Friday, January 23, 2015

Unfinished Business: A Reflection on ‘the Dream’

By Dr. Clanton C. W. Dawson, President of African American Clergy Coalition of Mid-Missouri
On Monday, Americans gathered in religious sanctuaries and civic centers throughout this democratic society to celebrate the life and work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The most popular of Dr. King’s speech, the “I Have a Dream” speech was recited by thousands, and heard by millions.  

The context of the speech was the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Dr. King called the gathering of justice seekers at the Lincoln Memorial,” the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” There was something about that day in Washington DC that made the dream litany Dr. King employed the perfect articulation of the aspirations and hopes of millions whose dreams had long been deferred. The oratory from that short, Southern, educated, black preacher, and dreamer of a beloved community was a perfect proclamation of the faith and hope of an imperfect people. On that day, the dreamer captivated all of us: whether assembled with the other 250,000 dreamers at the Lincoln Memorial; or, those drawn together around school lunch tables listening on the radio; or, watching the phenomenon on Black and White televisions huddled with family and friends, we were filled with pride and wonder. That day we dared to dream a dream rooted in the American dream, and a faith born of struggle: that one day life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would be a reality for all Americans. Many believed that the March and the Dream speech triggered the implementation of the Civil Rights Act and The Voting Rights Act of 1964. What we know is that truly on that day, we shared a dream.

Fifty years later ‘the Dream’ is under attack and on the verge of becoming a nightmare. The Dream speech focused on economic fairness, social justice, and civil rights. Fifty years later, the same issues plague us now. It is undeniable that we have come a long way in many respects. It is equally true that we are rapidly going backwards.

There exist forces that threaten to transform a dream we once shared into a nightmare. The problems of the underclass continue to multiply astronomically, while the middle-class has disappeared. The insidious plague of poverty and economic disparity is rampant in all sectors of this country. The poor are getting poorer. Underemployment has stymied hope, and the payday loan companies, rent to own stores, and ‘quick cash’ merchants feast on the underclass worse than the old time loan-sharks of the forties and fifties.

Black on Black, Black on Brown, and Brown on Brown violence is still the greatest threat to the African American community.  All of us are rightly angered by the incidences of the killings of black youth by the police in Ferguson, New York, Cleveland, Sanford, Columbia, Mo., and other places across the country. And yet, the most serious threat to the lives of Black youth in this country is Black on Black crime. Still, in many communities, if a youth lives to age twenty-five a celebration occurs because that person has beat the statistical odds---and we know it.

Too many high school age persons cannot read or write beyond a sixth or seventh grade level. Often these youth, discouraged and feeling hopeless, drop out of school and are forced to work dead end jobs, or seek illegal means to survive. Such a scenario has led to the growth of the prison industrial complexes that are disproportionately populated by Black and Brown men and women most of whom are poorly educated, and were either unemployed or underemployed. We are painfully aware that poverty, poor education, and crime go together: they are the bastard triplets of this society, birthed by greed and nursed by ignorance. The cycle causes ‘the dream’ to look like a nightmare.

The very institutions that in the past stood vigilant and led the way to the promise land cause us to sigh and moan. Where is the Black Church and why has its prophetic voice become silent? Is it true that we are more interested in singing, dancing, and shouting, then being our brothers and our sisters keepers? Have we gotten so enslaved by white evangelism that we have forgotten the God of our weary years and the God of our silent tears? In too many instances the Black Church is so heavenly bound it has become no earthly good. Seeking “favor” has replaced being faithful, and we would rather ‘get back to Eden,’ than ‘march to Zion.’ While there are some great churches and clergy persons holding up the blood stained banner for justice, freedom, and equality ‘on earth as it is in heaven,’ too many in the church are insensitive to the cries of the broken, bruised, and battered of our society. Instead of being the agents of transformation, too many clerics are centered on ‘the mega-church mindset, building buildings we do not need, living lavishly on the offerings of the poor, and ‘going up yonder anyhow!’ Academia is no better. African American faculty in white institutions are on the decrease and are constantly urged to ‘not be too black.’ Historic Black Universities and Colleges too often are drowning in cronyism and so in debt that the faculty end up being underappreciated, overworked, and under paid, while the huge potential within the African American student body is not actualized to its full potential. Motivated by money, too many schools now offer quick online programs urging poor people to get ‘degrees’ instead of an education. But we know that it is ‘a thirst for an education’ not the hunger for a degree, says Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune in her famous Last Will and Testament, that transforms the plight of a people.  

