Mass Propers for the Solemnity of 

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

 

Introit:

Let them that sail on the sea, tell the dangers thereof: and when we hear with our ears, we shall admire. 

Ps. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. Glory be…

 

Collect:

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wilder seas where storms will show Your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. Through the same…

 

Epistle - a Reading from the Acts of the Apostles:

Ye brethren, when the ship was caught, and could not bear up against the wind, giving up the ship to the winds, we were driven. And we being mightily tossed with the tempest, the next day they lightened the ship. And the third day they cast out with their own hands the tackling of the ship. And when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small storm lay on us, all hope of our being saved was now taken away. And after they had fasted a long time, Paul standing forth in the midst of them, said: You should indeed, O ye men, have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer. For there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but only of the ship. For an angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, stood by me this night, saying: Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar; and behold, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer; for I believe God that it shall so be, as it hath been told me.

 

Gradual: 

Again, another designing to sail, and beginning to make his voyage through the raging waves, calleth upon a piece of wood more frail than the wood that carrieth him. For this the desire of gain devised, and the workman built it by his skill. 

R. But thy providence, O Father, governeth it: for thou hast made a way even in the sea, and a most sure path among the waves, shewing that thou art able to save out of all things, yea though a man went to sea without art.

 

Alleluia:

Alleluia, Alleluia. Fine broidered linen from Egypt was woven for thy sail, to be spread on thy mast: blue and purple from the islands of Elisa, were made thy covering. Alleluia.

 

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke: 

And it came to pass on a certain day that he went into a little ship with his disciples, and he said to them: Let us go over to the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. And when they were sailing, he slept; and there came down a storm of wind upon the lake, and they were filled, and were in danger. And they came and awaked him, saying: Master, we perish. But he arising, rebuked the wind and the rage of the water; and it ceased, and there was a calm. And he said to them: Where is your faith? Who being afraid, wondered, saying one to another: Who is this, (think you), that he commandeth both the winds and the sea, and they obey him? And they sailed to the country of the Gerasens, which is over against Galilee.

 

Offertory:

And they cried to the Lord, and said: We beseech thee, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. And they took Jonas, and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceased from raging.

 

Preface: 

Thou thyself, O Lord alone, thou hast made heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and all the host thereof: the earth and all things that are in it: the seas and all that are therein: and thou givest life to all these things, and the host of heaven adoreth thee, singing the triumphant hymn...

 

Communion: 

O God of the heavens, creator of the waters, and Lord of the whole creation, hear me a poor wretch, making supplication to thee, and presuming of thy mercy.

 

Jesus Christ in Texas 

by W.E.B. Du Bois 

from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil

 1920

It was in Waco, Texas.

The convict guard laughed. "I don't know," he said, "I hadn't thought of that." He hesitated and looked at the stranger curiously. In the solemn twilight he got an impression of unusual height and soft, dark eyes. "Curious sort of acquaintance for the colonel," he thought; then he continued aloud: "But that nigger there is bad, a born thief, and ought to be sent up for life; got ten years last time—"

Here the voice of the promoter, talking within, broke in; he was bending over his figures, sitting by the colonel. He was slight, with a sharp nose.

"The convicts," he said, "would cost us $96 a year and board. Well, we can squeeze this so that it won't be over $125 apiece. Now if these fellows are driven, they can build this line within twelve months. It will be running by next April. Freights will fall fifty per cent. Why, man, you'll be a millionaire in less than ten years."

The colonel started. He was a thick, short man, with a clean-shaven face and a certain air of breeding about the lines of his countenance; the word millionaire sounded well to his ears. He thought—he thought a great deal; he almost heard the puff of the fearfully costly automobile that was coming up the road, and he said:

"I suppose we might as well hire them."

"Of course," answered the promoter.

The voice of the tall stranger in the corner broke in here:

"It will be a good thing for them?" he said, half in question.

The colonel moved. "The guard makes strange friends," he thought to himself. "What's this man doing here, anyway?" He looked at him, or rather looked at his eyes, and then somehow he felt a warming toward him. He said:

"Well, at least, it can't harm them; they're beyond that."

"It will do them good, then," said the stranger again.

The promoter shrugged his shoulders. "It will do us good," he said.

But the colonel shook his head impatiently. He felt a desire to justify himself before those eyes, and he answered: "Yes, it will do them good; or at any rate it won't make them any worse than they are." Then he started to say something else, but here sure enough the sound of the automobile breathing at the gate stopped him and they all arose.

"It is settled, then," said the promoter.

"Yes," said the colonel, turning toward the stranger again. "Are you going into town?" he asked with the Southern courtesy of white men to white men in a country town. The stranger said he was. "Then come along in my machine. I want to talk with you about this."

They went out to the car. The stranger as he went turned again to look back at the convict. He was a tall, powerfully built black fellow. His face was sullen, with a low forehead, thick, hanging lips, and bitter eyes. There was revolt written about his mouth despite the hang-dog expression. He stood bending over his pile of stones, pounding listlessly. Beside him stood a boy of twelve,—yellow, with a hunted, crafty look. The convict raised his eyes and they met the eyes of the stranger. The hammer fell from his hands.

The stranger turned slowly toward the automobile and the colonel introduced him. He had not exactly caught his name, but he mumbled something as he presented him to his wife and little girl, who were waiting.

As they whirled away the colonel started to talk, but the stranger had taken the little girl into his lap and together they conversed in low tones all the way home.

In some way, they did not exactly know how, they got the impression that the man was a teacher and, of course, he must be a foreigner. The long, cloak-like coat told this. They rode in the twilight through the lighted town and at last drew up before the colonel's mansion, with its ghost-like pillars.

The lady in the back seat was thinking of the guests she had invited to dinner and was wondering if she ought not to ask this man to stay. He seemed cultured and she supposed he was some acquaintance of the colonel's. It would be rather interesting to have him there, with the judge's wife and daughter and the rector. She spoke almost before she thought:

"You will enter and rest awhile?"

The colonel and the little girl insisted. For a moment the stranger seemed about to refuse. He said he had some business for his father, about town. Then for the child's sake he consented.

Up the steps they went and into the dark parlor where they sat and talked a long time. It was a curious conversation. Afterwards they did not remember exactly what was said and yet they all remembered a certain strange satisfaction in that long, low talk.

Finally the nurse came for the reluctant child and the hostess bethought herself:

"We will have a cup of tea; you will be dry and tired."

She rang and switched on a blaze of light. With one accord they all looked at the stranger, for they had hardly seen him well in the glooming twilight. The woman started in amazement and the colonel half rose in anger. Why, the man was a mulatto, surely; even if he did not own the Negro blood, their practised eyes knew it. He was tall and straight and the coat looked like a Jewish gabardine. His hair hung in close curls far down the sides of his face and his face was olive, even yellow.

