Let every soul be subject unto the governing authorities. For there is no authority but of God; the authorities that be are appointed of God. - Romans 13:1
When I was in Biloxi a couple of weeks ago, for one of my close friends’ wedding, I had the chance to see and catch up with a lot of my college buddies. Several of them are regular servinemup.com visitors, and one of my podnas from Brooklyn was very animated every time he approached me during the weekend festivities.
SERVINEMUP! SERVINEMUP!! You steady SERVINEMUP!! Right D? (smiling)
Yep! That’s me..D. Wash..SERVINEMUP for ya’ll!! (smiling)
(laughing) Man..whenever I read your site I can tell that you’re having a great time!
You already know!
The blogging vehicle has allowed me the opportunity to share a lot of my personal thoughts and feelings for public display on the world wide web. I’ve got friends and relatives throughout the U.S. who log on just to check out their cuz, or their nephew, their lil brother, their homey from Sugarvalley, their podna that they grew up with every summer on Jelly Roll Street in the sprawling metroplex of Calion, Arkansas. It is very empowering to have a support group of friends and relatives that give me love and encouragement along my journey in life. And as I’ve matured as a person and as a Christian, I find that I treasure these relationships of mutual trust and respect above all material aspects of life. Once you tune in to the commonness of the human condition, there is a spiritual orb which resonates deep in your heart and you’ll be able to find fellowship in not only the similarities of existence, but also in our differences.
My experience is of one born to American-African slave descendants. I’ve never picked cotton in my life, but my grandfather (who I love dearly) has told me on a number of occasions,
“I’ve picked enough cotton in my life already, thank God ya’ll don’t have to do that.”
America is not far removed from a time when there was a federally mandated separation of class due to racial heritage. But through toil and struggle and suffering, these laws of institutionalized racial injustice were voted away and America planted their hope for a new day of ’equal’ opportunity. At least, that’s what the laws declare on paper. But the reality of the American slave descendants today, is that that road to opportunity in America might declare ‘All Are Equal’, but when you put your feet down to diligently trod toward this hope, the slope of the playing field is not level. Hundreds of years of oppression, dating back to when it was illegal for slaves to learn to read, makes the terrain a lot more difficult to navigate for those here in America who fall into Franz Fanon’s nome as members of ‘The Wretched of the Earth”.
No matter what state or country you live in, there are a set of rules governing society that each citizen is bid to obey. If you don’t like the rules, the political system or the economic opportunity in the land in which you live, then the best thing to do is find somewhere else to go…if you can. But if there is no avenue for escape, then you must live in and follow the law of the land. God’s Word does not incite slaves to revolt against their master, quite the contrary, the Bible categorically instructs us all to accept our positions of life and to serve accordingly. When I first discovered this Biblical doctrine as a teenager, I was a bit shocked and appalled.
How can God tell slaves that they’re just supposed to passively endure lifetimes of misery and oppression??
As a dark skinned slave descendant that never had any hope of ‘passing’ for any other race but Negro, it seemed to me like black folks were cursed by God to having to suffer under the hands of evil white men and it made me draw away from my Christian roots and start seeking some doctrine that ‘felt right’ to me. Growing up in a exclusively black Southern Baptist church, I often found my formative years in the pews of the church congregation frowning in derision and with a sense of ‘something just ain’t right with this’ whenever I would look around the crowded congregation of black folks praising God, but then when you look at the wall above the baptism pool, you see a big mural of a blonde haired blue eyed white man. When I considered the realness of the hatred and prejudice that my parents and grandparents had to endure while living in the Jim Crow South, I knew something just wasn’t right with that picture. Because with my concept of God, there wasn’t an elitist system preordained since birth, the God I could understand was fair and just and He definitely doesn’t look like the same folks who yell racial epithets or hang black men just for looking at white women.
There’s some folks (white and black) today who get a little fidgety and uncomfortable whenever these truths of America’s past are brought up,
“We need to move past all that..that’s old history, it’s not like that anymore.”
