Monday, January 14, 2008

Obama's Church of Black Rage?

Whenever I want to check if a statement of racial grievance has any merit, I substitute the word "white" for whatever group is speaking to see how it sounds. How does this sound as a statement of principles for a church?

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly White and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the White religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an European people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a White worship service and ministries which address the White Community.
Pretty scary and skinhead-sounding, eh? Better keep an eye on those folks, right?

But what if it's the statement of the Trinity United Church of Christ, the church attended by Emperor Wizard, er, Presidential candidate and media Golden Boy Barack Obama? Knocking out the slavery/segregation references in the middle, the rest sounds pretty strident. Would a non-Designated Victim Group member be allowed to use such rhetoric? I doubt it.

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