On this Independence Day…

…as we celebrate yet another year of pseudo-liberties, as our civil liberties are constantly under attack in this era of terror.

Well, enough about white America, this really just a day off for the rest of us to barbecue.

Mama Uppity was always leery of 4th of July picnics and Memorial Day celebrations as well.  She always said what did black folks really have to do with the independence of this country from Britain?  Clearly, Jefferson did not include black men, nor women of any shade in the Declaration of Independence; for it’s really the commemoration of this document as it was sent to Britain declaring the colonies independence from the mother country.

As if to further drive home the point of who should be called citizens and non-citizens, the infamous three-fifths clause was written into the Constitution 11 years later in 1787.

Well, I think Mama Uppity, over the years has come around as far as celebrating the Fourth is concerned.  My reasoning behind the picnics, aside from the good food, is really that these high nationalistic holidays are truly the only days when the whole family and friends have time to take off from work and visit one another face to face.  Usually Mama Uppity is relegated to talking on the phone to Auntie somewhat uppity and the rest of the family.

However, Mama Uppity  is right, and with the rise in popularity of Juneteenth, more black people are beginning to question this notion of Independence Day.  We can go along with Memorial Day because most if not all black families have had someone who has served in the Armed Forces and Labor Day–well, hell we all work.  And usually, for nothern black families, at one point or another there was a man who had worked with organized labor through unions either in the steel mills, the auto plants, or some sort of factory of some sorts. 

But after the last drop of lemonade is swallowed, this idea of Independence Day goes down the throat of many blacks like that pitcher of Kool-Aid that Aunt Willie May made and she aint put enough sugar in it–this notion of the Fourth goes down a bit sour.

Of course this isn’t a brand new thought.  I’m actually some odd 156 years behind the genius that was The Hon. Uppity Frederick Douglass who spoke to a Rochester, New York aggregation on this same issue.  Below is the full speech that the abolitionist delivered on July 4, 1852.

Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap as an hart.”

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you, that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation (Babylon) whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin.

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!”

To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.

My subject, then, fellow citizens, is “American Slavery.” I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave’s point of view. Standing here, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July.

Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate - I will not excuse.” I will use the severest language I can command, and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slave-holder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother Abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slave-holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment.

What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then I will argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that we are engaged in all the enterprises common to other men — digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave — we are called upon to prove that we are men?

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? How should I look today in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do so would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What! Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? No - I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman cannot be divine. Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may - I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.

What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

And despite this,  Shelby Steele allegedly was quoted as saying that “[w]hite Americans have made more moral progress in the last forty years than any people in the history of the human conditions.”

Go figure.

What are your thoughts on the Fourth of July for those who were not initially included in the framing of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution?  Do you think that non-whites truly have a right to celebrate the Fourth of July?  Also, what are your traditions that are passed down for the Fourth of July barbecues and fireworks?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

When ‘Hancock’ met That Woman

I’ve never really said it, but I was always a Will Smith fan–at least as far as acting is concerned.  I never bought, nor intended to buy one of his albums, even though he did have that one song I remember, Switch, that I thought was good, he always struck me as an actor, not a rapper, even though that was not his original intent either. 

Let the record show, this $20 million dollar a movie man has produced a blockbuster hit movie EVERY single year, except 1994, without fail since his debut movie while he was still a Fresh Prince living in Bel Air.

1. 1993 – “Six Degrees of Separation” and “Made In America”
2. 1995 — “Bad Boys’
3. 1996 — “Independence Day” (love interest of Vivica Fox)
4. 1997 — “Men In Black”
5. 1998 — “Enemy of The State”  (co starred against black woman played by the lovely Regina King, now famous for the voices of Riley and Huey from the “Boondocks”)
6. 1999 — “Wild Wild West”
7. 2000 — “Legend of Bagger Vance”
8. 2001 — “Ali”
9. 2002 — “Men In Black II”
10. 2003 — “Bad Boys II”
11. 2004 — “I, Robot” and “Shark Tale”
12. 2005 — “Hitch”
13. 2006 — “Pursuit of Happiness”
14. 2007 — “I Am Legend”
15. And the 2008 Big Willie Weekend STOOPIDEST movie EVER “Hancock”

Well, I’m not a movie critic, but if I, who thought “Wild Wild West” was a good movie was disappointed with “Hancock” that had potential, then I think people should take notice.  I guess this is Will Smith’s “Catwoman” equivalent; it was bound to happen, he never had a movie, aside from the critiques of “Wild Wild West” that just outright sucked.

