When I decided on the title for today’s post, I was still tinkering a bit with the manner I was about to ‘serve it on up to ya’ll. But I happened to start glancing through some of my past posts and I realized that I have already done a post entitled ‘Politics and Religion’. I dunno..maybe I’ve lost a brain cell or two over the years, but although the title has already been done, there are still some things I wanted to say that fall into that category. If you’re ever in a group and you’re looking to liven up the discussion? Just start talking about politics or religion..both topics have a way of setting people off…(this is where I break off into a dialogue between two unnamed people):
What the hell do you mean you voted for Kerry???
Bush ain’t trying to do nothing for black folks mane…just like the rest of those Republicans, black folks supposed to vote Democrat..that’s what Lincoln was, that’s what Kennedy was, that’s what Roosevelt was and that’s what Clinton was…I’m black and I ALWAYS vote Democrat!
You sound like one of them ignant az n’gaz that don’t understand sh't about how the world really works, cuz first of all Lincoln was a Republican! Kerry ain’t no ‘man of the people’, he’s a rich white man just like the rest of em, he don’t give a d’mn about Black and poor folks who can’t find a decent paying job with good benefits, he’s got a different coat than Bush, but underneath they’re all the same. Green is the only color that matters mane..whoever controls the most money has the most power.
So that’s why you voted for Bush?
I voted for Bush for a number of reasons..I thought he was the best candidate to uphold our traditional family values and our country is at war right now and despite all of the things I don’t like about Bush and his administration, I understand that when a family is at war, we all have to suck it up and stand behind our leader as a united front. Once we start breaking ranks and attacking our own, it’s just like helping the enemy.
Don’t you realize that a large part of the world thinks that George Bush and American capitalist ARE the enemy!!
Yeah..they might SAY that, but if that’s the case, how come everybody is trying to live here??! Look, I’m not trying to defend George Bush, hell, for all I know, he MIGHT be the devil! All I’m saying is that as long as we have thousands of our troops overseas risking their lives to defend the freedoms that we enjoy, I think it’s very important for us to come on one accord and work together toward doing whatever it is we have to do to bring our soldiers back home as soon as possible.
Kerry would have gotten the troops out of Iraq sooner!!
Maybe..but you gotta realize what’s going on over there right now. They’re trying to establish a democracy in a land that has been under dictators and oppressors for hundreds of years. The rest of the middle east is definitely watching Iraq closely, because if a respected democratic system can be established, it has the potential to send a resounding democratic ripple in other middle eastern countries.
Do you really think that’s going to work?? I mean, as it is now, you know all the Iraqis and other Muslim countries feel that whatever government is put in, it will be a puppet who’s strings were controlled by the Bush administration.
I don’t know..because democracy is only part of the problem, Iraq has some serious religious and ethnic factions amongst its people that is playing a large part in all of the unrest in the country too.
Huh? I thought they were all Muslim??
Yeah, they're mostly Muslim..but some are Sunni, most are Shi’ite and then you also have a large population of ethnic Kurds who want their own government too…so it’s a lot of different sh’t going on at the same time.
I didn’t know Muslims had different groups..I thought they were all on one accord?
Naww, all Muslims aren‘t going around trying to blow up people in the name of Allah, most Muslims are very peaceful people. When you look at the 3 major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, they all have different denominations or factions. Just like Christians branch into Protestants and Catholics and then under the Protestants you have Methodist, Baptist, AME, 7th Day Adventist, Mormons, etc. other religions also have their various particular ways in which they recognize God.
Yeah..that’s kinda wild to think..most wars and bloodshed all trace back to someone acting ‘in the name of God’.
Yeah..that is a trip. That’s why I make sure to pray for our leaders here in America and around the world, they really need it.
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Whenever you start talking about a political subject like Iraq, it can stir up some deep seeded emotions that will bring out the most volatile emotions in people. I always try to make sure that the other person knows that I respect their right to whatever political, religious or social view they might have, but in the same token, I’m not about to let somebody pee on my head and try to convince me that it’s raining..ya feel me?
Most people’s political and religious foundation are formed at home during early childhood development. Both my parents and grandparents are staunch voters. They might like nairn candidate on the ballot, but they’ll make sure to vote for SOMEbody. Unfortunately, this political activism of voting is still lost on a lot of the black population, especially the younger generations. Too many people are so swept up in their own world, that they have a callous of apathy surrounding their heart when it comes to politics and they remain inactive. Everybody doesn’t’ have to run for election, but at the very least, every black person should get out and exercise their blood-won right to vote.
When I touched on this same issue in Born With A Grip, I made sure to ask people before and after the election if they voted. Of course, most people were quick to say ‘yeah..I voted’. But looking at the election returns, it’s obvious that a lot of them where lying. Since then, I have been approached by different people inquiring about my political and/or religious aspirations:
You might want to run for a political office..be a Senator or something D!!
