eked out a slim victory, narrow enough for a Democratic court challenge. Bush also drew 16 percent of the black vote in Pennsylvania (up from 7 percent in 2000), and that's one reason his loss to Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) was far narrower than expected.

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Purchased Pulpits & Spiritual Exploitations

" I freed a thousand  slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew  they were slaves..." – Harriet Tubman

By Jasmyne Cannick
The Black Commentator: ThinkPiece
March 3rd Edition :: Issue 128

Recently, a group of Black pastors under the name of the High Impact Coalition, held a press  conference and summit in Los Angeles to announce the kick off for their "Black Contract with America on Moral Values." Led by Bishop Harry Jackson of Washington and white Christian evangelical Reverend Lou Sheldon and his Traditional Values Coalition, the press conference and summit gave new  meaning to the phrase "Sleeping with the enemy."

According to the newly formed coalition,  topping the list of issues that Black Americans need to focus on is the protection of marriage. Never mind the war, access  to healthcare, HIV/AIDS, education, housing and social security, the number one problem facing Black America is same-sex marriage.

Standing before the press in their Sunday best and eager to get their fifteen minutes of fame and achievable share of President Bush's Faith Based Initiative, these Black pastors seemingly allowed their pulpits to be purchased by the GOP and Lou Sheldon, who is to gay people what Strom Thurmond was to Blacks. Sheldon at one time even went so far as to support the quarantining of people with AIDS and accused the federal  government of "running a network of whorehouses," when  the U.S. responded to the AIDS crisis with resources.

Later that afternoon over one hundred Black pastors gathered at Reverend Fred Price's Crenshaw  Christian Center, another prominent mega-church, where Sheldon showed his infamous "Gay rights, special rights" video and urged  the pastors to have their congregations lobby African American  legislators who hadn't taken a position on the issue of same-sex marriage.

Listening from the outside, one might  have thought they were listening in on a Klan meeting, but after  one look around the room, I remember thinking of Dave Chappelle's portrayal of a blind Black white supremacist who had never been  told he was Black.

Black pulpits are for sale to the highest bidder and Black Christians are quite possibly being sold to  the GOP under the guise of protecting America's moral values. With claims that gays are "hi-jacking" the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr.'s message, Sheldon is bribing Black pastor after pastor and church after church with check  after check to take another look at the GOP and partnering with their white Christian counterparts all while using the Bible as a justification for their commonality. Yes, the same book that was used to justify racism, sexism and anti-Semitism has both Black and white Christian evangelicals reading from the  same page.

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GOP Sees A Future In Black Churches

By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
Los Angeles Times

The effort was visible recently at the Crenshaw Christian Center, one of Los Angeles' biggest black churches, headed by televangelist Frederick K.C. Price. More than 100 African American ministers gathered in the first of several regional summits to build support for banning same-sex marriage — a signature issue that drew socially conservative blacks to the Republican column last year.

Before the meeting, one prominent minister unveiled a "Black Contract With America on Moral Values," a call for Bible-based action by government and churches to promote conservative priorities. It is patterned loosely on the "Contract With America" that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich used 10 years ago to inaugurate an era of GOP dominance in Congress.

A separate group with ties to Gingrich announced a similar "Mayflower Compact for Black America" later this month in Washington, which includes plans to organize in key states ahead of the 2006 and 2008 elections. And at the end of the month, the Heritage Foundation will cosponsor a gathering of black conservatives in Washington designed to counter dominance of the "America-hating black liberal leadership" and to focus African American voters on moral issues.

Those events all enjoy support from the Republican Party and its allies in the philanthropic and religious worlds. The meetings have a common goal: to foster a political realignment that, if successful, would challenge the Democrats' decades-long lock on the loyalty of black voters.

The effort has proved so successful already that Democrats who make up the Congressional Black Caucus are quietly expressing alarm — and planning countermeasures.

"I am frightened by what is happening," said Rep. Major R. Owens, an 11-term Democratic congressman from New York who has been conferring with colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus. "Our party is in grave danger. This Republican movement is going to expand exponentially unless we do something."

In the last seven presidential elections, the GOP's share of the black vote ranged from 8% to 11% nationwide.