And no, there are no plot spoilers, because the following is usually obvious:  Will Smith’s love interest is Charlize Theron, and I must say that Hancock feeling the need to protect and save the white woman was somewhat disturbing.  But, of course, in this post-racial society–wait, I can’t even write that lie in good conscience–in this racist society, where LeBron James can eerily echo a King Kong on the cover of Vogue magazine as he holds Gisele Bundchen, and we’ve yet again tackled this idea of a black man and a leading white woman in cinema.

I think if the movie had been done well I woulda have swallowed the pill and just been post-racial for that 90 minutes to 2 hour time frame and still had Will Smith sitting on a pedestal.  But because the plot line began to fail miserably, and the writing began to slip quickly down a slippery slope, and because the directing DIED ON THE VINE as if they swtiched directors in the middle of the movie, it was like Why Black Man are you fighting for (as AverageBro so eloquently states) THAT WOMAN? I mean, there was no intrinsic value in fighting for her, she….well, lemme not give away the plot all the way.

Let’s just say the idea of a black man fighting for that woman is getting old.

And once one sees the movie, if at all, then you’ll know how this plot line just fell flat.  I’ve never seen a movie that shifted so violently as far as plot, writing style and ability, and mood.  I went from a very, very, good comedy to a melodrama.  I guess, you saw some of the melodrama coming, of course naturally in the scene where the viewer gets clued in on the backstory of how the superhero comes about, but this movie, it was so subtle, it wasn’t until the end of the movie that you realized that the second half was horrible.

This first half was ripe with plot possibilities.  Honestly, I thought that given his alcoholic superhero status that this movie would have been the movie where we see the plight of a black man, dealing with his past and owning up to his mistakes and triumphs, and doing the movie as a real black man. 

Yet again, I shouldn’t have been fooled, this is Will Smith who I’ve written about in the past, as an actor who has shied away from roles that stereotypically portray him as an average black man.  In “Six Degrees of Separation” he played a shiester black kid on the streets of Manhattan, who was gay, and looking to pull the wool over the eyes of New York elites–not exactly the average black male experience.  The “Bad Boy’s” series, “Men In Blacks” allowed him to portray somewhat of an average black male experience.  However, in neither of those movies, where he wasn’t portraying a real life character, has he played a character that was forced to live life as an average black male.  In “Ali” and “Pursuit of Happiness” he was of course playing real-life people. 

“Wild Wild West” just totally butchered the idea of race.  The movie took place in 1869 (I think) and had Will Smith acting as though he would have been afforded the FULL rights of white males in both the North and the South, but yet and still invoking slavery, which did provide some sort of cognitive dissonance for me.

“I, Robot,” “Hitch” and “I Am Legend” are somewhat of the inbetween movies where he transcended race and played a race neutral role.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he did, I think very highly of all three of these in this category, but yet and still, nothing that Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt couldn’t have played just as easily.

“Independence Day,” and “Enemy of The State,” for me are the movies where he plays a totally average black male character.  There were enough facets and nuances of average black maleness that those in the black community could appreciate.  The dominant factor for me was simply because he had Vivica Fox and Regina King, respectively, by his side for each of these movies, and they are both black women.

I still haven’t figured out “Shark Tales” yet, lol.

And then….oh, and then….the one black guy who can’t seem to get a break (and I heard his stand-up is horrible as well)…Mike Epps.

Mike Epps showed his a$$ up during the credits and I said loudly “Oh my God, what’s Mike Epps doing in this movie?”  and my white cohorts said “Who?”

So am I the only one slightly conflicted about casting black men in roles that are race neutral?  While I’m happy they got the role, I’d wish they play a role where they clearly are aware of the cultural and racial differences?

Keep it uppity and keep it radically truthful, JLL

Sponsoring a Dream

We all have seen those commercials with children looking lost, with flies lighting on them, distended stomachs from severe starvation; playing or standing on piles of rubbish and garbage and outright sewage.  Most of us turn away, including yours truly, because it’s really hard and painful to watch as most of us sit in the comfort of a house or home.  Hell, all of us watching have a television of some sorts meaning that we’re more privileged than the kids that we see on the television.

Well, at Creation this past week, there was this group called Compassion, to which this is a hyperlink, was there and they were trying to get 2,000 people to sponsor a kid.  It was plugged at each and every intermission to “go over to the Compassion tent” and pick up a packet of info for a child.  They would also show videos of some of the artists performing over in the Honduras and Dominican Republic.

It was during the first video, in the Dominican Republic that I finally put two and two together as to why I had this knot in my stomach and felt my blood pressure and stress level rising.  And yes, of course it had to do with my skin color.

