Fred Phelps is dead and there is no one to mourn his passing. In the end, poor Fred was abandoned even by the cult his hate built.
One is tempted to see Fred Phelps as an extreme expression of the evangelical impulse. Don’t most prominent evangelicals hate homosexuals just as much as Fred does? Doesn’t the evangelical tribe condemn America for tolerating the sin of Sodom?
Perhaps, but there is a difference. Pastor Fred learned in the early 1990s that condemning America for being soft on sin was getting him nowhere. By spelling out things out in the most graphic and objectionable fashion Fred and family gained the attention of the world. Westboro Baptist was the Church the world loved to hate, and that was fine with Fred so long as he got his headlines. For the next quarter century, Fred and company made hate their private cottage industry by transforming gross, pornographic insensitivity into an art form.
Theologically, Phelps was an old school, Jonathan Edwards Calvinist. Read “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and you’ve got Fred’s theology.
By Alan Bean When I hear people calling for increased border security I know they have never been to the border. Border security officials from a long list of government agencies are as thick as tics; practically tripping over one another.
Moreover, the border area has been reduced to a “constitution-free” zone where fear reigns, especially if you are undocumented or, more likely, if someone you love is subject to deportation. I have been stopped on multiple occasions simply for taking pictures of the border fence or the federal courthouse. Men in uniform briefly confiscated my camera, checked out each picture, and then returned it without apology. The purpose was to intimidate . . . or maybe, with so many people working on the government dole, they were looking for something to do.
Imagine what cities like Brownsville would look like if we doubled the number of border security personnel!
That’s why I was so glad to see this article. Read and learn.
On the dusty road into Sabal Palms Sanctuary, near the banks of the Rio Grande, a sign a mile from the entrance reassures visitors that, despite the foreboding steel barricade ahead, no passport is required to enter through its gates.
Confusion is understandable here. This once-thriving tourist destination was forced to close in 2009 amid uncertainty over the future of the 527-acre palm forest, one of just two such tracts remaining, after the Department of Homeland Security raised a section of border fence north of it. (more…)
Kent McKeever is sticking to his plan to wear an orange jumpsuit throughout the 40 days of Lent. Appearing in the guise of the despised doesn’t just invite stigma; fear is also part of the mix. Kent didn’t anticipate being this afraid, but a big part of the point of this Lenten fast from respectability was feeling like a felon. To get the full dose, you have to lose the rights of citizenship; but Kent is getting uncomfortably close to felon reality. Here is his reflection after Day 8. You will also want to check out this story on the local FOX affiliate, and the excellent story in the Waco Tribune by J.B. Smith (one upside of the downsizing of the newspaper industry is that small market papers can hire writer’s of Smith’s caliber). The word is getting out.
DAY 8
Fear and More War
On Tuesday, I ventured out for the first time in the full authentic orange uniform. At the first stop of my day, someone who has some connection with the local “jail scene” advised me that it was not a good idea to be wearing a real uniform around town, and that I will be picked up and taken to jail. Yes, I am naive and sometimes too trusting of what I hear, so I began for the first time to experience genuine fear. And the next person or two that I discussed the issue with didn’t make matters better when they (jokingly?) agreed that they didn’t want me getting shot! I was and am not that afraid of getting stopped or taken to jail, but I sure don’t want to get shot! (more…)
I didn’t know much about Chokwe Lumumba when I called him up five years ago. I gathered from his name that he was a Black nationalist. All I really knew was that he had served as defense counsel for Curtis Flowers, a man who has now stood trial an unprecedented three times for a crime he did not commit. I didn’t realize I was speaking to the future mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.
Lumumba died recently after serving only eight months in office, apparently of natural causes.
From reading the voluminous trial transcript of Curtis Flowers’ second trial, I knew Chokwe Lumumba was a passionate defender who took his work very seriously. In defending Mr. Flowers, he had crisscrossed the state, interviewing potential witnesses and re-interviewing the state’s hapless witnesses.