Some will even ‘flip’ the paradigm and try to make you feel like you’re the one impeding progression by continuing to harbor on past transgressions. Once you get off in the Word of God, you’ll see that we are all bid to forgive our neighbors, as God forgives us for our transgressions. Once again, the suspicious nature inside me caused me to consider this path of ‘forgiveness’ as a method of control intended to keep the oppressed from revolting against the oppressor. As Oscar Wilde famously noted, ‘Religion is the opiate of the masses.’ Keep em drugged up and gone on that Jesus, all the while keep bleeding them for all the work and resources you can get from them until they die. Let them praise Jesus, while they suffer in poverty and oppression and the elite reap the rewards gained through the low labor costs of slavery. It all seemed like a big setup move that so many ‘house’ black folks fell for. Christianity just wasn’t sitting right with me, there had to be a truth found, where is the God for all the real niggaz??
Once you break off from your family and start seeking a truth of life that you just can’t seem to find in the environment in which you were raised, it can be a scary thing. Because first of all, you have to make this move ‘on the cool’, because if your parents or grandparents hear that you are not convinced that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Light, they may be prone to a heart attack or at the very least some kind of screaming fit.
What do you mean you don’t serve a ‘white’ God?? Boy..you betta get yo self together so you can go to church! Cuz if you ain’t going to church..you can’t live in THIS house!!
So instead, most spiritual journeys begin under a cloak of secrecy. It’s much akin to those many nights that slaves crept away into the unknown land of freedom, risking their lives just for the sake of being emancipated from the oppressor. Once I reached that point where I could no longer tolerate living a life ‘enslaved’ by the ideals and theology of a God who’s God just because a white man printed in the Bible? Who’s to say the powers that be didn’t ‘twerk’ the Word a lil bit and put in those parts to keep their lucrative slavery cartels thriving for generations? Naww mane..I can’t be that damn fool that‘s following my families religion ‘just cuz‘, like some dumb cow being herded away. I had to know God for myself.
The late teens and early 20’s are a very important time in a person’s life. Because it is during this period of transition from childhood to independent adults that we all must form our own ideologies of life, politics and religion. Some people never even consider rebuking or turning away from the path of their parents or grandparents, they just believe what they were raised to believe, obediently and without question. Conservatives are more than likely born to Conservatives, Liberals are most often born of Liberals and so forth. Which brings me to a good political joke I heard.
A father is enjoying a late evening after dinner walk with his family through a public park. As he and his lovely wife and 2 kids are conversing and enjoying the brisk breeze with promises of the approaching winter, a mugger jumps out of the bushes and approaches the man and his family brandishing a knife. The father happens to have a loaded 9mm handgun in his jacket. What happens?
Liberal Answer: Does the man really LOOK like he’s trying to harm my family? Did he SAY he was a mugger? Maybe he was mentally incompetent? Can I just have my wife and children run away for safety? Is the knife really sharp? Do I have time to call my lawyer and see what legal ramifications are at stake? Is there someway I could kick the knife out of the man’s hands and flee to safety with my family? There’s not enough parameters given for me to accurately speculate what I would do.
Conservative Answer: Bang! Bang!
Texan Answer: BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! (click)
Wife: I think he’s still moving honey!!
Son: Yeah Dad..I saw him move too.
(reload another clip) BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Daughter: (smiling) Nice grouping Daddy!!
I find great amusement in that joke, maybe it’s just a Texan thing, I dunno. But what I do know is that this past election brought out some deep emotions amongst the citizens of America. With the election fiasco that we went through in 2000, with all the ballot irregularities and ‘chads’ in Florida, this year’s election has been a hotly contested topic for the past 4 years. There’s a lot of folks who still have a sour taste in their mouth with how Bush ‘did it’ and got into office in the last election. Michael Moore came along and stoked the fires of discontent with Fahrenheit 9/11 and the rallying cry was summoned..Americans voices will be heard at the ballot boxes!!
When you consider the things that we use to decide which candidates policy is best for our country, everyone has different political agendas that they deem the most important. To some it’s the economy, to others it’s national defense, or healthcare, family values, same-sex unions, everybody has their own interests that they choose to latch on to and support and that’s usually how votes are cast. The weird part is when you get strange bedfellows such as gay Republicans rallying alongside gun activist Democrats and you realize that although they may be supporting the same candidate, it’s not necessarily for the same reasons.