When I was in college, I served as an officer (Secretary, 90; President 91’) in the Stanford Society of Black Scientist and Engineers (SBSE) and after that I was the Region VI Northern Vice Chair for the National Society of Black Engineers. I learned a lot in all of those capacities, but that year as President let me know then what my political limits where. When you’re leading an organization, you have to deal with both the internal (domestic) issues like: study groups, regional and national conferences, gender issues as well as external (foreign) issues like: getting corporate sponsors, school funding. Etc. Being in the forefront makes you responsible to everybody, because no matter what happens, bottom line is that it’s your signature on the bottom of the page. To some extent you have to learn to detach your feelings and just be about the business, but somehow I’m just not that kind of guy that can close my heart completely.
This inability to just go ‘cold-blooded’ has definitely hindered my climb up the corporate ladder, but I’m much more interested in being able to get a good night’s sleep knowing that I didn’t’ f’k over anybody the day before. Unfortunately, a position as powerful as being the President of the United States of America does not always have this luxury of conscious. Because I’m sure G.Dubya has to make some tough decisions at times and invariably SOMEBODY feels the short end of the stick. Fortunately we live in a country that still allows freedom of speech (to some extent), so those who have a beef have the liberty to voice their issues. But these hard decisions often boil down to what Col. Nathan Jessup (played by Jack Nicholson) said in A Few Good Men.."You can’t handle the truth!"
I’ve also been approached from the other end of the scale:
Mane D..with the way you know how to break the Bible down, you could be a preacher
Believe it or not, I’ve never considered myself a religious person. When I went to church as a child, I went because my mother and grandmother MADE me go. Those summers going to church every Sunday in Arkansas was almost like torture to me. It wasn’t that I was the anti-Christ or anything like that, I just never liked structure. Sunday was the only day of the week that I had to comb my hair and put on uncomfortable clothes and shoes and go sit up in some stuffy church listening to some fat sweating Baptist preacher screaming that everybody was going to hell if they didn’t repent. Going to church was a waste of a perfectly good weekend day as far as I was concerned. It wasn’t until after I had kids of my own that I realized just how important my church upbringing was for me in my life. Because once you start going through some of those real life pains..legal issues, money problems, marriage woes, baby -mama drama, sick children..it will make you get down on your knees and seek Him. And as much as I knew how important my religious foundation was in getting me through a LOT of tough obstacles in life, I wanted to make sure my kids had the same training so that they could have something to lean on when they get out there in the world on their own.
I posted a Statement of Faith on my website, because I wanted people to really feel what I believe. I think that it’s every reader’s right to know the theological stance of a political writer.
Although I was raised in a Baptist church and my wife and I are raising our kids in a Baptist church, I’m not one of those people that thinks that everybody that ain’t Baptist are heathens. When you research the history of the Baptist church, some will trace it back to the Anabaptist movement, but I prefer to trace it’s origin of principle all the way back to John the Baptist, the ‘voice in the wilderness’. Full immersion baptism is a part of the faith, unlike a lot of other denominations. But instead of harping on the differences, I just try to find our common bond in that full gospel of Jesus Christ. When I pick up my Bible, I don’t read it as a historical text or as a ‘mostly true’ volume, I read it as the inspired Word of God. Sola Scriptura..the Bible and the Bible only.
This past week saw a historical event take place amongst the black American Baptist community. Black Baptist churches in America are divided amongst 4 different conventions and they all met up together in Nashville in a long overdue display of solidarity. But even the reality of having such a divided congregation of believers in the church let’s us know that no matter the forum, politics always plays a vital part, ESPECIALLY in religion.
One of the most common questions I had to field when I served as an Officer for NSBE was.. "Why do the ‘black’ engineers have to separate themselves from the rest of the school’s engineers?"
For some reason, it unnerved some white folks to see black folks congregating together as a group. What’s this all about? Who’s playing the rap music and eating fried chicken? Can white engineers join?
Of course, I always made sure to smile and assume a non-threatening posture as I calmly replied.. We’re just like a family that gathers to lend each other support and camaraderie through our mutual ethnic lineage of the African-American experience. I often had to make a concerted effort not to just get pissed off at all of the stupid questions and just yell out…SOMETIMES WE DON’T WANT TO BE AROUND WHITE FOLKS!!
This definitely touches on that sensitive vein of racial intolerance that is a double swinging gate in 2005. There’s some white folks who don’t like black folks and they’re some black folks who don’t like white folks, it goes both ways. Now everybody has their own different ways they justify it,’Mane, I seen them white folks do my grandma bad.’ Or ‘Some black boys robbed and assaulted my sister!’ and all kind of incidents which trigger that vein of hatred that has the potential to consume anyone whose soul isn’t anchored in the Lord. But whenever you have a group of people that have been oppressed and enslaved, then they will inherently learn to trust no one but their own. Some of this is learned by experience, some by inherited social myopias.
A perfect example is found in the remarks that Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made last week during a ceremony commemorating the 60 year anniversary of the fall of the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz. When Sharon got onto the podium, he said that Jews should always remember that when the Nazis starting purging Jews through death camps and gas chambers, the rest of the world watched without 'lifting a finger' to help. So from that lesson, Jews learned that they can only depend on themselves. As an African-American slave descendent, I feel that ALL the way. But as a Christian, I know that our heart should strive to be bigger than that myopic view of past generational pains. That doesn’t’ mean we’re supposed to completely forget, because there’s definitely a line of wariness to be drawn when deciding just how much you’re going to trust a person, no matter WHAT color they are, even your own.
