No, it’s not Barack Obama or John McCain. The American Savior is a new book by Roland Merullo that paints the unlikely scenario of Jesus Christ coming back to earth to run for president of the United States.

USA Today says this about the book:”Merullo gently satizes the media and politics in this thoughtful commentary on the role religion plays in America. The book showcases Merullo’s convictions that Christ’s real message about treating others with kindness is being warped by those who believe they alone understand the messiah..”

No doubt, the author develops an interesting premise of Jesus running for a political office. Nevertheless, if the truth be told—Jesus – if you examine the positions he took on various issues from the Bible-- would never be elected president. Let me give you four reasons:

1) Jesus would not be gender exclusive or misogynist. Jesus was radical in his day as it relates to the treatment of woman . In Jesus’ day it was considered politically incorrect for a Jewish man to speak to a woman alone. Yet, in the gospel of John chapter 4, Jesus is shown in dialogue with a five time divorcee, who was not only gave up on marriage and was “shacking-up,” but belonged to the despised ethnic group of his day: The Samaritans. Women were apart of his evangelistic entourage(Luke 8:1-3). Jesus’ position would not be a politically correct one in the face of a country that still struggles with sexism.

2)Jesus would take a stronger stand against racism that most Americans would be comfortable with. Jesus attacked the racism in this day like a pit bull. He often associated with Samaritans, the hated mixed race people of his day(John 4:39-40).He assailed the unconscious racism in the hearts of his hearers, by answering the question:” Who is my Neighbor?” in Luke 10:29-36, making the loathed Samaritans the hero of the story. Jesus himself was called a Samaritan (John 8:48), the equivalent of being called “the n-word,” or some other racial epithet. When 3 out of 10 Americans say they struggle with racism , Jesus would make us shamed of our racial problems.

3) Jesus would not be popular with the Religious Right of his day. Presidential politicians are often concerned with the appasesement of Evangelicals for the purpose of gaining a tactical edge. Jesus didn’t care about votes- he was concerned about character- especially those who claimed to be God’s representatives. The scathing bombast he gave the religious leaders in Matthew 23, lets me know that Jesus did not care about political correctness. Jesus saw the religious establishment in his day as Tartuffe and power hungry.

4) Jesus would be passionately against modern day hedonism. Jesus was careful to warn those who would misinterpret his message by gaining the world at the expense of losing their soul(Matthew 16:26). He rebuked sexual immorality( Matthew 5:27-30), serial divorce(Matthew 5:31-32), and defined marriage in a culture of rampant homosexuality as between a male and female (Matthew 19:1-6).

5) Jesus would not be a good model of bi-partisan leadership. He called Herod, the most powerful politician in Galilee “a fox”(Luke 13:31-32) and ignored Pilate, the governor of Judea (Matthew 27:13-14).

It is quite reasonable to believe from the study of Biblical evidence, that Jesus by his behavior would be deemed a political liability. Jesus would have never been popular in a nation that wants their politicians to be Sisyphean and milque- toast.

A matter of fact, Jesus did not resort to politics, because it was his stern belief that social change is not a matter of legislation but inner transformation ( John 3:3-7).

Well, so much for an American Savior.
In the House,
KJ

An Anti-Racism Curriculum

History doesn’t just teach us, it clears a path.-Stephen A. Smith

So America finally apologized for slavery. The media reported the House of Representatives issued an apology for an act that in my thinking has been the “Achilles Heel” of American social history. (You can find the apology at:www.tracesofthetrade.org).

The news report of what surely should have been an important milestone in our history, barely registered a blip on the radar screen of the electronic media. This is because America has found it difficult to deal with a painful, embarrassing era in this country. As professor Joe Feagin wrote:

“The American slave past is that ghost which we have
not entirely faced, the memory of that institution is a
haunted house we fear to inhabit.”

Perhaps, that is why the news media did not make a big deal out of the apology. America is afraid of that haunted house called slavery. Slavery exposes our nation’s hypocrisy. It demythologizes that democratic cornerstone: “all men are created equal.”

Even so, an apology for slavery is not enough to confront and overthrow the demons unleashed by this horrendous “business arrangement,” constructed by our forefathers to develop American capitalism.

The reason Black America gets so upset over this subject, is because slavery is often trivialized—it’s often treated as a side order on the menu of our nation’s history by mainstream America.

I believe in order to move toward racial reconciliation in this area, we need to educate ourselves to face the unpleasant past of slavery in order to move America from guilt to grief to glory.