A peremptory order rose to the colonel's lips and froze there as he caught the stranger's eyes. Those eyes,—where had he seen those eyes before? He remembered them long years ago. The soft, tear-filled eyes of a brown girl. He remembered many things, and his face grew drawn and white. Those eyes kept burning into him, even when they were turned half away toward the staircase, where the white figure of the child hovered with her nurse and waved good-night. The lady sank into her chair and thought: "What will the judge's wife say? How did the colonel come to invite this man here? How shall we be rid of him?" She looked at the colonel in reproachful consternation.

Just then the door opened and the old butler came in. He was an ancient black man, with tufted white hair, and he held before him a large, silver tray filled with a china tea service. The stranger rose slowly and stretched forth his hands as if to bless the viands. The old man paused in bewilderment, tottered, and then with sudden gladness in his eyes dropped to his knees, and the tray crashed to the floor.

"My Lord and my God!" he whispered; but the woman screamed: "Mother's china!"

The doorbell rang.

"Heavens! here is the dinner party!" exclaimed the lady. She turned toward the door, but there in the hall, clad in her night clothes, was the little girl. She had stolen down the stairs to see the stranger again, and the nurse above was calling in vain. The woman felt hysterical and scolded at the nurse, but the stranger had stretched out his arms and with a glad cry the child nestled in them. They caught some words about the "Kingdom of Heaven" as he slowly mounted the stairs with his little, white burden.

The mother was glad of anything to get rid of the interloper, even for a moment. The bell rang again and she hastened toward the door, which the loitering black maid was just opening. She did not notice the shadow of the stranger as he came slowly down the stairs and paused by the newel post, dark and silent.

The judge's wife came in. She was an old woman, frilled and powdered into a semblance of youth, and gorgeously gowned. She came forward, smiling with extended hands, but when she was opposite the stranger, somewhere a chill seemed to strike her and she shuddered and cried:

"What a draft!" as she drew a silken shawl about her and shook hands cordially; she forgot to ask who the stranger was. The judge strode in unseeing, thinking of a puzzling case of theft.

"Eh? What? Oh—er—yes,—good evening," he said, "good evening." Behind them came a young woman in the glory of youth, and daintily silked, beautiful in face and form, with diamonds around her fair neck. She came in lightly, but stopped with a little gasp; then she laughed gaily and said:

"Why, I beg your pardon. Was it not curious? I thought I saw there behind your man"—she hesitated, but he must be a servant, she argued—"the shadow of great, white wings. It was but the light on the drapery. What a turn it gave me." And she smiled again. With her came a tall, handsome, young naval officer. Hearing his lady refer to the servant, he hardly looked at him, but held his gilded cap carelessly toward him, and the stranger placed it carefully on the rack.

Last came the rector, a man of forty, and well-clothed. He started to pass the stranger, stopped, and looked at him inquiringly.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I beg your pardon,—I think I have met you?"

The stranger made no answer, and the hostess nervously hurried the guests on. But the rector lingered and looked perplexed.

"Surely, I know you. I have met you somewhere," he said, putting his hand vaguely to his head. "You—you remember me, do you not?"

The stranger quietly swept his cloak aside, and to the hostess' unspeakable relief passed out of the door.

"I never knew you," he said in low tones as he went.

The lady murmured some vain excuse about intruders, but the rector stood with annoyance written on his face.

"I beg a thousand pardons," he said to the hostess absently. "It is a great pleasure to be here,—somehow I thought I knew that man. I am sure I knew him once."

The stranger had passed down the steps, and as he passed, the nurse, lingering at the top of the staircase, flew down after him, caught his cloak, trembled, hesitated, and then kneeled in the dust.

He touched her lightly with his hand and said: "Go, and sin no more!"

With a glad cry the maid left the house, with its open door, and turned north, running. The stranger turned eastward into the night. As they parted a long, low howl rose tremulously and reverberated through the night. The colonel's wife within shuddered.

"The bloodhounds!" she said.

The rector answered carelessly:

"Another one of those convicts escaped, I suppose. Really, they need severer measures." Then he stopped. He was trying to remember that stranger's name.

The judge's wife looked about for the draft and arranged her shawl. The girl glanced at the white drapery in the hall, but the young officer was bending over her and the fires of life burned in her veins.

Howl after howl rose in the night, swelled, and died away. The stranger strode rapidly along the highway and out into the deep forest. There he paused and stood waiting, tall and still.

A mile up the road behind a man was running, tall and powerful and black, with crime-stained face and convicts' stripes upon him, and shackles on his legs. He ran and jumped, in little, short steps, and his chains rang. He fell and rose again, while the howl of the hounds rang louder behind him.

Into the forest he leapt and crept and jumped and ran, streaming with sweat; seeing the tall form rise before him, he stopped suddenly, dropped his hands in sullen impotence, and sank panting to the earth. A greyhound shot out of the woods behind him, howled, whined, and fawned before the stranger's feet. Hound after hound bayed, leapt, and lay there; then silently, one by one, and with bowed heads, they crept backward toward the town.

The stranger made a cup of his hands and gave the man water to drink, bathed his hot head, and gently took the chains and irons from his feet. By and by the convict stood up. Day was dawning above the treetops. He looked into the stranger's face, and for a moment a gladness swept over the stains of his face.

"Why, you are a nigger, too," he said.

Then the convict seemed anxious to justify himself.

"I never had no chance," he said furtively.

"Thou shalt not steal," said the stranger.

The man bridled.

"But how about them? Can they steal? Didn't they steal a whole year's work, and then when I stole to keep from starving—" He glanced at the stranger.

"No, I didn't steal just to keep from starving. I stole to be stealing. I can't seem to keep from stealing. Seems like when I see things, I just must—but, yes, I'll try!"

The convict looked down at his striped clothes, but the stranger had taken off his long coat; he had put it around him and the stripes disappeared.

In the opening morning the black man started toward the low, log farmhouse in the distance, while the stranger stood watching him. There was a new glory in the day. The black man's face cleared up, and the farmer was glad to get him. All day the black man worked as he had never worked before. The farmer gave him some cold food.

"You can sleep in the barn," he said, and turned away.

"How much do I git a day?" asked the black man.

The farmer scowled.

"Now see here," said he. "If you'll sign a contract for the season, I'll give you ten dollars a month."

"I won't sign no contract," said the black man doggedly.

"Yes, you will," said the farmer, threateningly, "or I'll call the convict guard." And he grinned.

