An Exhortation to Empathy from a White Evangelical

If you have been reading my latest posts, you may be able to sense my religious faith, or perhaps my conviction to try to understand my generation amidst the American political climate. I also am hoping to achieve more depth in my thinking about race relations and how we have come to this particular moment in history. I am deeply hurt over the actions of Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an Ohio State Buckeye, and am more challenged every day to seek to empathize with those who, daily, wrestle with an inner turmoil within their very being.

Artan was a student on campus in Columbus, who carried out a knife attack on campus Monday. He said in a Facebook post he was "sick and tired" of seeing fellow Muslims "killed and tortured," according to federal law enforcement officials. He felt fatigue, he felt his spirituality dry up as the insecurity of his own faith mounted as he feared persecution for praying on a campus that did not offer a space to do so. This helps us understand his declaration on his FaceBook page, claiming "Seeing my fellow Muslims being tortured, raped and killed in Burma led to a boiling point".

I am a white man, who tries to go to church every Sunday in the southern United States. I ready my bible and pray daily. I also try to share my faith with my friends and others who are put into my life.
These are simply disciplines, yet for the sake of my own faith they are essential to a healthy and thriving spiritual life. And as long as I live in America, I will (likely) never fear or feel the same as Artan did when trying to "live out" my faith. Never. And so it is my duty to empathize. One of my favorite rappers posted the above reading list on Twitter, saying "Books that helped my white friends 'get it'". Now, I am a Rhodes student, and have been graciously given an education I never thought or asked for. And it is almost over. But the need to read, to try to understand where my fellow citizen is coming from amidst so much blatant suffering on the college campus, is something I will seek to do. Perhaps the content in these books can help me to continually repent from my sometimes racist posture towards other races, for the sake of leaning into the discomfort and the daily danger they feel and respond out of.

                                                            Loving

            The other day, I had the good fortune to see the recent Jeff Nichols’ film, which is called Loving. Besides being an absolutely wonderful romance movie and should duly considered for your next date movie, the film extolls a part of the campaign for civil rights that is typically omitted or outright glossed over by most Hollywood recreations of civil rights’ history. That omission is the sheer extent of the belief of white supremacy in everyday society.

            Presently, there is a tendency for people in the present to think that racism was restricted to a select few people, which is namely those Strom Thurman or Bull Conner types. These few personalities, whose very names evoke images of stark oppression, embody the idea of pure racism. Likewise, if the characters are not the embodiment of pure hate then they are those unfortunate many who do not know that racism is bad or that they should not discriminate based on race. Hollywood is quaintly satisfied with this type of characterization because it allows a montage where the characters in the film can learn to live in racial harmony with one another.

            That is not how Loving operates. The film revolves around the couple of Richard Loving, a poor white man from rural Virginia, and Mildred Jeter, a poor black woman, and their choice to get married at time when interracial marriage was a crime. Over the course of the film, we, the viewers, garner a glimpse of the social apparatus of racism. The Lovings go to Washington D.C. in order to get married because interracial marriage is illegal in Virginia. After they return to Virginia, they are then arrested while in their bedroom and imprisoned while Eldred is pregnant with their child. After Richard Loving makes bail he is confronted by one of the officers that arrested him, the officer consuls Mr. Loving, but not because he arrested him. Rather, the officer pities Mr. Loving because he comes from a poor family that is in close association with blacks. He says because of that, “blood doesn’t know what it wants to be.” Likewise, there is frequent mention that Mr. Loving is supposed to know better. White superiority is conflated with the idea of hierarchy and signs of enlightenment rather than ignorance. It is treated as a truth and as such the ignorance thereof is pitiable. So the social hierarchal structures

            Likewise, racism, as depicted in the film, extends even further to the very nature of religion and science as well. Near the middle of the film, the ACLU lawyer informs the Lovings on how the opposition will argue their case by insinuating that their union is damaging to their children. The fact that their union produces a life, that the state considers inferior and is subject to legal restrictions, is reason enough for illegality of it. In other words, they use a form of eugenics to justify their restriction of interracial marriage. When the Lovings, through the help of civil rights lawyer, appeal their conviction the judge from the county evokes the name of god and his placement of the races across the continents as justification for segregation. So the framers and supports of white supremacy support their beliefs with radical interpretations of the Bible and science.