For America to do this, Americans must take the initiative to educate themselves about the history of racism and slavery. Most people in our nation know as much about slavery as Paris Hilton knows about being president of the United States.
Due to widespread ignorance about this subject, I have developed what I call: Anti-Racism Curriculum.

This curriculum includes DVD's and books—giving those who want to learn – a starting point to deal with history -- most people in our nation want to forget and forgive too easily.

Here are just a few recommendations:
Traces of the Trade: A Story of the Deep North (DVD). Featured this year on the PBS program, POV, Traces of the Trade is the riveting and disturbing story of a New England family's discovery of their patriarch James Dewolf as head the largest slave trading family in U.S. history. One great line spoken by a family member during a dinner table discussion was this: “white people (when dealing with the issue of the slave trade) must move from guilt to grief.” This documentary will help African-Americans understand why white Americans find slavery a subject difficult to deal with.

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, Harriet A. Washington. Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for the best in non-fiction, this is a book that chronicles the awful use of Black slaves as medical guinea pigs. Often operated upon without anesthesia, The New York Times calls Washington’s book: “A book of outrage.” Medical Apartheid helps us come to the sobering reality that slavery was evil beyond our wildest imagination.

In The Matter of Color: Race and The American Legal Process1: The Colonial Period, A. Leon Higginbotham. The late Judge Higginbotham was a federal appeals court judge and receipt ant of the presidential Medal of freedom. Do you wonder why many minorities often complain about the unfairness of the U.S. justice system? It is because the foundation of juridical bigotry was laid during the era of slavery .A must read for anyone connected with the American justice system.

Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression, Joe Feagin. This is one white guy you won’t see on Fox news or CNN when race is discussed. Dr. Feagin is the leading anti-racism activist in this nation. Author of over fifty books on this subject, Dr. Feagin demythologizes the so called heroism of “Founding Father’s.” Dr. Feagin has a website that addresses race in the media called:Racismreview.com

Oxford African American Studies Center (www.oxfordaasc.com). For a small annual fee, you have access to in my opinion-- to the most comprehensive contemporary and historical study of the black experience from Africa to America and beyond. Developed by Dr. Henry Louis Gates and other scholars, the Oxford AASC is like having a research library at home. The database on the Transatlantic slave trade is powerful.

From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, John Hope Franklin.
This is the classic book on the history of black people in America. Before there was Dr. Henry Louis Gates, there was John Hope Franklin. No one Has done a greater job in telling the tragic, yet rich history of African Americans, then Dr.Franklin.

Other Recommendations: Roots (DVD), the 25th anniversary edition; Unforgiveable Blackness- The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, by Ken Burns; and White Like Me, Tim Wise.

This is just a few items for your consideration. Slavery is a subject that can no longer be trivialized. Americans must be able to speak intelligently about this subject.

The only way to do so is to gain knowledge by research and study.
I believe Francis Beacon said it best, when he said:” knowledge is power.”

Love Them or Hate Them

I was reading the August 1, 2008 edition of USA Today and found something that triggered this blog. It was a review in the what’s New on DVD section. It was a report on the DVD: Joe Louis: American’s Hero... Betrayed.

Here’s the interesting sentence that it hit me like a knockout punch from the “Brown Bomber" himself --"The first black sports hero beloved by whites…"

After reading that line, I said to myself hmm, let me compile a list of black sports heroes historically beloved and loathed by whites. I chose seven:

Black sports heroes loved by whites:
Tiger Woods
Michael Jordan
Joe Louis
Jackie Robinson
Willie Mays
Joe Frazier
OJ Simpson (that was before the murder)

Black sports heroes hated by whites:
OJ Simpson (that was after the murder)
Barry Bonds
Jack Johnson
Muhammad Ali (He could be in either category. Those who love him now have short memories)
Jackie Robinson (April 15, 1947)
John Carlos and Tommie Smith
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Do you notice the character traits of those loved and loathed by whites?
Those in the” love list” tend to be non-confrontational, easy going, non- threating.

On the other hand, those in the “loath list” have what Ken Burns said in his documentary on the first black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson: Unforgiveable Blackness.
These sports heroes tend to be confrontational, protest about racial inequality, or seem to have an intimidating persona.

I’m sure you can name many others. However, the point is that many in mainstream America don’t just judge a black athlete by his or her gifts alone. They bring the same racial bias in the sport arena as they do in society. They would like black athletes to adhere to the philosophy: Just shut-up and play.

