The President’s Moral Authority

I expected a slew of criticism about President Obama’s commencement address to the graduates of Morehouse College this weekend, but I was taken aback by Boyce Watkins‘ statement that President Obama had “no moral authority” to say some of the words he spoke.

Citing what he says is the president’s failure to enact effective policy to help black people, Boyce wrote, “Hence, this lopsided approach to racial inequality does not give Barack Obama the moral authority to come into a room full of black people and talk about what’s wrong with us. Chris Rock, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan and Harry Belafonte could make these very same statements and have credibility because they are not afraid to speak the same way to whites.” (http://www.blackbluedog.com/2013/05/news/dr-boyce-president-obama-lacks-the-moral-authority-to-give-his-lopsided-speech-at-morehouse/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dr-boyce-president-obama-lacks-the-moral-authority-to-give-his-lopsided-speech-at-morehouse)

In his article, Dr. Boyce states that black people are “happy when the president berates us. We like being told that we don’t try hard enough and that the reason so many of us struggle is because we have come to embrace an inferior set of habits and cultural norms.” Boyce cites what he calls the president’s “significant, even embarrassing lack of action to help alleviate the clearly documented, undeniable, legislatively enforced poison of racial inequality that continues to impact our society.” He says that the president tends to be more conservative when he talks to black audiences than he is when he talks to white ones, and he is critical of that.

But as I read through the president’s address, I failed to see where he was talking in a way that was offensive to African-Americans. Yes, he spoke about the need for these African-American men not to make excuses: “I’m sure every one of you has a grandma, an uncle or a parent who’s told you at some point in life that, as an African-American, you have to work twice as hard as anyone else if you want to get by. I think President (Benjamin) Mays put it even better: “Whatever you do, strive to do it so well that no man living and no man dead, and no man yet to be born can do it any better.” I promise you, what was needed in Dr. Mays’ time, that spirit of excellence and hard work and dedication, is needed now more than ever. If you think you can get over in this economy just because you have a Morehouse degree, you are in for a rude awakening. But if you stay hungry, keep hustling, keep on your grind and get other folks to do the same – nobody can stop you.” (http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/prepared-text-for-president-obamas-speech-at-moreh/nXwk2/)

The president cited “a common fraternity creed here at Morehouse: ‘excuses are tools of the incompetent, used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments to nothingness.'” What President Obama said is certainly what I heard in my house growing up; it had something to do with race, yes, but it had more to do with being an individual. Excuses, my mother would say, won’t work “out there. Nobody cares in the real world what your issues are. They just want to get things done.” She was right. She said to us all, yes, that as African-Americans, and, to me and my sisters, that as women, we would have to do better than our white sisters and brothers. It was a valuable lesson. Nobody caters to those who make excuses, she said. In fact, those who make excuses get passed by. S0, what the president said on that subject was not problematic to me.

What IS problematic, however, is that many, too many young African-Americans, both male and female, hear nothing about how important it is to forge ahead, to confront walls in front of them. Too many of them hear that the world owes them something because they are African-American, or poor, or female. Too many women still think men are supposed to do something FOR them. Too many African-Americans still want to blame the society for their ills.

Society for sure has been unfair and unkind to minorities; that is undeniable; it always has, and it still is. I think that the Congress has been largely responsible for President Obama not having been able to pass more policies that will make the playing field more even for the oppressed; it seems the Congress has been hell-bent on opposing almost everything the president has proposed.

But this message about not using this racist (and sexist and homophobic) society as an excuse is a viable and important lesson for these new graduates to hear. Just because they have a Morehouse degree does not mean they will have an easy time; Langston Hughes wrote that “life ain’t been no crystal stair.” It isn’t and it will not be. “Out there,” the ones who succeed are the ones who take the unfairness and the meanness on the chin, maybe get knocked down, but refuse to be knocked out. The president’s message to the graduates that they have a responsibility to teach that lesson to the young kids who are coming along …is vital. The president said, “Be a good role model and set a good example for that young brother coming up. If you know someone who isn’t on point, go back and bring that brother along. The brothers who have been left behind – and who haven’t had the same opportunities we have – they need to hear from us. We’ve got to be in the barber shops with them, at church with them, spending time and energy with them, spending time and energy and presence, helping pull them up, exposing them to new opportunities and supporting their dreams. We have to teach them what it means to be a man …” Quoting W.E.B. DuBois, he said they are called to be a “class of highly educated, socially conscious leaders in the black community.”

