Kapitol Hill

A Long Conversation

It's not surprising Bishop Eddie Long received a strong applause of support when he told the packed pews of New Birth that he "was not a perfect man... but this thing I will fight." Long has spent almost the better of two decades building his congregation into a multi-million dollar mega-church.  He preached prosperity and practiced what he preached -- wearing, driving, flying and living in the reward of his labor.  In an imperfect world, New Birth for its pastor and parishioners is a symbol of the commitment each put in the dream.  African-Americans have fought for their dreams since the days of reconstruction and the church has always been a part of that vision.  It is hard to separate the two.

But what is surprising is the fact Bishop Long  has been able to spew an evangelical view from a pulpit surrounded by African-Americans that denigrates individuals and dismisses them as hell-bound souls merely because of their sexual orientation.

Bishop Long has long been seen as one of the most outspoken religious leaders against homosexuality.  For evangelical preachers to call same-sex behavior a sin is nothing new.  But Long made it a crusade.  He lead marches across Atlanta denouncing gays.  Civil Rights icon Julian Bond has called him a "raving homophobe." He had made it a pillar of his pastoral teachings. 

Some have called the current scandal of four young men who say Long coerced them into having sex  -- using his luxury and influence to keep a cabal of young men for his sexual pleasure ironic and hypocritical.  It is far more than that.

It is dangerous and costing young African-American lives.

Bishop Long's vehemently anti-gay preaching is just one example of why the Black Church has been slow to tackle the issue of HIV/AIDS in this country -- particularly in the south.  It is views like his and quite honestly too many others that have made the crisis worst.  That is not a christian principle -- it should be considered criminal.

African-Americans have become the face of this disease.   Blacks make up 50 percent of all new AIDS cases.  Two out of three new infections among women are Black and 70 percent of cases in people younger than 18 are African-American.  Overall 25 percent of people who currently have HIV don't even know it and they are responsible for 75 percent of all new infections.  What is startling in all of this is that the black women who are becoming infected classify themselves as heterosexual while dispite the evidence so do the black men.  The CDC contradicts that with data showing the virus is being spread by men having sex with men and then unknowingly passing it to women. 

Sex has never been an open topic in the black community -- and homosexual behavior has always been a taboo discussion.  Which is how black leaders like Bishop Long can continue to enjoy such standing and support.

But it is time for the black community and the Black Church to have a long conversation. 

The Bishop Long scandal should not be an opportunity to discuss the sexual extra-curricular activities of one pastor or another.  It should be a moment to finally face this topic head on and realize that views like those held by Eddie Long are counterproductive to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the black community.

People are dying.

It is not all lost.  There are some churches that have decided to step up.  Black Churches in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and in other cities have decided to not only create ministries  to encourage church members to get tested, but also preach about the crisis in the pulpit.  These churches provide evidence that the long conversation is finally beginning and should be applauded as loud as Bishop Long was last Sunday.

But for an institution that has always been at the forefront of social justice issues -- particularly those impacting their parishioners and their families -- it should be embarrassing that more churches and more pastors have not stepped forward.

No one is suggesting that churches and ministers change their religious ethos.  But we must be able to preach the gospel and practice good citizenry, as well. Despite the millions of dollars New Birth generates for the service of its ministries -- not one is dedicated to stemming the tide of HIV infections.  That is disappointing since Georgia is one of 13 states that has seen an increase in rate of infection.

What comes of the Bishop Long scandal no one knows.  If he resigns the church or wins the fight is beside the point.  But if we let this opportunity pass by without fully addressing the homophobia that has prevented an aggressive assault on AIDS in the black community -- it's going to be a long time before it comes again.  And that will be a bigger scandal.

Kapitol Hill publishes a new commentary every week.  Feel free to leave a comment and check back next week for a new post.

Southern Experience

For long time alumni of Ole Miss, their southern experience is changing.  The common sight of their beloved mascot is vanishing.  Colonel Reb is being fired.  In this economy, where more than seven million people have lost theirs, it may be difficult to see any one lose a position, but this one is being cheered -- and rightfully so.

Colonel Reb is a mock up on a Confederate officer.  A glorification to a past where States stood in opposition to the freedom of African slaves.  During the Civil Rights Movement Ole Miss played a paramount role in the opposition of rights of blacks.  James Meredith tried to register for class under the protection of a Supreme Court order at the University of Mississippi in 1962.  The college town of Oxford erupted. National troops were ordered in and a week later, Meredith was allowed to attend classes.  He was the first African-American to be allowed to enter Ole Miss.

Nearly 50 years later the University of Mississippi has changed, significantly.  African-American enrollment has jumped from one to 14% of the class.  The University of Mississippi has one of the country's most prominent black studies programs and for the first time the president of the University's Alumni Association is an African-American woman.  All of these  advances should be cheered -- and rightfully so.

While the dear Colonel has not been the "official" mascot for nearly seven years, he has been almost omnipresent  -- on stickers, tee-shirts and even a full bodied cotton big-head walking around campus during games.  But the university is now getting firm: banning any merchandise with his image and announcing an election on a new mascot in the coming days.

The decision has of course divided the Ole Miss population -- not mostly on racial lines -- but generational ones.  There are those who remember the southern experience they participated in while on the quad more romantically than others.  Colonel Reb is an embodiment of those memories.  Yet, for others Colonel Reb reminds them of history they'd rather move past.  Ole Miss seems committed to revising its southern experience to meet more modern and broader contexual times.

The  National Federation of Republican Women could learn a lesson from Ole Miss.  Earlier this month the group meeting in Charleston, South Carolina decided they would hold a "Southern Experience" event for its delegates.  What sparked controversy was the fact they the group decided it would be a custom party where participants dressed in antebellum gear -- including the two african-americans who were hired to dress in period wardrobe -- that would be as slaves. Nothing like alcohol, confederate costumes and a couple of field hands to liven up a friday night.

