To all the Dad’s out there, a special note of appreciation to you for the many ways in which you show love, support, and caring for you children and broader community.
Here’s a note from Democratic Presidential Candidate, Sen. Barack Obama on Fatherhood.
And for the old school hip hop heads out there like me, here’s a flashback to Ed O.G. and the Bulldogs with their classic message, “Be a Father to Your Child.”
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The Daniel Patrick Moynihan characterization that has since been applied to Senator Obama as a result of this speech, may be fitting. The thrust of his message, who can argue with it? The fact that he chose to give a negative message at the black church is specious and at best suspect – why didn’t he give this speech at a non-black religious institution?
During counseling, I once asked a young father why did he turn to a life of thievery? He answered, it is the only way that I can get money to support my wife and children. Politically, I am sure that certain individuals on the Democratic Right were pleased to witness the Senator socking it to the black church that they hate again, I am more suspect of the Senator’s motives!
So far his successes and his failings can be directly attributable to the black church or as a result of the Senator’s mistreatment of the black church. He continues to remind me of the embattled OJ’s relationship with the black community, just a stone’s throw from here I might add. OJ uses the community only when he needs the community to help him to get what he wants, and then he disappears to the other side never to be seen again until he gets in trouble!
The words that he spoke were apparently true, his motive for making the speech at a black church is what is questionable! I suspect that he has taken a page from the bedraggled running back’s book!
The scriptures teach that the end of a thing is better than the beginning. I wait with bated breath to see exactly where this man is headed. In the interim, I hate watching a venerable black institution (our most visible black instituion) being toyed with in order to help an individual acquire political gain.
Senator Obama before he was a United States Representative claimed that he was against the war in Iraq, if true he was stood up against the political currents of the time. I elect to do the same as far as the Senator is concerned, I remain a skeptic!
@ Rev. Solomon,
With all due respect, your position on this matter as I see it is part of the mind-set that has a lot of us not owning up to what it means to be a father in our community. One of the best ways to express your love for someone when needed, is tough love. Get with the program or get out. Sink or swim. Do or die. My way or the highway. I brought you in this world and I have no problem taking you out. How many times have the older generation heard these terms??? Enough times so that we made it to be older.
Obama might have picked a better venue to deliver his Father’s Day message but it was so on point. Tough love is what this generation is lacking. The current black church in no way can be compared to the black church of your day Rev. The black church has become an enabler of sin, of bad choices, of low morals and the sort. According to the black church nowadays, you can go crazy, do anything, but just leave my tithes or heavy donations and God will forgive you. There is very little activism in the church these days across the board. The days of King and X have long gone.
Obama is just a man and Rev. you are right to be skeptical of him and everybody else. I’m watching everybody also. But don’t judge him for giving a message in a place that for all intent and purpose, has become, or is becoming less and less relevant. The black church is not standing up and following in the footsteps of the giants who paved the way for us to get to where we are now. I submit to you that the black church has become mainstream, souled-out, elitist, an enabler of wrong with tired old catch phrases to bring in the loot. Somebody say ” Neighbor, the church is leading our people down a pathway to destruction.” God is not pleased.
Common Sense,
I expected my comments to be viewed with some degree of skepticism on their own merit; however, it has always been the responsibility of ministers to be watchmen on the proverbial wall.
Senator Obama’s missives and comments with respect to parental responsibility is not the problem. I was saved based on two scriptures, one of them in 1 Thess. 5:21 reads: prove/test all things…, seem odd? The Obama phenomenon, that is a Scotch-Irish African who has seemingly caused many in America to go ‘goo goo ga ga’, has inspired a level of raised awareness in me, and a need to sound the warning to my cohorts to be cautious, because we don’t know enough about this man yet. What spirit is he of? Who sent him?
The scriptures often warned of false prophets. There were at least two types, the type that represented a false deity, and the one that talked about God but was still in fact a fake. It hasn’t been that that long, with respect to the Senator, that I understand that he was a secularist – or at least toying around with the idea. At the time something inspired him to join Trinity and now he has run away!
I ran into an old colleague just outside of the train station the other day, and the topic quickly turned to the Senator. I asked, what is it about him…? She replied, he makes you feel good. Er herm! Another gentleman that I met recently after getting off of the rapid transit responded when I mentioned his name, I love him! In the Bay area you have to be cautious when a man says something like, I love him!
There have been many more experiences of this kind where I have met meet individuals who have fallen head over heels in love with a paramour that they knew little about. Well, let’s put it this way, many individuals cannot tell me anything about him except that he used to appear on Oprah, makes them feel good and they love him! Some have augured that he voted against the war; I respond that he wasn’t a United States Senator at the time!