No wonder the rudimentary foundation of the Dream has been lost. Our heroes are ill-mannered athletes, actors, and entertainers who are paid millions of dollars to build virtual realities to entertain us, and beautiful slightly-clad young women, with even less on their minds, who encourage our girls to ‘be a bad bitch’ and aspire to do something strange for a little piece of change.  

We have unfinished business. We must remember that hope and work cause dreams to become reality. Some people believed that the dream would happen with the right legislation, EEOCs, opportunity projects, etc. Some thought that because more African Americans could live in suburbia, or have corporate positions, or place their children in private schools, or elect an African American President-we had overcome. How wrong those who believed that were in their thinking. The problems that threaten the Dream are too complex for that position. While legislation can control (to a degree) people’s actions (open housing, employment and voting laws) it does nothing to change people’s hearts, nor the systems that perpetuate systemic racism (notice how states –including Missouri- are attempting to suppress voting rights which most effect African Americans). Too often MLK Celebrations is a lot of sentimentality that causes us to be warm and fuzzy, but not productive. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia are systemic. They have to do with power and who wields it. The only change that reflects the central idea of the dream is systemic change--not emotional babble. The issues of America can never be reduced to who likes who---it must always be about making the very systems that control peoples’ lives accessible to all. All of us should have access to privilege and power-not just the wealthy and the white.

Hope demands that we continue to work for and hold fast to the Dream. We must address the material conditions that create the demonic threat to the dream. African Americans—and Americans as a whole--once believed in committing to a cause greater than self-interested navel-gazing. We believed  and dreamed of creating the kind of community where a simple gesture like saying, ‘Good morning’ or helping our neighbors in need defined who we are.  Why? Because that is what we do and who we are: we dream of a better day, and then roll up our sleeves, pray on our knees, raise our voices of protest, act with the belief that labor will not be in vain, and then…make it happen. I am still dreaming with my eyes wide open working toward a day when the dream becomes a reality instead of a nightmare.

 

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

The Phenomenological Power of Protest

Photo from The Burning Platform

When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him                                                                            
 Bayard Ruskin


DR. CLANTON C.W DAWSON, JR.
In the wake of ‘no indictment’ by grand juries in Missouri and New York for the white officers who killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner, protest demonstrations have occurred in over 170 cities throughout the United States. On Friday December 6, a group of protesters gathered at the State Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo to protest the bogus judicial process orchestrated by Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch and the ineffective leadership of Missouri Governor Jay Nixon. Since then numerous protests have occurred in California, New York, Cleveland, and Miami and in cities throughout the United States. Even NBA figures like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant have joined the chorus of protest.

A local preacher asked me, “Why should we in Mid-Missouri be so concerned about what happened in Ferguson, MO--and by extension--New York City, Cleveland, OH, etc.?” “After all,” he stated, “we have our own problems in Columbia, Jefferson City, Boonville, Springfield, Fulton, Marshall, and Sedalia and throughout central Missouri. We should be more concerned about home than there!”

After pondering the question seriously, it is apparent to me that this brother has either forgotten or is unaware of the phenomenological power of protest. While thousands of people of every race and creed have united to physically stage protests as a call for justice, sadly this preacher is not alone in his sentiment. Too many preachers/pastors have chosen to remain silent about the obvious disparity in the manner in which police engage African Americans and the subsequent lack of judicial credulity afforded Black and Brown Americans. They refuse to raise their prophetic voice to challenge how African Americans are harassed, followed in stores and markets, mistreated, denied due process, and die suspiciously in the back seat of police cars (remember North Carolina?). The treatment of Anglo Americans receive from both the police and the courts is qualitatively different from the treatment people of color experience. We are called as clergy to stand. The passivity articulated by my brother preacher, and demonstrated by too many silent pulpits in America, positions clergy, Black and white, on the wrong side of history.

Protest is rooted in lament: it is the expression of objection to systems and states of affairs that rob human beings of their dignity and humanity. As such, protest arrests the consciousness of a society and makes us look squarely at the injustice brought before us. Its phenomenological quality has the unique ability to make us ‘sense’ the outrage and desperation of the victims of injustice. It is this ‘sensing’ that we are witnessing with protesters across the country—Black, Anglo, Latin, male, female, gay, straight--who directly or indirectly are victims of racial injustice. They have joined the fight because they understand the question (why did this happen?) and have been captured by the phenomenological power of protest. All of us, particularly young Americans, realize that what happened in Ferguson, Cleveland, and New York can happen anywhere in America.

Protests transforms a person from being a disinterested observer to active participant. The protests make us look at ourselves and the situation. No one can ‘remain’ removed from the situation. Socrates was right when he stated that ‘to know the good is to do it.’ The massive protests that have taken place in over 170 cities across America evidence the fact that when rational people see injustice, and realize it is wrong, they must do something about it. They protest.

