But it’s this constant state of denial that continues to have some White folks sheets all up in a bunch to the point where they want to now go into our churches and dictate the message that the pastor delivers. And if they have their way, we’ll be singing hallelujah and thanking Jesus for slavery, Jim Crow, and the end of affirmative action because if you recall it was the Bible that justified Whites mistreatment of Blacks. But wait—-we haven’t forgotten Guyana.

The church, our church, White Jesus aside, is the one institution that carried Blacks through America’s state-sanctioned slavery, lynching, racial discrimination, oppression, disenfranchisement, and exploitation. It is not our responsibility as Blacks to sugar coat the truth to make it a easier pill for some Whites to swallow. We didn’t have a choice between the red or the blue pill, reality or make believe. We came out of the womb awake to the ways of the world.

And it’ll probably be right about now that most Whites reading this will begin to tune out.

Yes, it’s that state of denial that begins to kick in right about now whenever the words lynching, racism, and slavery are mentioned in relationship to the Black experience and the role Whites played in it that is hard for some to comprehend. Unless however it’s in the form of a primetime movie special during Black History Month, then it’s all good for about two hours and some change to remember.

So here comes the mainstream and at times divisive, media trying to take Wright’s comments out of context and making it into a bigger issue than what it should be, perhaps to make up for a slow news day and/or Clinton’s complaints of a media love affair with Obama. Either way, I thought race isn’t supposed to be a factor in this election? Maybe they’re forgetting that Wright is but one Black pastor in this country and I am willing to bet that a peek into other Black churches around the country and the message is quite the same, maybe even more controversial. And that’s just Black churches. Let’s not forget All Saints Church in Pasadena, California who had been under investigation for a guest sermon its former rector had given just before the 2004 presidential election. In it, he strongly criticized the war in Iraq but said he believed that both President Bush and his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, were good Christians. This was taken as an endorsement of Kerry over Bush and in came the IRS.

I know it’s hard to believe for some, but everyone isn’t down with America’s unwritten policy of bomb now ask questions later. I think we all know what lengths the American government will go to keep the truth from coming out.

It wasn’t that long ago when we were dealing with the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow. Then came the mysterious arrival of crack cocaine in Black neighborhoods around the country and COINTELPRO. By the late 70s, the White sheets had been replaced with business suits and phony smiles. And even though the damage had been done that didn’t stop them from giving us Reagan.

A.M.E. church founder Richard Allen said “the only place that Blacks felt they could maintain an element of self-expression was the church,” and I’ll add, but they still managed to burn down more than a few back in the day.

Fortunate for Dr. Wright, it’s not so easy to get rid of dissident voices today as it was 30 and 40 years ago.

Last update: 03-20-2008 13:46

Published in : Op-Ed, Unapologetically Young, Black, and Female

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