But by courting conservative blacks in battleground states — reaching out through programs such as the president's faith-based initiative — GOP organizers believe they made the difference that secured Bush's victory in 2004. In Ohio, for instance, a concerted effort increased black support for Bush from 9% in 2000 to 16% in 2004, providing a cushion that allowed the president to win the pivotal state outright on election night. The Black Contract With America will be unveiled by Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr., a registered Democrat from suburban Washington who backed Bush in 2004 after voting against him four years earlier. He was drawn, he said, to the GOP's social conservatism that he thought reflected the true values of black churches.

In addition to such conservative GOP priorities as allowing workers to create private Social Security accounts and banning same-sex marriage, the Jackson contract deals with some potentially dicey issues for Republicans — such as restoring rights to former felons. The contract, Jackson said, combines the Bible-based elements of the traditionally Republican and Democratic platforms.

"We crafted this based on the issues that are workable within the current Republican administration," Jackson said. "We're dealing with folks that we now have some access to."

Jackson's enthusiasm for working with Washington's Republican power structure is shared by the party's leading strategists. The Los Angeles meeting was sponsored in part by the Traditional Values Coalition, headed by the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, a white evangelical Christian with close ties to White House political strategist Karl Rove, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman and other senior Bush administration officials.

Mehlman said Monday that he was in close contact with the organizers of each group and was coordinating with Gingrich and other party leaders.

"It may not be 1,000 flowers, but they're blooming all over the place," Mehlman said of the various efforts. "I believe that there is a tremendous opportunity for the party to build on what we've done over the past couple of years to improve our performance in the African American community."

Last week, about two dozen black civic and religious leaders who agree with Bush on moral issues visited the White House, where they received the president's thanks and were urged to support his plan to revamp Social Security.

One who attended the meeting, the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers of Boston, said the post-election period marked the beginning of a "significant transformation" among African Americans, a clear move toward the GOP.

Rivers had been hosted in the White House by Bill and Hillary Clinton, who heralded his work with gangs in Boston. He also has conferred with Police Chief William J. Bratton about Los Angeles' gang problem. Lately, Rivers has been embraced by Bush, whom he supported last year.

One of the leaders of the Mayflower Compact effort, Vivian Berryhill, is a longtime Mississippi Republican and president of the National Coalition of Pastors' Spouses. She and her husband shared the presidential box with the Bushes during the Martin Luther King Day celebration at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

The Mayflower Compact group describes itself as a self-funded effort to seek signatures from prominent black leaders nationwide to promote a conservative agenda. Berryhill and her partner in the enterprise, the Rev. Oliver N.E. Kellman Jr., a former aide to Democratic House members, have consulted with Gingrich and his staff to develop the idea, as well as with GOP leaders on Capitol Hill and in the White House.

Yet she credits the president with sparking the movement because of his unflagging interest in reaching out to black conservatives.

"This president has really changed the tone of the Republican Party," Berryhill said. "In the past, African Americans perceived Republicans as rich, white and racist. This president has come in and reached out from the beginning."

If the small shift in black voter support is thrilling to GOP leaders in Washington, it is scary to the country's most senior black elected leaders, who long have found their home in the Democratic Party.

Owens suggested that one way the Democratic Party could fight back would be to renew its commitment to investing in poor black neighborhoods. He lamented that "we don't have leaders like Lyndon Johnson, who understood the dynamics of building power, building it through your base."

Rather, he said, that lesson has been learned by Republicans like Gingrich and Rove.

Failure to respond to the GOP investment in black communities, he said, could allow Republicans to add five percentage points to the 11% they received among African American voters nationwide in 2004.

Republican officials, such as outgoing party chairman Ed Gillespie, have said they think the percentage could rise to 30 in the next presidential election — a prediction that even some GOP strategists called overly optimistic.

Even if it rises 5 percentage points, Owens said, "the Democratic Party will be paralyzed."

Owens said the GOP strategy of courting church leadership was on target. "The churches are the last institutions alive and breathing in some of these neighborhoods, and people look to them for leadership," he said.

The Bush administration has found entree to church leaders through its faith-based initiative, which is providing them with federal aid to fight social problems such as drug abuse, prison recidivism, divorce and teen pregnancy.

To counter the Republicans, Owens was preparing legislation that would send billions to impoverished neighborhoods through programs that he said would be more accountable than Bush's faith-based program.

All of the upcoming national and regional meetings of black conservatives emphasize a "moral values" agenda.