            In all, the film, Loving, produces a wonderful story of two meek people overcoming a society that seeks to disrupt their lives. While presenting this picture of one of the key cases during the Civil Rights era, the film extols the extent that white supremacy entwined itself in the bedrock of society. The social structure and religion revolved around the belief that the separation of the races and the dominance of the white race were the correct way to live.

Calling More Millennials To Hope

Colin Kaepernick's name continues to ring throughout sports as well as national news articles. Many of the sports articles document what is a very tattered season for the San Francisco 49ers. They are at the bottom of their division, conference, and their once heralded quarterback (Kaepernick) is playing at a mediocre level, though past seasons his play was nothing short of prolific. However the quarterback's statistics on any given Sunday took a back seat to his public protests prior to the playing of the National Anthem. Kaepernick preferred to sit, rather than stand, in a symbolic gesture of his disapproval of America's attitude towards black lives. During a pre-season game to the 2016 season, he was quoted, saying:

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder"

(Wyche, Steve (August 27, 2016). "Colin Kaepernick explains why he sat during national anthem"NFL.com. )

Kaepernick has since stopped this particular form of protest. Yet, as I learn more about our political environment and as I try to anticipate  what could happen over the next four years, I want more of those who have been given so much to do a lot with their resources. However, Kaepernick did not vote, defending his action by claiming the system is so broken anyway it is not much good or much effect to cast his ballot. This is where I disagree. Kaepernick failed to utilize an opportunity to vote in Senators and members of the House, who obviously would hold great weight in passing legislation outside of executive actions. 

His distrust in the establishment is fair to voice, but his protesting, to me, fails to hold as much clout because he did not take every measure in his control to affect change. I think his protest represented a dangerous, growing discontent among millennials who are bought in and struggle to free themselves from the agency of social media. I think he promoted discord rather than peace, and, as it stands now, I think long lasting influence by the quarterback may not occur. If we (millennials) are soon to be taking our turn at influencing this country, this world, I would rather ration my resources (time, finances, education) to cultivate hope rather than stir up anger and promote distrust in a system which has allowed a country to flourish and stand as one of the most powerful nations in the world. I do not know what millennial superstars like Kaepernick need other than hope in a country that works for reconciliation because of a hope greater than themselves. 

Blog Post #5

            The Essence interview, “Conversation Ida Lewis and Reverend Albert B. Cleage, Jr.,” showed the true intersection of faith and activism within the Civil Rights Movement. Ultimately, Rev. Cleage, who was a historic black national pastor and militant minister leader, uniquely combined Black Christian theology and Liberation theology to draw his historical analysis of Jesus Christ. According to Reverend Earle Fisher, Rev. Cleage proved the impracticality of the separation between Church and State by critiquing and challenging the universal conception among Christianity that Jesus Christ was a white Messiah. Rev. Cleage framed his ministry around Afro-centric ideals and dedicated his church to Jesus Christ, the Black Messiah. During his interview with Lewis, Rev. Cleage claimed, “Jesus Christ was a Black Messiah. This is a historical fact. He was a nationalist, a revolutionary black leader determined to liberate his people – a nonwhite people – from the rule of a white Gentile nation, Rome” (Rev. Cleage 22). By considered Jesus Christ – the deemed Black Messiah, the anointed one to lead individuals out of bondage, and the political king – Rev. Cleage showed the intersection of spirituality, scholarship, and social activism. Rev. Fisher branded Rev. Cleage as both a minister and a black liberationist because Rev. Cleage thought nothing was more sacred to God than the liberation of black people, because God lived under the rule of Romans – or white Europeans – as a black. The rediscovery of the Black Messiah allowed him to reason there was no true separation of Church and State because Jesus Christ was crucified, which is an execution by the state. Since Rev. Cleage had a nationalistic view of Christianity, he shifted the image of Jesus Christ from the lord and savior to a political revolutionary and proved faith and activism were meshed. Also, his nationalistic view offered the Church as a black revolution or a way to discover a new black identity by “[throwing] off the shackles of self-hate and [building] a totally new, positive self-image” (Rev. Cleage 24). Essentially, Rev. Cleage believed God was a liberator and Jesus Christ, the Black Messiah, was a political revolutionary.