South Carolina Republicans seemed oblivious to the insensitivity.  The leader of the South Carolina Senate, Glenn McConnell said of the festivities, “Tell me what is offensive about having the differing parts of the culture there? What are we going to try and do in America, sanitize history?”  What's the next big event - a reenactment of a lynching since that is unsanitized history, too.

Both of these incidents highlight a cultural blinder that often prevents people from not only listening to another point of view but actually understanding it.  One person's Land of Dixie is another's Land of Dispair -- its not a question of being insensitive -- its one of inclusion.  We are all Americans and each of our experiences and histories are equally important and should be equally acknowledged.  That should not be a Souther Experience, it should be an American one.

Kapitol Hill publishes a new commentary each week. 

 

 

This Is My Country Too

    Long before the Greensboro Four -- the young African-American college students who ignited a movement of sit-ins when they sat down at a Woolworth lunch counter -- there was Ron Walters.  Walters along with his cousin Carol Parks walked into a Dockum Drugstore in their hometown of Wichita, Kansas and sat down at its dining counter and asked to be served.  In 1958 for two colored students to perform what would be a normal act was a feat of defiance.

They endured a month of  taunts and threats -- essentially shutting down the business.  Their polite form of resistence to the laws of segregation finally forced the owner to relent.  They had won a small battle in the war of segregation.

Even at the start of their independent lives at the ages of 19 and 20 they knew the system was wrong and unjust.  They set out to prove to their peers, to the owners of the diner and to all of Wichita that this was their country, too.

The idea, that this country -- long defined by the myths of Colonial idealism manifested in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights -- also was the place where African-Americans too could ponder and participate in the American Dream was a continuous motivation behind the Civil Rights Movement.

And, it was one constantly echoed by black intellectuals like James Baldwin.  In a famous 1961 conversation Baldwin eloquently talked about the desire to acknowledge this ownership of America -- and others failure to agree. "The tragedy of this country now is that most of the people who say they care about it do not care.  Baldwin suggested.  "Now I am here too.  I am American, too... no one has yet to point out with any force that if I am not a man here, you [Whites] are not a man here."

Baldwin consistently expresses a simple desire: to be seen as equal a man; as equal a contributor to American society as anyone else. To put it plainly Baldwin plea is recognition that ownership of the American Dream does not just belong to those who proudly track backwards to the Mayflower or the early years of Ellis Island.  It was that quest that motivated Walters to sit where he was told he shouldn't.

That is why it is remarkable in today's heated political atmosphere -- filled to capacity with angst and fear -- to hear in high pitched anxiety crowds on the Mall of Washington, in town squares and on the steps of the Capitol scream the mantra: Let's Take Our Country Back!

Remarkable, because if the country must be taken back, the question is who has taken it?  If the answer lies in the offensive posters of America's first African-Amerian United States President scattered throughout rallies and often shouted the loudest by those holding them, that suggests the argument Baldwin made 50 years ago fell on death ears.

It is too simple and probably quite inaccurate to point to many of these frustrated citizens and overbroadly claim racism or prejudice.  It is less about how they see others and more how they see themselves.  The majority of citizens who are bused and carpooled to Tea Party events are not racists -- they are afraid and politicians are using that fear to their advantage.  That is a a tried-and-true activity. 

In an era of a dramatic structural shift in the economy and demographics; it is understandable to see the frustrations boil over into overt racial and ethnic resentment.  It is not surprising that racial tensions have increased; that immigration has become a hate tainted issue; the rise in distrust of others and islamophobia have seeped into the mainstream from the fringe. It is the fear of the "other."

We are in the midst of a tremendous cultural shift in this country and the identity that Whites had become comfortable with is eroding. During the Post-Reconstruction Era we witnessed these frustrations lead to the creation of Jim Crow Laws.  During the Civil Rights Movement we witnessed these fears lead to the bombing of a Birmingham Church and the death of four girls attending sunday school.  During the 1970s and the push for school integration through busing we witnessed the rapid pace of White Flight to the suburbs and an abandoning of American cities.  This was not motivated solely on racial terms -- but fear that the country they had known was changing.

For the first time there is an African-American in the White House.  For the first time the hardships of economic turmoil have not only impacted the poor of all colors; but, the White Middle Class who thought the protection of their suburban lives would shield them from the impacts of urban life.  For the first time the recognition that the idea of a Majority and Minority in this country is disappearing.  Change has once again come to America and it has upended what many long defined.  They do not like it and they want the country they knew back.

But it is too late.  The proverbial cat is out of the bag. Baldwin described the Civil Rights Movement as a recognition of the invisible man. "They are looking at him now, not because there's been a change of heart, but only because they must."  A recognition that this is his country too.  If this country is to survive each must come to gripes with the reality that the country many want back no longer exist.

It was that recognition that shaped Ron Walters life after the sit-in.  Walters long after that incident dedicated his life to improving the ability of both Blacks and Whites to recognize that fact.  Walters became an activist and a scholar.  He became a historian and longtime professor at Howard and the University of Maryland where he headed the African-American Leadership Institute.  He attempted through his vision and his knowledge to continue to prove to America that each of its citizens held ownership to the country and its ideals.

Ron Walters died this weekend at the age of 72.  Fifty years after his first attempt to prove to America he belonged and wanted it to recognize his rightful place.  This was his country, too and the country is better because he recognized that basic fact.  Now, it's up to the rest of us to do the same.

Kapitol Hill publishes a new commentary each week.  Feel free to leave a comment and check back next week for a new column.

 

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