Yes, yes, and yes.

President Obama may not have come up with enough policies to help “the least of these,” but he probably has done as much as he can, given the political climate in Washington. The unemployment rate for black people is still too high; the rate of incarceration for black people is so disproportionately high that it is unconscionable, but he has begun to chip away at the thick walls of oppression that have for too long been characteristic of American democracy. His charge to the Morehouse grads to take up the baton and build on what he has begun was not ill-spoken; he knows the struggles of being African-American even though, as Dr. Boyce points out, he is “half white.” I don’t see where that matters all that much. In the eyes of the world, he is the “first African-American president.” Nobody cares about his white blood much; the color of his skin is the telling feature of who he is to the world, not the color of his mother.

That being said, he knows enough about being black in America to have the moral authority to say what he said. Even more, he has the responsibility to say what he said…and hopefully what he said will be taken to kids who never hear words of encouragement, and lessons on how not to use excuses as they live their lives. The more kids who hear it – black , white, Hispanic and any other color or ethnicity, the better equipped they will be to handle this disease called oppression which unfortunately in America is still too often connected to the color of one’s skin.

A candid observation …

Evil Doesn’t Win

Ultimately, evil does not win.

It feels like it does. It gets momentary victories, but in the end, it really does not win. Evil seems to have an amazing capacity to produce good.

Our senators did not approve wider background checks for people purchasing guns. Someone planted bombs at the Boston Marathon. A sick young man murdered children and dedicated adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. A misguided young man shot and killed a young girl he did not know in Chicago, just days after she returned from performing at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. So many young people die by violence in urban areas, and nobody really seems to care. The Prison Industrial Complex continues to reap profit off the lives of the unfortunate.

Many young men and women have suffered from sexual abuse from the priests they loved and trusted. Offending priests have been protected, and it stayed quiet for as long as it could. Health care is so expensive that those who must need it cannot afford it. People in this, the wealthiest nation in the world, are hungry; some have to choose between taking the medicine they need and buying food for their children. The elderly – the jewels of any society – are being left alone to fend for themselves, after having lived lives that helped this nation get to where it is. It seems like evil is having its way …but in the end, evil doesn’t win.

A man named Hitler killed millions of Jewish people and the world, for the most part, remained silent. Africans were stolen from their homelands and brought to the Americas by people wanting to use their labor while belittling their lives. Slavery became big business, and the government refused for so long to pass laws to protect these people who built this country. Even the presidents of our nation looked the other way while slavery and discrimination and lynching persisted. The United States Supreme Court did not protect “the least of these,” a group which included women, children, African – Americans, and others. The rights of members of the LGBT community have long been ignored, in spite of the fact that all people are children of God, worthy of dignity.

People rejoice when they carry out evil; people rejoice and hug each other when they have done something evil for their own reasons that will result in the suffering of others. Evil was what allowed even churches to turn away a young boy named Ryan White because he had full-blown AIDS.

Evil seems to have the upper hand in so many instances, but in the end, evil doesn’t win. What people mean for evil, God means for good. It may take a while, but God and good really do trump evil. Good is so often pushed so deeply underground that it takes a while for it to bloom, but it always does bloom, eventually. From the evil called slavery came the Civil Rights movement; from the evil on a Monday afternoon in Boston came an interfaith service; from the evil called gun violence that resulted in children and adults in Newtown suffering unmentionable loss came the resolve of parents and relatives, and a former legislator named Gabby Giffords to fight evil, fight the NRA, and to fight complacency.

Evil only seems to win. In the end, it doesn’t. Even evil comes to justice, by and by.

A candid observation.