By criticizing the unjust structure among American society that allowed one group (the white population) to maintain a monopoly and leave the other group (the black population) with no power, Rev. Cleage questioned the reality of whether Christianity was really a white mans religion since Jesus Christ was it’s founder. Rev. Cleage saw the oppression of African Americans as an injustice and not aligned with the liberation and freedom promoted by Christianity. Also, Rev. Fisher touched on the idea of the “holy hypocrisy” rooted in Christianity, because the faith of loving your neighbor as yourself would not lead to oppression and inequality. According to Rev. Cleage, African Americans needed to do any means possible to fundamentally change the structure of society to create equality and get the disempowered population to achieve power and mutual negotiation with the powerful population. 

"Post-truth" and Making Sense of Evangelical Christians Post-election

Eleven days ago, Oxford Dictionaries selected the word "post-truth" as the international word of the year. The dictionary defines “post-truth” as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”  The prefix "Post" does not infer truth after truth, rather it suggests an irrelevance to the validity of such objective facts. Over 2015, the Washington Post reported the frequency of the word increased by over two-thousand percent, confirming its popularity and even more so its influence in American thinking. As reported by the Post, Oxford Dictionaries President Casper Grathwohl said in a statement regarding the 2016 American presidential election:

“It’s not surprising that our choice [Trump] reflects a year dominated by highly-charged political and social discourse...Fueled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time.”

A way of thinking which adheres to transient emotion and positive or negative (however you feel you should define positive or negative) biases is now a perfectly acceptable paradigm for thinking critically and playing your part in America's democracy. This model was detrimental and caused confusion in my heart about how and who my voter demographic went to the polls over (I am a young, very white, evangelical). Many of "us" were secure in professing we could not trust Ms. Clinton (morality issue) or back abortion, so we voted Trump. Yet Trump, according to Reverend Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, falls, by his actions, so deeply beneath a baseline of morality. Yet! 81-82% of Rev. Mohler and mine evangelical brothers and sisters gave their vote to Trump. Thus does not post-truth play itself out in a demographic (white religious evangelicals) who have a most sacred and enduring text to obey and respond out of? But, maybe it was not circumstances or emotion or marred personal beliefs. Or snapchat. The confusion I feel about one demographic's vote is my opinion. 

Therefore, as Obama prepares to exit and Trump decides on 5th Ave or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I am increasingly aware of my own posture of decision-making. It is influenced by my own pride, fear, greed, anxiety, and guilt, and lust, to name the short end of the list. I am imploring myself to obey the bible, to obey a text which claims upright and everlasting (Isaiah 40:8). It's words are sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword. It's stories, stanzas, parables and promises cut between my soul and spirit like joint and marrow. It, ultimately, exposes yours and my mine's innermost thoughts and desires (Hebrews 4:12). Thus, moving forward, would I hope in the one true God who wrote this text through and to his people, and not the day to day appeal of my own "rational" thinking. 

Considering a Memphis Need. Is W.E.B.'s work still compelling?

In past seminars with Dr. McKinney and other Rhodes professors, I have been challenged to think critically as well as feed my appetite for reading. This surely comes to no surprise of any reader of this past, these are but two cornerstones on which a liberal arts education stands. As we have begun to research and reflect on different goals the city and its citizens might set to follow a blueprint for liberation, I am certainly influenced by W.E.B. Dubois's call for an education rooted in the liberal arts. James Weldon Johnson in the 1930s, was influenced by Dubois, and offered the notion that the black race holds within itself an inherent power to turn away from oppression in utilizing external forces to labor for equal opportunities, ultimately which will not surface until Jim Crow is forcefully and permanently vanquished. This power is any individual’s capacity to comprehend their own self-awareness and harness it for the greater good of their society. Johnson was speaking to a marginalized group of black society. Thus I think it crucial to develop as robust as possible an empathy for Memphis's marginalized groups, in desperate need of service and attention from those who have been given much and not once suffered a debilitating trickle down drip of Jim Crow.  Therefore, I have begun to realize a need to free Memphis men and women whom have come into contact with the criminal justice system for minor offenses, and from a generally agreed but subjective standpoint, are not considered to be a danger to the city. However this population receives a less bountiful hand due to minor offenses when it comes to job opportunity and upward mobility. I do believe that this particular population could serve as major, positive infleuncers on the city if freed up to pursue an education which would in turn allow them access to upward climb in society. Organizations such as "Just City" are working hard to help citizens with minor offenses be cleared of criminal records. I would like to see such a non-profit receive city-wide empowerment from external forces. However, is there an opinion you would like to extend in order to engage with this population in Memphis? Perhaps a different route to empowerment or upward mobility for the welfare of the city?

