Posted on 07/15/2013 6:14:29 PM PDT by drewh
The not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman case has me thinking a lot about a book I first encountered in seminary, Is God a White Racist?, by the Rev. Dr. Bill Jones. As a budding seminary student, it took me by surprise. Now, as a wiser, older professor looking at the needless death of Trayvon Martin, I have to say: I get it.
God ain’t good all of the time. In fact, sometimes, God is not for us. As a black woman in an nation that has taken too many pains to remind me that I am not a white man, and am not capable of taking care of my reproductive rights, or my voting rights, I know that this American god ain’t my god. As a matter of fact, I think he’s a white racist god with a problem. More importantly, he is carrying a gun and stalking young black men.
When George Zimmerman told Sean Hannity that it was God’s will that he shot and killed Trayvon Martin, he was diving right into what most good conservative Christians in America think right now. Whatever makes them protected, safe, and secure, is worth it at the expense of the black and brown people they fear.
Their god is the god that wants to erase race, make everyone act “properly” and respect, as the president said, “a nation of laws”; laws that they made to crush those they consider inferior.
When the laws were never made for people who were considered, constitutionally, to be three-fifths of a person, I have to ask: Is this just? Is it right? Is God the old white male racist looking down from white heaven, ready to bless me if I just believe the white men like Rick Perry who say the Zimmerman case has nothing to do with race?
The lamentation of the African-American community at yet another injustice, the surprise and disgust of others who understand, stand against this pseudo-god of capitalisms and incarceration that threaten to take over our nation.
While many continue to proclaim that the religious right is over, they’re wrong. The religious right is flourishing, and unlike the right of the 1970s, religious conservatism of the 21st century is in bed with the prison industrial complex, the Koch brothers, the NRA—all while proclaiming that they are “pro-life.” They are anything but. They are the ones who thought that what George Zimmerman did was right, and I am sure my inbox will be full of well-meaning evangelical sermons about how we should all just get along, and God doesn’t see race.
Please send them elsewhere.
As a historian of American and African-American religion, I know that the Trayvon Martin moment is just one moment in a history of racism in America that, in large part, has its underpinnings in Christianity and its history.
Those of us who teach American Religion have a responsibility to tell all of the story, not just the nice touchy-feely parts. When the good Christians of America are some of its biggest racists, one has to consider our moral responsibility to call out those who clearly are not for human flourishing, no matter what ethnicity a person is. Where are you on that scale? I know where I am.
I’ll pay to send her ass to Africa...one way.
See David Horowitz's "Hating Whitey"
Try it,sweetheart.The earth might look a bit brighter to you if you do.
I feel less intelligent after reading that crapola.
I wish we’d stop giving idiots like this attention.
I can’t believe they let her step foot in a classroom to teach history.
I give this a 10 on the honking hoot scale...
If God has abandoned you, it may be that it is because your culture is spiritually bankrupt.
Your problem, honey, is that at whatever phony “seminary” you “studied”, y’all spent far too much time reading inflammatory books by boneheads and far too LITTLE time with God’s Word.
The bilge you spew is an outworking of that fatal mistake in your upbringing.
What Seminary did this budding Bull Dyke Racist author attend?
Of course like 90% of blacks Justice means nothing. The only thing that counts is for blacks to get their way.
Sorry Mophead, your side lost. Not because of an unfair trial, but because the trial was fair.
If the article isn’t twisted enough for y’all... check out the comments.
LORD have mercy on us.
There is a way that seemeth right unto the world but is in fact the way of death.Works in so many situations.
satan always overplays his hand.
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