If anything, Chokwe appeared to be too invested in the case. As the trial drew to its close, Lumumba told the all-white jury that racial bias was blinding them to the obvious. When I read that rebuke I found myself wishing that he had kept his opinions to himself.
But Chokwe knew he could not vindicate his client at trial. Not in Gulfport, Mississippi. Not that day. All he could do was firm up the record so the appeals court could give his man a second chance. In that case, making direct reference to racial bias was a good plan. The inevitable guilty verdict was eventually reversed on the grounds of racial bias in jury selection.
Chockwe Lumumba was part of the second wave of civil rights activists who no longer saw full integration as realistic or even desirable. They spoke of creating a separate country, comprised largely of “Black Belt” counties in the South, where Black people could chart their own course free from the debilitating influence of White bigotry and racial resentment.
It is ironic, therefore, that a dedicated Black nationalist ended up as mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, a city that was once at the very heart of the never-in-a-thousand-years struggle for White supremacy. (more…)
This Wednesday Bill Jones and traveled to Waco to visit with Joel Gregory, the former pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas who, though white as white can be, spends a lot of time preaching to African American preachers. After a delightful lunch in the faculty dining room at Baylor, we also dropped in on Kent McKeever, an immigration attorney who works with Mission Waco. Kent was wearing an orange jumpsuit. He will be wearing the same outfit throughout the 40 days of Lent. You can find his blogging on his unusual Lenten fast here, but I have pasted his first entry below.
Day One
Kent McKeever
I decided to spice up Lent for myself this year. Instead of giving up sweets or coffee or just TV when there aren’t sports on, I am choosing to wear an orange prison/jail uniform for the 40 days leading up to Easter Sunday (minus Sundays because they are “little Easters” in which we celebrate our God who sets us free). Why, you might ask, as I have been asking myself. The next 40 days will surely reveal some answers to why, both for me personally and for anyone who chooses to join me in this journey as you read about my experience or support the ones who are truly imprisoned in countless other ways. But here’s a start at why I have chosen to spend 40 Days in Orange. (more…)
It is easy to imagine that the suffocating plight of Black inner city neighborhoods is a recent phenomenon. Civil rights leaders sometimes complain that Black youth, especially the denizens of “the hood”, have squandered the opportunities won for them with blood, sweat and tears. And then you read this piece by James Baldwin, written in 1960.
1960, half a decade before the landmark civil rights legislation of the Johnson administration. 1960, eight years before the martyrdom of Martin Luther King, Jr.
1960, three years before Fannie Lou Hamer was beat up in Winona, Mississippi and only four years after Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama.
1960, five years before the controversial Moynihan Report lamented the plight of the “Negro family”.
How could a world so distant sound so much like yesterday, or tomorrow?
James Baldwin may be the least sentimental American writer of his generation. He wrote what he saw. White people were never demonized, nor Black people lionized; Baldwin just described the lives unfolding before him. He didn’t single out villains to hate on or heroes to adore; he described the cage of history in which we all find ourselves trapped.
Baldwin’s essay in Esquire, “Fifth Avenue, Uptown”, was reprinted seven years ago because it said so much that needs saying, except that nobody these days can find the words. We whine, we make excuses, we finger jab, we flap our arms in frustration; but we can’t find the words. We appeal to our own tribe in our own tribal language, rhetoric guaranteed to push the right buttons; but for those outside the tribe its all raving and mumbo-jumbo.
James Baldwin spoke from the very heart of Black America, but the America he described belongs to everybody, in 1960 and in 2014. Baldwin understood white people better than we understood ourselves.