The convict shrank and slouched to the barn. As night fell he looked out and saw the farmer leave the place. Slowly he crept out and sneaked toward the house. He looked through the kitchen door. No one was there, but the supper was spread as if the mistress had laid it and gone out. He ate ravenously. Then he looked into the front room and listened. He could hear low voices on the porch. On the table lay a gold watch. He gazed at it, and in a moment he was beside it,—his hands were on it! Quickly he slipped out of the house and slouched toward the field. He saw his employer coming along the highway. He fled back in tenor and around to the front of the house, when suddenly he stopped. He felt the great, dark eyes of the stranger and saw the same dark, cloak-like coat where the stranger sat on the doorstep talking with the mistress of the house. Slowly, guiltily, he turned back, entered the kitchen, and laid the watch stealthily where he had found it; then he rushed wildly back toward the stranger, with arms outstretched.

The woman had laid supper for her husband, and going down from the house had walked out toward a neighbor's. She was gone but a little while, and when she came back she started to see a dark figure on the doorsteps under the tall, red oak. She thought it was the new Negro until he said in a soft voice:

"Will you give me bread?"

Reassured at the voice of a white man, she answered quickly in her soft, Southern tones:

"Why, certainly."

She was a little woman, and once had been pretty; but now her face was drawn with work and care. She was nervous and always thinking, wishing, wanting for something. She went in and got him some cornbread and a glass of cool, rich buttermilk; then she came out and sat down beside him. She began, quite unconsciously, to tell him about herself,—the things she had done and had not done and the things she had wished for. She told him of her husband and this new farm they were trying to buy. She said it was hard to get niggers to work. She said they ought all to be in the chain-gang and made to work. Even then some ran away. Only yesterday one had escaped, and another the day before.

At last she gossiped of her neighbors, how good they were and how bad.

"And do you like them all?" asked the stranger.

She hesitated.

"Most of them," she said; and then, looking up into his face and putting her hand into his, as though he were her father, she said:

"There are none I hate; no, none at all."

He looked away, holding her hand in his, and said dreamily:

"You love your neighbor as yourself?"

She hesitated.

"I try—" she began, and then looked the way he was looking; down under the hill where lay a little, half-ruined cabin.

"They are niggers," she said briefly.

He looked at her. Suddenly a confusion came over her and she insisted, she knew not why.

"But they are niggers!"

With a sudden impulse she arose and hurriedly lighted the lamp that stood just within the door, and held it above her head. She saw his dark face and curly hair. She shrieked in angry terror and rushed down the path, and just as she rushed down, the black convict came running up with hands outstretched. They met in mid-path, and before he could stop he had run against her and she fell heavily to earth and lay white and still. Her husband came rushing around the house with a cry and an oath.

"I knew it," he said. "It's that runaway nigger." He held the black man struggling to the earth and raised his voice to a yell. Down the highway came the convict guard, with hound and mob and gun. They paused across the fields. The farmer motioned to them.

"He—attacked—my wife," he gasped.

The mob snarled and worked silently. Right to the limb of the red oak they hoisted the struggling, writhing black man, while others lifted the dazed woman. Right and left, as she tottered to the house, she searched for the stranger with a yearning, but the stranger was gone. And she told none of her guests.

"No—no, I want nothing," she insisted, until they left her, as they thought, asleep. For a time she lay still, listening to the departure of the mob. Then she rose. She shuddered as she heard the creaking of the limb where the body hung. But resolutely she crawled to the window and peered out into the moonlight; she saw the dead man writhe. He stretched his arms out like a cross, looking upward. She gasped and clung to the window sill. Behind the swaying body, and down where the little, half-ruined cabin lay, a single flame flashed up amid the far-off shout and cry of the mob. A fierce joy sobbed up through the terror in her soul and then sank abashed as she watched the flame rise. Suddenly whirling into one great crimson column it shot to the top of the sky and threw great arms athwart the gloom until above the world and behind the roped and swaying form below hung quivering and burning a great crimson cross.

She hid her dizzy, aching head in an agony of tears, and dared not look, for she knew. Her dry lips moved:

"Despised and rejected of men."

She knew, and the very horror of it lifted her dull and shrinking eyelids. There, heaven-tall, earth-wide, hung the stranger on the crimson cross, riven and blood-stained, with thorn-crowned head and pierced hands. She stretched her arms and shrieked.

He did not hear. He did not see. His calm dark eyes, all sorrowful, were fastened on the writhing, twisting body of the thief, and a voice came out of the winds of the night, saying:

"This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise!"

Prayers for the Trump Presidency

St. Mary Baptist Church, Port Barre, LA, burned down on 26 March 2019

[Since Franklin Graham found it a good thing to call for a "SPECIAL Day of Prayer" for Donald Trump, I thought it meet and right to put together a prayer service. I'm pretty sure it's not what Graham meant, but, oh well.] 

Opening Sentence 

V. Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.
R. Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
Glory be…

Collect 

O God, the source of change, break all chains, stop all wars, and end the hate which causes both, so that your people may live with peace and freedom in Jesus Christ our Liberator. Through the same…

Reading: 1 Kings 21:1-16 

And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread? And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for it: and he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard. And Jezebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city, dwelling with Naboth. And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people: And set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die. And the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who were the inhabitants in his city, did as Jezebel had sent unto them, and as it was written in the letters which she had sent unto them. They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people. And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth is stoned, and is dead. And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned, and was dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give thee for money: for Naboth is not alive, but dead. And it came to pass, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

Psalm 10 

Why standest thou afar off, O Lord? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?
The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.
For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth.
The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.
His ways are always grievous; thy judgments are far above out of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them.
He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity.
His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.
He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.
He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.
He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones.
He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.
Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble.
Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.
Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless.
Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.
The Lord is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land.
Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:
To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress.

Reading: Revelation 13:1-9 

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear.

Verse  

V. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.
R. But let justice run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Alleluia, Alleluia. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Alleluia.

Gospel: Matthew 25:31-46 

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Litany of Deliverance 

From prison and detention camps, from unjust incarceration and from unjust sentences: Good Lord, deliver us.
From crowding and eviction, from hunger and unemployment: Good Lord, deliver us.
From neglect by parents, from neglect by children, from neglect by callous institutions: Good Lord, deliver us.
From starvation and epidemic, from overcrowding of the planet, from pollution of the soil, the air, and the waters: Good Lord, deliver us.
From poverty and disease, from segregation and prejudice, from harassment, discrimination, and brutality: Good Lord, deliver us.
From racism and affluence; from the concentration of power in the hands of ignorant, threatened, avaricious, or hasty men: Good Lord, deliver us.
From propaganda and untruthfulness: Good Lord, deliver us.
From arrogance and unfeeling, narrowness and meanness, from stupidity and pretense: Good Lord, deliver us.
From boredom, apathy, and fatigue, from lack of conviction, from fear, self-satisfaction, and timidity: Good Lord, deliver us.
From retribution at the hands of our victims, from the consequences of our own folly: Good Lord, deliver us.
From resignation and despair, from cynicism and manipulation: Good Lord, deliver us.
From the tyranny of evil men in high office: Good Lord, deliver us.
Through all unmerited suffering, our own and others': Good Lord, deliver us.
Through the unending cry of all peoples for justice and freedom: Good Lord, deliver us.
Through all concern and wonder, love and creativity: Good Lord, deliver us.
In our strength and weakness, in occasional success and eventual failure: Good Lord, deliver us.
In aloneness and community, in the days of our action and the time of our dying: Good Lord, deliver us.
By the needs of mankind and of the earth, and not by our own merits or deserving: Good Lord, deliver us.
Deliver us, Good Lord, open our eyes and unstop our ears, so that we may see the figures of the saints and hear their witness: Good Lord, deliver us.

