Heroes of the 2012 U S Presidential Campaign

Heroes of the 2012 Presidential Campaign

As I watched the ending of the recently released movie, The Butler in which Academy Award Winning Best Actor Forest Whitaker portrays the life of Cecil Gaines, personal butler to American Presidents from Eisenhower through Reagan, I became grateful to persons whom I consider heroes of the 2012 presidential campaign.  After years of retirement, Gaines returns to the White House at the express invitation of President Obama who wishes to thank Gaines for his years of faithful service to the United States.  Nearly fifty years after he first entered the Oval Office, Gaines takes the long walk to the door again but this he does so literally living his wildest dream.  He enters the office to meet the first African American President.  Lee Daniels, the director, allows us to consider countless possibilities for the future of African Americans and other citizens of color, specifically, and the nation, generally, as Gaines turns the corner toward the Oval Office.  The momentous election in November 2008 made Gaines visit with President Obama possible.  Arguably, an even greater possibility occurred four years later with Obama’s reelection which solidifies the Affordable Care Act granting healthcare, dignity and the potential of each citizen to actualize his talents and potential. 

Innumerable nameless and diverse citizens in Florida and Ohio endured heat, humidity, haze in long lines without being given any food, water or chairs in which to sit and rest are heroes of the 2012 presidential campaign in my estimation.  Additionally, the Reverend Al Sharpton, host of MSNBC’s Politics Nation, is also one of the heroes of that election as he consistently sounded a screeching and wailing alarm about the deadly potential of the orchestrated campaign to suppress the vote of African Americans, other citizens of color and immigrants.  Their willingness to withstand such indifference and indignities with the full consent of their local, state and federal governments vindicates the sacrifices of their African American forbears and other American citizens who fought valiantly for the passage of The Voting Rights Act in 1965. 

Wisely and strategically utilizing the invaluable forum of his public affairs show, Sharpton finally actualized his legacy as a Civil Rights activist in awakening sleeping generations to the horror of a systematic use of election law to nullify one of the most socially progressive pieces of legislation in American history.  Future generations of citizens of color and immigrants who will hold elective office and thereby improve the quality of life for their communities within the United States and global village will owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to those voters in Florida and Ohio and Reverend Sharpton for their labor of love which forced the political and governmental establishment to preserve the legal and civil rights a previous generation won with the gift of their lives.  Their heroic deeds in months preceding last year’s election will enable this democratic republic to embrace its pluralistic future with integrity and greater equality.

On the night after the November 2012 election, several Republican Party operatives acknowledged the tragedy and error of the voter suppression effort.  It failed miserably partially because of Sharpton’s efforts and the increasing realization of minorities and immigrants that they would be disenfranchised.  Various local, state and federal judges equally deserve credit for intervening appropriately to ensure the fundamental American right of voting be given to all Americans without contemporary equivalents of the ghastly burdens of poll taxes and literacy tests in the height of segregation in the American South.  Laws requiring a driver’s license or some other form of photo identification in order to vote were passed in the two years preceding the election.  Multiple states passed some type of voter suppression law. 

Fortunately, in key states that could determine the outcome of the election such as Florida and Ohio, these requirements would not decide the election and nullify the votes of millions of Americans in other states.  Considering the low poll numbers of Mitt Romney amongst African Americans, Latinos and other immigrants and President Obama’s ability to earn a sufficient percentage of White voters, it was apparent numerically that Romney could not win without restricting the influence of voters of color and immigrants.  Accordingly, a sinister and inherently un-American decision was made to pursue this dastardly course of legislative and judicial action to ensure Romney’s election and the election of Republicans throughout the nation. 

Parenthetically, several recent documentaries, Gerrymandering and The Best Government Money Can Buy among others, about modern day gerrymandering in Texas, California and other states detail the use of redistricting and other means of devaluing the potency of the African American, Latino, Asian and immigrant vote.  In Texas, four separate congressional districts intersect at a traffic light.  Not surprisingly, this method of drawing district lines divides a Black community and places one neighborhood in four different congressional districts.  As a consequence, the influence of Black voters is negligible in each of these districts.  The White majority will determine the outcome of congressional elections except in the cases of an extremely close race in which the outcome depends upon a percentage point or two.  Given the near automatic reelection of congressional incumbents, such a scenario is very unlikely.   Essentially, the combination of deceitful redistricting in which both major political parties engage to protect their interests and sustained voter suppression efforts will relegate the strength and effect of voters of color and immigrants to the days of segregation before the Voting Rights Acts of 1965.

Nonetheless, nameless and numerous voters in Florida and Ohio in addition to other swing states, Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Michigan, were repulsed by the voter suppression attempts.  Some persons in Miami Dade County in Florida stood as long eight hours without being offered food or water to ensure their votes would count.  They willingly suffered through adverse conditions in reaction to the efforts of political operatives to devalue their vote and citizenship.  Similar stories were recorded in Cuyahoga County in Ohio.  In both places, these voters concluded that elections in their states had been stolen in 2000 and 2004.  Residents of Florida felt their votes and citizenship were negated by the U S Supreme Court’s infamous decision, Bush v. Gore, in which five of the nine justices essentially determined the outcome of a presidential election.  Four years late, voters in Ohio showed similar disgust when their votes were ignored by the Secretary of State and the election was given summarily to President Bush although substantial questions remain as to the outcome in that state.  In the 2012 presidential election, these Americans from diverse economic, racial, cultural and ethnic backgrounds determined that their votes would be counted.  Their lingering disgust with the perceived injustices of the two previous presidential elections fueled their resolve. 