I came across Baldwin’s Fifth Avenue, Uptown essay this morning in the course of reading Larry James’ Urban Daily blog. Larry was talking about those exceptional people who, in every generation, and against all odds, transcend the poverty they were born into. To explain why these “poster children” are irrelevant to the poverty debate, James quoted Baldwin:
The people, however, who believe that this democratic anguish has some consoling value are always pointing out that So-and-So, white, and So-and-So, black, rose from the slums into the big time. The existence — the public existence — of, say, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. proves to them that America is still the land of opportunity and that inequalities vanish before the determined will. It proves nothing of the sort. The determined will is rare — at the moment, in this country, it is unspeakably rare — and the inequalities suffered by the many are in no way justified by the rise of a few. A few have always risen — in every country, every era, and in the teeth of regimes which can by no stretch of the imagination be thought of as free. Not all these people, it is worth remembering, left the world better than they found it. The determined will is rare, but it is not invariably benevolent. Furthermore, the American equation of success with the big time reveals an awful disrespect for human life and human achievement. This equation has placed our cities among the most dangerous in the world and has placed our youth among the most empty and most bewildered. The situation of our youth is not mysterious. Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. They must, they have no other models. That is exactly what our children our doing. They are imitating our immorality, our disrespect for the pain of others.
“The Determined will is rare, at the moment, in this country, it is unspeakably rare.”
I didn’t realize that Greg Abbott had a Tea Party challenger, but he does. Her name is Lisa Fritsch, a Margaret Thatcher Conservative who has been compared to the charismatic Michelle Bachmann.
Fritsch has little chance of unseating Greg Abbott. She has almost no political experience and little financial support. Every Republican voting in the primary knows about Greg Abbott; few will be familiar with Fritsch.
This primary election may just be the Tea Party conservative’s way of introducing herself to the Texas public, but, make no mistake, this woman has a future in Texas politics.
Greg Abbott won the grudging primary endorsement of the Dallas Morning News, largely because he has no real opposition. But the DMN added a cautionary note: “we wish Abbott, 56, would listen carefully to one primary opponent, Lisa Fritsch, who speaks with precision and passion about recasting the GOP as a true opportunity party built from conservative values.”
If you are surprised to see the Tea Party lining up behind a black woman, you shouldn’t be. Fritsch is the kind of minority candidate conservatives adore, largely because she tells them what they want to hear. At least, she appears to. Fritsch believes, for instance, that welfare is an abomination and that undocumented immigrants should be deprived of any form of public assistance. She opposes gun control measures, and is a died-in-the-wool small government conservative. (more…)
Texas Democrats are using Ted Nugent’s outrageous remarks about Barack Obama to embarrass Republican gubernatorial hopeful Greg Abbott and, of course, raise money for the Blue team. That’s business as usual politics. But I have two questions. Why does Nugent talk this way, and why, given his rhetoric, is Nugent such a hit with the politicians?
If you aren’t familiar with Nugent’s history, this Wikipedia article should bring you up to speed.
To my knowledge, I have never heard a single Ted Nugent song, but for the past 40 years I’ve been aware of the man. In the early 1970s his image was everywhere. Nugent’s album covers (see the example above) combined images of electric guitars, wild animals, sleazy sex and shotguns. I found these images less than titillating and had zero interest in hearing the man’s music; but with 30 million albums sold, a lot of people must have been eating this stuff up.
Ted Nugent talks like a pro wrestling heel–the guy who loves to be hated. Extreme lyrics, album covers and violent concert antics gained him an enthusiastic following in the 70s. With the decent of his musical fortunes, Nugent maintained a measure of notoriety by making outrageous comments, such as calling Barack Obama a “subhuman mongrel”.
Nugent, like many Americans before him, mastered the art of foul invective because, when he speaks like a reasonable human being, nobody pays attention. If you crave the limelight, and you have no genuine insights to offer, one must resort to slander and violent rhetoric. Conservative and liberal lesser lights put a different spin on the ball, but the principle is the same. (more…)
Yesterday, William Barber preached a mesmerizing sermon at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference in Dallas. Barber wants to recapture the moral high ground in American politics. You can’t do that, he says, by shilling for the Democrats of the Republicans; you need a moral vision rooted in biblical justice.