The number one reason I began to pay attention was because these people looked like me.  I mean, hell, the grandmother of one of these little boys they showed so much invoked the pictures I’ve seen of my own grandmother and great-grandmother, and pictures of older uppity Negresses who decided to march for voting rights that it was quite jarring to the senses.  If anything, this was the gut-wrenching feeling that this video was supposed to induce, so why wasn’t I running over to the Compassion tent to sponsor little Danny.

Well, I didn’t have any money.

Moreover, I realized that sponsoring a child does nothing more than allow for the governmental systems to continue keeping the desolately poor, desolately poor.  I mean for crying out loud, there is NOT a food shortage in this world.  The United States, Europe and parts of China produce MORE than enough food to keep the world full, contrary to popular opinion.  Even if the U.S. decided to continue outsourcing jobs and allow for the manufacturing sector to crumble and melt in our collective fingers and act as if nothing is wrong, we certainly could put these hard working men and women back to work and start grinding our food output and manufacturing output to help out these countries.

But, here’s the caveat and it’s two fold.

Problem number one, Central and South America and the majority of the Caribbean don’t like the United States.  We are essentially Big Brother on patrol.  We control what must be exported and imported into these islands.  I’ve heard stories from native Jamaicans that they are forced to buy products that come from their own island, shipped to the U.S. and then buy them back.  WTF!?!  Not to mention the whole Aristide situation in Haiti where the United States government is accused of forcibly removed a democratically elected president for unreported reasons, but there are those of us who can probably speculate.

I mean, this has been Latin American policy since 1900 when Teddy Roosevelt decided to “speak softly and carry a big stick” as he tried to muscle his way into getting the Panama Canal built–which clearly he did.  It also provided the U.S. with the congressional ability to involve themselves in Latin and Caribbean affairs.  It would be mistaken to think that the U.S. consulted with the governments of these countries before Roosevelt manhandled his way to get such a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.  Contrary to what the history books say, and even Wikipedia, I firmly believe that the Monroe Doctrine and definitely the Roosevelt Corollary gave the U.S. the power to colonize, while being PC about the whole colonization bit and not calling it “colonization.”

The other side of the coin is that sadly, these “banana republics” who produce only one crop, sugar cane being a major one, are controlled by despots, many of which followed in much the same pattern as their oppressors who had received governorships from the mother countries such as France, Great Britain, Spain and the Netherlands and had set up rule by certain families, that had no doubt been previously favored by the European governement prior to their independence.

And while I’m on Haiti, let the record show that Haitians are the ONLY people in WORLD HISTORY (yes, however many years that is, not unless you want to count the biblical story of the Israelites as a slave revolte) to have a sucessful slave revolt.  Now don’t you think that France and the racism that pervades U.S. thought would have a problem with that–France goes down in history as the country who got their ass kicked and served to them by a buncha uppity Negroes. 

And then to do so on the bicentennial year no less; after celebrating 200 years of being free, somehow the democratically elected president gets exiled for the second time.

Anywayz, back on topic…

This has produced wretched conditions for the millions of poor people living in these countries.  We may live from paycheck to paycheck, one two week period or month to the next, while these people are living day to day, not knowing the future holds.  Much like the favelas of Rio, many of these barrios and ghettos are run by local men and boys armed to prevent any outsiders from coming into their neighborhood.  They arm themselves perhaps because they see themselves as the last line of defense against a government either unwilling or unable because of U.S. foreign policies to provide them with the adequate basic needs.

So, as I listened Bob Lenz, who was one of my top three speakers at Creation begin his spiel for Compassion, my mind went completely social justice on me.  I would have rather heard him speak about what Compassion is doing, or any organization, that is actively going into these countries and challenging the governmental structures that allow for this suffering to continue.  As far as I’m concerned, giving money to “sponsor” a child is doing nothing more than “giving a man fish.”  Now my friend told me that Compassion teaches these people farming techniques and other life-sustaining skills, but when the government fails to keep the lake full of water, or fails to keep the lake stocked with adequate fish, while fishing with a wide net for themselves, hording the fish while others go hungry, then we have a much bigger problem.  I see sponsoring a child in places like here in the Western Hempishere or countries in Africa or Asia as merely mopping up the kitchen floor from a flood while not taking the time to go to the sink and stop the leak at its source.

And while all of this was going through my mind, I was saying to myself, what about the people here in our own country?  I mean hell, our urban centers are facing a severe increase in homelessness, and millions of our children are only getting fed at schools because of systemic problems with our own government, but one should be able to know where I stand on that issue given the tone of this article.

