Citizens of Humanity vs Race, War and Peace

Growing up in Jamaica I never experienced racial discrimination. That was easy considering that Jamaica, though out of many one people, is a majority black/ African descendant population and is very racially intermixed. Nonetheless, there were always those incidents where race and class intersected to give rise to a form of discrimination based more on social standing. As Jamaicans we are familiar with the refrain that ghetto youths are discriminated against, that the big power broker families – Issa, Azan, Mahfood etc. control the reins of society and that “black” people are oppressed and discriminated against in their social aspirations by this built in structure of the rich versus poor and uptown versus downtown. Race and class are closely linked in Jamaica because of our history of slavery and subsequent development. The historical race based socio-economic organization led to a system where a few powerful families of “high colour” owned the majority of the wealth in Jamaica. This is changing.

When I was growing up my family called me “Reds” because I had a likkle colour to me (I have since lost that colour). I was poor and could not really be mistaken for anything but poor. Yet, my family have sworn up and down the place that I received favoritism because of my colour. I can’t say that that was ever true. I worked hard to overcome every obstacle placed before me and always thought that with this effort I could place myself in a better position than the one in which I was born. I never experienced racial discrimination/ benefit but I did experience social discrimination. A poor little girl like me with no connections to the well to do power brokers could hardly get a fair shake. There were serious life changing incidents of discrimination and with no one to advocate on my behalf, and not knowing any better, I had to suck it up.

My Jamaican experiences have influenced my interpretation of race and class in America. Here you are indistinguishable among the masses, and unless you make the effort to deliberately stand out, you are anonymous. Of course, the well to do and well connected still get ahead but because of the openness of the society upward mobility is very possible. I am sometimes amazed at the entrepreneurial spirit of the society and how the successful can change their lives’ and move beyond the circumstances of their birth. But to tell you the truth I am also amazed at how you can never really move beyond your race in America. This has been brought home to me by this recent presidential election in the US.

Barack Obama is a well educated and successful man by any measure. He has achieved what many will never achieve. Among his many accomplishments is the fact that he is only the 3rd “black” senator in US history, and I use the term “black” loosely considering that he is as white as he is black. Now that the issue of Reverend Wright has surfaced people are saying that they always expected the issue of race to come up. They speak about him becoming the candidate of race and how he had skillfully avoided that label. I am conflicted because, while I expected the issue of race to come along I hate that he has to re-assure voters that his blackness is not a threat. His speech on race relations in recent weeks has been hailed as historical and congratulated for its candidness. But I think to myself, “Did people really not know this?” Are Americans really so ignorant of the feelings of their racially different neighbours?

Now the media is getting all hopped up over Obama’s Minister’s, Rev. Wright, sermons. Wright, is a former Marine who served his country in war and fought for the rights of Americans to say whatever they want to say at a time when it would have been perfectly OK and socially acceptable to call him nigga, and deny him the freedom to associate with the whites of the society he defended. He also served by the bedside of President Johnson. His ministry and his work in the community is more than these cherry picked snapshots. He has earned and defended the right of freedeom of speech. I don't think he is unpatriotic even in his calls for damnation of America. Religion and patriotism are two different matters. Nonetheless, I can never agree with, even with freedom of speech, the damnation of one’s country. You can say it but you shouldn’t say it.

I read the sermons in their entirety and found in them some of the uncomfortable truths which people seem to be amazed by in Obama’s speech. I never heard him advocate a taking up of arms in revolution only a revolution in thinking. He correctly asserts that the process of changing governments to become more responsive to the needs of all its citizens can only occur when the status quo is challenged. America loves to call itself a Christian nation, where convenient, and acts though only Christians have the right to be considered for the highest office in the land. All these leaders have to out Christian and out conservative each other, with sometimes ridiculous consequences and stances which are politically convenient but I feel not truly believed. Well, faith without works is dead and Christians should always be the first to speak against unjust governments and systems.