No one has been more critical of aspects of the black church than I have been. I am the inventor of the phrase ‘American Capitalist Church Syndrome’. I began preaching about it well over a decade ago beginning in Monterey California, and I caused a firestorm at an International Conference held in Hunt Valley Maryland 4 or 5 years ago when I raised this topic with a closed audience of international ministers and bishops. Our greedy corporate-minded, this is my fiefdom/enclave/ministry/enlarge my territory/give me a seed offering/build me a bigger house… prelates and ministers would put Rev. Ike to shame! You and I are in agreement…, there is clearly an apparent sense of a loss of mission…!
Having said that, I am not comfortable with a politician that persistently uses problems that are a part of our cultural heritage in order to get a leg up, by taking advantage of the situation or repeatedly airing just our dirty laundry over the airways. He could have made the same points at a non-black church.
I recall reading some of Ofari Hutchinsons (hope I spelled it correctly) works, with respect to black and white Juvenile offenders. Oftentimes white fathers have done just as poorly with their progeny! And having said that, chastising black fathers and excusing white America for its systematic and historical destruction of the black family is patently inexcusable. And what about the white church?
Has he gone into the white church to remind them of how they sanctioned if not encouraged the destruction of black families, father and son relationships and had sex with our little girls, mothers…! Nope! When it is time to rebuke or chastise, he saves his chastisements for the black church, and makes sure that the white church members hear him rebuking and chastising black Americans. Remember again, he is Scotch-Irish and African – he has placed himself above the fray. I wonder what Ishmael thought about Abraham?.
In fact, forget the past – how come Obama didn’t excoriate corporate executives, many of whom earn 400 times as much as their rank and file employees, for failing to provide a living wage for their employee fathers who are attempting to hold their families together on a subsistence wage?
When George HW Bush took a contingent of American executives to Japan a couple of decades ago, including Lee Iacocca, the Japaneese auto executives referred to the American auto executives as ‘gangsters’!
Money is not all that there is to it, but there are many hard-working black fathers holding down two to three jobs, and they are still unable to keep up with the staggering affects and the failure to receive living wage in our current global and greed-driven domestic economy.
My brother, a minister in N. Carolina wrote me this morning asking rhetorically, what is going on in the church? I reminded him that Jesus did not send his disciples to the orthodoxy during his time; The Temple and all of its courses of Priests were just a stone’s throw away when Jesus dispatched his followers to a completely different locale, a place at which they would be baptized anothen!
Had I been a Temple Priest I would have recognized that something is wrong if the Holy Spirit is being dispatched over there, and I am being left over here. And that is much of what I see happening in Christendom and other religious forms today.
Having said that, I am simply concerned that the Scotch-Irish African is still using the black church to get a leg up, even when he is beating black religion and black ministers down – he is not a black American, he does not carry the baggage, don’t forget that!
Addenda: Common Sense,
This is a fact and not something that I made up. Many black Americans experienced others of African descent, who when they reached the American shores from Africa, the West Indies elsewhere, they were elitists who looked down on American blacks.
Some of them assumed that our plight and the experience of disaffection that we were often subjected to in America, was earned if not deserved. Some of them came with the attitude that I will show you how well talented and enlightened brothers and sisters like them would be received given their intellectual prowess and zeal. Of course some of them were disillusioned later (not always the ones from the West Indies) who were treated just as we had been treated. The latter groups of individuals learned that racial prejudice and skin color were the real determinants of whether or not one would we received or not in America.
As I watch Senator Obama move back and forth between American white and black, it is as if he believes that he is somehow above the fray. As you will recall, some have said as much, he does not carry the civil rights baggage. However, it does appear that he has taken sides in that he will make the black side his whipping boys and girls, while taking a more moderate approach while using a different tone with the other side.
Now I sound like a racist right? Actually, I’m simply doing some critical thinking and analysis in determining where he is coming from, for that will portend in a greater sense just which direction he is headed in. I will fight him to the nail if I determine that he is another wolf in lambs clothing who will ultimately damage the psyches of hopeful black Americans, are people have been hurt enough by false saviors in the past.
Someone said: We are all 3 people. We are who we believe we are, who others see us as being, and what we really are (God knows that! My words are not an attempt to tear at Senator Obama; I am simply still trying to figure out, with God’s help, who the Senator happens to be – his public persona to the contrary.
