May 15
Maybe We Can’t
This story broke my heart. As the son of a Baptist minister, I can attest that Wright is and was an extreme aberration from how the overwhelming majority of black Christians worship. In church, black people hear about Peter, Paul, Mary, and how to get into heaven. How to forgive. How to love. Not how to vote.
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Well, maybe it’s a regional thing. In Chicago, black church is a real trip. I’ve actually been. The scenes with James Brown in “Blues Brothers” are quite realistic (even the running around and dancing stuff—years ago, the Chicago Gospel Festival was a major civic event). And Reverend Jeremiah Wrong is hardly unusual, nor would he be out of place in most black churches in Chicago. On that score, Obama was quite correct. As for what black church is like in Mississippi or Massachusetts, I couldn’t say. Among Chicagoans, it is a sort of doublespeak; everyone knows about black church, but it isn’t discussed much. Middle class blacks are somewhat embarrassed about it, and upper class blacks stopped going years ago. Lower class Chicago blacks make Sundays into a party scene. Church lasts for hours, then there is the church social, then there is the after church barbecue where people are still dressed up (you’d be amazed how good inner city young black men and women can look when they aren’t trying to dress like hoodlums, and the women wear the most fantastic hats). The talk can be amazing to hear, but you have to really listen as it gets kinda quiet when the only paleface for miles sidles up to the beer cooler. The antisemitism is breathtaking. I happen to have a hebrew first name (as do many Christian Americans) and accordingly was long suspected by many Chicago blacks of my close acquaintance of being jewish. For those who know me, this is rather funny.