The "N"-Word UnPlugged

I’ve heard the “N” Word almost all my life. I can’t remember the first time I heard it. Maybe it was from my mother or some other relative hollering at me when I did something wrong or asked to do something stupid. I suppose; I remember my mom responding to a request I made asking her permission to get a Process (that hair style Malcolm wrote about in his autobiography: “fried, dyed, and laid on the side”), screaming: “nigger are you crazy?”

The N-Word was as common in my life as my ebony skin. It was as common as listening to Motown while playing touch football in the street. Furthermore, it was as common as hearing Jimmy Smith‘s organ groove' outside of the Pine Grill on Jefferson avenue in Buffalo, NY, where I grew up.

The funny thing about it -- is hearing and being called the “N”-Word never really bothered me until my mother moved from the “hood” to the “burbs” and a white boy used it to welcome me to the neighborhood. I’m glad he ran away from me and I didn’t catch him. I was very upset!

The Jesse Jackson controversy over his use of the ‘N’-Word on Barack Obama has engendered a heated discussion on the proper or improper use of this word and who has permission to use it. For example, the Whoppie Goldberg and Elizabeth Hasselbeck debate which took place on The View shows us how tumultuous this subject can be. Things got so hot that—well, let’s say you won’t see them singing together in the next We Are the World video.

Perhaps a history lesson is needed in order for us to understand the pain behind, what can be called? “The most damning word in the history of language.”
According to the African American Registry (www.aaregistry.com), the following gives an etymology of the “N”-Word:

" The history of the word nigger is often traced to the Latin word niger, meaning Black. This word became the noun, Negro (Black person) in English, and simply the color Black in Spanish and Portuguese. In early modern French, Niger became negre and, later Negress (Black woman) was unmistakably a part of language history…
It is probable that nigger is a phonetic spelling of the White Southern mispronunciation of Negro."

The African American Registry notifies us that by the early 1800s, it was firmly established as a derogative name.

The funny thing about it (or the not so funny thing about it), is the “N”-Word is one of many words used over the years to victimize black people. No American group has endured as many racial nicknames as American-Americans.
That is the result of the pathology of America’s continuing history of racism.

But, this racial sickness has been internalized among blacks when we sanction the use of this most hateful word.
How crazy can you be to argue that “it’s all right for black people to use the “N”-word among ourselves,” but we’ll go Nat Turner on a white man if he uses it on us?

Jackson’s use of the ”N”-Word on Obama is quite telling about how much progress we have made in this country, and how much is left to heal.

Here is a black man who might be the next president of the United States of America—the highest political office in the world—who is still called one of the most evil words in the history of etymology.

I suspect that some in the Black community have an addiction to the “N”-Word like an addict enslaved to drugs. No matter what measures are used to detoxify or rehab from this word, some folk can’t quit saying it.
It’s like that song by Blues singer-songwriter: Willie Dixon: “I Can’t Quit You Baby:

We-ell, I can’t quit you baby, but I got to put you down a little while.
We-ell, I can’t quit you baby, but I got to put you down a little while.
We-ell, you done made me mess up my happy home, made me mistreat my.
Only child…

I was riding the Long Island Railroad sometime ago, and some young brothers got on the train talking loudly. The “N”-Word was shooting from their mouths like bullets flying from an AK-47. What was so sick about the conversation is these brothers start complaining about how racist the drunken white construction workers were who was also riding the train?

Personally, I don’t suppose America will never get over using the “N”-Word. Furthermore, for black people to insist on using it, themselves only mean we have become accepting of our own pathology. Perhaps, some of us need a revelation like Richard Pryor. Richard
Pryor traveled to Kenya; and it was there in Kenya, (Pryor profusely used the “N”-Word in his comedy routines), received a revelation like Malcolm X did about Islam when he traveled to Mecca. Pryor began to understand the interconnectedness of African’s in the Diaspora. He said to himself that he would never use this hateful word again.
Actor Samuel L. Jackson I believe said it best in the movie: Coach Carter. When one of the basketball players started using the N-Word, Carter immediately pulled the reigns on it saying these memorable words:

" Don’t you ever use that word again! It defames your
Ancestors and gives white people permission to use it."


To that I say” Amen.”
In The house, KJ

Rev Jax Rocks "The Mic" Again

I was reading the latest edition of Men’s Fitness magazine (August ’08) scouring the cover story on the workout regime of none other than rapper LL Cool J. In addition to learning the exercise routine of the self-proclaimed “Greatest of All Time”
Rapper- I was surprised to discover “Ladies Love Cool James” has completed the final record on his Def Jam contact called: Exit 13.

