The offensiveness of recent expressions of hate and racism by university students comes into sharper focus if you expose yourself to the context, background and meaning of any talk of "hanging" people on a tree.
Showing posts with label hatred. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hatred. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Friday, May 11, 2012
Defined as a problem. . .
A couple of years ago my colleague, Gerald Britt made a statement that set me back. Actually, the impact of his words virtually knocked me down. I can't remember what we were discussing, but I do recall that we had been together at a conference where we both spoke about our work and about the challenges facing inner city communities in America.
At one point Gerald said, "Larry, its really hard when you realize that you are regarded as 'a problem' by lots of people. It affects your self-understanding."
Gerald spoke to the immediate and extended affect of racism and racist judgements on the lives of millions of our fellow Americans. To have one's life classified as basically "a problem" is a devastating reality that I would never have thought of had he not been so honest a friend.
It took me a full day to come back to him. I told him that while my opinion didn't really matter and that I had no claim to comment on his life or his experience, I did want him to know that at no time did I ever consider him to be "a problem." In saying that I realized it was hollow and insignificant when placed alongside the brutal, unrelenting reality he attempted to describe to me.
What a burden to carry and to unload.
On Thursday as I sat out on the steps at "the porch" talking to homeless persons who strolled by, I met a very quiet, reserved and observant gentleman. He passed by several times, finally stopping to pick up a bottle of ice water that I had available.
As he drank his water, he finally spoke, asking me what I was up to. I told him about the project we were building across the street and of my desire to simply listen to people. I explained that we didn't want to "invade" the community and make stupid mistakes. We wanted to hear folks regarding the neighborhood, our project and what the people who lived nearby hoped to see developed.
As we talked, he said something that pulled me back to Gerald's comments.
"You know," he began quietly, "people think its dangerous here, that we're dangerous. But, we're not. We're just like everyone else, just working through issues, just trying to get on with life. We're not dangerous."
What if your life was regarded by most people as a dangerous life, a person to be avoided?
Something to think about as we continue to dismantle stereotypes that plague our perspectives and continue to injure others.
At one point Gerald said, "Larry, its really hard when you realize that you are regarded as 'a problem' by lots of people. It affects your self-understanding."
Gerald spoke to the immediate and extended affect of racism and racist judgements on the lives of millions of our fellow Americans. To have one's life classified as basically "a problem" is a devastating reality that I would never have thought of had he not been so honest a friend.
It took me a full day to come back to him. I told him that while my opinion didn't really matter and that I had no claim to comment on his life or his experience, I did want him to know that at no time did I ever consider him to be "a problem." In saying that I realized it was hollow and insignificant when placed alongside the brutal, unrelenting reality he attempted to describe to me.
What a burden to carry and to unload.
On Thursday as I sat out on the steps at "the porch" talking to homeless persons who strolled by, I met a very quiet, reserved and observant gentleman. He passed by several times, finally stopping to pick up a bottle of ice water that I had available.
As he drank his water, he finally spoke, asking me what I was up to. I told him about the project we were building across the street and of my desire to simply listen to people. I explained that we didn't want to "invade" the community and make stupid mistakes. We wanted to hear folks regarding the neighborhood, our project and what the people who lived nearby hoped to see developed.
As we talked, he said something that pulled me back to Gerald's comments.
"You know," he began quietly, "people think its dangerous here, that we're dangerous. But, we're not. We're just like everyone else, just working through issues, just trying to get on with life. We're not dangerous."
What if your life was regarded by most people as a dangerous life, a person to be avoided?
Something to think about as we continue to dismantle stereotypes that plague our perspectives and continue to injure others.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Torture and Faith: Go Figure
So, now come the results of the new Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life poll about the relationship between faith/faith practice and one's attitude toward torture.
Facts about the research:
742 American adults surveyed on use of torture against suspected terrorists
54 percent of those who go to religious services at least weekly say it's often or sometimes acceptable
People unaffiliated with any religious group were least likely to back torture
Facts about the research:
The report:
The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.