Their additional favorable outlook on the policies of the Obama Administration, particularly the Affordable Car Act, mandated their wholesale assault on the menacing campaign to deny their votes.  Their refusal to allow the moneyed interests and other political operatives to intimidate them into cynicism and uncritical acceptance of these injustices actually vindicate the historical legacy of past generations who literally gave their lives in some instances to ensure that average American citizens would have the right to vote.  Ironically, the masterminds of the voter suppression efforts outfoxed themselves.  Once the sleeping masses awoke and discovered these dastardly deeds, individually, they decided to fight against these injustices and inequities.  Heroically, they reacted with their tenacity as they went to court, petitioned their elected representatives and most significantly stood in line to vote.  Demonstrating the very best attributes of personal responsibility, they bore whatever necessary burdens to advocate for themselves and persons with shared experiences.

Those millions of heroes were awakened partially by Reverend Al Sharpton who steadfastly and ingeniously utilized the forum of his public affairs programming and celebrity to warn voters of the looming danger of voter suppression.  After the mid-term election in 2010, Sharpton began to emphasize the need of voters to examine local and statewide initiatives to require government issued photo identification to enable the right to vote.  Further, he stressed the potential impact upon the votes of citizens of color and immigrants.  The combination of denying convicted felons the right to vote, as disproportionately many parolees are Americans of African and Latino descent, and requiring photo identification cards essentially would reduce significantly the numbers and effect of the vote of citizens of color.  In raising this issue to the level of critical public discourse and electoral crisis, Sharpton demonstrated the very best in Civil Rights Movement leadership relevant to twenty-first century challenges and contextualization.  Sharpton commendably embraces the irreversibly emerging pluralism of American society in which race practically, relationally, politically and pragmatically intersects ethnicity, language, culture, religion, sex, creeds, secularism, humanism and even the lack of any religious affiliation.  Advocacy for civil and human rights in the global village necessitates conversations, knowledge and coalitions with diverse constituencies with whom you share common objectives and challenges notwithstanding differing dreams, cultural mores, principles and methods for achieving success.  Insightfully, Sharpton relentlessly sounded the alarm regarding this danger until he woke up snoring diverse communities to this ominous reality of progressive efforts at voter suppression. 

While “Generation X,” the “Millennials,” and their cynical parents meandered aimlessly through the protracted recession, banking catastrophe and seemingly endless housing crisis, the menace of voter suppression would threaten severely if not eventually eliminate their long-term economic and political viability inclusive of quality of life issues relating to retirement, healthcare, education, housing, environment and admission to the middle class.  Conceivably, many of these citizens perceived the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections whereby the ballots and votes of traditionally disenfranchised and underrepresented segments of the United States population had been cancelled through officially sanctioned chicanery.  On their behalf and in tribute to the African American veterans of every war in which this country engaged particularly the First and Second World Wars, the citizens who suffered the aftermath of The Great Depression, the persons who bore the brunt of brutal and senseless segregation and the courageous people who rose up in the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement, Sharpton’s advocacy rose to a piercing crescendo warning of such imminent existential danger to the American body politic.  In some ways, his steadfast cautionary words each evening on his show actually equate with a symphony of democracy and egalitarianism as he strives to ensure all Americans receive equal protection and due process of the law which begins with the fundamental right to vote.

Al Sharpton’s unrelenting attack upon the voter suppression conspiracy redeems the irresponsible race baiting and other political and legal shenanigans he perpetrated within public discourse during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.  Questions still persist relating to the Twana Brawley fiasco of 1987 which resulted in the disbarment of two previously well-respected civil rights attorneys.  No ever accounted for the funds raised during public rallies to protest a possible legal scheme to disregard racism.  Tangentially, an official who was accused as part of that ordeal committed suicide possibly for unrelated reasons; but his name and legacy are forever shrouded by that debacle.  Inexplicably, a sixty-eight count indictment against Sharpton was dismissed summarily.  The breadth and depth of such a bill of indictment lends plausibility to the notion of some type of guilt.  Otherwise, Sharpton was the clear victim of prosecutorial vengeance.  Then Mayor of the City of New York, David N. Dinkins, experienced constant disrespect from Sharpton and his associates.  In an infamous and totally unnecessary press conference at Gracie Mansion, Mayor Dinkins had to remind the New York press corps that he was the duly elected Mayor and thus did not have to justify himself to rogue community activists who had never served in a position of accountability.  Notwithstanding these examples and others historians will cite, Sharpton earned the respect and honor of a future generation.  His revelations of the potentially colossal consequences were the voter suppression campaign to have succeeded will secure him a favorable place in American politics and history.  The sober judgment of history juxtaposing time, distance and analysis of the intersection between personal character and choices with contemporary context will conclude this was Sharpton’s finest moment.