Intercessions 

For the poor and hungry, for migrant workers and the homeless, the outcast and unemployed: Lord, hear our prayer. 
For single mothers and for children unwanted in their homes: Lord, hear our prayer.
For the wounded, for prisoners and exiles, for all who are persecuted because of conscience or resistance: Lord, hear our prayer.
For the sick and suffering in mind or body: Lord, hear our prayer.
For the mortgaged and manipulated, fearful of crime and competition, pawns in a game of the affluent: Lord, hear our prayer.
For prostitutes; for policemen, jailers, and soldiers; for all prisoners of a degraded and degrading system: Lord, hear our prayer.
For authorities and officials, that they may listen to the voice of the different and weak: Lord, hear our prayer.
For oppressors and exploiters, that they may be confused and disarmed by love: Lord, hear our prayer.
For the masters of war, that they may be given a new transplant of flesh in place of their heart of stone: Lord, hear our prayer.
For all whom we fear, resent, or cannot love; for the unlovable: Lord, hear our prayer.
For those who are dying and have died, in bitterness or tranquility: Lord, hear our prayer.
For doctors, nurses, and social workers, for ministers to the poor: Lord, hear our prayer.
For organizers, students, and writers, all who raise the cry for justice: Lord, hear our prayer.
In thankfulness for all who have been freed from prison, poverty, illness, or fear: Lord, hear our prayer.
For all those things we are not wise enough to ask for ourselves: We call on the Spirit.
We call on the Spirit to bind us in solidarity with all who are using their lives to resist evil and affirm community. Amen.

Prayer for the President

O God our only strength, look with indignation and pity on N., the President of these United States. Break down the fence around his White House that his corrupt heart might be converted and he should heed the cry for justice rising from the suffering people of this land. Teach him that peace is not built by killing, nor justice by repression. Make him the servant and not the exploiter of his people, after the example of Jesus, his Liberator and ours. Through the same...

V. No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
R. We ought to obey God rather than men.

Let us go forth in peace.
Thanks be to God.

[Collect, Litany, and Intercessory Prayers adapted from The Covenant of Peace, a Liberation Prayer Book by the Free Church of Berkeley, 1971.]

Items of Interest: Holy Week

The Democrats’ White-People Problem
by Joan Williams (The Atlantic). «As early as the 1680s, powerful white people were serving up racism to assuage the injuries of class, elevating the status of white indentured servants over that of enslaved black people. Some two centuries later, W. E. B. Du Bois observed that poor white people were compensated partly by a “public and psychological wage”—the “wages of whiteness,” as the historian David Roediger memorably put it. These wages pit people of different races against one another, averting a coalition based on shared economic interests.»

Do Americans Know How Much Trouble They’re In?
by Umair Haque (Eudaimonia & Co.). «America is at a crossroads. A point of no return. A democratic society cannot really survive the three assaults above, and go on being one. They may seem like just daily events in the ongoing sad saga of a troubled nation — but they are not just that. They contain great significance to history, which I feel American intellectuals are doing a poor job of interpreting and presenting to the American people.»

When White People Are Uncomfortable, Black People Are Silenced
by Rachel Elizabeth Cargle (Harper's Bazaar). «Silencing happens when, for white people, hearing the truth is too much; when the truth hangs so painfully heavy on their shoulders that they’d rather get rid of the weight, than actually face the issue head on.»

The Southern Poverty Law Center Is Everything That’s Wrong With Liberalism
by Nathan J. Robinson (Current Affairs) «The Southern Poverty Law Center perfectly shows social change done wrong. It was a top-down organization controlled by an incompetent and venal leadership. It was hypocritical in the extreme, preaching anti-racism while fostering a racist internal culture and being led by men whose own commitment to equality was questionable. It didn’t care about listening to and incorporating the viewpoints of the people it was supposed to serve. It was obscenely rich in a time of terrible poverty, and squandered much its considerable wealth. Finally, it picked the wrong political targets, and focused on symbolic over substantive change. Each of these practices goes beyond the SPLC, and is endemic to a certain kind of “elite liberalism” that desires “progress” without sacrifice. It is the kind of liberalism recognized by Phil Ochs in 1966, and its chief characteristics are a deep hypocrisy and a lack of willingness to seriously challenge the status quo.»

The Sermon Dr. King Didn't Get to Preach

As we commemorate the 51st anniversary of the martyrdom of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., let us consider the words of his last sermon, written 51 years ago today, a sermon he was never able to deliver.

Why America May Go to Hell

My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here tonight, to all of the sanitation workers and their families, and to all of my brothers and sisters, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be in Memphis tonight, to see you here in such large and enthusiastic numbers.

As I came in tonight, I turned around and said to Ralph Abernathy, “They really have a great movement here in Memphis.” You’ve been demonstrating something here that needs to be demonstrated all over the country. You are demonstrating that we can stick together. You are demonstrating that we are all tied in a single garment of destiny, and that if one black person suffers, if one black person is down, we are all down.

If you will judge anything here in this struggle, you’re commanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, or those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight, that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity, and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth. One day our society must come to see this. One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive. For the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician. All labor has worth.

You are doing another thing. You are reminding, not only Memphis, but you are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages. I need not remind you that this is the plight of our people all over America. The vast majority of Negroes in our country are still perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. My friends, we are living as a people in a literal depression. Now you know when there is vast unemployment and underemployment in the black community, they call it a social problem. When there is vast unemployment and underemployment in the white community they call it a depression. But we find ourselves living in a literal depression all over this country as a people.

Continue Reading...

Items of Interest: Fourth Week of Lent

When Fighting Racism Meant Fighting Economic Exploitation
an interview with Erik Gellman (Jacobin). «Though often forgotten today, the National Negro Congress forged a black-led, labor-based coalition in New Deal America that fought white supremacy and the economic exploitation that undergirded it.»

A Field Guide to Bad Faith Arguments
by Aaron Huertas (Medium). Bad faith arguments are common in politics. And while they’ve always been part of political culture, they’re much more rampant on social media. It’s easy to fall prey to bad faith arguments and waste time engaging someone on points that obscure rather than shed light on how we’re all affected by policy and politics. So with that in mind, here’s a field guide for spotting and responding to bad faith arguments and staying focused on the real-world issues that matter.»