Michael Williamson

                        What is Activism and what is Racism?

            Last February, a band of armed “activists” seized the Malheur National Wild Life Refuge. They did so under the pretext that the general pretext that the federal government of the United States of America did not have the constitutional authority to manage federal territory. They, under belief that their actions will lead to mass movements across the country, set up a base camp in the refuge and held patrol for potential government tyranny.

            Initially, the government, both federal and local, did not get involved and chose instead to monitor the situation until something happened. On January 26, the leaders of the siege left the refuge to go to another meeting outside the state of Oregon. They were stopped and then one vehicle attempted to get away and was fired upon. As one man, Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, exited the vehicle, reached for his gun, then federal agents fired upon him, and he died. During the entire direction of the siege, one person died.

            Initially, people met this incident with great public backlash due to the fact that months previously large protests and riots broke out in Baltimore and Ferguson. There heavily armed and militarized police cracked down on people in the streets on the pretext of reestablishing order. In contrast, the police in Oregon for the vast majority of the siege allowed the “protesters” free reign throughout the town and county. There was no true crack down despite the fact that those in Oregon were heavily armed and voiced their intent to fight back and possibly kill police officers. The fact that these protesters were armed and were white changed how the authorities treated them.

            The principle members of the siege were just acquitted of the sole charge of impeding federal employees. They were essentially terrorist and they received, the proverbial, slap on the wrist, which was not even carried out. How can these people, who actively seek the dissolution of the federal government, be treated with such caution and reverence while BLM or others protesting police brutality and systemic issues of race and poverty be treated with such force? It appears logic has taken flight from the situation and instead logic was replaced by some macabre iteration.

Where do we go from here?

I’ve been pretty upset since we found out that Donald Trump will be our next president. It’s a terrifying thought for me—and I’m a white male, a member of a demographic that he never specifically targeted. I’m upset about the environmental consequences of this election, the social, racial, and religious ramifications, and the economic repercussions. Every time I see the word “President-elect” preceding his name, it stings.

Right now, I’m still in the phase of resisting despair. But I would like to soon move into a new phase: one defined by hope. I know that, for many, this is a hard concept to embrace. And I understand that. But I think that, at some point, we must do so.

In conjunction with nurturing hope, we need to think about the tangible actions that we should take to move forward. I think this is especially important in discussing how we can start to bridge the urban-rural divide. Most of white, rural America voted for Donald Trump, overwhelmingly so in some areas. Having grown up in one of these areas, I know that many of those people, while I disagree vehemently with them politically, are kind and caring. Many of them would drop anything in order to help me, if I needed the help. Of course, I understand that their eagerness to help me could be influenced by the fact that I look like them. But I genuinely believe that, though many rural Americans supported a candidate who symbolizes racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and sexism, they themselves do not always share those tendencies.

I also realize that people in these areas are often less progressive because they have not been exposed to diversity, to a life outside of the one that they live. What they hear about urban areas is often what they see on the nightly news. And as we all know, the news is often filled with its fair share of negativity. Rural America struggles to understand issues of race and religious differences because they often do not have the opportunity—whether this lack of opportunity is intentional or unintentional—to engage in dialogue with people who have different life experiences. This lack of interaction leads to misunderstanding, and it makes empathy more difficult.

At the same time, people in rural areas are often misunderstood by people who live in cities. I know of people who are really, really struggling. They battle hunger and unemployment, low wages and subpar education, just as many urban people do. They feel like they are being left behind. They feel misunderstood.

The tangible action that I think needs to occur alongside the presence of hope is this: we have to find a way to put these groups in dialogue with one another. We have to help people in rural areas better understand issues like systemic racism. We have to help people in urban areas better understand what it’s like to lose your farm to the bank. We need empathy.

How do we get there? I’m not sure. Maybe we could send children on field trips to urban or rural areas. Maybe we could bring more diverse speakers into small towns and big cities. Maybe we, as individuals, just need to be more intentional about how we interact with those who are different from us. I don’t know how we move forward. But I know that must try to do so.

On a final note, I hope that this post does not appear to be overly optimistic or inconsiderate of the damages that this election has dealt. I’m sensitive to that. And I know that creating more dialogue and empathy alone will not solve all of our issues. I just need to start thinking about hope and progress. Though I’m doing it now, I can’t sit in this despair forever.