Parenthetically, subsequent to President Obama’s reelection, several states were successful with enacting laws requiring photo identification and other obstacles to the practice of democracy.  Reactionary fears to America’s irreversible pluralism, growth in immigration, rising Tea Party adherents, decline in the Republican Party’s reliance upon White majority voters and apprehension about e country’s standing in the global economy, all, possibly explain the premise and impetus of these laws.  Accordingly, the awakened masses must remain vigilant to protect their interests and continually secure voting and civil rights for all citizens.

On election night in November 2012, I watched the returns enthusiastically expecting President Obama’s reelection.  As I surfed through myriad channels and listened to divergent political pundits who attributed the outcome to Super Storm Sandy, Mitt Romney’s shortcomings as a “flip flopper,” genius of the Obama Biden campaign leaders, shifting demographics in the electorate, lack of a central message by Republican candidates among other explanations, I determined the primary rationale for the results centered upon the tenacity and resolve of countless and nameless millions of American citizens who endured long lines and adversarial condition to vote.  Vindicating the provocative activism and direct civil disobedience of past generations of forward thinking and progressive citizens who demanded their rights, my fellow Americans in Miami Dade County in Florida and Cuyahoga County in Ohio are heroes for today and tomorrow.  These citizens opened the door to a new era in American politics and history.  They laid the foundation for the next few generations of citizens who will face the challenge of complex economic, social, political and religious relationships amongst the world’s most pluralistic population.  They are heroes as they voted to preserve rights and protections benefiting diverse persons who share American citizenship.    

Personal Reflections on Lee Daniels' The Butler

Personal Reflections on Lee Daniels’ The Butler

My wife and I saw Lee Daniels’ greatly anticipated movie, The Butler, during its opening weekend.  Starring Best Actor Oscar winning actor, Forest Whitaker, and Oprah Winfrey, The Butler chronicles simultaneously the individual experience of Cecil Gaines and the collective African American struggle for civil rights and justice from legally sanctioned segregation in the American South through the years of the Reagan Administration.  Specifically, the movie centers upon Gaines experience as a butler to the President of the United States from Eisenhower through Reagan.  As he told in his interview for the job, “The White House has no tolerance for politics,” Gaines directly observes how Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan handle America’s enduring race problem.  Gaines’ initial training in service began after “The Missus” of the Mississippi cotton where he grew up decides to make him a “house nigger” as compensation for her son’s cold blooded murder of Gaines’ father for confronting the her son for raping Gaines’ mother in broad daylight.  Gaines is told to serve and wait on the White family “as if the room is empty to you.”  Upon his arrival at the White House, the chief butler reinforces this instruction. Gaines listens to primary decision-making conversations directly affecting his life and the lives of his fellow thirty million African Americans but it is as he is invisible.  The Butler offers viewers an eerie experience of witnessing the triumphs and tragedies of the interplay between Presidential power, Congressional action, Southern resistance, Civil Rights leaders and protesters and the Black Power Movement through the lenses of an essentially invisible man. 

Personally, I am very leery of Hollywood’s newfound interest in the profitability of telling the story of the African American struggle for freedom, justice and equality with excessive cinematic poetic license designed to make unrequited historical horrors palatable to an uninformed audience.  Consistent with this burgeoning genre of marketable “Black” movies that are acceptable to wider audiences, The Butler glosses over the unparalleled revulsion of lynching and the daily incredulous reality that an African American could lose his life at the hands of any White person for any “reason” and without adjudication and due process of law.  As a child growing up in Sumter, South Carolina in the 1970s and 1980s, I recall passing a house of mourning in “the Black neighborhood” one Sunday morning on the way to church.  There, I would learn that a Black father and future grandfather had been killed by a White man on the previous evening as a result of a questionable gambling game.  They drew pistols and the White man allegedly fired first in self-defense; quite possibly, he did.  However, his words solely sufficed to eliminate any further investigation by law enforcement.  Less than twelve hours after the incident and the death of the Black man, the White man walked the streets freely.  He was observed buying sodas for a few Black children at an ABC store with his winnings from the previous night.  To this day, he has not been arraigned yet alone indicted, tried, convicted or acquitted for firing a fatal gunshot that took the life of a husband, father and provider of a working class family whose children struggle financially for the balance of their childhood. 

The recent acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a seventeen year-old African American male who simply went to a convenience store to purchase a pack of Skittles and an Arizona iced tea, raised the ghost of that memory from my childhood.  However, during Cecil Gaines’ formative years such incidences of the reckless, wanton and indifferent taking of Black life were commonplace.  Both above and below the Mason-Dixon Line, countless African Americans lost their lives due to the entrenched, maniacal racial hatred of individuals and the institutional racism of a judicial system that relegated those lives as not economically worth the cost of investigations and trials.  Hollywood perpetuates these historical crimes when the movie industry adds dramatic excesses to telling these stories to enable everyone to leave a viewing with a good feeling.

Notwithstanding its limitations and deficiencies, The Butler challenges me to expand my view of the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement.  Myopically, I heretofore considered the protesters in the street as the primary agents of change as they coerced the legal and social establishment to enact the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts broaden access of African Americans to all segments of society whether housing, public facilities or educational institutions.  Cecil Gaines’ life embodies the subversive protests of countless nameless persons who resisted segregation in their individual means and methods.  At first glance, Gaines appears to accommodate segregation.  His silence seems to equate with cowardice.  He seems concerned only with his provision for his family.  As the movies progresses, Gaines’ steadfast, gradual and forceful protest against devaluing the worth of African American butlers and employees at the White House unfolds as a personal civil rights movement.  Unrelentingly, he maintains his resistance to this inequity until he succeeds during the Reagan Administration.  Gaines’ efforts eventuate in raises for all White House employees.  His life and example demonstrates the importance of establishing mutually respectful relationships with people and the invaluable role that such relationships play in changing laws and social mores.  Dramatic, nonviolent and public resistance is not the only effective means of transforming society and eradicating historical mistakes.  Cecil Gaines teaches the importance subversive means of protesting injustice.

