Was Rev. Wright Wrong? ( Redux)

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    When Obama’s minister, Jeremiah Wright, was initially quoted in the news media, I stated in one of my reflections that the big news for me was that white people were so surprised at his comments.  I’ll stand by that statement.  Perhaps more information about the black church might be helpful, to explain how Wright could appear so “wrong.”
    I should say, to begin with, that although my experience with the black church has not been extensive, I have attended Black worship services from time to time; I took a course in black preaching in seminary and preached in a black church as part of that course; and subsequently facilitated a seminary course in black preaching for Starr King School, our UU seminary in Berkeley.  (Two of my African American colleagues had agreed to co-facilitate the class and then for personal reasons had to back out at the last minute, leaving me, a white woman, to do the job.  So about 8 African American seminary students and I spent an interesting semester together, and I learned from them.) 
    Although all black churches are not alike, one can make some generalizations that hold true for many such churches.  The minister is the prophet, the truth-teller, the dominant force of the community.  His word (and it’s a masculine world, by and large) is law.  In the sermon, black preachers typically start slowly, interpreting the scripture for their people, and then build to a climax, which is often dramatic and can include shouting, striding up and down the aisles of the church, and chanting repetitious phrases.  There may be other ministers and lay ministers in the congregation who will minister to the minister by wiping his brow or giving him water, for he may be exhausted at this point, having given his all to call down the Spirit to his people. 
    In terms of the content, the black preacher will speak to the experience and the needs of his people, and the message will often contain prophetic words of justice and/or a specific political message.  Some ministers are more dramatic, more playful, more intense, more “show-offy” than others.  Clearly, Jeremiah Wright is one of these.
    But back to the question, was Jeremiah Wright wrong?  I believe he was wrong in grandstanding, as he has done, at a very crucial time in the candidacy of his congregant, Barack Obama.  Ministers are there to serve others, not themselves or their own egos.  Sure, we all have egos that get dragged into play, sometimes in unfortunate ways–but this election is too important and Obama’s candidacy too threatened to justify Wright’s current behavior.  It appears that he wants his 15 minutes of fame, and if he has to sacrifice his congregant, and our potential president, so be it.  That’s not OK. 
    Rev. Wright, I have to say you’ve got it all wrong this time.

 

One of Every Hundred Citizens in Prisons

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In a recent sermon I quoted a statistic which was incorrect–I thought I had remembered that one out of every thousand adult citizens in this country is incarcerated.  Actually, it is one out of every hundred.  This is one of those figures that is difficult to believe, but it was reported on the front page of NY Times on April 23.

The article went on to say that we are, of course, the world leader in “producing prisoners” (and “producing” is probably the correct term), with China a distant second.  The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world’s population and almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.                 

 
Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized countries are apparently shocked by what they see when they look at our figures.  For example, the U.S. has 751 in prison for every 100,000 people; England’s rate is 151, Germany’s is 88; Japan’s is 63.  Russia is the only country that comes close to us, at 627 per 100,000.
 
Explanations are given: guns easily available, the drug trade, lack of a social safety net, and the American temperament, with its emphasis on individual responsibility.  Several experts have pointed to one salient factor, a surprising one: democracy.  In the rest of the world, criminal justice professionals tend to be civil servants, insulated from popular demand for tough sentencing, whereas we have a highly politicized criminal justice system.
 
Whatever the reason, putting people in jail for long periods of time for dubious reasons is not serving us well.  There is little emphasis these days on rehabilitation–the justice system (surely a misnomer) is mostly heavy on punishment.  So what are these folks going to do when they get out?  Be upstanding citizens that go out and get good jobs and pay taxes, perhaps?  Not a likely scenario.  
   
Maybe we need to ask whom we are punishing and why, and what the result is of all this recrimination.  Vengeance doesn’t work on the individual level, nor on the societal.  Maybe we should consider mercy–at least for those non-dangerous “criminals” who are filling our prisons and stealing our tax dollars from social services and schools–which, incidentally, they could be attending more cheaply than it costs us to keep them in jail.  

 

Moms and Guilt

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Last Sunday I preached on the topic “What Do Our Children Require of Us?”  In this sermon, I pointed out that the consensus of professionals in the field of child development is that perhaps the majority of children in this country are not getting the care that they need in order to grow into healthy adults.  These researchers point to a troubling shift in child-rearing patterns since1970′s, saying that since then there has been a huge increase in the numbers of babies and young children being cared for in daycare, the great majority of which is unsatisfactory.  This conclusion is overwhelming, if you look at the literature.            On Monday, I received a call from a congregant, a mom who has her child in day care, complaining that my sermon had “made her feel guilty.”  I knew this response was a risk I took in preaching this sermon, because women have been guilt-tripped forever about the needs of their children.  If the child has a problem of any kind, look no further than the mother, the “experts” have said, for a very long time.  This has been a heavy burden to bear–it was for me when I was a single mother, and it is for all moms–and I don’t wish to add to that burden.  (The current literature, incidentally, is not “mom-centric,” but more focused on policy.)

    I went on to say in the sermon that I do not consider the daycare problem something that resulted from the women’s movement.  I went on to characterize the problem as a systemic one, referring to national priorities and policies, both in government and in business.  I tried to be clear about this perspective–but the guilt button is easy to push. 
    So for you moms out there in cyberland–I know from experience that we all balance a tremendous load of responsiblity, and it’s easy to blame ourselves when we can’t do it all.  Own only what is yours to own, and no more.  Understand that we are living in a culture that doesn’t really value children and families, so families must struggle in a very difficult context.  Families that have money have more choices; families in which two parents can share the care of children have more leeway; families in work situations that allow them to stay home part or all of the time find child-rearing easier.  But there are those families who have a single mother working two jobs to survive, no interested dad, no extended family around to pick up the slack.  These moms have no choice but daycare, and that daycare should be a lot better than it currently is, and that is the responsibility of all of us.
    Let me end by repeating what I called for at the beginning of my sermon:  “So what is it that children require of us?  I think they require three things: (1) to feel safe, (2) to feel loved, and (3) to feel hope.  Children get these qualities from consistent positive contact from stable, loving adults.”  I hope all of us, parents and non-parents alike, will concern ourselves with the cultural and political changes that are needed for our children to grow into healthy, productive, loving adults.