James Baldwin on Race

In a letter to his 14 year old nephew:

"The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do, and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear...

There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their imperitent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of their identity.

Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sunshining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar; and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations...

But these men are your brothers--your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, that is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it...We cannot be free until they are free."

--"My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew" from The Fire Next Time, copyright 1962.

14 Cows For America

Every year I pick out a book to send to a family with small children. Since distance separates us, I pick a book that centers around a big event in my life that year since I'm not always sure what the kids are into.

Once I realized that Africa was my topic, I found this amazing book with an even more amazing story called 14 Cows for America. It is the story about the binding together or America and the Kenyan Maasai warrior tribe. When a man from a Kenyan village studied abroad in America, he witnessed our nation's most devastating hour: September 11th, 2001.

A few months later when the man returned home to Kenya, he gathered the village around for story telling. When he shared what happened on that fateful day in September, he went to the village elders to ask to give his long sought after cow to the Americans as an act of solidarity and compassion. At the end of the meeting, 14 cows, the Maasai's most prized possessions, were donated to this cause.

At first I thought the story of September 11th was too sorrowful to share with children, but as I desperately tried to find something new, I found that this story was a perfect story about Africa. It is not about African poverty. It is not about African violence. It is about Africa giving and consoling. This is a story that needs to be told in light of the stories that usually make it through the American media about Africa.

For Your Entertainment

Today I heard a lot of buzz about Adam Lambert's performance of "For Your Entertainment" at the American Music Awards. So I youtubed it and I think I began to understand what all the fuss was about. It was overtly sexual, simulated all kinds of sexual acts and included Lambert forcing his backup keyboardist into a lip lock.

Most folks would say, "Yes, you are a Seminarian woman from an evangelical stream and a former teacher, of course you would disapprove of the performance." I want to push against that. Yes, I was shocked by the performance and think that it has no business being on television, but not exactly from the same angles as most people would think.

If I totally separate myself from my Christian identity, I would have to say that it fit nicely into an erotica artform. I wouldn't call it beautiful, but I can agree that it was quite artistic for that genre. Without having to separate myself from my Christian identity, I can easily admit that Lambert is correct in his complaint that he is getting a lot of huffing and puffing from folks about his performance on account of being male and expressing his sexually. He argues that female performers have gotten away with this for years and that there is a double standard. It would be idiodic not to see the truth of Lambert's claim.

So as a Christian I must argue this case. Lambert is right. There is a double standard and female performers have been allowed to express themselves through their gender and sexual identity that men do not. It raises a question of why it is acceptable for women and not for men. How much of this has to do with the role of women usually being oppressed through roles of prostitute, stripper and porn star? Rarely are men found in this role. Notice the latest indications from Playgirl that most of their consumers are not women, but gay men. It seems to me that women are able to express themselves sexually not just as a freedom of speech, but because there are still deep ties to their subjugation. Even the prominent display of lesbian relationships on television make for good ratings not so much because times are changing, but because men still find even lesbian relationships (so long as both women look and act feminine) as an attractive and desirable image.

Rather than take this to the discussion of rights, free speech and discrimination as Lambert has done, I find that his keen insights force us to ask where the line should be drawn. For me, that line does not need to be expanded, but rather needs to be pulled back. It is not right for men or women, heterosexuals or homosexuals, black or white, etc. to engage in such provacative and sexually-driven performances. I'm not going to go about saying that the sexuality that we have been exposed to is necessarily bad, but it is meant to be enjoyed in the private and not the public sphere. I speak of all of the photographs I've seen from the AMA's, I don't want to see Carrie Underwood, Adam Lambert, Jennifer Lopez OR Lady Gaga in their bedroom linginere simulating bedroom business, but I want to hear them sing.

My other complaint about why this is not ok... 1) If I had a kid who wanted to stay up late (just this one time) to see Adam Lambert as a former American Idol have his first performance outside of that show (and did not have a Tivo) I think I would allow that. 2) This show took the place of a popular family broadcast, Extreme Makeover Home Edition--if my family had our usual gathering time and the kids wanting to get their tv time in as a usual family activity on a Sunday night, I would want to allow that. Overall, I'm pretty horrified that this was what was available on television on that night.

Living and Learning (Fall Semester 2009)

I really enjoyed the compilation of reflections from what I had learned in my classes last semester so I'm doing it again. So here it is, reflections from Fall semester (in no particular order):

1) "Every child is my child"--A quote from Angelina Atyam that sunk into me a little deeper from Teaching Communities week. It led me to realize that I became a mother when I became a Christian. This isn't just because of the birth of Nathaniel, my best friend's baby this summer, but because I have deeply come to realize that I may not have my own biological children, but I am a mother.

2) I need the Jews. I need them for a physical reminder of the real life Jesus who was Jewish. I need them to remember that I am a Gentile, grafted in by the grace of God.

3) Although my account of reconciliation is quite orthodox and has grown tremendously over the years, I need to have a theology that can include and deal with non-Christians. If reconciliation is part of who God is, it must also encompass the rest of God's creation. I'm not there yet.

4) We are free to be bound. This is stealing from Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's book title, but I'm speaking of this in terms of Dr. Jennings class on Christian Identity and the Formation of the Racial World. Rather than pulling away from one another for various reasons to bring healing to problems of race, we need to be drawing closer together...becoming free to be bound to one another b/c Jesus is bound to us...even if it hurts. And yes, it will probably hurt.

5) It's ok for me to be a Southern white woman. If I try to get rid of my identity because of guilt then I let myself off the hook without dealing with real problems. Dr. King's dream was so that children of slaveholders and slaves would be able to live together. For this dream to be actualized I need to not throw away my identity and my history. By throwing away my ties to slavery, not only do I loose my heritage, but I cut off my ties to others, the continent of Africa in particular.

6) The resurrection is a sign of hope that the way things are, are not the way they have to be. This is technically a Chris Rice quotation, but I attribute fully coming to grasp with it by studying Luke and Christian Theology. Ok, forget that...all four classes are pretty pivitol for that understanding.

7) Christianity is a "remembering" religion. It is ok for us to forgive and not forget. It is ok for us to let go of the fear that others will forget our trauma and that forgiveness will make it disappear. It will never disappear. It marks our being and becomes part of our identity. But this identity is meant to be one which is redeemed and also marked by hope.

8) Forgiveness opens the way for bitterness to become compassion. Compassion for self, oppresors, and others who cause and experience hurt.

9) "God doesn't give us the friends we want, but the friends we need." --Chris Rice

My Christmas Break Reading Selections

So it's crunch time. There is no time to read what I would like to read for me. So from my shelves of unread books, I'd like to conquer the following over Christmas Break:

1) The Giver by Lois Lowry
I just had a hunch that a Newberry winner with "give" in the title would go well for the season of giving. Aaaaaand it's short. I'll feel good about myself!

2) Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie
Russia screams wintertime for me, so this should be a great book to cuddle up with and pretend that I have a fireplace. Although this is a tale of tragedy, it is also a story about love, family and opulence. It kind of goes with the Christmas theme--or at least the very Americanized version.

3) The Shack by William Paul Young
There has been a lot of buzz on this in the culture and in the seminaries, so I need to knock this one off my list.

4) I'd also like to cross off one of my IVP books on race. That would help me to take a book from each shelf. I'll be sure to let everyone know which one I pick.