The Secret History of Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas
by Carlos Kevin Blanton (Texas Monthly). «It's a dynamic that almost anyone who teaches or writes about Texas’s past grapples with. Many of my students at Texas A&M have firm impressions about Texas history. They see it as the story of how barbed and brutal justice tamed a wild land, bringing civilized modernity to the wilderness and spurring moral and spiritual regeneration. These notions are a part of our identity. We read these enduring narratives in the histories of Walter Prescott Webb and T. R. Fehrenbach. We revisit them in our literature and films. We recite these beliefs about the good and necessary violence in Texas like prayers. All states have bloody pasts. But no state bathes itself in it quite like Texas.»

The Christianization of U.S. Foreign Policy
by Kathryn Joyce (The New Republic) Should be titled "The Evangelical Theocrats Take Over U.S. Foreign Policy". «Even amid an administration stacked with evangelical staffers and advisors, Pompeo stands out. As former CIA director he described the “war on terror” as a holy war and said the U.S. “worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism.” He now readily tells audiences about how he keeps a Bible open on his State Department desk to remind him of God’s truth. One of the driving motivators of Pompeo’s State Department increasingly seems to be what Gardiner calls “well-documented beliefs in the prophetic necessity of the establishment of a ‘Greater Israel’ in order to usher in the End Times”—hardly a stabilizing central principle in an era of nuclear risk. Meanwhile, holding “separate interviews with religious broadcasters,” Gardiner pointed out, means “reaching the white evangelicals who are the single most unwavering part of the voting base of an embattled president.”»

Gluttony
by Henry Karlson (Little Bit of Nothing). «The citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah were prideful in their wealth and power: they used it in excess on themselves, on their inordinate pleasures, to demonstrate their earthly glory; but in their prosperity, they ate away at the resources of the earth, leading to the poor and needy to experience extreme suffering and death. It is in this respect, in the injustice which can be seen tied with gluttony we can begin to understand why gluttony is one of the deadly sins: its nature lies is not in overeating, though that often is a form in which it takes, but in the inordinate taking in of the abundance of the earth at the expense of others, with eating, a necessary function of life, being at the center of the disorder.»

Items of Interest: Third Week of Lent

Where is Jesus in a culture of winning?
by Meghan J. Clark (US Catholic). «When our culture separates so-called winners from losers, the Christian commitment to human dignity is essential. Human dignity is universal and inviolable; it does not need to be earned. For Day, “the gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.”»

Where Do Women Belong? A Critique of Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed
by Kristin Kobes Du Mez (KristinDuMez.com). «Yes, we need to critique the shortcomings of modern liberalism. But we also need a better model of authority, one shorn of nostalgia, patriarchy, and dangerous inattention to abuses of power. Without that, our future may be even bleaker than that which Deneen depicts.»

The World Would Be a Better Place Without the Rich
by Sam Pizzigati (Jacobin). «The awesomely affluent have no net redeeming social value.Their presence coarsens our culture, erodes our economic future, and diminishes our democracy. Any society that winks at the monstrously large fortunes that make some people decidedly more equal than others is asking for trouble. But the trouble the rich engender often goes obscured. Most of us will spend our entire existences without ever coming into contact with anyone of enormous means. In the daily rush of our complicated lives, we seldom stop to ponder how those lives could change without a superrich pressing down upon us. So, let’s ponder.»

The Kamala Conundrum
by Michael Harriot (The Root) «Kamala Harris’ flaws might be significant, but the criticism comes from an examination of her policy and her past. Many of the people who love Harris have seen her on television ripping apart her conservative counterparts and fighting for the values they believe in. She is a newer, aggressive progressive who is willing to fight. Taken at her word, Harris is exactly what America needs. But her deeds make it hard. Those who are reluctant to offer their support after examining her record also have a point. Her past is not prologue, because it is not even her past. Even if she has grown or changed, we have seen the wolf unzip his sheepskin cloak and devour the lambs too many times.»

In Venezuela, White Supremacy Is a Key Driver of the Coup
by Greg Palast (Truthout). «This year’s so-called popular uprising is, at its heart, a furious backlash of the whiter (and wealthier) Venezuelans against their replacement by the larger Mestizo (mixed-race) poor. (Forty-four percent of the population that answered the 2014 census listed themselves as “white.”)»

The Decisions We Don't Realize We're Making: On Chugga Chugga Choo-Choos and White Nationalism
by Ferrett Steinmetz (Ferrett). «The fascinating thing about all of this is that we are awash in firm opinions we didn’t actually realize we had, because nobody challenges them seriously. We’re continually ping-ponged back and forth by ideas that we didn’t generate, and weirdly, we didn’t even realize we’d internalized – they’re just there, so deeply ingrained that we don’t even bother to argue with those ideas, and recoil from anyone who presents an opposing opinion.»

Purim, Sharpeville, and First Things

Sharpeville Massacre, South Africa, 21 March 1960

March 21st marked Purim this year, the day when Jews the world over celebrate their deliverance from the hand of Haman, who "rose up against them and sought to destroy, to slay, and to exterminate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, on the same day, on the thirteenth of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their possessions;" but the Lord "didst nullify his counsel and frustrate his intention, and caused his design to return upon his own head, and they hanged him and his sons on the gallows."

It was also the 59th anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa, which was the atrocity that pushed the Apartheid regime's cruel brutality onto the world stage, beginning a process that would lead to the liberation of millions three decades later, but only after an immeasurable amount of violence, torture, and oppression had been dealt out by that country's white supremacist government. In South Africa, it is called Human Rights Day.

Thus, on the confluence of two important liberation-centered holidays, it is somewhat perplexing that First Things, a publication that claims to be "the leading intellectual journal of its kind in the United States," decided to go down the Blood & Soil road in a manifesto styled "Against the Dead Consensus." As my friend Jeremiah Bailey observed, "First Things' metamorphosis into Breitbart-for-Catholics-that-went-to-College is finally complete."

Indeed, one might have seen this motion toward the alt-right in the offing back in February, 2018 when First Things published "Non Possumus" – a full-blown defense of the Vatican's 19th Century kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy, to be raised and educated in the Catholic faith on the pretext that he had been secretly baptized by his nanny as an infant – followed by editor Rusty Reno's non-apology defending his publication of the subject in order have a more expansive dialogue about "things of the Lord" that "ennoble us" but "but often only after an agonizing process of conformity to his purposes, which are not our own."

And a deeper look will also show First Things' further propensity for publishing (at least) racially tone-deaf articles like this and this.