My first pastor allowed a traveling evangelist to remain in his home when running a revival at the church – the pastor was called away for a few days. While gone, the pastor’s wife had to lock all of the girls in their bedrooms and distance herself from
this rabid wolf! Ronald Reagan was correct about one thing – Trust but verify!
@ Rev. Solomon,
I don’t disagree with anything you have just said. You make very good points. Let me clarify my position on Obama.
First and foremost, to be a politician, you have to have a certain mind-set. Politics is a very, very dirty business. To get something done, you have to compromise your morals. To get a bill passed for yourself you may have to vote for something you are totally against. That being said, I think that our people(myself included) are very hopeful that a black man can be President. I just look at it as a natural(albeit painful) progression from being enslaved, treated as less than human, to having our families torn apart and all other atrocities that we have faced as a people.
We are an emotional people and I think that a lot of reaction towards Obama is pent up feelings that go back to our forefathers and foremothers who have worked like hell to make a better life for us. Can Obama save the world? Certainly not. Is he the second coming? Hell no!! I don’t think that we(Obama supporters) see him as such. They just look at who we have put in office time after time after time and time again and see that we have tried it their way and now it’s our time to do it a little different.
We are used to being deceived, let down and lied to. If Obama does the same, we will get over it like we got over Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. All I am saying is to give the brother a chance. And last I checked, if you have one drop of black blood you are black. Since when did that change? And also I left Jimmy Carter off of the list of presidents who I named because I truly believe that he was a just man in his heart and cared about all people. He just did not have a very good term in office.
I am pleased to hear that you understand that my opinions about the Senator are not personal. I don’t have anything against the enantiamorphic Senator. However, at this hour he has neither won my confidence nor my vote. The safety of my sons and daughters as well as the conditions of forlorn nations, 3-rd world and displaced people in the world matter too much for me to help place a man into office who does not have the understanding, requisite knowledge or experience to make a difference yet.
Besides if he stood up for the things that I believe in, an assassin’s bullet would likely rip through his heart. Like Jesus, I recognize that I have a revolutionary bent. Jesus, MLK and others stood up, because they were willing to die for what was right. Politics as usual won’t matter to the people in the long run, regardless of blood-lines.
I cannot turn back the hands of times; however, I could only wish that he had spent the next 4-years preparing himself for such an arduous task. He has the raw materials that could be honed into something wonderful; I believe that he has jumped the gun! Reverend Jackson explained to a group of youngsters at Stanford who wanted to step up to the plate that they should have a bat and not a toothpick when they get there. Again, I am not trying to disparage the Senator, he is a man to be proud of in many contexts, but all that he has possesses now that could be used in office (talk) is a toothpick in my opinion!
Simply consider how and why an unqualified George Bush became President of the United States nearly 8 years ago. Republicans and about 8 million disaffected cross-over democrats irresponsibly voted him into office given an emotional response to the Clinton Presidency. And in my opinion, the Democrats are repeating the same behavior again given their willingness to place another unqualified candidate into office given a histrionic and emotional reaction to the Bush presidency. Emotive/reactive voting I believe will come back to bite us again, and all of us have experienced in repast, those kinds of outcomes. And what have we witnessed with our I am against the war and now I am for the war, or the I am for Hillary and now I am for Obama/student body left, now student body right Democratic legislators? Poor leadership—
I can recall when former Representative Bill Gray left Congress then head of a powerful committee on the hill in order to become head of the UNCF, and before that Delegate Walter Faun troy and others; I was shocked initially by their behaviors. Each of these gentleman discovered that they could be more effective in their pulpits and by holding other offices, if they hoped to see any real changes than by serving in the American government. Given his international fame, what could an Obama achieve internationally if he were to leave the shackles off – the world is going global, the USA won’t matter as much as it does now in another decade or so anyway –except for its vast and ever expanding nuclear arsenal!
You mentioned former President Jimmy Carter, consider the impact that both he and Al Gore have had on the world since distancing themselves from Washington. There is something going on here that likely has to do with biblical eschatology. If you were to think back to Jesus’ time, he turned out to be more effective by avoiding a political strategy in deference to the people who wanted to draft him and make him a political Monarch! There are too many Kings and Priests in bed together now and where has it gotten us?
Senator Obama’s foreign policy views put a bad taste in my mouth, not too mention what I perceive as a venal misuse of the black church. This won’t sound very nice, but like many of our successful entertainers have done in the past when they used the church to get to where they wanted to get to and then they departed, isn’t that what the Senator has done given his farewell adieu my fair lady to his church recently? Give today’s singers some credit at least they stick around, albeit having said that I cannot tell whether they are ‘in the church or out of the church” at times.