I was particularly struck by Gaines’ relationship with his two very different sons.  Gaines and his older son, Louis, misunderstood each other.  The son fails to see his father’s stalwart and progressive protest as a butler in the corridors of power.  In fact, Louis loses respect for his father as Louis assumes his father accommodates the injustice of segregation because of a good paying job.  In contrast, Gaines does not fully appreciate the necessity of direct action as power rarely if ever concedes anything to anyone because the person asks politely and correctly.  Louis’ protests inclusive of sit-ins at the lunch counters, freedom bus rides, marches, church rallies and boycotts were very valid as these means forced the legal and political establishment to take affirmative action to transform American laws and society.  Yet, Gaines’ more silent and meek personal protests were equally legitimate.  The movie depicts their breakdown in miscommunication, respect and trust.  The harm to their relationship prevents them from recognizing that they both seek the same goal despite their differing approaches. 

The death of Gaines’ younger son as a soldier fighting in the U. S. Army during the Vietnam War dismantles his myopic view about Louis’ participation in the Civil Rights Movement.  Gaines acknowledges that he did not understand the reasons for the United States entry into that internal conflict of a sovereign South Asian country.  Gaines embodies the invisible African American sacrifices through perpetual generations throughout American history from the American Revolutionary War through Operation Iraq Freedom.  Louis’ myopic estimation of direct protests crumbles as he refuses to accept the Black Panther Party’s approval of revengeful violence.  Louis alters his approach by running for Congress and attempting change via the political establishment.  Simultaneously, Gaines forges forward with his personal campaign to obtain equal pay and promotion for African American staff at the White House.  The Butler concludes with reconciliation between father and son as they both appreciate their arrogance, myopia and judgment in undervaluing each other’s approach to seeking justice and equality for African Americans.

Embedded within this movie about personal and collective African American protest is an impressive, raw and maturing love story.  Through the peaks and valleys of alcoholism, loneliness, relational conflict with children, infidelity and breakdown in communication, Gaines and his wife “stagger forward, rejoicing” in love.  Viewers observe these daily realities and difficulties which anyone who seeks genuine love experiences in Gaines’ marriage.  How he processes this pain, betrayal and disrespect into an authentic and enduring love for his wife viewers are left to imagine.  The longevity of their relationship seems incredible given the cumulative effects and affects of their personal and collective challenges.  Yet, many African Americans faced the existential challenge of cultivating love despite daily adversities of a rabidly racist society and internal self-hatred within and relational conflicts of the Black community.  I applaud Lee Daniels for including this respectful and worthy dimension of Gaines’ life.  I further appreciate Daniels’ esteem of Gaines by leaving private the interior pain and disappointment of his heart.  Yet, I am grateful for Gaines’ example of the expense and rewards of finding and maturing in love which the basis for genuine and redemptive forgiveness.

“It is as if the room is empty to you.”  That line in the movie reverberates through my consciousness!  I doubt I will ever forget it as long as I live.  Lest I lapse into melodrama and sentimentality, I recite that line as it reminds me of the major motif of Ralph Ellison’s brilliant,  compelling and enduringly relevant novel about the invisibility of African Americans as it relates to the history, culture, institutions and ascent to global greatness of the United States.  Stories of the seminal contributions of non WASP, Eastern European, Latino and Asian immigrants abound within American folklore and contemporary discourse.  Many African Americans ignore the harsh historical reality of unparalleled chattel slavery practiced in the American South.  However, a scholarly consensus amongst historians values the property appraisal of slaves at two billion dollars ($2,000,000,000) in gold in 1860.  Prorated for inflation, the contemporary equivalent of that figure would be simply astounding.  Essentially, slavery significantly financed America’s ascent into an industrial and imperial power in the second half of the nineteenth century and her subsequent assumption of superpower status in the global village.  Accordingly, I reiterate the extreme danger of movies like The Butler meagerly addressing the lynching of nearly four thousand (4000) persons in the South.  It is a further fault of the movie to crop the camera and focus the lenses so that story of African American pain is told through a White person’s prism of experience. 

It is reprehensible that Hollywood insists that Black pain requires White validation.  In 1988 when Mississippi Burning was released, its director, Alan Parker, vociferously and vehemently defended his decision to tell the story of the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and the residual murders of countless and nameless other Black Mississippians through the roles of two FBI agents played by Gene Hackman and William Defoe.  In a feature article in The New York Times, Parker insisted, “Quite frankly, it had to be done that way.  That was the only way it could be done.”  A quarter of a century later, with the interim release of Unconquered, a 1989 film depicting the socially progressive sacrifices of former Alabama Attorney General Richmond Flowers, Sr. in 1962; Glory, a 1989 film recounting the sacrifices of Robert Gould Shaw as he led the Massachusetts 54^th Regiment, all Black division, in a Civil War battle; The Ghosts of Mississippi, a 1996 film the concentrates upon the role of Bobby DeLaughter in the eventual conviction of Bryon De La Beckwith for the cold blooded and cowardly of murder of Medgar Evers whom Beckwith shot in the back with a shotgun as Evers wife and children watched; and The Help, last year’s blockbuster success which details the indignities of Black domestic workers through the perspective of an aspiring White female writer; Parker’s insistence that Black pain must be told through the experience of White people continually justifies Hollywood’s marketing approach to releasing “Black films.”  Parker’s defensive and inadequate explanation for slighting the collective, indescribable and incalculable pain of African Americans persists. 