Mercy and Justice, Defined

In a recent interview with Theresa Riley of “Moyers & Company, Joel Berg, of NYC’s Coalition Against Hunger said that 50 million Americans live in “food insecure” households. That means, simply, that many Americans just do not have enough to eat. Berg made the point that in this, the wealthiest country in the world, such a number is morally unacceptable. People are “rationing food and skipping meals,” and the most adversely affected by this dire situation are children. (http://billmoyers.com/2013/04/05/going-to-bed-hungry/).

Riley asked Berg what could be done about it, and Berg responded that Congress could pass legislation to give people a “living wage,” i.e., enough money to actually survive and live with some dignity. Berg said that the situation costs America $167.5 billion a year. That’s a staggering figure. Berg explained that hunger causes a plethora of problems, adding to health care costs in this nation, and ultimately has a negative impact of America’s economy overall. He said: “Food insecure children experience a broad range of problems that affect their health, development, well-being and school performance. Poorly nourished children have lower school test scores and require far more long-term health care spending. Hunger also reduces the productivity of workers, which reduces their earnings, which, in turn, reduces their ability to purchase nutritious food for their children. In this vicious cycle, malnourished children do not do as well in school, are more likely to drop out, and are less likely to go to college than children who are properly nourished. Consequently, malnourished children earn less as adults and are less able to help America build a 21st-century high-skills economy. In order for the nation to build the best public education system in the world, bring down health care costs, and rebuild our economy, we simply must end hunger”

The entire interview was sobering and depressing. We do not want to see what is real in our world; it is much more comfortable and easy to reside in myth. If we do not see hunger, or the effects of hunger in our own country, amongst American citizens, it is easy not to think about it or to understand how dire a condition it is. Riley’s report, coupled with a documentary shown on HBO recently, American Winter, have made me think about, again, the difference between mercy and justice.

To give the poor and the needy food and clothing is showing mercy. Religious and non-religious people find it relatively easy to help people in this way. It is always gratifying but a bit troubling to see the outpouring of mercy gifts during the Christmas season. I have always wondered why the need to give seems so important only during that season, when in fact, hunger and poverty know no seasons. One of the major problems for poor children is that they do not eat well during the summer; the food that their parents are able to afford is often that which is least healthy, and so obesity, or the possibility of obesity, is much higher for those children …but the thought that some children in our country cannot and do not eat well in summer is sickening. To give the poor the food they need, however skewed it seems that we think most about them only during the holidays, amounts to giving or showing mercy.

The more difficult work, however, is the work of justice. Berg said that the way to curb hunger in this country would be for Congress to pass a living wage. Berg said that the President and Congress ought to concentrate not only on creating wealth on Wall Street, but on making it possible for people to make a living wage; he also said the Congress should also move positively on President Obama’s request for the minimum wage to be raised to nine dollars, and then “index it to inflation.” (http://billmoyers.com/2013/04/05/going-to-bed-hungry/)

That seems simple enough, and it seems humane. It also seems economically wise, as hunger causes so many other problems that adversely affect the American economy. And yet, lawmakers in general seem hesitant to pass legislation that would let people have a living wage or get some decent money for the work they do. That sort of legislation only comes through the voices and actions of the people; getting Congress to hear the cries and see the needs of the poor and act on them is what constitutes justice work.

Power concedes nothing without a struggle, noted Frederick Douglass. When justice is being sought, there is always a struggle. One need only to look at the current fight for justice being waged by the LGBT community on marriage, or look back to struggles for basic rights waged by women and by African- Americans. Unfortunately, it appears that wanting one’s “country back” is equal to having a country where the scales are not in balance. Apparently, that, to many, is how America is supposed to be.

But the God of us all would not agree, not if the holy books of all religions are to be believed. The God in the Christian Bible, Yahweh in the Hebrew scriptures, demanded justice, and grew angry when such justice was not forthcoming.

Once, a member of my congregation said to me, “Why are you preaching about the poor? There are supposed to be poor people. The Bible says it.” She was referring to a statement in the Bible where Jesus says, “The poor you will always have with you.” Are we to draw from that that God wants us not to worry or fret about the poor? I think not.

Susan Thistlewaite, a professor at the Chicago Theological School, author of Occupy the Bible, and a regular contributor to The Washington Post, urged a group of us in a recent presentation she gave, to read the parables from the bottom up, from the perspective of the poor and not the wealthy. The outcome of doing that was personally very revealing.

