Forget the politics for a moment and look at the effects of the religion on the community. Has no one considered that it’s not a coincidence that so many young black men end up incarcerated if they spend Sundays sitting in church — church of all places, where they surely never question the truth of what they are hearing — listening to the vilest hatred, being told they’ll never get a fair break, having their anger constantly inflamed? Is it any wonder they do stupid stuff when they leave? That so few of them manage to commit themselves to the things that will make them successful?
What about the supposed “Great Racial Divide” in this country? How suprised can we be that African Americans that attend such churches and listen to such preachers assume that all white Americans are prejudiced? If they’re willingly hearing that on Sundays, what must they convince themselves the whites are listening to? If they believe that stuff, even a little bit, what do they tell themselves the white people believe? It would be easy to excuse it as being a way that people are coping with the stress of bigotry in their everyday lives, but I live in a majority African American city, in a majority African American county, where all of the positions of power are held by African Americans and where many neighborhoods are exclusively African American, yet such churches and such preachers are very common here. The permission to hate is very seductive.
Lastly, I don’t know how it is in Chicago, but I’m from the South, and G-D America? G-D anything?! A preacher saying that! Encouraging Young people to sing it? Other preachers calling it a mild profanity?! Please no. I’m not sure what sophistry convinced them that wasn’t taking the Lord’s name in vain, but that’s not one of the commandments that preachers want to be skirting the ragged edge on. Long after questions of Barack Obama’s patriotism are moot, preachers in the black community are going to be trying to teach young people to fear the Lord, because you can’t teach them anything if you can’t teach them that, and this sets that back. Way back.