I also never heard him say anything patently racist but people will call it racist I believe because 1) a black man said it and 2) they do not like to hear black people/ minorities defend themselves. They prefer when we speak all the while as we do in polite company that all is well and we are happy for the all the mercies that we have gained from government and society. These “mercies’ were earned in blood, sweat and tears. So yeah there’s a chip on the oppressed racial minority shoulder. Also, I cannot believe the sermon was racist when it only spoke of the abuses meted out on the poor, weak historical minorities by the majority. Again, why does this offend white (and some other) people? Why does it offend Christian people? Yes, it was over 300 years ago and we have come a long way but the oppressive historical majority power holders continue to reap the benefit of this historical order while the minorities continue to reap the woes. Yes things have changed, like Obama reminds us, by all the races working together. But the effects linger for both sides and unless we can truthfully acknowledge these issues we will not be able to unite to fix them. We can’t retreat, as he says, to our corners and expect a solution to our common problems.

The sermons have their faults, like asserting that AIDS is a white man’s plot to destroy black people. I don’t believe this, but I know this is an idea out there, and it is not such an eccentric thing to believe when you consider how white America experimented on black men using syphillis. Wright reminds us that oppression comes in all kinds of packages, not just race, and even spoke out on the rights of women. America is a great and influential country in world history, but it also has the history of abusing its powers, oppressing and mistreating people. Thousands of innocents died in the bombing of Japan. Vaporized where they stood. America acted slowly to stop Aparatheid in South Africa even where poor powerless Jamaica made a defiant stand. Today, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's are dying and millions more are displaced as collateral damage of a war whose legitimacy is well questioned. These are difficult things for much of mainstream America to swallow and so we rarely hear of these people. His delivery was abrasive but on the majority of points he spoke the uncomfortable truth. This was not “hate speech”.

The sermons may even be viewed as messages of hope because ultimately Wright reminds us that where principalities, family and communities may change, fail and fall, God is the same God he was yesterday and will always continue to be today and tomorrow. Even while the truth of man changes God is enduring. America, a Christian nation would do well to remember this as it seeks to create a more perfect union. He says that Christians should look to God for hope and deliverance instead of looking to government, community or family. I’ve heard this in my own church before and never thought it radical, racist, anti-country or anti-government. But then again I always remember that Jesus in his Ministry was also viewed as a radical, social justice preacher who was anti oppressive, racist, segregationist government. Jesus spoke of the just Kingdom of God prevailing against anything man creates to idolize and act unjustly against his fellow man.

On a final I have not heard mention from anyone that Rev. Wright did ask his congregation for forgiveness immediately after uttering the “God damn America” line. From the transcript on CNN he said, “Tell your neighbor he’s (going to) help us one last time. Turn back and say forgive him for the God Damn, that’s in the Bible though. Blessings and curses is in the Bible. It’s in the Bible.” He recognizes he spoke harshly and immediately sought forgiveness. Why has no one of the offended Christians ever mentioned that he sought forgiveness for speaking this?

I am now learning to deal with the race issue as a Jamaican in America and I am happy that I have a broader, more informed and open minded view with which to analyze these issues. I just know now for a fact that no matter what you do in America you will always be black. I am happy I never had to deal with this in Jamaica; it would have made me too bitter. On the other hand I am bitter about the social injustices based on class prejudices I experienced in Jamaica. I guess we all must continue to fight for more equal societies.

A Personal Story of Race

Eustis is small semi-rural city located in Central Florida. I lived there for one year. The majority of the population is white and the blacks are typically poor. They still sell the Dixie flags all over the main mall and quite a few people fly them from their vehicles. On an ordinary day I walked to the store and was enjoying my leisurely stroll home. A jeep full of white girls whizzed by and I heard what seemed to be “nigga” shouted out at me. I looked back in disbelief. I couldn’t believe it. I just had no prior experience with which to process this assault and so thought to myself, “No, I didn’t just hear that”. But no amount of denying could change that I was called “nigga” by a bunch of white girls. I didn’t know them and never did anything to offend them. In that same period some KKK were demonstrating in Orlando against all the people and things that offend them.