Bury Me Broken

Black Elite and Black Interests

Responding to a post at Daily Kos entitled Faith Based: Bastardization of the Black Church via Black Commentator, I posted this in reference to Black churches supporting the Republican agenda:

I have listened intently as my mother (history professor and civil rights protester), my uncle (one of the original Freedom Riders) and others discussed a couple of ideas that are still relevant and occurring today.

The first one is that Black elite pastors have been complicit with the establishment, convincing their congregations in the 60s not to be agitators and not to destroy the gains Blacks were making. Secondly, the idea of Blacks being treated as a homogenous body and "assigned" a leader or leaders to represent our entire population.

So, in the 21st century, when certain "elite" ministers of Black congregations are manuevering for their own personal agendas, we in the Black, informed community are not the least bit surprised. When some churches opened their doors to students having nonviolent practice sessions, others met the establishment to say "they don't speak for us." (sound familiar) The sad thing, then and now, is that the congregation is convinced to tow the line from a religious standpoint without understanding the political and personal gains that their religious leader is receiving.

They, like white christians, that are improperly placed in the fundamentalist category, are simply being convinced to 'do the right thing' without consideration that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality but that his ministry for the poor and that which you do for the least was second only to one's personal salvation. The same ministers hammering against homosexuality and abortion make no mention of one of Jesus' primary causes.

As for the other point, it is probably even more frustrating because anyone solicitling Armstrong Williams to convince Black people of anything is as uninformed and ignorant as one can get. If one is trying to get Black voters and support, Williams is the last person Blacks that are moderates, liberals, Democrats or Independents would listen to.

The Democratic party may have taken Blacks for granted in the recent past but they've taken a lot of folk for granted including labor, other minorities and other groups. Although we are loyal, we still need to be riled up, megaphoned and bombarded with the party's platform and continually hammered into understanding that the Republican party offers absolutely nothing to Blacks, Hispanics, poor and middle class whites or blue collar, John Q. average American.

posted by niteskolar @ 12:59 AM