Albeit a profitable means of addressing race and racial injustice on the wide screen, hopefully this genre of movies will mature to future iterations in which the primary expression of Black pain will suffice to encourage and empower all American citizens to create a more just and equitable society.  Who knows, perhaps, Hollywood rather than furthering prevalent racial stereotypes and creating more Black jokes may utilize its unquantifiable influence upon social media and popular culture to fulfill the grand American ideals of the Declaration of Independence.  Will Hollywood join the rising tide of racial, ethnic, religious, cultural and ideological pluralism to establish the inherent value democratic and egalitarian principle that all persons are indeed equal and share certain inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  In its simplest and most unvarnished form, will Hollywood assist all Americans in seeing the worth of African American life as of equal value to their own?  Then, it will no longer be necessary for Cecil Gaines or any other African American to live within a social, economic and political context that remains utterly indifferent to his life and pain.  Then, no longer will the room be empty to Gaines and other African Americans; they will sit alongside the increasing diversity of this great democratic republic where in King’s grandiloquent declaration they are judged by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin.

I did have a few heartwarming moments as I watch The Butler.  I rejoiced during the scenes in which an elderly Gaines and his wife wore “Obama-Biden” tee shirts during the 2008 presidential campaign.  Immediately, I recalled the many senior persons who marched during the Civil Rights Movement and protested in their personal ways who cried on the night of then candidate Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention which occurred forty-five years to the date of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech delivered on the National Mall as the culmination of the March on Washington.  How momentous an occasion it must have been for them to have heard King in the midst of the volatility of the sixties and then to listen to Obama declare “Change has come to America” at the dawn of the twenty-first century!  Additionally, I remembered staying up on election night in 2008 to witness the historical moment of the election of the first African American President.  I cried as I knew how much my beloved paternal grandfather, who voted in every single election and never missed watching any election returns and watched every single “State of Union” address, would have desired to share firsthand in that jubilant occasion. 

Following the President Obama’s inauguration on 20 January 2009, I went to a fly shop and purchased two of the biggest American flags on sale.  One flag flies on the top of a flag pole installed by the previous owners and the other adorns the front door of the house.  I raised the first flag on Presidents Day.  The second flag honors my late brother who died at the tender age of nineteen in a car accident while on active duty in the United States Air Force.  As I watched the official notification scene in The Butler, I very briefly relived the depth of loss of my brother who died serving this country.  To the extent the movie invoked any good and sentimental feelings within me, I imagined how satisfying many African Americans found President Obama’s election as the fulfillment of centuries of dreams and hope that the United States would one day recognize and respect their invaluable contributions to making this country great. 

I have one final favorable reaction to The Butler.  The concluding scene in which Cecil Gaines waits to be ushered into the Oval Office to meet with President Obama metaphorically opens the door to unlimited future possibilities for African Americans and all other persons who become American citizens.  Pluralism, globalization, technology, science, secularism, all, combine to offer boundless opportunities for individual and national progress.  One imagines how gratifying it must have been for Gaines to have visited with President Obama.  In his wildest dreams, did he ever allow himself to consider the day that he would wait upon an African American President?  On inauguration day in 2009, I paused to consider mystically what the White House staff must have felt when the Obamas moved in following the ceremonies.  Could they have ever imagined they would serve an African American family?  Was I one of them, with tears of deep healing and smiles of great joy, I would have welcomed them with genuine gratitude for their sacrifices.

The Butler leaves me with one final question.  What is the Civil Rights Movement of today?  Assuredly, contemporary Americans cannot rest on the laurels of past generations and erroneously assume the successes of yesteryear eliminate the need to expand upon past achievements.  We are approaching the wholesale incarceration of one percent, three million people, of the American population.  Many of these citizens have been wrongly arrested, arraigned, indicted, tried, convicted and imprisoned because of their race, ethnicities, culture and lack of economic resources.  The Innocence Project essentially is a twenty-first century civil rights movement as it relates to crime, capital punishment and classism.  Already, one hundred and fifty men have been exonerated utilizing DNA thereby proving they did not and could not have committed the crimes for which they were incarcerated.  Minimally, they have lost fifteen hundred years of human existence due to prosecutorial misconduct, false eyewitness testimony, racial and class assumptions by jurors, trial errors and other causes of the miscarriage of justice.  Startlingly, some of these exonerated men were on death row with imminent execution dates.  Second, the preservation of good, effective public education is critical to preserving a solid middle class in the United States.  Segregated residential patterns throughout the country have resulted in the practical and pragmatic reversal of the grand aims of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.  Nearly sixty years after that landmark U. S. Supreme Court decision, many students of color attend schools more segregated than the pre-Brown days.  Continual erosion of the quality of public education and its ability to prepare American students to be productive, profitable and contributing participants in the global village significantly threatens the country’s international standing and competitiveness. 