I think sponsoring a child also engenders a passiveness because it allows for someone to merely pay for the problem to disappear.

So what are your thoughts on sponsoring children overseas at the expense of acting as though our own problems here in the U.S. are naught?  Also what do you think is the answer for aiding the countries in our own yard (Latin and Central America and the Caribbean)?

Keep it uppity and keep it radically truthful, JLL

Guess Who’s Bizzak

Whew….

(and again I say…)

Whew!

I just came back from camping with the youth group to Creation Fest 2008!  A four day, three night camping experience on the Agape Farms near Mt. Union, Pennsylvania.  Suffice it to say, that was not necessarily my cup of tea.  However, I must say that I’ve grown from that experience.  I really wish I had had the opportunity to blog every night because I really do have a lot to say about it.

Mainly, I intend to do some blogs (hopefully right now while I have some time and energy) about this idea of missions overseas and sponsoring a child and open a dialogue for those who are interested about the insulation of the church: us versus them, a particular vibe that I picked up from one of the speakers.  I also want to share with the blog reading community about this whole “I’m the boss” thing I’m dealing with from my 28 year old supervisor.  But for right now, I just need the space to vent.

As you can tell from my blog name, I’m well, black.  A black male to be exact.  A black male who grew up IN the city to be even more exact.  There wasn’t ANYTHING in my cultural encyclopedia that even remotely prepared me for Creation.  This isn’t to say that black folks don’t do camping, but as a rule of thumb, none of my friends have ever gone camping, let alone drive out to good ole Hillary Clinton country of Pennsylvania and go camping with 70,000 other people.

Then having to listen rock, I can deal with: people like Hawk Nelson, Switchfoot or mayyyybe Pillar were tolerable at best.  However, having to listen to a band like Flyleaf was an absolute NO-NO.  I had a commenter go off on me as to how complicated and intricate heavy metal music was, to which I replied that it’s not more complicated than that of hip-hop, R&B and rap and to think that I’m degrading it as music is a gross misunderstanding.  It’s just that I simply don’t like it–moreover, I don’t understand it.  Even amongst the youth that I was with, many of them didn’t understand the lyrics either.

Now as somewhat of a linguist (that being one which I can tell the differences between some languages, not necessarily what they are saying, but how they are saying it) I understand that it takes an ear to begin to decipher lyrics, much the same way an untrained ear wouldn’t be able to decipher the rap lyrics to certain songs.  But seeing as how I was not attracted to the music of it all, and not having the ability to fall back on the lyrics as a last result, I was just ultimately out of contention for even remotely liking heavy metal.

And I’m okay with that.

So aside from the merciless sun, we dealt with rain.  Not droplets to cool you off momentarily, but downpours that rendered EVERYthing in the campsite wet.  Our food would have been ruined if it weren’t for coolers and putting everything in big plastic totes.  It also rendered every road a vitual mudslide.

Now, I want you to imagine upwards of 50,000 middle schoolers and high schoolers, wet and muddy–can you imagine the smell?!?!?!

All day Thursday my stomach was hurting from something I ate (and yes, my only relief was a Port-A-Potty) and Friday and Saturday I’m convinced that my dull to moderate headache I suffered from was a result from the heat, and just sitting out in the sun watching concerts I was none too impressed with.

On Saturday, however, the clouds lifted slightly.  There was this speaker, Reggie Dabbs, who was the only black speaker there I believe.  And they had this brother and sister group who did this hip hop/neo-soul thing which I was diggin’ named The Washington Projects and that was it for the groups that I liked.  There was this other chick named Ayeshia Woods who was alright in my opinion, nothing that really took me out.  The last group, some guy with the last name of Mike Farris had these two black women doing some gospel runs with him, but it was the countriest gospel I’d heard since I been in Nashville–and then he said he was in Nashville earlier that morning, hence him being late.

There was also a sista girl who I wanted to snatch when I saw what she had in her hair: heat and a bad weave don’t mix.

There was a Hammond B3 sitting on the stage, Chris Tomlin and his band used it, and I guess one of the later acts after we left on Saturday had planned to use it because they had brought it from the back to the front, but nothing at all like I’m used to using it.  My host mother (yes, the one who said that “hip-hop comes from the prison culture”) informed me, yet again, that no one really uses the Hammond anymore. 

Ha!  Step in your average black church on Sunday and count the number of Hammonds you have, or at least the number of churches that are trying to buy one.

So, thankfully we made it back on Saturday night, and that’s that.  Look forward to my other posts following this one, I have a lot to say about this.

Keep it uppity and keep it radically truthful, JLL

What’s REALLY good?