The protests have changed the conversations of Americans in every coffeehouse, hair salon, corner store, basketball game in this country. People of different racial groups and ages have been awakened: no longer are people standing by quietly. There is a movement before us. It is larger than Michael Brown or Eric Garner. It is a movement that recognizes that injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.

Bayard Ruskin was correct. Protests bestows dignity upon those who have experienced the robbery of dignity. The phenomenon of protest changes the conversation from one of political practicality to moral insistence. Even the racists of Rosebud, MO who greeted NAACP protest marchers with fried chicken, 40 ounce bottles of beer, melons, and racial slurs realize that the moral universe is holding all of us responsible for our actions. The world they want no longer exists. The protest exposes who and what they are, and illuminates our moral character as well. An old saying from my era still rings true—“you are either part of the problem, or part of the solution”---there is no middle ground.

Protest reminds us that every life is important. Black lives do matter. The fact remains that too many young (and older!) African American males are being targeted as “the enemy” in this country. The xenophobia operative in too many police departments across this country must be challenged. There exists a marked difference between how the police and judicial processes treat people of color in this society and how Anglo Americans are treated. It is not Black paranoia, it is a lived reality. It is painfully clear that the way justice is exercised in this country pronounces that Black lives are irrelevant—they neither are worthy of moral consideration; nor, are people of color full citizens under the Constitution of the United States of America. Ferguson, and now New York, call our attention to the duplicitous nature of ‘equal justice under the law.’ Protest, however, declares that all citizens are due their day in court. Michael Brown and Eric Garner were robbed of due process. Every citizen ought to have access to ‘equal justice under the Law.” Protest spotlights that what we claim as a nation is not what is experienced by too many Americans. 

I believe in the phenomenological power of protest. The Biblical prophets, social and political philosophers and thinkers of every era, and my ancestors believed in its power. Protest renews my hope for change. Protest reminds me that if I work the work before me, “… trouble won’t last always…!” As a Christian, African American, and fellow human being who understands that I am my brother’s and sister’s keeper—I must protest injustice. For all who protest injustice stand on the Lord’s side. God stands on the side of justice. I am convinced that at the eschaton, and the Universe will cry out9o, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” I want to stand with men and women of every nation, from every historical epoch, and declare without reservation, “Here I am Lord, here I am!”

Sunday, October 5, 2014

The purpose of the African American Clergy Coalition of Mid-Missouri


Purpose
Commitment means that it is possible for [a person] to yield the nerve center of his/her constant to a purpose or a cause, a movement or an ideal, which may be more important to [that person] than whether he/she lives or dies.

Howard Thurman

At the organizational meeting of the AACCMM, bidding Christian Education scholar, the Rev. Carolus Taylor recalled the history of previous mid-Missouri/Columbia clergy associations—four such attempts to be exact—that started and are now defunct. He closed his remarks with a poignant question, “What will make this organization different from past attempts??” In response to the question several remarks came forward from those gathered. Some suggested that the difference is that this attempt is comprised of new people with a new desire for action and fellowship. Others stated that this group is different because of the social, political, and spiritual urgency before us evidenced by Ferguson, MO. While I think these comments are helpful and on point, I offer the following as a response—a commitment to the purpose will make a difference. A commitment to its purpose will make this attempt to organize qualitatively different from previous attempts. Purpose will sustain its efforts to be an effective and transformative coalition. Knowing the purpose moves an organization towards being an organism of action as opposed to being a mere organization. Purpose guards against focusing on personalities and personal agendas and motivates the living organism to grasp as much as it can out of the infinite.

The African American Clergy Coalition of Mid-Missouri is dedicated to being intentionally purposeful in the following manner.

1)      Our purpose shall be to position ourselves in such a manner that we may speak ‘truth to power’ for the wounded and weary who are inside and outside our church walls that cannot speak for themselves. We must renew relationships with God’s people and in doing so, we begin to know, instead of knowing of, the people for which we speak. No longer may we assume that we have permission and authority because of our titles. This is the crux of the Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr. critique of the article by Dr. Eddie Glaude entitled, “The Black Church is Dead.” Dr. Smith was pointing to the fact that the life and vitality of the Black Church is found not in the observational position of the academic, but the ontic—lived--position of the front-line, Marine Corp-type, Christian cleric who stands like a soldier in battle against the enemies of the people: racism, sexism, homophobia, economic disenfranchisement, and systemic alienation/dehumanization. On the front lines it is clear that the Black Church is alive and as African American clergy we realize that our prophetic work is of vital importance.