First Things, a project belonging initially to Richard John Neuhaus and his colleagues, was founded to "confront the ideology of secularism." It has been around since 1989, and, along with the Acton Institute, has been a stalwart of the libertarianish-conservative culture-war Catholicism so ably represented by Robert Novak, George Weigel, Thomas Woods, Robert Sirico, and Neuhaus himself, among others.

Times have changed though, as the authors of this piece observe, and "There is no returning to the pre-Trump conservative consensus that collapsed in 2016. Any attempt to revive the failed conservative consensus that preceded Trump would be misguided and harmful to the right." Their answer to this conundrum? That's the troubling thing.  They propose, in essence, a cultivated Catholic identity politics; a kinder, gentler, and certainly more urbane, white nationalist authoritarianism than currently rolls out of the White House.

Or as Lillian Vogl so aptly put it, "Dammit, Donald Trump makes the patriarchy and nationalism so ugly, crude, and obvious! How can we reframe to make it look refined and principled again?"

Others have done a fine job of responding to the First Things document. Lillian's fine point-by-point response is included below. All I have is lamentation that, with a rich tradition of justice and liberation to draw from, these 13 men and one woman have chosen the path of a religious-integralist America-First ethnonationalism, a path that leads somewhere that, I assure you, we don't want to go.


Wisdom from another of my friends:

This is serious. 

Taking a stand for "the worker" (meaning, the worker of our nation / ethnicity only), in the interests of overt nationalism, combined with opposition to globalism / foreigners is exactly the core ideology of national socialism. 

It is intended to suborn the resentment of the working classes and direct it against the "other." 

It is not Christian, but it is a menace that has seduced Christians before, due to their obsession with "the west." 

Read this and see what's happening. If it looks innocuous or even pleasing, well, that's how this stuff always starts.

Of course, not everyone is unhappy about this. Zebulon Baccelli, of the American Solidarity Party's National Committee, had this to say:

About time! Everyone who feels this way should come to the American Solidarity Party and help us form a new political identity for Americans.

I can't argue with him. If this article reflects your political views, the integralist alt-right-lite element that makes up the ASP is just the crowd you should run with.

A Response by Lillian Vogl to "Against the Dead Consensus"

We oppose the soulless society of individual affluence.

[Cool, I do too. So we’re dismantling unbridled capitalism together, right?]

Our society must not prioritize the needs of the childless, the healthy, and the intellectually competitive. Our policy must accommodate the messy demands of authentic human attachments: family, faith, and the political community.

[Okay, not focusing on the problems of capitalism then... Human attachments are good. What does “accommodate messy demands” mean, though? What if the “demands” are freedom to abuse others in the name of familial, religious, or community “principles”? And who is usually left “accommodating” the needs of the children, elderly, disabled, and other “unproductive” people, with no pay?]

We welcome allies who oppose dehumanizing attempts at “liberation” such as pornography, “designer babies,” wombs for rent, and the severing of the link between sex and gender. 

[Which of these things is not like the other? 🎶]

We stand with the American citizen.

In recent years, some have argued for immigration by saying that working-class Americans are less hard-working, less fertile, in some sense less worthy than potential immigrants. We oppose attempts to displace American citizens.

[Hmm, where have I heard the mantra “X will not displace us” before???]

Advancing the common good requires standing with, rather than abandoning, our countrymen. They are our fellow citizens, not interchangeable economic units. And as Americans we owe each other a distinct allegiance and must put each other first. 

[So we’re going with blatant nationalism in item number 2. Got it. I don’t blame anyone who stops reading here. I have a strong stomach and will keep going for the sake of opposition research.]

We reject attempts to compromise on human dignity.

In 2013, the Republican National Committee released an “autopsy report” that proposed compromising on social issues in order to appeal to young voters. In fact, millennials are the most pro-life generation in America, while economic libertarianism isn’t nearly as popular as its Beltway proponents imagine. We affirm the nonnegotiable dignity of every unborn life and oppose the transhumanist project of radical self-identification.

[So “human dignity” = the right to be born. But after that, you are who the dominant forces in society say you should be. How dare anyone “self identify” their place in the Order?!?]

We resist a tyrannical liberalism.

[“Tyrannical liberalism” is as oxymoronic as “dark brightness.” George Orwell gives you a Nancy Pelosi clap for this subheader.]

We seek to revive the virtues of liberality and neighborliness that many people describe as “liberalism.” But we oppose any attempt to conflate American interests with liberal ideology. When an ideological liberalism seeks to dictate our foreign policy and dominate our religious and charitable institutions, tyranny is the result, at home and abroad. 

[Didn’t even try to explain what this could possibly mean, just asserted the specter of tyranny. No more claps for you. Oh wait, your fragile white male self thinks THAT is what “Nazi” means: Someone not giving you what you think you’re specially entitled to.]

We want a country that works for workers.

The Republican Party has for too long held investors and “job creators” above workers and citizens, dismissing vast swaths of Americans as takers unworthy of its time. Trump’s victory, driven in part by his appeal to working-class voters, shows the potential of a political movement that heeds the cries of the working class as much as the demands of capital. Americans take more pride in their identity as workers than their identity as consumers. Economic and welfare policy should prioritize work over consumption. 

[On second thought, you get another Nancy Pelosi clap for this. This paragraph is absolutely correct. Would it kill you, though, to add one sentence saying “therefore, we should repeal the 2017 Trump/Ryan tax cuts that gave 20-40% tax cuts to business owners and exempted all but the top 1/10th of 1% of families from the generational wealth transfer tax”?]

We believe home matters.

[Is this about keeping women in their place? That seems to be where the headline is going. But wait! There’s more...]

For those who enjoy the upsides, a borderless world brings intoxicating new liberties. They can go anywhere, work anywhere. They can call themselves “citizens” of the world. But the jet-setters’ vision clashes with the human need for a common life. And it has bred resentments that are only beginning to surface. We embrace the new nationalism insofar as it stands against the utopian ideal of a borderless world that, in practice, leads to universal tyranny.

[What actually is this about? Are you seriously suggesting not allowing people freedom of movement? We’re embracing “new nationalism” and the opposite is “universal tyranny”? George Orwell’s corpse is seriously swelling to many times its original size with...something.]

Whatever else might be said about it, the Trump phenomenon has opened up space in which to pose these questions anew. We will guard that space jealously. And we respectfully decline to join with those who would resurrect warmed-over Reaganism and foreclose honest debate. 

[We thought Reagan was our friend, but his policies let women and minorities get ideas about their equality. No more! Trump has given us permission to not be “politically correct” anymore, so we can intimidate women and minorities again with impunity. We’re just asking questions! How dare anyone read sexism or racism into this list!?! That’s not “honest debate” because you can’t prove we have discriminatory intent in our hearts. No more libertarianism being categorized as an ally of the right. We’re ready to go full-on authoritarian, while calling the opposition to authoritarianism “tyranny” without batting an eye.]

