10 Things That Make Me Angry: Number 6
6. Bishop Lowery's "Prayer." Inauguration Day--wow, it’s finally arrived. The day that we have been waiting for…well, some of us anyway. I am very torn about this particularly momentous moment—not too redundant a phrase, I hope—in history. The historian in me is shouting for joy and gratitude, as is the American, the Yankee, the child of Lincoln, the advocate for diversity and tolerance of all races, all peoples, all creeds. That being said, I must painfully admit, the conservative in me is not gleeful, not impressed, not saturated with the hero worship that I'm told I must absorb in order to avoid the modern-day Scarlet Letter “r” for racist, “b” for bigot, “n” for narrowminded. I even had someone I care very deeply about throw this accusation at me recently. I said that, between John McCain and Barack Obama, I felt Obama deserved the sacred honor of becoming President much less. Not because of his color, his creed, or his personality—I’m not that medieval—but because McCain had spent more than two decades in the military (including six years in a North Vietnamese POW camp, after which he still reenlisted), had spent two decades in the Senate fighting for what he thought was right, reaching across the aisle often to the dismay of his own party to get the people’s business done. Not a rock star, not a god, not a 90 percent party hack, not an idol to be worshipped by the masses…a smart, thoughtful, dedicated, virtuous American veteran and public servant who I felt had not only the experience to bring about positive effective change but also who saw the war, the nation, the world for what they really were. And what did I get for holding that opinion? The r-word thrown right in my face. “He doesn’t deserve this, Doug? You aren’t becoming a racist now, are you?” I looked back at this person, a fellow conservative mind you, in shock. Is that how it’s going to be the next four years? Are we going to be labeled traitors, fascists, bigots everytime we disagree with the Holy and Anointed One Barack H. Obama? Isn’t that what we Republicans were accused of doing while Bush was in power…of calling the other side unpatriotic, anti-American, pro-al Qaeda everytime a Democrat stood up and decried George W.’s management of the Iraq War?
Ironically, only a few minutes after this little spat between this person and myself we watched the Reverend Joseph E. Lowery, one of Dr. King’s fellow SCLC founders, ridicule white people in--and this was my favorite part--a prayer meant to show respect and honor for the day. Allow me to quote his prayer in its entirety:
"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen. And Yellow will be mella!"
"And when white will embrace what is right"? Glorious...so sophisticated too. What if a Republican had said that? What if a Republican President's priest, bishop, or minister had said such a thing on the sacred steps of the United States Capitol Building? When was open season declared on white people? Yes, there were white slaveowners; yes, Hitler's henchmen were all white Germans; yes, the Romans were whites who enslaved and oppressed peoples from all over the Mediterranean; yes, the cavalry who slaughtered countless hundreds, even thousands, of Native Americans protecting their own land were white. But so were the Union soldiers who defeated Lee at Gettysburg, who liberated Richmond and the South and established martial law to prevent slavery from being reborn; so were the Yankees who freed poor Cuban farmers from the oppressive yolk of Spanish tyranny in 1898; so were most of the American GIs who fought, who were wounded, who were often killed in the fight against the Nazis to liberate the Jews from their hellish concentration camps; so were the American soldiers who fought and died to help liberate the Japanese, the South Koreans, the South Vietnamese; so were the Protestant ministers down south who risked life, limb, and liberty to speak out against their fellow whites who were preaching racism and segregation; and guess what? So were the thousands, indeed millions, of supporters who voted for Barack Obama to cleanse the racial guilt they should not have been forced to bear in the first place, or to simply show their support for a political candidate with whom they agreed.
And guess what? Blacks can be racist, fascist jerks too...Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe, Mobutu Sese Seko, just to name a few. Not to mention the Black Panthers here at home--racist militarism is bad no matter what color is involved. Newsflash, Latinos can be evil too, even here in America...just read about some of the horrible things done by the Spanish conquistadors to the Native Americans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or about the massacres of unarmed civilians and enemy combatants by Generalissimo Santa Anna, or about the Hispanic gangs like MS-13 responsible for hundreds, even thousands, of deaths in L.A., south Texas, and elsewhere. As for Native Americans, they have done their fair share of brutality. Thousands of innocent white settlers were massacred from the time we landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, until the effective end of the Indian Wars in 1890. Yes, the U.S. government was less than forthright or honorable in its dealings with Indian tribes, but does that justify lighting missionaries on fire, ripping out their tongues, eating their hearts, pouring pots of boiling water on them? If you think I'm exaggerating, I'd be more than happy to share with you the accounts I've read of such events. And as for Asia? How much time do you have? Whether it's the systematic torture, terror, and conquest of the Ottoman Empire, or the rampaging fervor of Mongolian Genghis Khan, or the racist imperialist militarist fascist Japanese oppression of the 1930s and 1940s (just ask China), there's plenty of guilt for the Asian cultures to go around. But do we burden non-white races with these things? No, and we shouldn't. "What is past is prologue," to quote my buddy Oliver Stone (sarcasm!). So why are whites all KKK members all of a sudden? Huh, Dr. Wright? Huh, Rev. Lowery? Forgive me if I drag up the frightful racial ghosts and goblins of the past, but if you don't understand the history every nation, every culture, every ethnic group has then you can never understand the sheer dishonesty and inaccuracy of what the PC lobby tells you.