Barber’s sermon yesterday centered on the theme of higher ground. When you’re lost in the Wilderness, he says, the temptation to wander into the nearest valley is powerful. Walking downhill seems natural because it is easy. But the snakes live in the valleys. The only safe course is to climb, even if it makes your legs burn and your chest heave. Snakes can’t live at high altitudes, so the goal is to get above the snake line.
Barber doesn’t mess with left/right, black/white, or Democrat/Republican distinctions; he’s all about the cleavage between morality and immorality.
Sounds old school, I know, but when you start with the Bible, that’s where you end up. Yesterday in Dallas, the preacher had his audience on their feet belting out the old gospel standard, Higher Ground.
Lord, lift me up, and let me stand
By faith on Canaan’s tableland;
A higher plane than I have found,
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.
If you have never heard of Dr. Barber or the Moral Monday Movement in North Carolina, check out this brief video. 85,000 men and women rallied in Raleigh earlier this week to protest political extremism. That’s the biggest civil rights crowd in the South since the 1960s.
Dr. Barber’s oratory in the video is restrained compared to the fireworks display he unleashed at the Fairmont hotel in Dallas yesterday. Preaching for a room full of preachers brings out the best, but I suspect the relatively subdued tone in Raleigh was intentional. Barber wants this movement to spread, and that can’t happen if everything depends on his personal charisma.
The Moral Monday movement has been successful because it’s goals are clear, limited and simple. This is an agenda that people of good will can support regardless of party affiliation:
• Secure pro-labor, anti-poverty policies that insure economic sustainability;
• Provide well-funded, quality public education for all;
• Stand up for the health of every North Carolinian by promoting health care access and environmental justice across all the state’s communities;
• Address the continuing inequalities in the criminal justice system and ensure equality under the law for every person, regardless of race, class, creed, documentation or sexual preference;
• Protect and expand voting rights for people of color, women, immigrants, the elderly and students to safeguard fair democratic representation.
A couple of months ago, I attended an all-day briefing in Raleigh and shared my reaction. If you want to know more about the philosophy and strategy underlying the Moral Monday phenomenon, my original post follows.
Moral Monday movement unleashes ‘linguistic trauma’
By Alan Bean
I write this from my motel room in Raleigh, North Carolina after spending the day with the most energized group of movement activists I have ever encountered. You may have heard of the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina. These are the people that made it happen.
Dozens of gifted people have devoted their energies to the Moral Monday (or, more accurately, the Forward Together Moral Movement), but the undisputed leader is the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, a man of gentle power who may be the most gifted civil rights leader to emerge in the United States since Martin Luther King Jr. (more…)
The verdict in the Michael Dunn trial would be maddening and mystifying were it not for a Florida law composed with guys like Michael Dunn in mind.
The legislators (and their NRA buddies) behind the Floridian incarnation of the Stand Your Ground concept weren’t exactly advocating that white middle aged men who are offended by loud music should reach for the weapon in the glove compartment and start firing. Nor did they anticipate that a self-appointed vigilante like George Zimmerman would fondle his firearm, leave his car, and confront an unarmed kid in a hoodie who looked “suspicious”.
But these laws are a proxy for white resentment. They were written for white people who feel threatened by black people, particularly young black males. The law doesn’t explicitly say that, of course, but this stuff isn’t subtle.
Here in the Lone Star State, Greg Abbott, the man who would be king of Texas, is running for the state’s highest office with Ted Nugent at his side. This is the same Ted Nugent who famously called Barack Obama a “subhuman mongrel.” Mr. Abbot thinks it’s okay to talk that way about the president because “I don’t think there is anybody in the state that is disliked more than Barack Obama.”
Theologically, Phelps was an old school, Jonathan Edwards Calvinist. Read “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and you’ve got Fred’s theology.
By Alan Bean
Friends of Justice 