I was at a Christian program not too long ago, when a well known singer showed up. He was asked to sing. He replied, I don’t know what to sing, I wasn’t scheduled to be on program. Someone requested that he sing a Marvin Gaye song. Another Christian responded, there are children here. MAN DO I FEEL OUT OF TOUCH AT TIMES, WOW!
I attended a pastor’s anniversary in the mid-west where Jay Moss and Smokey Norful were the headliners. They turned the church into a nightclub. I wondered then, are they in the church or out? Synkretism?
By the Senators own admission, he has been vacant from the black church for the past 20 years apparently. The black church, it seems to me is both the Senator’s whipping boy and at the same time his talisman!
In the end, if he was to prevail and become President – I trust that you will be the one who is right about him, and that my skepticisms about him were! I do not mean to disparage your trust and belief in him in any manner, but I am reminded of a scripture in Ecclesiastes which reads, better is the end of a thing than the beginning – certainly President Bush can identify with that scripture now!
P.S. At the last CBC Legislative Conference that I attended, there were a myriad of grumblings from our black legislators to include Bobby Rush, Maxine Waters et al. They pretty much admitted to us that they simply do not have a sufficient number of votes in order to get anything done. What they said was true, but I witnessed the forlorn looks on the faces of the attendees who were looking to them for solutions, and they pretty much admitted that with 40 votes – we cannot get the kind of legislation brought to the floor to be voted on that matters. One would have to consider whether or not it isn’t time to simply call all of our ambassadors home so that we can work on a new strategy?
@ Rev. Solomon,
The line you said about a Christian saying that there are children present when the singer you mentioned was asked to sing a Marvin Gaye song was very telling. In the high and mighty Christian mind, when they were in the world or not, Marvin Gaye is only associated with Sexual Healing or Let’s Get It On. Little does that person know that Marvin has made some of the most socially relevant or beautiful gospel ever made such as Mercy,Mercy, Me, What’s Going On, Save The Children, Wholly Holy and his beautiful rendition of The Lord’s Prayer.
Common Sense,
Your points are well taken, many believers don’t know much about Marvin’s particular music genre (I don’t claim to), however he demonstrated his social consciousness when he wrote, What’s Going On.?
The other point, however, speaks to the current admixture of religion and what were considered, a couple of decades ago, worldly religious music forms. I keep referring to the CBC; we actually had a discussion several years ago about the new religious forms that were being brought into the church e.g. Hip Hop (Rep. Bobby Rush chaired the discussion). I watched a religious concert on TV afterward where the youth were swaying back and forth, waving their hands in the air while chanting, ‘Do that Praise’. Er herm, do that praise? Lord I feel old!
I try to be flexible myself, however, I am always cognizant of 6 of 7 of the churches that are mentioned in the astral laden book of Revelations. Many of these churches eventually ‘settled into the world’. How about Ebenezer out your way. I read where that church applied for a liquour license for its family life center, hmm?
The Apostle Paul once wrote, we are not ignorant of Satan’s devices. I am convinced that Satan’s number one device is likely deception. Have you considered, I’m sure you have, all of the deception that goes on in American political campaigns and in American political discourse? I heard a great discussion earlier today with regard to Senator Obama and how he is moving everyday closer and closer to the center (in deference to his base).
Back to the subject, I still believe that if one wants to party, that he or she ought to party at a party venue. On the other hand, church ought to be church! Bishop Cleveland in the Bay area once shared that the Hawkins family that grew up in his church were given everything that they wanted by the church. However, he said, when they became famous – they walked off from his church and went off to seek their own fortunes! He felt that they were used!
The church isn’t perfect, but a lot of people are using it as a steppingstone to get where they want – and that particular behavior is not restricted to the black church.
Have you ever considered running for politics, check the CBC site, there was mention of a plan that was to be put into place in order to groom Americans for public office? I planned to run for Congress myself years ago, however, the Spirit, unmistakably stopped me. You have the fire, the erudition, concern, the compassion andthe conviction… to be a great leader.
Having said that, I believe that there is a need for a powerful international organization that is composed of a representative group of people from all over the world that can bring power to bear on the leaders of every nation of the world. Senator Osama with his skills and current visibility could possibly build a 1B person organization, rather than focus on the paltry objective of becoming president of the United States – the world is going global! If you think about it, God’s plan is to establish a new world order upon arrival. God knew beforetimes that white supremacists would be running things.