Reminds me of the attitudes and reactions I grew up hearing in my home church in regard to issues related to civil rights, racial prejudice, war and other opportunities for hate-speech and hatred.
Lots to think about here. Like to hear your reaction.
.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Loving enemies
The election of the nation's first African American as President prompted numerous acts of racial hatred.
Nooses appeared in trees on the campus of Baylor University in Waco, Texas (take a look here) and on the property of Bell Helicopter here in the Metroplex. The Terrell, Texas newspaper didn't feel the election outcome important enough to merit front page coverage. Other examples abound.
Racism and hatred based on racial categories remain very much alive and well in the United States today.
Beyond the deep, grave sadness, I am lifted by the amazing words of America's greatest preacher of all time, a man of great courage, integrity and strength. Sadly, a man I heard vilified when I was a child, even in the church.
Hear him out today:
The relevance of what I have said to the crisis in race relations should be readily apparent. There will be no permanent solution to the, race problem until oppressed men develop the capacity to love their enemies. The darkness of racial injustice will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love. For more than three centuries American Negroes have been battered by the iron rod of oppression, frustrated by day and bewildered by night by unbearable injustice and burdened with the ugly weight of discrimination. Forced to live with these shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and to retaliate with a corresponding hate. But if this happens, the new order we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old order. We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.
My friends, we have followed the so-called practical way for too long a time now, and it has led inexorably to deeper confusion and chaos. Time is cluttered with the wreckage of communities which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation and the salvation of mankind, we must follow another way.
While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community.
To our most bitter opponents we say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered this message to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, Christmas 1957.
.
Nooses appeared in trees on the campus of Baylor University in Waco, Texas (take a look here) and on the property of Bell Helicopter here in the Metroplex. The Terrell, Texas newspaper didn't feel the election outcome important enough to merit front page coverage. Other examples abound.
Racism and hatred based on racial categories remain very much alive and well in the United States today.
Beyond the deep, grave sadness, I am lifted by the amazing words of America's greatest preacher of all time, a man of great courage, integrity and strength. Sadly, a man I heard vilified when I was a child, even in the church.
Hear him out today:
The relevance of what I have said to the crisis in race relations should be readily apparent. There will be no permanent solution to the, race problem until oppressed men develop the capacity to love their enemies. The darkness of racial injustice will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love. For more than three centuries American Negroes have been battered by the iron rod of oppression, frustrated by day and bewildered by night by unbearable injustice and burdened with the ugly weight of discrimination. Forced to live with these shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and to retaliate with a corresponding hate. But if this happens, the new order we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old order. We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.
My friends, we have followed the so-called practical way for too long a time now, and it has led inexorably to deeper confusion and chaos. Time is cluttered with the wreckage of communities which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation and the salvation of mankind, we must follow another way.
While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community.
To our most bitter opponents we say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered this message to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, Christmas 1957.
.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Bonhoeffer on racism
Thanks to an old friend, I received a link to an extremely interesting essay dealing with the Dietrich Bonhoeffer's thoughts on racism ("The View from Below: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Reflections and Actions on Racism," by Martin Rumscheidt, Toronto Journal of Theology, Supplement 1, 2008, pp. 63-72).
Bonhoeffer, an ordained Lutheran minister and one of the twentieth century's most influential theologians, struggled with the hate and racism of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany on the one had and the apathy and complicity of his fellow German church folk on the other.
Prior to WWII, for one year (1930-1931) Bonhoeffer came to the United States for post-doctoral studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Thanks to his relationship with Frank Fisher, a fellow student and African American from Alabama, Bonhoeffer spent most of his free time during that special year in Harlem where he attached himself to the youth ministry of the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
Upon his return to Germany, Bonhoeffer and his family spoke out against the racism, anti-Semitism and hatred of Hitler and his regime. As a result, he fell under continuing surveillance by Nazi intelligence officials, as well as Hitler himself. After becoming involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler, Bonhoeffer was arrested and consigned to the Flossenburg concentration camp. He was hanged on April 9, 1945.
The quote that follows comes from Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison: The Enlarged Edition (Macmillian, 1971, page 17). Note particularly the section in italics:
"We have been silent witnesses to evil deeds. We have become cunning and learnt the arts of obfuscation and equivocal speech. Experience has rendered us suspicious of human beings and often we have failed to speak to them a true and open word. Unbearable conflicts have worn us down or even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? Geniuses, cynics, people who feel contempt for others, or cunning tacticians, are not what we will need but simple, uncomplicated and honest human beings. Will our inner strength to resist what has been forced on us have remained strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves blunt enough, to find our way back to simplicity and honesty?
"It remains an experience of incomparable value that we have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short from the perspective of the suffering. If only bitterness and envy have during this time not corroded the heart; that we come to see matters great and small, happiness and misfortune, strength and weakness with new eyes; that our sense for greatness, humanness, justice and mercy has grown clearer, freer, more incorruptible; that we learn, indeed, that personal suffering is a more useful key, a more fruitful principle than personal happiness for exploring the meaning of the world in contemplation and action. But this view from below must not lead us into taking sides with the perpetually dissatisfied. From a higher satisfaction that is actually founded on the other side of below and above, we do justice to life in all its dimensions and affirm it."
_________________________
I'd love your responses.
If you'd like a copy of the entire essay, email me at ljames@CentralDallasMinistries.org.
.
Bonhoeffer, an ordained Lutheran minister and one of the twentieth century's most influential theologians, struggled with the hate and racism of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany on the one had and the apathy and complicity of his fellow German church folk on the other.
Prior to WWII, for one year (1930-1931) Bonhoeffer came to the United States for post-doctoral studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Thanks to his relationship with Frank Fisher, a fellow student and African American from Alabama, Bonhoeffer spent most of his free time during that special year in Harlem where he attached himself to the youth ministry of the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
Upon his return to Germany, Bonhoeffer and his family spoke out against the racism, anti-Semitism and hatred of Hitler and his regime. As a result, he fell under continuing surveillance by Nazi intelligence officials, as well as Hitler himself. After becoming involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler, Bonhoeffer was arrested and consigned to the Flossenburg concentration camp. He was hanged on April 9, 1945.
The quote that follows comes from Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison: The Enlarged Edition (Macmillian, 1971, page 17). Note particularly the section in italics:
"We have been silent witnesses to evil deeds. We have become cunning and learnt the arts of obfuscation and equivocal speech. Experience has rendered us suspicious of human beings and often we have failed to speak to them a true and open word. Unbearable conflicts have worn us down or even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? Geniuses, cynics, people who feel contempt for others, or cunning tacticians, are not what we will need but simple, uncomplicated and honest human beings. Will our inner strength to resist what has been forced on us have remained strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves blunt enough, to find our way back to simplicity and honesty?
"It remains an experience of incomparable value that we have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short from the perspective of the suffering. If only bitterness and envy have during this time not corroded the heart; that we come to see matters great and small, happiness and misfortune, strength and weakness with new eyes; that our sense for greatness, humanness, justice and mercy has grown clearer, freer, more incorruptible; that we learn, indeed, that personal suffering is a more useful key, a more fruitful principle than personal happiness for exploring the meaning of the world in contemplation and action. But this view from below must not lead us into taking sides with the perpetually dissatisfied. From a higher satisfaction that is actually founded on the other side of below and above, we do justice to life in all its dimensions and affirm it."
_________________________
I'd love your responses.
If you'd like a copy of the entire essay, email me at ljames@CentralDallasMinistries.org.
.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Waging Peace
Reading for today--for this Sunday, but more, for this challenging time. . .
Matthew 5:38-48
Love Your Enemies
38-42"Here's another old saying that deserves a second look: 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.' Is that going to get us anywhere? Here's what I propose: 'Don't hit back at all.' If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.
43-47"You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.
48"In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."
[The Message Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson]
Matthew 5:38-48
Love Your Enemies
38-42"Here's another old saying that deserves a second look: 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.' Is that going to get us anywhere? Here's what I propose: 'Don't hit back at all.' If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.
43-47"You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.
48"In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."
[The Message Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson]
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