We are not eager to do that, however. The bulk of us are not eager to seek justice, though the Hebrew Scriptures soundly advises us to do so. Justice work is difficult. It has to be so powerful that stony minds can be penetrated, and the needs of others can be put in front of political aspirations. The current struggle for gun control is a justice issue; what is being sought is not the prohibition of Americans to own guns, but, rather, a limitation on the kinds of guns that can be purchased, and the size of magazine clips as well. All that the gun control movement is trying to do is make it more difficult for anyone to shoot up an office or school full of people. That is justice work.

People don’t want justice for others, however, or maybe it is more accurate to say they don’t want to put the work into it. Justice work is hard and tedious; the fights against justice are just as focused as are the fights for justice. One who fights for justice has to be in it for the long haul.

It would be nice if the Congress would really think about the vast numbers of Americans struggling and pass a living wage and raise the minimum wage. But unless there are soldiers on the fields fighting for that, it “aint’ gonna happen.”

And so, the wealthiest nation in the world will continue to engage in seasonal mercy offerings. That’s good, but mercy without accompanying justice can come off as efforts in futility, because in spite of the good-intentioned mercy, the root of the problem is being ignored by those who could make a more long-standing difference.

A candid observation …

Who Cares for the Poor?

It is very hard to understand why any politician would be opposed to paying people a living wage – meaning, a wage that would allow them to live with dignity as opposed to living as virtual slaves to an unfair economic system.

It is clear that capitalism and democracy are not one in the same thing; apparently, if Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson had a face-to-face conversation, they would lock horns on principle: capitalism does not pretend to want to, or to be about, providing a level playing field for all people, as democracy purports to be about.

But to be against helping people get paid what their work contribution is really worth seems immoral. Actually, allowing poverty, or ignoring it, seems to be immoral too, especially in such a wealthy and religious nation. It seems like more and more, people are just a beggar’s cup away from abject poverty.

The growing gap between rich and poor, the shrinking of the middle class, is not just an American problem. In China, reports Rob Schmitz, “the number of people …who still live on less than two dollars a day is equal to the entire population of the United States.” (http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/street-eternal-happiness/celebrating-chinese-new-year-street-eternal-happiness). Ironically, the very poor sit on a street named “The Street of Eternal Happiness.” The well to do most often walk past the beggars; the sense of disdain is hardly unnoticeable.

There is nothing “happy,” though, about being poor. There is nothing “happy” about having to choose between food and medicine, or between diapers or milk for the baby who needs the diaper. Many families cannot afford diapers; hence in some places diaper banks have been created. Many elderly do not have enough to eat. And many adults are working their buns off with hardly anything to show for it except extreme fatigue and deepening depression.

There seems to be such an insensitivity to the poor. In China, Kang Xiaoguang, Professor of Regional Economics and Politics, actually said, publicly, “Although there are hundreds of millions of workers and peasants, they don’t count. You can ignore them. You can also rob and exploit them. It’s not a problem. The most important thing is to get the powerful on your side.”

While Xiaoguang’s statement is harsh and insensitive, it is hard to believe that he is not saying out loud what many people feel. When President Obama said, in his 2013 State of the Union Address, that he wanted Congress to approve a hike in the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour, he apparently caught Republicans and some Democrats off-guard. The president said, “Today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong. That’s why, since the last time this Congress raised the minimum wage, 19 states have chosen to bump theirs even higher. Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty, and raise the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour.”

Those who are criticizing big government are not impressed with the president’s suggestion, nor are they apt to seriously consider it, and those who stay far enough from the poor to see the misery in which they live are not likely to “encourage” their state and federal lawmakers by threatening to withdraw support for them if they don’t raise the minimum wage.

If you do not see poverty, it is easy to minimize it and the suffering it causes.

Before the 2008 election, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs said, over and over, that America was losing its middle class. He seemed not to get a lot of support, and I don’t remember what his solution was to the problem, but the fact is, Dobbs correctly called that there would be a crisis of the middle class, which has come to be.

The state and federal jobs which allowed so many people to reach middle class are shrinking, as are the manufacturing jobs. There are jobs available, but many of them require technical training which the vast majority of people do not have.