Most Biblical eschatologists never considered that the USA would be literally occupying Babylon (just a few meters off) when they offered there end-time predictions where the non-existent Soviet Union would be the villainousUber-Power. It would appear that such a distinction belongs to the USA Are we Babylon? Does Obama want to sit on the throne of Babylon with 14,000 number warheards, 8000 sitting in silos and in ships ready to fire, not to mention 40,000 conventional weapons of WMD, UAVs, Sub’s, Spy Satellites…, while telling other nations that you can’t have any or either America or Israel will blow you up? I feel for Hamaz, Hezbollah, Cuba, Venezuela…Africa!
Final thought, of the two I relate to the most Mrs. Obama who stood up one day and spoke what was in every black American heart, i.e., how proud she felt that for once America was voting en masse for a black. Bishop Desmond Tutu said it best, I don’t know why everyone, particularly black Americans, are criticizing the Wright Reverend for simply saying what most black Americans believed themselves. My only regret is that Senator Obama didn’t stand up with her and say to America; and you would feel the same way that my wife does had your people waited for two centuries to witness this day.
She was forced to back down, and she did it I am sure for the sake of the people and her husband; but that lady is a fighter. On any other day and under any other circumstance she wouldn’t have backed down – frankly, I wish that she hadn’t back down that day, even to help save us (Jesus didn’t and still we are saved). If they prevail, the USA will be as hard on her as a first lady, as they were on Hillary Clinton! I do go on…!
Common Sense,
The historical legacy of male rulership has had as its primary objective the suppression of women. The cry for freedom transcends that which males prefer. We have made ourselves weaker given our efforts to keep women impotent.
I cannot emphasize this point strongly enough, and I am not directing my emphatic rhetorical comments at you. Bishop Desmond Tutu said what I have been saying all along, for not only did Senator Obama betray the Wright Reverend but the majority of black Americans have also behaved despicably with respect to the Wright Reverend’s comments.
If we would all be honest, if not ourselves we have heard many of our friends express heartfelt comments about America, similar to what the Wright Reverend said. What would God have to say about this 232 year old nascent nation? I suspect that his feelings would be in line with the Wright Reverend’s conclusions about America.
How hypocritical most black Americans have been in my opinion, just as Senator Obama was when he didn’t stand up – his wife did. Mrs. Obama expressed her true feelings while the Senator and many black Obama supporters engaged in a political shamefaced charade, ala, we are simply holding back on our true feelings in order to get Senator Obama elected, isn’t 400 years of that enough. So much for give me liberty or give me death!
It reminds me of when Jesus asked his disciples to pray with him while he was in his agony. It also reminds me of Jesus the slain lamb that while he was providing miracles, signs and wonders, he had his mega-church following him everywhere that he would go. But what happened when he began to speak out about drinking his blood, eating his flesh, suffering with him or when he announced that he was not running for office? Everyone split, except the women – they were the ones who were faithful up and until his crucifixion. I suspect that if females had been invited to the garden to watch with Jesus that they would not have gone to sleep, not once!
I admire Mrs. Obama; she stood up and said what was on every black American’s mind I suspect. One of the other reasons that I supported Senator Hillary Clinton during the primaries has to do with my belief that it is time for a reintroduction of the feminine principle. The world has been out of balance because of the historical effort by males the world over, to suppress women. If God considers that male suppression a sin, most of us are in trouble and no better than former white slave masters. Ms. Obama will likely make a great leader soon, and her golden prize may or may not be to pursue the office of President of the United States of America. I hope that she will focus on developing international cohesion among individuals of disparate states of the world!
Males want to fight; they do not want freedom for everyone!
In Joel 2, why was it necessary for heaven to speak and say that God’s power was to be poured out on all flesh? I believe that men have suppressed females from almost day one. I believe that most men ignore the most important rule of all, i.e., to treat the other person as you want to be treated. Instead, just as God apparently announced to Eve – now he, Adam, is going to rule over you! That presupposes to me at least that prior to the event, that there was a more egalitarian relationship between Adam and Eve.
It is not simply white supremacy that needs to be abolished, dynastic hegemonic male supremacy also needs to be done away with and replaced with love! Just as some white Americans have not been very nice to us; in the same manner our pappies, grandpappies and some of us have not been very nice to females! We may have forfeited what may have been our birthright! Keep an eye on Mrs. Obama, no matter what the outcome of this current election cycles happens to be – I believe that she is on the way up and that politics as usual are on their way down (and Senator Obama may go down with politics, even he were to become President of the Divided States of America!
Just a few thoughts!