Third, predatory lending injustices persists as Americans of color face sophisticated institutional racism as they strive to attain the American dream of private home and business ownership.  Morally and ethically questionable lenders of the housing crisis in the first decade of this century targeted certain demographical segments as they were deemed ripe for default and foreclosure; realizing huge profits as these people’s expense and dignity.  Fourth, the twenty-first century civil and human rights movement is not strictly an American one.  The epidemic spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa perpetually ravages this nation where Americans fought to end apartheid.  Current activists must return to encourage and empower our brothers and sisters in South Africa and throughout the continent as they combat an assault on their society and posterity equal in proportion to the Black Death in Europe in 1348, the Middle Passage of the Atlantic slave trade, the casualties of the First and Second World Wars and the wholesale genocide of Eastern Europe and Asia throughout the twentieth century.  This disease is one of several others including varying types of cancer, heart disease, obesity, alcoholism and drug addiction which potentially will rob “Millennials” and their children and grandchildren of the centenarian longevity they should easily enjoy if they live healthy, happy and holistic lives.  Distributing healthcare resources in an equitable and just means is a contemporary civil and human rights issue that affects all Americans and global citizens. 

Fifth, dear to my heart, adoption particularly in the African American community is another type of civil and human rights movement as many of the entrenched personal and systemic pathologies could be reversed within one generation if the children in foster care and state custody were adopted into loving and compassionate families.  These family units could train these children with morals, ethics, principles and work ethic enabling them to actualize their talents and abilities.  This familial and relational empowerment undoubtedly will eradicate lingering educational and economic disparities.  Easily, I could list countless other important issues such as the environment, sexuality, ecology, international relations, debt in Africa, trade and economic empowerment within developing countries, and diplomacy in the Middle East that comprise a national and global civil and human rights movement.  Today’s movement requires specialization within one or two issues as the breadth and width of their interrelation with other social, economic and political challenges prevent anyone from acquiring expertise in numerous causes.  Still, each citizen in the global village can choose an issue or two and focus intently upon creating a more just world in which to live celebrating the invaluable wealth of humankind’s diversity.

Whether advocating for legislative, judicial and governmental changes to redress systemic causes perpetuation of racism and other societal inequalities or delivering direct services to individuals as they assume greater personal responsibility, contemporary citizens have an obligation to expand upon the legal, social and political achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in twentieth century America.  Lee Daniels cinematic depiction of Cecil Gaines’ life shows the power of each person to change the world whether through direct action or confronting societal inequality through integrity of personal character and myriad silent subversive ways.

Is Forgiveness Really Possible?

Is Forgiveness Really Possible?

Is forgiveness really possible?  A clergy colleague of mine faces a longstanding, arduous and painful divorce proceeding.  Without any warning signs, his wife vociferously announced her desire for a divorce nearly three years ago.  He responded with a request for counseling and a joint effort of good faith to work toward reconciliation.  At the time, she would not hear any of her requests for repair of the breach of communication, trust, intimacy and friendship in their marriage.  Her pain motivated her to steadfastly seek its dissolution.  Moreover, her pain led to seek comfort in an extramarital affair and relationship which overlapped with her demands for a divorce.  Over the course of one thousand and one hundred days, my colleague faithfully and attentively rode the roller coaster which his wife built as they meandered between stressful jobs, holiday obligations, parental duties, extended family relationships and peaks and valleys of emotions within a provisional relationship in the same living space.  Counseling sessions unearthed a devastating and soul-wounding confession from his wife.  Their children’s birthdays compelled polite hypocrisy.  Nights became lonelier and lonelier as they could no longer justly share the same bed.  Still, in the deep recesses of his mind, he had to wrestle with his mental projections of her infidelities.  What did she do?  How did she do it?  Did she violate the most sacred trust of marital intimacy by sharing sexual exploits with another man that she refused to give generously and unconditionally to the man with whom she made a covenant before God, the Church, their families and closest friends?  Will he be able to obliterate such dastardly and spontaneous images even if they reconcile?  As they near the legal finalization of the requisite paperwork and completion of this grueling process of severing a relationship that consumed more than half of their adult lives, his wife asks for reconciliation!  Considering the foregoing details and many others of which I am not aware as only the man and the woman really know what has transpired over the years, the question remains, “Is forgiveness really possible?”

As my colleague and very good friend and I discussed his predicament, he asked me this question.  How could his wife willy-nilly ask to reconcile after precipitating the most hurtful period of his life second to the loss of his beloved father?  Can he believe anything she says?  He fails to see any signs of genuineness and humility.  Perhaps, the demise of her affair motivates her desire for reconciliation?  Can he forgive her when she persists proudly in denying her behavior and refusal to accept any responsibility for the pain she has caused to him and their family?  All of these questions are corollaries of the primary one, “Is forgiveness really possible?”