How dare you, Reverend Lowery? I know you've worked hard for justice and fairness towards your people, and I salute you for that. I fell in love with the history of the African American civil rights movement long ago, but that doesn't negate my feelings about your speech. How dare you rail about politics at Coretta Scott King's funeral three years ago, in the very presence of four living U.S. Presidents, all of whom appointed minorities to their administrations? How dare you profane the Inauguration with your snide, stupid, racist prayer making fun of whites and Asians, and then join hands with the political correctness crowd to crucify those who dare say anything negative about any black, any Hispanic, any Arab? Where is the consistency? Where is the respect for whites that you wish them to show to blacks? Where is the gratitude for the day, the thankfulness that the most powerful man in the history of the world is an African American? I applaud Glenn Beck for writing a letter to President Obama complaining about your indecency. I can already hear the cries of "racist" from those who lapped up your little poem; I can already hear the accusations that I'm overreacting, that I'm just a pitiful white nerd who is jealous of Barack Obama and his victory. Well, in part that's true but it's deeper than that: I'm big on consistency of moral outrage, on actually showing love and respect and tolerance even for the Big Bad White Man. If you claim to be the heirs to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy, then do like he would expect and see black and white as no better, no worse, no different. "Celebrate Diversity," right?
Ironically, only a few minutes after this little spat between this person and myself we watched the Reverend Joseph E. Lowery, one of Dr. King’s fellow SCLC founders, ridicule white people in--and this was my favorite part--a prayer meant to show respect and honor for the day. Allow me to quote his prayer in its entirety:
"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen. And Yellow will be mella!"
"And when white will embrace what is right"? Glorious...so sophisticated too. What if a Republican had said that? What if a Republican President's priest, bishop, or minister had said such a thing on the sacred steps of the United States Capitol Building? When was open season declared on white people? Yes, there were white slaveowners; yes, Hitler's henchmen were all white Germans; yes, the Romans were whites who enslaved and oppressed peoples from all over the Mediterranean; yes, the cavalry who slaughtered countless hundreds, even thousands, of Native Americans protecting their own land were white. But so were the Union soldiers who defeated Lee at Gettysburg, who liberated Richmond and the South and established martial law to prevent slavery from being reborn; so were the Yankees who freed poor Cuban farmers from the oppressive yolk of Spanish tyranny in 1898; so were most of the American GIs who fought, who were wounded, who were often killed in the fight against the Nazis to liberate the Jews from their hellish concentration camps; so were the American soldiers who fought and died to help liberate the Japanese, the South Koreans, the South Vietnamese; so were the Protestant ministers down south who risked life, limb, and liberty to speak out against their fellow whites who were preaching racism and segregation; and guess what? So were the thousands, indeed millions, of supporters who voted for Barack Obama to cleanse the racial guilt they should not have been forced to bear in the first place, or to simply show their support for a political candidate with whom they agreed.
And guess what? Blacks can be racist, fascist jerks too...Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe, Mobutu Sese Seko, just to name a few. Not to mention the Black Panthers here at home--racist militarism is bad no matter what color is involved. Newsflash, Latinos can be evil too, even here in America...just read about some of the horrible things done by the Spanish conquistadors to the Native Americans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or about the massacres of unarmed civilians and enemy combatants by Generalissimo Santa Anna, or about the Hispanic gangs like MS-13 responsible for hundreds, even thousands, of deaths in L.A., south Texas, and elsewhere. As for Native Americans, they have done their fair share of brutality. Thousands of innocent white settlers were massacred from the time we landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, until the effective end of the Indian Wars in 1890. Yes, the U.S. government was less than forthright or honorable in its dealings with Indian tribes, but does that justify lighting missionaries on fire, ripping out their tongues, eating their hearts, pouring pots of boiling water on them? If you think I'm exaggerating, I'd be more than happy to share with you the accounts I've read of such events. And as for Asia? How much time do you have? Whether it's the systematic torture, terror, and conquest of the Ottoman Empire, or the rampaging fervor of Mongolian Genghis Khan, or the racist imperialist militarist fascist Japanese oppression of the 1930s and 1940s (just ask China), there's plenty of guilt for the Asian cultures to go around. But do we burden non-white races with these things? No, and we shouldn't. "What is past is prologue," to quote my buddy Oliver Stone (sarcasm!). So why are whites all KKK members all of a sudden? Huh, Dr. Wright? Huh, Rev. Lowery? Forgive me if I drag up the frightful racial ghosts and goblins of the past, but if you don't understand the history every nation, every culture, every ethnic group has then you can never understand the sheer dishonesty and inaccuracy of what the PC lobby tells you.
How dare you, Reverend Lowery? I know you've worked hard for justice and fairness towards your people, and I salute you for that. I fell in love with the history of the African American civil rights movement long ago, but that doesn't negate my feelings about your speech. How dare you rail about politics at Coretta Scott King's funeral three years ago, in the very presence of four living U.S. Presidents, all of whom appointed minorities to their administrations? How dare you profane the Inauguration with your snide, stupid, racist prayer making fun of whites and Asians, and then join hands with the political correctness crowd to crucify those who dare say anything negative about any black, any Hispanic, any Arab? Where is the consistency? Where is the respect for whites that you wish them to show to blacks? Where is the gratitude for the day, the thankfulness that the most powerful man in the history of the world is an African American? I applaud Glenn Beck for writing a letter to President Obama complaining about your indecency. I can already hear the cries of "racist" from those who lapped up your little poem; I can already hear the accusations that I'm overreacting, that I'm just a pitiful white nerd who is jealous of Barack Obama and his victory. Well, in part that's true but it's deeper than that: I'm big on consistency of moral outrage, on actually showing love and respect and tolerance even for the Big Bad White Man. If you claim to be the heirs to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy, then do like he would expect and see black and white as no better, no worse, no different. "Celebrate Diversity," right?
posted by Douglas Schrock at 11:11 AM
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