The organizer of the Heritage Foundation meeting, the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson of Los Angeles, said that he emphasizes the need for black families to reject the notion that racism caused family and economic ills and begin taking personal responsibility. He favors the Republican emphasis on traditional marriage, school vouchers and reduced reliance on government. And, he said, he sees a palpable shift in attitudes.

"I saw black preachers turning toward the Republicans in greater numbers this election. I don't know if it's because they believe in it or they want some of the faith-based money. Whatever the reason, they are turning; and as a result of the preachers leaving, many of the congregations are following."

The contract

The "Black Contract With America on Moral Values," to be unveiled today in Los Angeles, is designed to help African American churches gain influence in the Republican Party and promote socially conservative legislation. Highlights of the plan include:

• Marriage: Focus on prohibiting same-sex marriage.

• Wealth creation: Private Social Security investment accounts and encouraging homeownership.

• Education: School vouchers, charter schools and boosting black enrollment in higher education.

• Prison reform: Including a "Second Chance Act," reentry programs and laws restoring the rights of felons.

• Africa: Intervention in Sudan and penalties against corporations that explore for oil in the region.

• Healthcare overhaul: Including programs to cover the poor.

Source: Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr., Hope Christian Church, College Park, MD

Santeria: This is 'Mother Nature's religion'

Once-secretive Santeria faith brings its healing message into the open

By Johnny Diaz, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe

Reina Sanchez slowly steps into the second-floor of the white triple-decker Dorchester home, removes her shoes, and greets the man dressed in white, from head to toe.

"Happy Birthday padrino," she tells Steve Quintana, fondly calling him godfather in her native Spanish.

Like his house, Quintana is a picture of white, from his cotton pants and undershirt to his cap, as are some of his followers.

"Kneel right there my dear," Quintana says, pointing to the wooden floor in front of the shrine.

Before she plants herself on the floor, Sanchez adds two tall thin white candles and a coconut to the shrine, a collage of colorful cloths each representing one of the 23 orishas, or gods in the Santeria religion. Others have brought similar gifts, which include pineapples, apples, and muffins. There are enough presents here to transform this living room into a mini-garden of gifts, all of them designed to pay tribute to the patron saints.

Sanchez then symbolically rings a bell for Obatala, Quintana's guardianorisha whose favorite color is white, according to Santeria religion guidelines.

It's a ritual that outsiders rarely see and insiders seldom discuss.

But it's a scene that will be replayed countless times on this early fall Saturday afternoon as a procession of 250 of Quintana's followers stop by his Ashmont house and wish him a happy birthday to mark his 22 years as a Santeria priest.

To the gift-bearers, many of whom have sought Quintana's help to ward off curses, bad luck, or herbal remedies for life's everyday problems, Quintana is the godfather of Santeria in Greater Boston.

Ever since slaves were brought to Cuba from West Africa centuries ago, Santeria, a fusion of the Yoruba African faith and Catholicism, has been a secretive world, a religion discreetly practiced in the shadows, in private homes that are turned into temples. But recently the faith has become more visible, quietly flourishing in Greater Boston among people from Latin America and the Caribbean, whose numbers have surged in the last decade as a result of immigration.

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The African Christ

By Omar Swartz
Guest Commentator
The Black Commentator

Why are television evangelists or the corner fire-and-brimstone preachers we find on college campuses and in other places reprehensible to many people who, themselves, attend Church on Sunday and consider themselves pious?  Whenever this issue comes up in class, my students tell me that these preachers "give Christianity a bad name," and "do not reflect true Christianity."  What are we to make of this?  After all, the message that is promoted in established churches and that is promoted in fringe denominations is basically the same; what varies is the degree of a preacher's rhetorical sensitivity (or lack thereof). 

Television evangelists, with their extravagance, and the fire and brimstone preachers that stand on our college campuses and harangue listeners are simply, in many cases, not persuasive.  Such religious leaders alienate potential converts with their anger or superficiality, rather than encourage people to join their community.  In other words, we worship in places where we feel most comfortable, indifferent to the fundamental alienation of the ideology of religion.  Our places of worship tend to reflect our cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.

As an example of the above, it should be recalled that both the slaves and the slave masters of the pre-Civil War United States worshipped Jesus Christ.  In addition, freed, economically deprived and racially segregated African-Americans still largely continue to worship Jesus.  How can this be?   Why would the slaves and their masters worship the same God?  Why would Black people today, who make up the most impoverished, imprisoned, and alienated of our nation, continue to identify with the American God of wealth and privilege? 

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