It just dawned on me after reading about LL’s bump into the sunset, that perhaps the Reverend Jesse Jackson could take a cue from LL Cool J and do an exit 13, maybe to reevaluate his status as a prominent leader in the African-American community.
Just when you thought all the racist rants, incendiary diatribes and abhorrent verbal fusillade was starting to subside concerning Barack Obama- here comes another one. Mind you not from the mouth of some neo-racist iconoclast masquerading as a conservative talk show host- but from someone I thought : would have a brother’s back.
It just goes to show you, like the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright said (who was also accused of hate speech through his vociferous oratory commending America),”Everybody who is your color, ain’t your kind.”

In other words, just because they’re black doesn’t mean they have your back.

For Rev. Jax to crudely rant that he would like to chop off Obama’s balls (or more precisely) “I wanna cut his nuts off”- is proof that blacks can be racist.

Chopping off a Blackman’s reproductive organs is associated with the pernicious legacy of lynching. Anyone who’s studied that dark era of American history knows that to stray-even unconsciously- in this neighborhood is asking for trouble. Anyone black or white, using those words, is proof that their mind has been tainted by racism.
We even have further proof that Jackson’s heart is sick because he also used the ’n-bomb’ in connection with Obama.
I can’t believe Jesse Jackson would go there after knowing, observing, and experiencing personally Civil Rights history.

This wasn’t the first time the good Reverend said something “Off the cuff.” Do you remember “Hymietown?” Further research unfolds this wasn’t the first time Jackson attacked Obama. He accused Obama for ignoring the plight of American-Americans and charged Obama for “acting like he’s white” for failing to denounce the treatment of the Jena Six.

What are we to make of Jackson’s opprobrium? I believe America, witnessing the first presumptive African-American nominee for president, is going through a psychological withdrawal from racial stereotypes associated with this country’s racialized history. America was not prepared for Obama to possibly be the leader of free world and neither was Black America.

Obama represents the bridge between the protest politics of yesteryear of Rev. Jackson and past civil rights leaders, and the politics of multi-ethnic inclusion that seems to be less combative to Mainstream America.

Obama represents a new day and many- both black and white- can’t handle it.

Maybe Rev. Jackson fears change like the rest of America. Maybe he’s angry that the spotlight has shifted from him to Obama. Whatever his issue, He should have taken a page from modern day race arsonists: cloak your anger in covert rhetorical speech.

Then you can only be charged with being a conservative.

The Odd Couple

Remember those famous comedy teams of yesteryear?
Like, Abbott and Costello, Laural and Hardy, Rowan and Martin, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Burns and Allen. Well, add another comedy team: The I-Man and The Pacman. They are the latest odd couple in the seemingly never ending battle on Race in America. These men are the Felix Unger and Oscar Madison that makes you laugh when nothing's funny. Believe me when I tell you both of these men belong together. I'm not buying anything either one of them is saying. All of a sudden, I'm suppose to believe that Imus (the I-Man), got "the Holy Ghost" and is now a righteous defender against the racial oppression of African Americans and Pacman in his response to Imus' quisquilian comment, plays the victim. Wait a minute! I think we have made progress. Two men: one White-one Black, have both finally spoken with one voice: Dumb and Dumber. Both men suffer from a racialized psychosis that is common to most Americans. Each man lives in a state of denial that has been molded and shaped by our country's psychosocial response to racism. So, when I call Imus and Pacman the Odd Couple - they might have more in common with us than you think.

America's Classical Music

It just occured to me that June is Black Music month. The Popes of Blackness decided that February was too short a month to celebrate all the historical and cultural achievements of "a people," who,Susan Taylor says, "refused to die."
So, they designated another month to acknowledge one of the many cultural tributaries of the African American experience: Music
Black Music Month is a recognition and deification of the creation of an art form forged from struggle and suffering. Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes - Black People have used the malfeasance of the American racism experience to create a music that has continued to be worthy of admiration and even envy.
So, it is in honor of this month, that I use this writer's bully pulpit to give attention to Black Music's most powerful art form: Jazz
Jazz is known as America's Classical Music. It's appreciated by many as a global export, but shunned by its own country. So, if you really want to celebrate this month - listen to a Jazz CD. Jazz is the apotheosis of cool. Check out: Miles, Bird, 'Trane, Ella and Sarah and you'll understand what I mean.