Items of Interest: Second Week of Lent

Fragile, Handle With Care: On White Classicists
by Mathura Umachandran (Eidolon). «Classicists are very well placed (I wrote “uniquely” at first, but I don’t want to displace exceptionalism only to re-inscribe it elsewhere) to critique the political realities of racial injustice. That is, classicists are at a fruitful vantage point to expose how the foundational privileges of whiteness have been used to justify imperial systems of control, racial hierarchies and oppressive aesthetic regimes. And yet, the assumption of the cultural superiority of the Greco Roman past as the fountainhead of white Europe is an attitude that is so much a commonplace in our discipline that it hardly goes remarked upon.»

Moral church, amoral society
by Robin Lovin (The Christian Century). «The situation of the Confessing Church, however, is not quite our situation. Bonhoeffer was trying to sustain his church in a place where the state and the political party sought to determine all of the legitimate social options. The 20th century has offered numerous examples of that sort of state, and in many of them, “taking up space” has required real courage and brought real persecution on those who attempted it. It is less clear what it means to take up space that is morally empty.»

Beyond the Wages of Whiteness: Du Bois on the Irrationality of Antiblack Racism
by Ella Myers (Social Science Research Council). «Ella Myers provides an account of W. E. B. Du Bois’s nuanced analysis of the sense of entitlement among whites in the United States. Drawing from Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction and other writings, Myers draws attention to both the concept of a compensatory “wage” that elevates the social status of lower class whites in ways that bind them to white capital, but also to the irrational aspects of antiblack racism. Myers’s essay complements the earlier “Reading Racial Conflict” essay by J. Phillip Thompson on Black Reconstruction, and also makes a direct connection to debates on the role of the white working class in Trump’s electoral victory.»

75 Percent of Republicans Say White Americans Are Discriminated Against
by Peter Wade (Rolling Stone) This surge of white identity politics, not some abstract 'both sides' polarization, is at the root of the current conflict.

White Nationalism’s Deep American Roots
by Adam Serwer (The Atlantic). «King’s recent question, posed in a New York Times interview, may be appalling: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?” But it is apt. “That language” has an American past in need of excavation. Without such an effort, we may fail to appreciate the tenacity of the dogma it expresses, and the difficulty of eradicating it. The president’s rhetoric about “shithole countries” and “invasion” by immigrants invites dismissal as crude talk, but behind it lie ideas whose power should not be underestimated.»

Privilege Masked as Orthodoxy: What the Slander of Cardinal Ticona Reveals
by Jerry Ryan (Commonweal). «But what we are witnessing in many traditionalist groups of the kind that have targeted Ticona is on a different level altogether. Here Catholic identity is being defined as adherence to a rigid and unforgiving moral code and to a formalistic liturgical rite. This is combined with a total disregard and even disdain for social justice and the teachings of Vatican II. The image of a triumphant and glorious church is part of our creed and the object of our hope, but it is not our present reality, and to pretend otherwise is a dangerous form of self-deception. The Kingdom of Christ is not of this world; we are not yet a cortege of white-robed innocents following the Lamb wherever He goes. We are members of a pilgrim church, a community of broken people seeking mercy—and a communion of saints only to the degree that this mercy is received. Beneath all the triumphalism of the traditionalists can be heard the blasphemous prayer of the Pharisee: “I give you thanks, O Lord, that I am not like the rest of men.»

James Cone on Black Jesus

[EHB – In America today, Jesus, who identifies entirely with the oppressed, is black. He is not the emissary of white supremacy, he is not the false white Christ of the slaveholder, the Klansman, the alt-right marcher, or of the President and his followers, but is the One who is himself one of the oppressed and despised, preaching the gospel to the poor, healing the brokenhearted, preaching deliverance to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, setting at liberty them that are bruised, proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord.]

* * * * * * *

«Where is “the opening” that Christ provides? Where does he lead his people? Where indeed, if not in the ghetto. He meets the blacks where they are and becomes one of them. We see him there with his black face and big black hands lounging on a streetcorner. “Oh, but surely Christ is above race.” But society is not raceless, any more than when God became a despised Jew. White liberal preference for a raceless Christ serves only to make official and orthodox the centuries-old portrayal of Christ as white. The “raceless” American Christ has a light skin, wavy brown hair, and sometimes—wonder of wonders— blue eyes. For whites to find him with big lips and kinky hair is as offensive as it was for the Pharisees to find him partying with tax-collectors. But whether whites want to hear it or not, Christ is black, baby, with all of the features which are so detestable to white society.

«To suggest that Christ has taken on a black skin is not theological emotionalism. If the Church is a continuation of the Incarnation, and if the Church and Christ are where the oppressed are, then Christ and his Church must identify totally with the oppressed to the extent that they too suffer for the same reasons persons are enslaved. In America, blacks are oppressed because of their blackness. It would seem, then, that emancipation could only be realized by Christ and his Church becoming black. Thinking of Christ as nonblack in the twentieth century is as theologically impossible as thinking of him as non-Jewish in the first century. God’s Word in Christ not only fulfills his purposes for man through his elected people, but also inaugurates a new age in which all oppressed people become his people. In America, that people is a black people. In order to remain faithful to his Word in Christ, his present manifestation must be the very essence of blackness.

«It is the job of the Church to become black with him and accept the shame which white society places on blacks. But the Church knows that what is shame to the world is holiness to God. Black is holy, that is, it is symbol of God’s presence in history on behalf of the oppressed man. Where there is black, there is oppression; but blacks can be assured that where there is blackness, there is Christ who has taken on blackness that what is evil in men’s eyes might become good. Therefore Christ is black because he is oppressed, and oppressed because he is black. And if the Church is to join Christ by following his opening, it too must go where suffering is and become black also.

«This is what the New Testament means by the service of reconciliation. It is not smoothing things over by ignoring the deep-seated racism in white society. It is freeing the racist of racism by making him confront blacks as men. Reconciliation has nothing to do with the “let’s talk about it” attitude, or “it takes time” attitude. It merely says, “Look man, the revolution is on. Whose side are you on?”»

* * * * * * *

«It is in the light of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus in relation to his Jewishness that Black Theology asserts that "Jesus is black." If we assume that the Risen Lord is truly present with us as defined by his past history and witnessed by Scripture and tradition, what then does his presence mean in the social context of white racism? If Jesus' presence is real and not docetic, is it not true that Christ must be black in order to remain faithful to the divine promise to bear the suffering of the poor? Of course, I realize that "blackness" as a christological title may not be appropriate in the distant future or even in every human context in our present. This was no less true of the New Testament titles, such as "Son of God" and "Son of David," and of various descriptions of Jesus throughout the Christian tradition. But the validity of any christological title in any period of history is not decided by its universality but by this: whether in the particularity of its time it points to God's universal will to liberate particular oppressed people from inhumanity. This is exactly what blackness does in the contemporary social existence of America. If we Americans, blacks and whites, are to understand who Jesus is for us today, we must view his presence as continuous with his past and future coming which is best seen through his present blackness.