Coming into this year’s election, I was anticipating a larger vote turnout than 2000’s election and that the majority of these ‘new’ and ‘first-time’ voters would be making a vote toward a change in America’s course of direction domestically and abroad. But as I sat and watched the poll results come in Tuesday night and into Wednseday morning, I was snapped back to the reality of the America in which we live. Looking at that sea of red states claimed by Bush reaffirmed the voting majority here in America..our country showed up and supported our incumbent leader sends a resounding wave of American principles throughout the world..’We stand by George W. Bush and his administration.’ Not ALL Americans felt that way when they cast their ballots, but 59 million was enough.
So now we have over 55 million people who voted for Kerry and a lot of them are HIGHLY pissed off right now. There are grumblings of ’voter tampering’ and ’illegal tactics’ used by George W. and his army of supporters that used unfair means to gain political advantage.
“Bush won..but I something just ain’t right about it.”
I must admit, I was one who really thought that America was poised to vote for a change, but when you examine the poll results, you’ll better realize that American sentiment is still very much steeped and controlled by conservative views and opinions, or more specifically Texan Conservatives. (smile). There were over 120 million ballots cast in the 2004 election, which represents almost 60% of all registered voters here in the United States. The standard voting benchmark is the turnout from the 1960 election which pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard Nixon. Over 66% of registered voters turned out for that close and hotly contested election, and in the end, America voted to go with the more ’liberal’ JFK.
When Gore lost the 2000 election to Bush, he lost even though he won the popular vote. But when you consider all the things that have happened since then: Florida vote dispute, Iraq, the economy, healthcare, rising HIV rates in America, Fahrenheit 9/11, etc. and you would think that this election would be primed for a new candidate to assume the reigns of control for the country. But when you look at the numbers, Bush gained almost 10 million more votes in this election than he had in 2000. It’s a sobering reality to know that the majority of the American voting public is behind our president, even in the midst of a growing quaqmire in Iraq, high unemployment rates and soaring deficits. As I continued to shake my head in amazement as Bush’s victory became more and more clearly inevitable, I went to my source of comfort and understanding, the Bible.
The core support group of Bush’s campaign is the Christian Conservative, of which I consider myself a member. Once Bush identified with these Godly people, and presented himself as a born-again Christian committed to upholding the traditional family values, that’s what won him the election. Now riding along this same bandwagon are the rich, upper-class folks who aren’t necessarily Christian, but they want to make sure they have somebody in office that won’t ‘rock the boat’ and disrupt their prosperous business’ and investments.
“The government ain’t supposed to control the people, the government is just supposed to protect the people and allow us to function as a free society. That Kerry was bound to bring a lot of that bureaucratic nonsense like all those other ’liberal’ Democrats like JFK.”
On top of that, there are a lot of Protestants and Jews who refuse to vote for a Catholic like Kerry. Some folks voted for Bush because of his stand against same-sex marriages and then you have a lot of gun toters who like Bush because they figure he’s the best man to lead in the midst of the war of terror that is going on today. No matter WHAT people’s reasons were for voting for Bush, the fact is that God has appointed G-Dubya to rule America for the next 4 years. When you look in the Bible and try to find the Christian course of action in the midst of political strife, you’ll see that God categorically displays His sovereign power when it comes to government here on earth. The Bible repeatedly iterates throughout scripture that God appoints and removes all rulers. That doesn’t mean that all rulers are men of God, it just means that all things work together toward’s God’s purpose, including elections.
If I didn’t have the conviction that Jesus is the Lord and Saviour of us all in my heart, it would be a lot harder for me to handle instances where I feel my voice is muted out amidst the clamoring of the powers that be. There’s a lot of Americans who were visibly upset and shaken to the point of tears when they saw that Bush won this election. I don’t share that same remorse, because I have faith that God is in control and all things are working toward His purpose. The Southside of Houston, which is a community predominately populated by other Americans who are African slave descendants like me, voted overwhelmingly for Kerry, as did most other working class communities of similar ethnic background. But just like the slaves who had to continue to toil in the fields under the strap of the slave masters, we find our refuge in the Lord. Of course, I guess it’s a lot easier for me to handle ol G-Dubya having at the helm, because I share in a lot of his stated views concerning Christian family values. When it comes to his views on (or lack thereof) leveling the playing field for all Americans, our viewpoints diverge, but we are where we are. 4 more years ya’ll! Make sure you keep your eyes open so that you can watch what it do! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! (ya feel me?)