With a quarter of a century’s experience in pastoral ministry inclusive of the “disjointed incrementalism of growth” as a counselor, I know I am not to answer anyone’s critically emotional and existential questions.  Accepting the limitations of my prism of experience and incomplete knowledge of relevant facts and contributing factors, I facilitate an internal conversation between my colleague and his heart and psyche.  Practically, his question results in a question I ask him.  “Is there sufficient love in your heart to surmount and transcend any and all your wife’s offenses and enable your genuine forgiveness?”  Strongly, I encouraged him to forsake the temptation to respond from the space of his wounded and shattered ego!  Instead, I suggested he thoroughly and fearless search his innermost heart for even a mustard’s seed of love, faith and willingness to forgive.  As love is the basis for forgiveness, my colleague would have to find miniscule yet authentic love in his heart for his wife in order to answer the primary question affirmatively.  Steadfastly relying upon his carnal mind and cognitive abilities which are so easily seduced by the ego will yield ultimately an erroneous answer.  Arrogance inevitably veils the deep pain of his wounded pride.  Notwithstanding his justifiable righteous indignation and legitimate grounds to proceed toward severing the marriage to the contrary, an enduringly spiritual, just and valid decision could only emerge from his heart.  Relentlessly and irritatingly, I encouraged him to search his heart as if he were combing for lost gold in the bottom of the ocean to ascertain whether he still loves his wife and thus forgive her enroute to restoration of their marriage.

To obtain a clear, undiluted answer that is not tainted with the residue of other people’s experiences and opinions, my colleague and friend needs to withdraw and wrestle with his internal struggle.  His dilemma reminds me of Jacob’s all-night wrestling match with an angel.  Jacob declares, “I won’t let you go until you bless me.”  Jacob’s defiance causes the angel to wound him slightly from that night forward Jacob walks with a limp as the angel dislocated a part of one of Jacob’s legs.  Similarly, my friend will leave his retreat of isolation with indelible scars within his memory as he recalls any aspect of this ordeal.  Nevertheless, he needs to grapple honestly and doggedly with making this very difficult decision.  With the use of effective and meaningful spiritual disciplines, he will discern the will of God and the raw and brutally honest desires of his heart.  Practicing these spiritual principles will enable my colleague to hear the still, small voice of divine intuition and intelligence, arguably the most certain medium of ascertaining and verifying the Lord’s will.  Again, listening for this voice necessitates resistance of the opinions and thoughts of other regardless of how well intentioned they may be.  It further requires a person to discard the potent seduction of his ego.  Consistent with recommendations of the Psalter in the fifth psalm and the prayer practices of the Lord Jesus Christ (Mark 1:35), my colleagues must withdraw to a solitary and sacred space to listen intently to the voice of Almighty God as it rises within him.

Is Forgiveness Really Possible? - Part Two

Is Forgiveness Really Possible? - Part Two

Everett L. Worthington, author of To Forgive Is Human, posits forgiveness is genuinely transformative and redemptive.  Were my find to forgive his wife, his graciousness, pardon and compassion could motivate her to strive to eradicate the character defects that led to her affair and self-centered desire for a divorce to satiate her whims.  Were he to share his raw and unabashed pain with her rather than rely upon his righteous indignation, witnessing the colossal damage of her words and actions may result in a paradigm shift in her life.  She may respond by committing to a mission and purpose in life beyond satisfying her self-seeking motives and self-centered fears.  His love could change her life!  I suspect, were I to hear her account of the last three years, she has been starving for affection, intimacy, romance and understanding.  Perhaps, she feels ignored by her husband.  Possibly, she receives more compliments about her character and beauty from other men than she does her husband.  Conceivably, the extramarital affair occurred because the man however deceitfully gave her emotional attention and consideration she does not receive from her husband.  Feeling as if she were a person dying of thirst in the desert, she unwittingly took what she thought was the last drink available to save her life.  Most regrettably, the consequences of her choice are the most tragic years in her life.  Nonetheless, were my colleague to crucify his ego and emotions by straightforwardly sharing his pain with her, God would utilize his pain to transform his wife’s personality.

As a clergyperson, my colleague has an opportunity to actualize many of his sermons.  It is rather easy to wax eloquent about spiritual principles in the pulpit.  Practically, every pastor has preached about the amazing attributes of divine love especially as embodied in the life, crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Pastors contrast the four Greek words for love.  Eros from which the English word, erotic, comes is brute, physical type of love essentially describing physical impulses culminating in sexual acts.  Phileo means brotherly and sisterly compassion; the wide use of “Brother” and “Sister” in church circles is an application of this type of social and relational love between disciples.  Storge equates with familial love and the obligations we believe parents, siblings and relatives owe to each other.  The supreme form of love, agape, is the word the evangelist utilizes to describe God’s gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, whose life is an atoning sacrifice and propitiation for the sin of humankind.  Agape redeems anyone whom it touches because it is selfless, sacrificial, salvific and transformative.  As God is love, He graciously and generously gives love without any expense or burden as He intrinsically shares Himself with humankind. 