“Find a way to go to school and get some training,” those who are insensitive would say, not understanding that the working poor don’t have a penny to spend and would probably not qualify for a student loan. The working poor often cannot take a day off, or refuse to take a day off, even when they’re sick, because they cannot afford to miss a day’s wages. Their families suffer, as do they, in all areas of life.

Marco Rubio, who delivered the GOP rebuttal to President Obama’s speech, said, “I don’t think a minimum wage law works.” Addressing and raising the minimum wage would threaten the creation of jobs, those who oppose big government would say, but what kind of jobs? Probably more that are wont to pay workers what their work is worth.

It is no secret that wealth often accrues on the backs of the poor, with the poor getting little benefit. But there is something inherently wrong in that. There is something wrong with a system that allows the wealthy to make and hoard more money they can ever use, while those whose labor made them rich can barely make ends meet.

Professor Susan Thistlewaite, in her book, Occupy the Bible, encourages a moral and religious response to the issue of poverty. She spends a lot of time addressing the debt students are in who took out loans to go to college. Too many of them are not only struggling financially, but they are struggling emotionally as well. To not be able to find a job, or to get a job which does not pay a living wage, is demeaning. Many former students are committing suicide, she writes.

Thistlewaite encourages the religious of our society to read the Bible and interpret it from the perspective of those who struggle with poverty and financial hardship. The struggling don’t have trouble doing that; the wealthy would probably toss it off as Liberal dribble.

But there is no “dribble” in the fact that in this nation there is an oligarchy, not a democracy. There are too many people struggling to obtain the bare necessities for themselves and their families. The Republicans have criticized President Obama for the fact that more people receive food stamps than in the previous administration, but without help, how are the poor and working poor supposed to make it? To require and expect them to work for the increase of profits for the wealthy and then to give them pittance in return …just does not seem right.

In fact, it seems that in doing that, the wealthy and powers that be are merely ignoring the poor.

The pervasiveness of poverty is not new; the society in which Jesus lived was as imbalanced economically as are the societies of China and Haiti and our own nation. But what is troubling is that it feels like it’s getting easier and easier for the wealthy to act like the poor and working poor don’t exist, that they are whiners and takers, like …they don’t matter.

Perhaps if nationally there could be a shift or an outpouring of programs that teach the poor how to compete in our global economy the picture could and would change. The poor don’t want to be poor; many of them are stuck and don’t know how to get out. Some would rather die than take government assistance. They don’t want a hand out. They want a way up and out of their economic misery. Poverty causes people to live in despair and depression; suicide is not all that uncommon for those who have simply given up hope of their lives ever getting better. There is a lot of domestic abuse amongst the poor, and children end up being ignored and neglected, which causes a host of social problems. It doesn’t make sense to ignore and/or ignore the poor. Poverty ends up costing money …but then, those who are investing in private prisons, the so-called Prison Industrial Complex, would not care about that because their wealth is built upon the backs of the hopeless and despairing.

Capitalism (Photo credit: Juliano Mattos)

You have to have eyes to see that, though, ears to hear it, and a heart to receive it. That, apparently, is what is missing in our great nation.

A candid observation …

Even Urban Kids …

In an interview of Vincent Harding done by Krista Tippet, Harding talked about his commitment to young people, speaking to their hope and their desire to effect change. He recounted a story of youth from Philadelphia who visited him in Colorado. They were greeted with love and respect and one young man asked Harding, “Uncle Vincent,” (they had begun calling him that), “how can you love us so much?”

The question was a powerful one for Harding because it spoke to these young people who still had hope untapped within them. They were clearly “urban” youth in appearance, Harding said; they dressed, spoke and behaved as the stereotypical urban young person is wont to do. But the question from the young man belied a part of urban youth that is typically ignored or even thought to exist: souls that yearn to be loved, appreciated, respected…and serve.

Harding’s story reminded me of an encounter I had some years ago. I was speaking to an unruly crowd in a high school in Columbus, Ohio. To say they were unruly is an understatement, actually. They were rude and loud …and were not the least bit interested in hearing my little presentation on Black History. It was important to me…but I am afraid I failed in communicating my love for black history to them.