«Christ's blackness is both literal and symbolic. His blackness is literal in the sense that he truly becomes One with the oppressed blacks, taking their suffering as his suffering and revealing that he is found in the history of our struggle, the story of our pain, and the rhythm of our bodies. Jesus is found in the sociological context that gave birth to Aretha Franklin singing "Spirit in the Dark" and Roberta Flack proclaiming that "I told Jesus that it will be all right if he changed my name." Christ's blackness is the American expression of the truth of his about the Last Judgment: "Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me" (Matt. 25:45). The least in America are literally and symbolically present in black people. To say that Christ is black means that black people are God's poor people whom Christ has come to liberate. And thus no gospel of Jesus Christ is possible in America without coming to terms with the history and culture of that people who struggled to bear witness to his name in extreme circumstances. To say that Christ is black means that God, in his infinite wisdom and mercy, not only takes color seriously, he also takes it upon himself and discloses his will to make us whole—new creatures born in the spirit of divine blackness and redeemed through the blood of the Black Christ. Christ is black, therefore, not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor, the despised, and the black are, disclosing that he is with them, enduring their humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberated servants.»

Any time you are inclined to take the National Review seriously...

Any time you are inclined to take the National Review seriously as a participant in the discussion of important issues in American civic life, call to mind this 1957 editorial by William F. Buckley, Jr., and consider that the magazine hasn't fundamentally changed; it just, àla Lee Atwater*, disguises its racism more effectively. 

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Why the South Must Prevail 

William F. Buckley, Jr. 

National Review

24 August, 1957 

The most important event of the past three weeks was the remarkable and unexpected vote by the Senate to guarantee to defendants in a criminal contempt action the privilege of a jury trial. That vote does not necessarily affirm a citizen’s intrinsic rights: trial by jury in contempt actions, civil or criminal, is not an American birthright, and it cannot, therefore, be maintained that the Senate’s vote upheld, pure and simple, the Common Law.

What the Senate did was to leave undisturbed the mechanism that spans the abstractions by which a society is guided and the actual, sublunary requirements of the individual community. In that sense, the vote was a conservative victory. For the effect of it is—and let us speak about it bluntly—to permit a jury to modify or waive the law in such circumstances as, in the judgment of the jury, require so grave an interposition between the law and its violator.

What kind of circumstances do we speak about? Again, let us speak frankly. The South does not want to deprive the Negro of a vote for the sake of depriving him of the vote. Political scientists assert that minorities do not vote as a unit. Women do not vote as a bloc, they contend; nor do Jews, or Catholics, or laborers, or nudists—nor do Negroes; nor will the enfranchised Negroes of the South.

If that is true, the South will not hinder the Negro from voting—why should it, if the Negro vote, like the women’s, merely swells the volume, but does not affect the ratio, of the vote? In some parts of the South, the White community merely intends to prevail—that is all. It means to prevail on any issue on which there is corporate disagreement between Negro and White. The White community will take whatever measures are necessary to make certain that it has its way.

What are such issues? Is school integration one? The NAACP and others insist that the Negroes as a unit want integrated schools. Others disagree, contending that most Negroes approve the social separation of the races. What if the NAACP jis correct, and the matter comes to a vote in a community in which Negroes predominate? The Negroes would. according to democratic processes, win the election: but that is the kind of situation the White community will not permit. The White community will not count the marginal Negro vote. The man who didn’t count it will be hauled up before a jury, he will plead not guilty, and the jury, upon deliberation, will find him not guilty. A federal judge, in a similar situation, might find the defendant guilty, a judgment which would affirm the law and conform with the relevant political abstractions, but whose consequences might be violent and anarchistic.


The central question that emerges—and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalogue of the rights of American citizens, born Equal—is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes — the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists. The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage. The British believe they do, and acted accordingly, in Kenya, where the choice was dramatically one between civilization and barbarism, and elsewhere; the South, where the conflict is by no means dramatic, as in Kenya, nevertheless perceives important qualitative differences between its culture and the Negroes, and intends to assert its own.

NATIONAL REVIEW believes that the South’s premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the dmands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way, and the society will regress; sometimes the numerical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence.

The axiom on which many of the arguments supporting the original version of the Civil Rights bill were based was Universal Suffrage. Everyone in America is entitled to the vote, period. No right is prior to that, no obligation subordinate to it; from this premise all else proceeds.

That, of course, is demagogy. Twenty-year-olds do not generally have the vote, and it is not seriously argued that the difference between 20 and 21-year-olds is the difference between slavery and freedom. The residents of the District of Columbia do not vote: and the population of D.C. increases by geometric proportion. Millions who have the vote do not care to exercise it: millions who have it do not know how to exercise it and do not care to learn. The great majority of the Negroes of the South who do not vote do not care to vote, and would not know for what to vote if they could. Overwhelming numbers of White people in the South do not vote. Universal suffrage is not the beginning of wisdom or the beginning of freedom. Reasonable limitations upon the vote are not exclusively the recommendation of tyrants or oligarchists (was Jefferson either?). The problem in the South is not how to get the vote for the Negro, but how to equip the Negro—and a great many Whites—to cast an enlightened and responsible vote.

The South confronts one grave moral challenge. It must not exploit the fact of Negro backwardness to preserve the Negro as a servile class. It is tempting and convenient to block the progress of a minority whose services, as menials, are economically useful. Let the South never permit itself to do this. So long as it is merely asserting the right to impose superior mores for whatever period it takes to effect a genuine cultural equality between the races, and so long as it does so by humane and charitable means, the South is in step with civilization, as is the Congress that permits it to function.

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And yes, I do realize that Buckley walked back much of this later in his life, as one of the below articles discusses. But he set the tone for the magazine with this, and its legacy remains woven throughout the pages of each issue.

More on Buckley, National Review, and racism:

• William F. Buckley, Rest in Praise – Steve Rendell (FAIR.org)
• How William F. Buckley, Jr., Changed His Mind on Civil Rights – Alvin Felzenberg (Politico)
• William F. Buckley and National Review's vile race stance: Everything you need to know about conservatives and civil rights – Kevin M. Schultz (Salon)
• Do Conservatives Know Much About Conservative History? – Jeet Heer (New Republic)
• Conservatives’ self-delusion on race – Joshua Tait (Washington Post)

* Lee Atwater's infamous quote on the Southern Strategy of appealing to the racist vote without looking like a racist yourself was this: «You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”»