Well, I’m definitely going to be gone for a few days this week, and the week of July 6th, but I will share about the place my work is leaving for tomorrow.  It’s this place called Creation. 

Out in the middle of nowhere.

On a farm.

Yeah….this should be fun.

I looked at the schedule of who was supposed to be playing for the event, and who had been scheduled as speakers….DUH…not ONE single black person.   So, out of approximately 100,000 or more white people, there will be some small chocolate brown spot looking around like “Wtf?!?!?”

And you all KNOW how I am about music, particularly me and my Jesus music, so to go here and have to listen to Christian rock and heavy metal is DEFINITELY going to be a change.  Now, I can get with Christian worship music, but um, this heavy metal…doubt it.

Obama also can’t seem to get away from things controversial to the church, seeing as how he’s drawn the ire of Focus on the Family’s James Dobson who accused Obama of having a “fruitcake interpretation” of the Bible.  Obama apparently had said sometime last year in a speech that passing laws based on Leviticus, whereas there are passages that say eating shellfish is a sin, or that slavery is okay and mandated by Yahweh, were in fact wrong.  However juxtaposed to that of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5) that some lawmakers would barely pass muster. 

Somehow, Dobson, made this an issue about abortion.

Apparently this 18 minute blast against Obama that Dobson has is planned to air today on someone’s radio station around this country.

I just fail to see how some people take one issue and make it the counterpoint for all other issues.  Or maybe it’s just my pro-choice stance on abortion particularly that just really gets me going.  I love it when I hear black preachers go off on the pro-life, conservatives because usually they’ll say “How can you say you’re pro-life before the baby is born, but the minute the child is born there is no funding for local healthcare clinics, zero to no money for adoption agencies, no universal healthcare to prolong it’s life…”

It just all seems kind of hypocritical in the worse kind of way.  At least when this uppity Negro spouts his own liberal theologies and philosophies, I’m not being hypocritical.  And if I am, usually I stand corrected and make adjustments where necessary.  But not these blowhards like Rod Parsely, John Hagee, and God disturb his soul Jerry Falwell.

This whole idea of doing a missions trip to the inner city has been bugging me for some time.  I’m really kind of itching to take my Gen. Req. of Missiology when I get back to school in the fall so that I can get some sort of handle on what it means to do missions as far as the church is considered.  I just think that its interesting that missions trips are ALWAYS done in a linear fashion: the rich usually give to the poor.  Most times missions are based on material possessions as well.

When I talk to my co-workers they speak of their various “mission trips” to South Africa or Southeast DC (I REALLY have a problem with that) and they particularly speak of the wells that they are helping to fund in various communities on the African continent, and just how wonderful in spirit the people are in Africa.

EDITORS NOTE: Africa is not a country, it is a continent.  Each country in Africa has a different set of rules and regulations and cultural nuances and whatnot.

Well, I went to Ghana when I graduated 8th grade, so I’m going to leave the whole “Africa missions trip” to someone who may be more qualified.  However, I will say as someone who grew up in the city, I’m getting more and more peeved everyday when I hear my co-workers throw around “urban youth” and “inner-city kids” and I’m just going to be blunt like my friend was when I mentioned it to him; it irks me that I have been reduced to the suburban code word for “the black and brown folk.”

I don’t think its me being delusional, but I’m quite sure that I am the “blackest” or shall I say, negrified, person my co-workers have met in quite some time, if ever.  Like I keep on pushing the card trying to have a conversation about Jeremiah Wright, but they NEVER take the bait.  I had said it was the fact that they don’t listen to the news (I mean these are the same people who have never heard of Meet the Press or Tim Russert), but my mother said it’s probably because they don’t want to hear what I have to say on the issue. 

I mean, I played the Youtube clip of Grandpa Simpson parodying Jeremiah Wright in church, and two of my co-workers in the room said NOTHING.

Anywayz, back on topic…

I didn’t know I needed to be missionized to since in the back of their minds, I’m an “inner city kid” who climbed up.  Even if they say they’d never think of me as that, in the recesses of their mind, or as Freud would say, in their Id, I am that black kid from the inner city who needed to be missionized.  Or else, to them I’m the exact opposite; they can’t wrap their mind around me being from the city since a) they hired me or b) because I speak so well (just ask Obama about that one) c) because I have so many life experiences.

It’s a challenge nonetheless.

I look forward to reporting back to my readers about how this whole Creation crap (lol) went when I get back.  Full of four days and three nights of camping, around people who don’t shower, and sleeping in tents.

And gawwwwd, I hope it doesn’t rain…you know what the smell will be like….

 

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL