geojanes wrote:I should let this go, but, Steve, this is a good message. It tells people, yes, you were enslaved, but you aren't now, there is nothing holding you back, achieve, rise-up and be all you can be, indeed, be all that God wants you to be.

That's a post-modern exposition. What he said was, ". . . they tried to write me off as 3/5 a person in the Constitution . . I am not going to let anybody from stopping me from being what God wants me to be."

There is precious little connection between the 3/5 compromise and the current state of race in this country--at least with regard to that baby. What the good pastor said was, in essence, "Don't let go of the past. Hold on to the thought that someone is trying to stop you--and he's white." It's race from beginning to end--and as many quotes will illustrate in the coming weeks, THAT is his "gospel."

What this all comes down to is this: do you think that anti-black racism is still sufficiently present in American individuals, institutions, society and culture to be considered a significant injustice? If you do, saying so doesn't make you an anti-white racist.

Or do you believe that despite the overwhelming absence of anti-black bias, many black people feel it's in their interest to portray themselves and their race as victims, and thus when they accuse white society of bias they're being racists?

Doctor Fate wrote:There is precious little connection between the 3/5 compromise and the current state of race in this country--at least with regard to that baby. What the good pastor said was, in essence, "Don't let go of the past. Hold on to the thought that someone is trying to stop you--and he's white." It's race from beginning to end--and as many quotes will illustrate in the coming weeks, THAT is his "gospel."

Really? So where did he say 'white' in that passage? Only I missed it? And is the release of bondage not something that's relevant to the Bible? Is it not the case that Passover is the commemoration of events at the time that Moses and God struggled to release the Jews from the bondage of Egypt? And was not the Passion (let's avoid the pagan word 'Easter', shall we?) made more significant because it took place at Passover? One was a deliverance from the bondage of slavery, the other a deliverance from the bondage of sin.

And didn't all of that happen in the past. If a pastor preaching the gospel is not telling people to look back, he's doing something fundamentally wrong.

But you clearly are very sensitive to this kind of expression. To me it reads like an affirmation of hope, rather than a denigration of the others. It's not saying that the kid 'will' be held back, but that the kid is saying 'I will not be held back'. It sounds to me more like an affirmation of equality, a desire and a willingness to progress regardless of race.

I'm so glad you've found a whole 2 more examples, and that the desperate scared white right are scrabbling around for more. You think you've found another Wright (who was also nowhere near as bad as you would like to paint him), and are rubbing your mucky paws with glee. But if you have them, let's see them. Let's see them in all their unexpurgated glory, in full context and let's see where he says "Kill whitey".

Oh, and on the politics of the pulpit stuff, I think you are confused still - there's a difference between Party Politics and politics. The latter is far broader and far more inchoate, and it would be all but impossible to avoid it being in some way connected to anything one said in a community space when dealing with morality and 'what people should and shouldn't do'. I understand that the former is not appropriate from a pulpit under US laws about tax exempt status (my personal position is that the gag should be taken off, but so should state privilege for religions - no tax exemptions and no restrictions. But the latter - that's where this statement comes in (after all, was it not the Republicans who fought to end slavery and amend the Constitution to remove the 3/5 clause? So how can it be a pro-Democrat sentiment, it's something that we all agree was wrong, surely?) - it's saying that all are equal under God (at the risk of 'looking back', I think there's a similar statement in one or two of the early Revolutionary documents), and that any child has the potential to be what they want to be in life. It's small-p political to point out that this was not always the case.

So, Steve, is this really about white guilt? Do you hate to be reminded of slavery and Jim Crow and the fact that there still is racism even in modern America for some reason? White guilt is used to lash at liberals who 'try too hard', but perhaps it could also be a factor for those who seek to avoid mention of the shady past.

If anything, Steve, your exposition is 'post-modern', by the way. George has read the words and interpreted them literally. You have added an interpretation based on your opinion of the man saying it and the audience, and on what is unsaid. That is clearly more akin to postmodernist critique.

Of course, you use postmodern knowing what it means in the context of social sciences and art history, and not simply as a nice code word to slap down the liberal, right?

danivon wrote:I'm so glad you've found a whole 2 more examples . . .

Perfect. You could have been on the OJ Simpson murder trial jury. No matter how many examples there are, you will say they are "out of context" and continue to say there is no proof.

Whatever.

My point remains: he went to a racist church for 20 years, then goes to a place that may not be as bad, but sure isn't without bias. To you, that's normal. To me, it's really bad optics and careless at the very least, if not necessarily defining.

It's small-p political to point out that this was not always the case.

No one alive had anything to do with the 3/5 compromise. It's an anachronistic complaint, and not at all relevant to Easter.

So, Steve, is this really about white guilt? Do you hate to be reminded of slavery and Jim Crow and the fact that there still is racism even in modern America for some reason?

This is going to be as polite as I can be. I've witnessed racism for most of my adult life. Unfortunately, it is not limited to whites against blacks. In fact, it goes black on white, white on brown, brown on white, everyone on Asians, etc. If you've never been in a jail and spent considerable time there, you have no idea who truly primitive and tribal the thinking of most of these people is. Virtually everything in the jail and prison system (from the perspective of inmate v. inmate) is racial. While they are not perfect movies, I would recommend seeing "An Innocent Man" with Tom Selleck and "American Me" with Edward James Olmos to get a sense of what prison life is really like. I have seen Latinos attacked for playing chess with Blacks. I have seen all manner of racial violence for all sorts of trivial reasons. I need no lecture from you about race.

So, someone might say, "That's prison." No, it is a pressurized version of how many think in the outside world, particularly those in lower income areas. Racism will always exist.

So, how does one address it? Within the church, it is easily addressed from Scripture. Gal. 3:28-29, among others, makes it plain that race is something that the Church cannot ever be divided over. That some men have, and continue to, make race an issue within the Church just means one thing: men are inherently sinful.

White guilt is used to lash at liberals who 'try too hard', but perhaps it could also be a factor for those who seek to avoid mention of the shady past.

I have no guilt. No one in my family currently, or in the past, played any part in the slave trade. Even if my great-grandfather or someone else did, even if someone fought for the Confederacy, what would that have to do with me?

You talk about the "victim card." That is the height of it. To pretend that white guilt ought or might have anything to do with this, is to hold the "victim card" high. I don't buy the notion that race is a barrier to those who work hard. The President himself is the product of a broken home, a mixed race home (at a time when it was not socially accepted), who grew up in less than idyllic circumstances. How did he ever get to be President if race is such an issue?

It is and always will be an issue, but it is tangential--not front and center. That is why the President's choice of churches is problematic.

danivon wrote:If anything, Steve, your exposition is 'post-modern', by the way. George has read the words and interpreted them literally.

No, he didn't.

We disagree.

Steve, I am well aware that racism still exists and that it is not the preserve of whites alone. I'd never deny that black or asian people can be and on occasion are racist.

But I still don't see how the pastor was being racist, or how a man of God (like the Republican preacher Dr King) can be held a racist for simply opposing racism. Which we both agree still exists and always will, to an extent.

That plank in your eye seems not only to have blinkered your vision, but left a chip on your shoulder.

Oh, and clearly I was mistaken - you have no clue what postmodern exposition is about.

On page three of this thread Steve posted an entry I reproduce here in full:

Doctor Fate wrote:

geojanes wrote:

"[Pastor Smith] talked about how his baby grandson's gurgling is actually "talking" because he is saying 'I am here ... they tried to write me off as 3/5 a person in the Constitution, but I am here right now ... and is saying I am not going to let anybody from stopping me from being what God wants me to be.'"

That is not racial hatred.

It ain't racial love.

“Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!… We [Americans] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.”

“Anytime you can have the kind of hate-mongering that continues in the hallowed halls of talk radio it show that Barack’s presidency has not solved the problem,” Smith said in 2010.

“Now Jim Crow wears blue pin stripes … and he doesn’t have to wear white robes anymore, because now he can wear the protective cover of talk radio, or can get a regular news program on Fox. He doesn’t have to wear his white garments anymore.”

He continued: “Even such venerable saints as Rush Limbaugh know the lines they are not to cross. But any of their constituency can hear clear the same vile filth spewing forth in their statements that was once the purview of Robert Shelton and members of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizen’s Council.”

Some observations: why did Steve fail to provide a source for these quotes? Only the first one, regarding the baby, is from the Easter service Obama attended. All the bottom comments about talk radio were made over a year ago, and perhaps not in church. As regards, “Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!… We [Americans] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.” - that was not said by Pastor Smith but in fact by Rev. Jeremiah Wright over three years ago.

The main thrust of this thread for Steve, insofar as I can discern, is that talking race politics in an Easter sermon is unchristian and Obama is to be faulted for attending a church where that happens. But all we have from that sermon is the third-hand report from James Parker Steve cited in his opening post. So it was on the basis of the baby comment that Steve wrote: "I think it is a bit impolitic of [Obama] to go to another church that is so race-conscious. Easter is the most important day on the Christian calendar. The Resurrection is central to the Christian faith. To hear a pastor talking about race on that day . . . hmm." In his next post Steve accuses the church of being, "preoccupied with the matter of race." Next post after that Steve says it's, "a church that focuses on race." Also: "To blast Limbaugh on Easter Sunday misses the mark, to say the least." But we now know that the talk radio remarks were made some time before January, 2010. Steve continues: "Every Christian ought to be against slavery. Every Christian ought to be against racism. However, every Christian preacher ought to be preoccupied with the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, not on social justice. The Resurrection is the most important matter of the faith. Furthermore, a personal attack on anyone from the pulpit is unseemly. A pastor may not like Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann. The pulpit is no place from which to blast them." Note the mention of the resurrection, to which I shall return. As for the rest, Steve clearly was misled by the Morning Rush piece into thinking the talk radio quotes were made in front of Pres. Obama last week. The vid of Smith in question has a text overlay that reads, "Windows on the World" and identifies him as the President of the Palmer Theological Seminary. I don't think this is a vid of him giving a church sermon. A few more posts down Steve says Shiloh Baptist, "teaches hate." A few more posts down, now on page two, Steve says, "...anyone who cared would have been able to easily find out what sort of message Smith was likely to 'preach' [at Shiloh Baptist]." Note the relevance to the ease of research.

So in truth all this vilification of Shiloh Baptist is based on the baby statement and the mistaken belief that these other things were said on Easter in front of the President. Perhaps Steve would like to withdraw the "teaches hate" comment?

Now the baby comment is third hand, and attributed to an unnamed pool reporter. Let's see just how easy internet research is these days. Using Google News, I searched on "write me off as 3/5 a person" and immediately found THIS story in USA Today. It includes somewhat more of the pool report(s). My underlining is added to help Steve assess the degree to which Shiloh and Smith are "preoccupied with" and "focused on" race as opposed to the resurrection:

From the pool report:
Readings from Old Testament -- Jeremiah 31:1-6 and New Testament - John 20:1-18.
Gospel choir and soloist Dawn Robinson sang He Would Not Come Down From The Cross.
Title of Smith's sermon: "The Resurrection Changes Everything" appears as Powerpoint projection on the left and right walls.
Smith said when understanding Easter, it's hard for adults, just like little children to get past the candy -- the "candy-coated cliches" ... but the resurrection changes that.
He recounts the verses in John 15 and 16 when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and started crying when she saw it empty because she believes that someone has stolen the body. Jesus then greeted her and she realized it was him and said, "Rabboni, teacher."
In an aside, Smith decries Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, for depicting Mary Magdalene as Jesus' girlfriend.
Smith says he knows that "sex sells" but says Mary Magdalene should be remembered for being Jesus' colleague who "walked with him and talked with him."
He said John and Peter had previously come into the tomb but all they saw was tattered linens. Mary saw two angels who comforted her before Jesus called her name.
She had gone in prepared to deal with death but "the resurrection made the difference," he said.
He talked about how his baby grandson's gurgling is actually "talking" because he is saying "I am here ... they tried to write me off as 3/5 a person in the Constitution, but I am here right now ... and is saying I am not going to let anybody from stopping me from being what God wants me to be."
Smith talked about his own mother's death and how she passed peacefully after he prayed for her to recover.
Toward the end of the sermon. Smith refers to the Visa commercial and how resurrection is priceless.
POTUS sits through service listening with his arm around Malia, nodding.
Service ends with the song Victory Today is Mine.
Smith thanks them for coming and says he hopes it won't be the last time and escorts him out at 11:59. POTUS shakes hands before leaving.
Motorcade leaving Shiloh en route to White House. Crowd of about 25 people is gathered outside the church to see POTUS depart. One women in a large white hat yells out to the motorcade, "Praise the Lord!"

Would Steve now like to withdraw the "preoccupied with" and "focused on" race remarks? In fact, is there anything left of Steve's arguments? He failed to do the sort of research he assumes the White House didn't do. The White House may know (and have known) a lot more about Smith's sermons than Steve. The right-wing press, Fox, Rush, etc. have worked strenuously to make a mountain out of a molehill and Steve's reaction is precisely what they'd hoped to achieve. By reinforcing his anti-Obama preconceptions they strengthen customer attachment and loyalty.

Google-news "shiloh baptist" and the very first hit (at the moment) is of THIS piece in the Washington Times. Mr. Kuhner says Obama, "sat in the pews nodding in approval as Mr. Smith peddled his racialist vitriol." Bottom line: "Mr. Obama has black nationalist sympathies." All this on what turns out to be one somewhat weird comment about the baby in the midst of a sermon focused on the resurrection. I find it shameful that next to the online text of Kuhner's misinformed piece the WT, with the simple caption "Illustration: Presidential seal", displays this graphic:



Has the President, in his policies and official work, really earned this? The clenched fist, as noted in THIS essay, represents "rebellion and militance (sic)". Has Obama borne out the fears (which I once shared in part) that he was a revolutionary and anti-American, committed to the destruction of the republic? Get real.

You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but eventually Americans in general are going to catch on to the tactics of the nasty right. Obama's release yesterday of his long-form birth certificate will convince many Americans that the nasty right's smearing of Obama is fantasy-based. This Shiloh Baptist story has no legs. How many other smears fit that description? Americans will catch on sooner or later. I hope the Republican candidate for Prez in 2012 realizes that, and rises above this sort of thing. One can focus on Obama's policies and official performance and make a good case he should be replaced. I'll vote for a Republican who does that; I will not vote for one who lowers him- or herself to baseless fear-mongering. I hope I'm not alone in that.

I bow to the expertise of MX, Danivon, and GMTom on religion.

Clearly, the President went to a benign, racially neutral church on Easter, whose pastor doesn't have a racially-biased bone in his body.

This whole thread was my attempt to discredit the Great Man. He also does not have a racial-bias. That's clear in all that he has ever said and one.

I will now commit ritual seppuku.

Minister X wrote:I hope the Republican candidate for Prez in 2012 realizes that, and rises above this sort of thing. One can focus on Obama's policies and official performance and make a good case he should be replaced. I'll vote for a Republican who does that; I will not vote for one who lowers him- or herself to baseless fear-mongering.

Amen, brother X!! I now know why you call yourself "Minister."

Steve, no seppuku necessary. Just say you were wrong. Maybe even . . . apologize. I know, seppuku is easier.

Doctor Fate wrote:I bow to the expertise of MX, Danivon, and GMTom on religion.

Surely just on reading comprehension? I'm not an expert on religion, but I do know the basics about Easter (we did have religious education in our schools, and I'm able to read stuff). You may be graduate of a seminary and a practicing pastor, but you can be spectacularly blinkered about religion as other people see it and practice it, and denigrating of anyone who dares to disagree with your particular interpretation.

But still, you have failed to demonstrate, without making massive leaps, how this pastor is a racist, particularly with the quote from this year's Easter service. Min X has not trumped you on religion, but on research, providing us with a much wider appreciation of what was said, and how much the resurrection was referred to. Clearly he uses examples from outside the Bible to illustrate his points. but that is not unusual for a pastor, is it, to refer people to reality as well as scripture, to show how they are relevant to each other, to bring the teachings to life?

Clearly, the President went to a benign, racially neutral church on Easter, whose pastor doesn't have a racially-biased bone in his body.

Possibly. It seems unlikely that he went to a racist church, unless you have some compelling evidence otherwise. You believe that you do, based on what you've found on sites that cater to your little Obama-hating obsession which feed your own existing preconceptions. The very fact that people contradict you is also absorbed as part of your mythology, you convert the disagreement into 'vitriol' (I still haven't seen you point to the actual vitriol employed against you on this thread) based on your enemies having a kind of cult-of-personality need to defend Obama like he's Jesus. He's not the messiah, ok? There are legitimate criticisms that can be made against him, and there are ways to present them. So far in this thread you don't appear to have done any of that.

This whole thread was my attempt to discredit the Great Man.

Never a truer word... He's not a 'Great Man;, but he is a man. Your problem is that he won an election a couple of years ago and you can't forgive him, or the people who supported him, for that. Sad and bitter, is how it comes across. And your sarcasm isn't really helping me see you as reasonable.

He also does not have a racial-bias. That's clear in all that he has ever said and one.

Do you have evidence that he does have a racial bias? Other than what some other guy said a year ago, or what the likes of Beck say, I mean.

I will now commit ritual seppuku.

How about you quit the melodrama, put away the victim's smock, and behave like an adult. Admit you were wrong, if you can, or stop trying to defend the indefensible at the very least. If those choices are not palatable to you, I'm more than happy to provide you with an extra shovel for the hole you are digging yourself.

It is my intention that this be my last post in the political forum.This was written a couple of days after I started this thread:

If anyone can explain President Obama's choice of preachers to me, please do so, because I am very confused. You would think Mr. Obama would have learned his lesson after the Reverend Wright debacle, where his pastor of twenty years was exposed as an America-hating zealot. Then, after being outed, Wright turned on Obama, denouncing him.

But on Easter Sunday, the president and First Lady took their kids to the Shiloh Baptist Church, where Pastor Wallace Charles Smith holds court. The pastor is a race-activist who last year said this at a private Christian College: "Now Jim Crow wears blue pinstripes, goes to law school and carries fancy briefs and cases... he doesn't have to wear white robes anymore because now he can wear the protective cover of talk radio, or a regular news program on Fox.". . .

This whole deal is troubling. After the Wright fiasco, shouldn't the president's staff be more protective of their guy and not put him in front of another bomb-throwing preacher? Or did the president insist on going to that service? If so, why?

As the First Family sat in their pew, Smith did not hold back during his sermon, talking about his baby grandson who was trying, the Pastor posited, to say his first words: "I am here... they tried to write me off as three-fifths of a person in the Constitution, but I am here right now... I am not going to let anybody stop me from being what God wants me to be." . . .

But, again, why does President Obama want to hear the pastor's bitter prattle from the pulpit? Mr. Obama, himself, is perhaps the finest example of a man being allowed to reach his full potential, is he not? In what other country could a mixed race child from a broken home grow up to lead his nation? Does that not speak well of America?

I bear no ill will towards Pastor Smith or Reverend Wright. They are both products of their life experience that was most likely very difficult. But President Obama has a deep responsibility to promote this country as a place of freedom and opportunity.

Do you think sitting before a guy like Wallace Charles Smith on Easter Sunday accomplished that?

I don't.

My life is too busy to waste on dishonest or distorted replies. If I'm going to waste time doing that, it should be in a game of Diplomacy rather than this stuff.

Gosh, a Bill O'Reilly op-ed is supposed to vindicate your views, Steve?

Oh, you've quit in a huff because we have contradicted you, and you call that 'dishonesty'.

Doctor Fate wrote:It is my intention that this be my last post in the political forum.This was written a couple of days after I started this thread:

...

My life is too busy to waste on dishonest or distorted replies. If I'm going to waste time doing that, it should be in a game of Diplomacy rather than this stuff.

I hope you change your mind. Sometimes I disagree, but incredibly often you make points that are excellent that stimulate and even change my thinking. We all tend to pounce on the stuff we disagree with instead of reinforcing the stuff that changes our view. I think it would be a huge loss for Redscape if you stopped posting.

RJ

Ray Jay wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:It is my intention that this be my last post in the political forum.This was written a couple of days after I started this thread:

...

My life is too busy to waste on dishonest or distorted replies. If I'm going to waste time doing that, it should be in a game of Diplomacy rather than this stuff.

I hope you change your mind. Sometimes I disagree, but incredibly often you make points that are excellent that stimulate and even change my thinking. We all tend to pounce on the stuff we disagree with instead of reinforcing the stuff that changes our view. I think it would be a huge loss for Redscape if you stopped posting.

RJ

Worry not, RJ. Notice that Steve put a smilie in at the end. Even if that doesn't mean he was kidding, he can use it as an excuse for such when the urge to post overpowers his good intentions. I've been there a number of times: vowing to stop wasting my time etc., only to check in a few days later and read something to which I simply had to respond. My advice to Steve: don't even look. If you're reading this, it's already too late.


It can be very frustrating trying to communicate via this medium. WE CAN WRITE IN ALL CAPS, underline, italicize, or use bold, but which means we're angry? wishing to emphasize? enhancing clarity? or jusT FORGOT THE CAPS LOCK WAS ON? Then there's that measly collection of emoticons. Does Chad think there's less than two dozen human emotions? What emoticon am I supposed to use when I want to indicate that I'm just kidding, but with enough of an edge to annoy, not that I truly want to annoy, but neither do I want you to get off scot-free?


That one?

Anyway, count your blessings, Steve. Your "adios" message has already gotten more attention than any of mine ever did!