According to John 3:16, the Heavenly Father willingly offers His Son as a love offering to save humankind.  God makes this sacrifice because He is love and only His love will redeem humankind as centuries of human history document the inability of the Law and Prophets to accomplish this divine purpose.  To save means practically to heal and restore to wholeness.  Agape bridges the chasm that occurred between God and humankind due to the infidelity and rebellion in the Garden of Eden and humankind’s subsequent and perpetual continuation of its offense against the holy character of Almighty God.  Further, agape causes a metamorphosis, a complete transformation of principles and purpose in the heart and mind, within anyone who encounters God’s unfailing and unconditional love.  My colleague can actualize this recitation of God’s love in his pending divorce proceedings.  Is there any agape in his heart for his wife?  Interestingly, most psychological and marriage therapy studies stipulate that couples who find the means and methods of reconciliation are typically happier in five years than they have ever been.  Forgiveness yields a wholesale change in the individuals and their relationships as it gives them greater gratitude for each other and the life they share.  Yet, the primary questions remains for him, “Is forgiveness really possible?”

Worthington additionally reasons that forgiveness results in hope which creates memories of the future.  Through the eyes of the heart, my colleague could imagine a day when he and his wife will sit on a front porch and laugh about their current struggles.  As Romans 5:1-5 states, hope is borne of a hard process beginning with pain and suffering which produce patience and perseverance which in turn forge character whereby a person acquires authentic hope.  My colleague’s glance down the corridors of the future is not a Pollyannaish and emotionally facile attempt to resolve very difficult and painful problems.  Rather, his genuine love for his wife leads him to forgive her which means he freely and unconditionally relinquishes his right to retribution thereby enabling him to have hope for a brighter and better future for their marriage.  Hope encourages and empowers him to see this future as he painstakingly walks with his wife towards it through the challenging process of restorative counseling and rebuilding communication, trust and friendship.

Is Forgiveness Really Possible? - The Conclusion

Is Forgiveness Really Possible? - The Conclusion

Throughout his ordeal, my colleague repeatedly shares the depth of his pain and disappointment.  He failed to see any warning signs.  He “staggered forward, rejoicing” in his “secure marriage.  He took pride in providing a lifestyle for his wife and children that exceeded the material possessions and creature comforts of his childhood formative years.  Most wives are ecstatic to receive the bounty of suburban, middle strata, bourgeois life fully furnished with a suitable house, large yard, appropriate cars and private school tuition.  Her gratitude would be most evident in her loyalty and consistent expression of thanksgiving.  However, she still is not impressed with his financial and material provision as they do not exceed the lifestyle of her family during childhood.  She chose my colleague because she knew he had the potential and inclination to offer a standard of living to which she was accustomed.  She expected him to offer the additional intangible riches of verbal affirmation and relational intimacy as evident in his time, single-minded attention, conversation and doting consideration of her needs and whims.  The realization that his love language proves insufficient to touch his wife’s heart and earn her devotion is the single most hurtful aspect of his ordeal. 

In addition to asking him whether he has a mustard seed’s faith and love to forgive, I additionally suggested to him that he consider the extent of his willingness to unlearn what he knew about love.  Like most people, his understanding of love was defined by the example he observed in his parents.  Practical provision of finances and material needs and fulfillment of marital and parental obligations was his father’s language of expressing love.  Uncritically, my colleague accepted his beloved father’s example as the correct method of demonstrating love.  Hugs, kisses, verbal affirmations and other spontaneous ways of showing someone your love were not in his father’s vocabulary and thus he did not include them in his.  His imminent divorce affords him an opportunity to expand his knowledge of love by learning other ways of loving his wife.  Will he cultivate the willingness and humility to learn how to love his wife in a manner that genuinely touches her heart?  Will he fulfill the grand ideals of The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi seek to love her in a meaningful, redemptive and transformative way instead of demanding she reciprocate his faithful, sincere and hardworking love?  His willingness to unlearn and relearn will empower him to progress in forgiveness as he humbly acknowledges his previous failure to love in manner that she needed contributed significantly to causing the circumstances culminating in their imminent divorce.

Parenthetically, I recognize life’s mystery and inexplicability often coerce us to receive the advice we give to others.  In some form, I may need to employ the suggestions I gave to my colleague.  I have learned to be very cautious about waxing eloquent when helping others in resolving their problems.  Perhaps, counselors should glance constantly in a mirror as they give advice to patients.  Nevertheless, I shared with my colleague were I in his position, I honestly would search my heart for a smidgen of authentic love for my wife.  Upon finding it, I would with God’s grace and humility borne of my vivid recollections of my past mistakes strive earnestly toward genuine forgiveness.  Truly, I hope I am daily experiencing ego deflation and making fewer and fewer of my decisions solely within my natural mind and reasoning abilities.  As I greatly desire to mature spiritually, I hope I prioritize discerning, accepting and actualizing God’s will as it manifests within my internal intuition and intentions.  Accordingly, I trust I suggested to him what I would do as I can only offer my experience, strength and hope.

“The end is in the beginning.”  Ralph Ellison concludes his unparalleled fantastically novel, Invisible Man, about the protagonist’s experiential and existential discovery of his genuine uniqueness with those ironic words.  The nameless and invisible central character never concretely defines his raison d’être, reason for being, because he uncritically and persistently accepts the external definitions of himself.  Should my colleague rely firmly upon his rights and legitimate righteous indignation, he will forego an incredible opportunity to learn to love and forgive in an authentic Christian and spiritual way.  Should he persists in satiating his ego and verifying his correct behavior in contrast to the offenses and pain his wife had inflicted, he will lost the opportunity to exchange his mind, heart and character for that of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Whether he maximizes this spiritual growth and personal development depends primarily upon his answer to the fundamental question, “Is forgiveness possible?”