2)      Our purpose shall be to further equip the clergy to better equip the people of God. Contemporary circumstances demand that to be a faithful proclaimer of the good news requires more than a sense of “calling.” Christianity in the 21st Century desperately needs trained clergy to meet the needs of God’s people. Our purpose will be to better equip the clergy for the task at hand. We will help clergy by insisting that academic institutions in Mid-Missouri start to take seriously the educational needs of African American clergy by providing opportunities to acquire theological training at a reasonable cost. We will assist clergy in acquiring 501c3s for their churches, expose them to mental health resources, avenues to obtain financial expertise to better their people and the wider community, just to mention a few tasks. Our people need us to not only know how to ‘whoop’ and dance, but also how to make substantial and qualitative differences in their lives.

3)      Our purpose shall be to tear down the walls that divide us. The fact is that the oppressor has fooled us into thinking that there is more to divide us than to unite us. The Black Church is one house with different rooms: Baptist, Methodist, Non-denominational, Interdenominational, etc., etc. We all share a faith born in struggle, bruised by racism, and battered by the dark forces of economic prejudice, social exclusion, and political xenophobia. Yet we are still here. Jesus warned us that a house divided against itself cannot stand. We must come together and be one house with one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. The Evil One knows that if we come together we are an unconquerable force. Let our battle cry be—“we are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.”  

The Rev. Clanton C.W. Dawson, Jr., PhD
President, the African American Clergy Coalition of Mid-Missouri

Thursday, October 2, 2014

A messeage from Dr. Clanton C.W. Dawson, Jr, President of the African American Clergy Coalition of Mid-Missouri

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle suggests that all rational human activity is aimed toward some goal. In agreement with that idea, on September 20, 2014, some brave, faithful, and rational servants of the Kingdom gathered together at historic Fifth Street Christian Church in Columbia, MO to organize the African American Clergy Coalition of Mid-Missouri. It is an activity aimed toward a goal of excellence.

Why organize an African American Clergy Coalition? In spite of the current state of affairs in Missouri and America as a whole, many people think we live in a post-racial society where race and racism really do not exist. They claim that to mention racial terms-African American, Black, etc.--is race-baiting and further fuels the fire of racism, causing well-meaning people to believe in the reality of a phenomenon that does not exist. Some have stated that we must move beyond racial designations and think more about integration, inclusion; not activities that create separatism? And still others assert that being African American has nothing to do with Christianity. The goal of all Christians—black or white-- should be trying to get to heaven. Anything that moves our focus toward something else-- like racism, sexism, and social justice-- is wrong and perhaps even demonic.

For instance, Eddie Glaude, Jr, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, has already informed us that the Black Church is dead. Why organize with a name that so unabashedly asserts the existence of an African American Christianity, Church, theology, and the like given the nonexistence of the Black Church?  Syracuse University Professor of Philosophy, Linda Alcoff, asserts in Visible Identities that we will never engage in meaningful dialogue about race until we move beyond the Black/White binary that shackles racial conversations in this country. And of course, too many of our clergy and churches are only concerned about prosperity gospel, entertaining worship, and filling the money coffers rather than the needs of the people of God who attend their worships and hear their preaching.

We disagree with those who insist that forming the African American Clergy Coalition is an exercise in folly, or promotes racism, and/or is non-Christian. The fact is that the Black Church, that Church born of struggle, does exist. It started with Phillip and Mark before the Jerusalem Council, was active before we came here in 1619, and continues in the present. Has it gone through transitions? Yes, but it still exists. Across denominational lines it continues to be a cultural vehicle, an institution of moral education, and a reservoir of survival history and soul force. We have organized because the fundamental issues that affect the Black community can still be best addressed by the male and female clergy of the Black Church. We, the clergy, are the ones that hear our peoples’ prayers, christen/baptize their young, visit the hospitals and jails, and bury our community’s dead. We affirm our Christian heritage that has denied and/or dismissed by too many white, Western European, Anglo-American theologians and preachers; and, by too many black materialistic pulpiteers who keep our people in bondage by blinding them with visions of ‘glory, glory after while.’ We are not the curse of Ham, we are the blessing of Abraham.  We insist that the call of Christ on the Church is to be instrumental in making human relationships of all kind ‘on earth as it is in heaven.

Every goal has a purpose. Next time we will discuss the mission and intentional purpose of the African American Clergy Coalition of Mid-Missouri.

The Rev. Clanton C.W. Dawson, Jr., PhD

President, the African American Clergy Coalition of Mid-Missouri