After the presentation, I had the audacity to ask them if there were any questions. I was quite ready and prepared to just exit the stage and the auditorium… to my surprise, a young woman, very pretty, raised her hand. I asked her if she would stand, and she ignored me. I asked her again…standing would help me and others hear her question, but, egged on by her peers, she refused and made a rude comment. I had to hold myself back; I am “old school,” and was taught that youth are to respect their “elders.” I wanted to remind her who the elder was in this moment.

But I was silent. I listened to her question and answered as best I could. Not a moment too soon, my time with this assembly was done. I was on the front row, gathering my things, when to my surprise, standing in front of me was the young woman who had asked the question.

I looked up …and was surprised. In her eyes were giant crocodile tears. She said, “I am sorry I was rude. I thought you were good…I just want to know, how do I know God loves me?”

I had to choke back my own tears. This girl, who could not have been much more than 16, was pleading for help. I supposed that among her peers, it would have seemed “uncool” to appear interested or to come off “polite.” Yet, there she stood, the tears in her eyes telling the story of the pain in her spirit. She wanted love. She had something to give but without love, it was never going to come out.

I hugged her and answered her as best I could. I gave her some books she could read. And I told her she could contact me at the church whenever she wanted. I never heard from her again. I hope she graduated and went to college and is in the process of loving this society of which she is a part.

The story of the young man who questioned Dr. Harding, and the young woman who questioned me, tells me that instead of complaining that urban kids are unruly, bad and impossible to deal with, there ought to be more of us looking for ways to reach their spirits and souls. They are human beings, not urban objects. They have songs to sing, the songs of talent and gifts they were meant to share with the world. I am almost sure there would be fewer gangs if more of us could find a way to reach these kids, too many of whom feel unloved and unneeded.

Just this weekend, Hadiya Pendleton was buried, an innocent victim of yet another shooting in Chicago. She made a plea for there to be fewer gangs, but that will never happen if kids keep growing up feeling worthless. It seems that the gang activity, the behavior that causes so many shootings in urban areas, is more a function of kids failing to thrive because of lack of positive attention and pouring into their young minds and spirits. It would not be surprising if the person who shot young Hadiya was performing some sort of initiation ritual for a group of young boys who have banded and bonded together in order to feel respected, loved and needed. Left with far too much time on their own, they devise ways to find that which every human being needs.

I read a story shared by Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, who participated in the Civil Rights Movement. It wasn’t until she left the safe confines of her all-black community and went out into the world that she felt the alienation that so many urban kids feel within their own communities. She was looking for a job to earn money for college, but she had cut job postings out of the white section of the newspaper, and was rebuffed again and again by incredulous white employers who told her over and over that they “didn’t hire colored.”

She was getting used to that, but came to watershed moment when, one day in her native Memphis, a thunderstorm began while she was out looking for a job. Her grandmother, “old school,” had taught her that one remains inside, quiet and if at all possible, hidden while the storm was on. The storm was to be respected, her grandmother would say, because “God was doing his work.” Being in the midst of such a storm, outside in it, for goodness’ sake, went against everything she had been taught. Yet, when she looked at building to which she might have run for cover, she saw white faces looking at her, with the unspoken sentence, “not in here you won’t come.”

She didn’t try. She walked to the “black side” of town to try to find shelter, but ended up getting on the bus. She was angry. She felt the lack of love and concern and respect for her being just because she was black. She defiantly sat in the “white” section of the bus, on the front side seat. Nobody bothered her.

The difference between Gwendolyn and our kids is that Gwendolyn had a movement into which to pour her anger, creativity and dreams. She was enveloped by people, black and white, who loved her and showed her respect. Any possibility of failure to thrive was cut short by the people who stood in the breach.

There seem to be too few people standing in the breach, and so young innocent children, like Hadiya, are cut down before they get to give to the world their unique gifts. The children who are rude and defiant now were not born that way. They were created and shaped by all sorts of factors.

There are a lot of young urban girls and boys with “crocodile tears” in their eyes and spirits. We just have to take the time to look for them.

A candid observation…