Memphis went Blue, while TN went red

In a news article that covered the recent protest of the election of Donald Trump, Congressman Steve Cohen attended and stated, "This is the worst election result we've had in my lifetime and maybe the country's history. It's scary the racist and xenophobic statements that were said about people by candidates — and the tolerance of them.” He went on to say that, “’our city has a soul,’ even if the country didn't represent that on Tuesday.”

Memphis is one of the few areas in Tennessee that actually went blue in the 2016 election.  However, Trump still carried all of the electoral votes for the state. Memphis seems to strive to set itself aside from the rest of the South, and in this case the nation, that accepts racism and xenophobia. Because “the Memphis Model” sets examples for others to follow.  Memphis is thought of as a progressive city in the South, so it is not like the rest.  It’s important to note that this is not always the case.  No matter what narrative the officials want to tell about the city, there is no avoiding the truth.  Memphis is not beyond the problems found within other cities.  In terms of the 2016 election, an estimated 339,218 people voted within the Memphis area.  Although Hillary Clinton received most of the city’s votes, 116,131 people voted for Donald Trump.  That means a little over one third of voters in Memphis walked into their polling sites and cast their votes for a candidate that elicited sexist, xenophobic, and racist remarks.  That’s nearly 35% of those that voted in Memphis!  Imagine if it had rained on election day, then Memphis would have been that much closer to going red with the rest of Tennessee (generally if it rains on election day, then democrats take a hit for voter turnout within cities).

I question the soul of Memphis that Cohen, like many of his predecessors, claim exists.  Every time there is a situation in the United States that involves deeply rooted social issues, Memphis acts like it is a progressive city without those problems.  For those occasions in which the issues are criticized and exposed, Memphis officials claim to deal with the problems “swiftly” and “effectively”.   This is what is referred to as the Memphis Model.  However, this narrative hides the issues that torment the Memphis soul.  I applaud the efforts of local officials attending the protest of Trump’s election, but I think that the city has to acknowledge that it is not the picturesque model that it makes itself out to be.  I think the city needs to shift from the dialogue of “our city has a soul” or “it’s not like the others,” to a more realistic approach that recognizes the imperfections within it.  Although I based my argument on the 2016 election of Trump, I think my point can be applied to other instances in Memphis—present and past. 

Blog Post #4

             In the book, Country Soul, Charles Hughes showed the unique relationship between music and race in the American South. Specifically, Hughes addressed the history of Memphis, Tennessee and how it both propelled and reflected the dynamic between music and race found within the civil rights struggle throughout the United States. The popularity and success of the Memphis sound was from its blend of country, blues, gospel, and R&B. Also, the Memphis sound consisted of a notion of promised integration. According to Hughes, Stax Records and other southern studios were presented “as racially harmonious sites of collaboration that confirmed the success of the national civil rights movement and offered a redemptive vision of white southernness that contrasted the contemporaneous stories of regional hostility” (46). In the early 1960’s, Stax was considered to be a utopia for freedom because both African American musicians and white musicians were able to work together and create music in an integrated space. Also, Stax positively embraced and promoted the concept of colorblindness; therefore, it got a reputation for creating a “sign of social progress” for the music industry in the South (46). However, while Stax was considered an integrated space, where African American musicians and white musicians were able to collaborate, outside the recording studio the rest of the South was still segregated because of Jim Crow during the 1960’s. Hughes argued that the colorblindness found within Stax inaccurately represented the racial politics of the South and presented a false reality of the civil rights movement. Ultimately, the oversimplification of the Stax story in Memphis civil rights made the Black Power movement become viewed as the downfall to the race-less and colorblindness previously found in the recording studio and caused an over-celebration of the white people in Memphis music being redeemed and progressive figures of change. Also, the oversimplification proved to be an example of opportunity lost for African Americans. Early colorblindness had two implications on the civil rights movement in Memphis. The first was the supposed freedom and lack of racial tensions in Memphis during the early 1960’s and the second was the suggestion that racial tensions turned bad because of the Black Power Movement and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in the late 1960’s. Hughes pointed out there was a historical lie people had come to accept about the civil rights movement in Memphis, which was blacks and whites got along in Memphis until non-southerners or agitators came in and changed racial tensions.