Some time ago, a Facebook friend shared a Baltimore Sun op-ed by Richard Rowe, “A recommendation for Baltimore’s white liberal establishment.” In it, Rowe quotes the below passage from a New York Times op-ed by Michael Eric Dyson, “Death in black and white.” Dyson alleges many things here, and his statement deserves examination from various angles. I anticipate referring to this quotation several times in the near future.
Tag Archives: Racism
* DOJ organizes riots?
* Resentment and hope
Three incidents from Sunday 09/18:
(1) I caught the racial vibe as soon as she came in the room.
(2) In the middle of worship, I looked at my situation. I needed to touch base sometime during the service with _____, _____ and _____, any of whom might give me cash; for smokes, bus fare and candy. I also needed to touch base sometime during worship with each of three other people ISO a ride “home.” My petty, material, selfish neediness so preoccupied me, I couldn’t get into the spirit of worship at all. This did not feel good.
(3) At the shelter, in the shower, for a washcloth they gave me a strip of fabric that had been torn from a towel, two inches wide and six inches long. That was to be my washcloth.
I responded as follows.
* Are blacks more violent?
Confronting the myth that “black culture” is responsible for violent crime in America
Friday, September 2, 2016
On the one hand, I am strongly tempted to include this one in my list of “biased headlines.”
On the other hand, whether or not I agree with him — At this writing, I’ve read most of the article but not all, and have not yet been able to determine whether or not I do. — German Lopez presents here a very thorough and balanced analysis. This piece is to be regarded as a tremendous resource for any future discussions.
Reblogged 07/18/24.
* Prayer cannot be politically correct.
Monday, September 5, 2016
There is a certain time in my daily prayer routine when I give attention to each of certain names that aren’t on any list. This happens to include every single member of the church youth group whose name is known to me. (It happens to include all those names. It’s not by design. Each one got on there individually.)
Only one of those individuals is the same color as me.
* Let that shit go
The whole hullaballoo about #microaggressions assumes that one can never heal from even the slightest insult. The same applies, frankly, to a ton of what folk obsess on concerning #injustice and #racism.
And certainly I’ve done enough such obsessing myself; in the end it plays a large role in how I became homeless. And have remained homeless.
How I’ve failed to get back on my feet.
In this vein, I often recall Matthew 19:24, about the camel that can’t get through The Needle’s Eye (a particular very narrow gate in Jerusalem). Many people may be “poor” in material things, but exceptionally “rich” in resentments. One must unpack the camel, discard all that junk, if one is ever to enter the Kingdom.
Reblogged 04/11/24.
If I were to bet I would guess that 90% of the “shit” that troubles us is already behind us. In some cases, so far in our past that we are not even sure if we still have the story straight.
“Two monks were on a pilgrimage. One day, they came to a deep river. At the edge of the river, a young woman sat weeping, because she was afraid to cross the river without help. She begged the two monks to help her. The younger monk turned his back. The members of their order were forbidden to touch a woman. But the older monk picked up the woman without a word and carried her across the river. He put her down on the far side and continued his journey. The younger monk came after him, scolding him and berating him for breaking his vows. He went on this way for…
View original post 309 more words
* The best present makes the best future.
I’m posting very little new material these days, but there are hundreds of posts different folks may not have seen the first time around. So I’ve had in mind possibly to start “recycling” old posts.
I happened across this one today. Actually, its story has been on my mind given recent difficulties getting into the shelter. And when I re-read it today, I was moved, not just by the story about Leo, but the remark about dwelling in untoward feelings. I see so many people around me, and so many expressions in the media, of folk dwelling in grievance, anger, the feeling of injustice, of being disadvantaged, of harboring resentment especially against those of different skin color.
And even within Christianity, I find sometimes such negativity being encouraged, in the name of justice; wholly forgetting the Gospel mandate to forgive, forgive, forgive.
The below post first appeared 2015-12-12.
===============================================
Saturday 2015-12-05
14:40. Actually, Leo arrived first.
But he got turned away.
* Forget the System.
* Homogenized language
Note that he found the backwoodsmen’s speech unintelligible.
(Reblogged 02/22/24.)
I graduated from a college located deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I worked the cash register at an appliance store after class to make a little extra beer and gas money. This store sold ovens, refrigerators, televisions and stereo systems but the big seller was satellite television dishes. Keep in mind, this was 35 years ago. Cable television was only available in densely populated areas and satellite dishes weren’t the cute little contraptions we mount on the side of our houses today, these were big ass, six-foot wide, got their own zip code dishes.
There were two big cash crops in this community (not counting moonshine), Christmas trees and burley tobacco. After selling their burley corp, and after Christmas, families who lived deep, deep in the nook and crannies of the mountains that surrounded this community would come to town with a fat roll of bills in the pockets of their overalls…
View original post 480 more words
* White-shaming
Why America Stays Stuck
In the future, I may ignore such expressions. For the record, someone’s actually said this in print.
On a CNN program not long ago, one white man, who proudly claimed his belief in white supremacy, had the audacity to say, “I wish we had picked our own cotton.”
So do we. African Americans, I mean. We wish you had picked your own cotton, nursed your own babies, tilled your own fields, built your own roads, and done the scut work in factories that made the Industrial Revolution the “success” that it was.
You didn’t, though. African Americans made this country with their hard labor, as slaves and later as individuals caught up and used in the Convict Leasing programs in this country. …
The Homeless Blogger 