Winning Hearts and Minds

I've come to know of the people never asked a question or two by the proverbial reporter-on-the-street. Not all of these people are Trump's favorites: "losers." On the other hand, he, and the like minded, would prefer their existence because they aren't "troublemakers." These folks don't rock the boat! They aren't troublesome, however, because they've decided to sit life out and wait for death to transport them to the promise land.

It's the new Black church ladies. Specifically, the Black women Dr. Martin L. King wouldn't depend on to serve breakfast or lunch at a church meeting of local residents boycotting public transportation in Montgomery, Alabama. They wouldn't fill up the seats to hear Rev. Andy Young or Rev. Ralph Abernathy. Not even Dr. King. They would have stayed home them as they do now. I suspect these Black women always existed. In slavery, they would have refused to escape the plantation. They would have cared for the Master's children diligently. Lovingly. They would have watched from a safe distance as their protesting neighbors were abruptly halted by police, handcuffed, and tossed into a paddy wagon. Would they have shaken their heads, not at law enforcement but at the behavior of the Black protesters?

My grandmother and mother were such women who tried everything to discourage me from participating in protests during my high school years. Catholics, operation Breadbasket in Chicago was, from their perspective, a nest of heathens. Baptist! When King was alive, the Movement embraced everyone, regardless of race and religion. My grandmother and my grandfather, were from Louisiana, New Orleans and Shreveport, respectively. Neither ever mentioned King or the Movement nor Jim Crow. Best not to rock the boat!

Acknowledging ignorance of the "news" or "politics" isn't something to be ashamed of; on the contrary, the bible supports their silence on a world "out of joint." To imagine a Jesus who knew the "news" of the day, who knew enough about the "politics" of an anti-democratic regime in Rome, is as hard to imagine as it is for them to discern the truth from a newspaper or from a news program. And politicians are all liars. All corrupt.

Here in Wisconsin, I'm looking at the peeling away of potential protesters, resisters, politically engaged Black woman like Pauli Murray or Fannie Lou Hammer or Diane Nash. The new Black church ladies, however, have turned out. Have been encouraged to tune out. Earth is evil and a Second Coming will arrive soon! Stay tuned to the call from above!

There's a community of sorts. Not everyone is haloed, for it's not King's "beloved" community. As Faulkner would say, it's not about love.

Not all are church minded or "God-fearing."

MAGA is here among the whites who voted for Trump. These are the whites who have yet to peel away on their own accord from Trump, believing he will still come through for them. He will be the one who saves them, separates from the Blacks, Latino/as, immigrants, Muslims, and LGBTQ+ and allow them to be free again to fire a Latina with no explanation or roll an eye at a Black man and spit at him. Deny all Trans the right to exists.

In their eyes, Trump has begun the march toward giving them such freedom. He's making it difficult for the word slavery to be mentioned without backlash. Soon, the reality of slavery will be understood as a horrible lie by the "woke" fanatics on the left with the intend to make white America look bad. I see in the eyes of these Trumpers a dare and a strong suggestion that I shouldn't "act" Black.

Bad enough the dreads! But look over that at the Black woman who aren't as upset about the world as you are!

This isn't Madison where I taught briefly. While I taught Nellie McKay's African American Women's course (she died of cancer two weeks after that spring term began), I was engaged in a liberal white community that registered my presence a bit of a nuisance since, for so long, shall we say, since King's death, at least, they have been organizers and protesters of any number of events in town, much without the help or input from Blacks or Latino/as or Indigenous or Asian people.

The Fannie Lou Hammers or Diane Nashs were nowhere to be found among new protesters, sounding, some, as if victims of being seen as "marginalized" whites who, nonetheless, volunteered to be "marginalized" as "left protesters" of the war in Iraq or Bush II while never referring to the least common denominator, single Black women with children struggling to maintain a steady job and raise Black children in an environment where liberal social workers and psychologists see a Black child and see a juvenile delinquent. It's interesting how these two groups of "professionals" validate each others observations.

In the meantime, liberals held marches regularly to oppose the symptom, as Adam Shatz writes in The Rebel's Clinic, but not the cause.

I know Dr. McKay had her troubles in Madison. She couldn't be any more than I could three decades later.

I came through the 1980s to find that the Moral Majority was preparing for a day when Trump would arrive. In the meantime, while law and order mentality took hold of the nation with news coverage featured stories about out-of-wedlock-babies, crack babies, and street gangs, Black Panther raids, and "predatory" Blacks, there were Black women urging me to attend their megachurches with the fancy-suit pastor who owned several homes and cars. There was a church on the Southside of Chicago, not so mega, but popular with the "professional" Black crowd. A "play" aunt and several Black colleagues that I shouldn't be left out. On the margins.

At least book knowledge was worth something then. Being an educator was noble. Then.

Melania Trump says that in the near future, young people won't need human teachers. She's wealthy and therefore knows what she's talking about right? Some tech company thinks so. I can't imagine from whose narrative these teaching robots will teach? From the narrative of white supremacy, I'm sure.

I suppose that's why it's alarming to see so many Black woman now professing to read only the bible. They are waiting like the White Evangelical Christian Nationalists, it seems, for the Coming of Jesus. The man, who for some in the fascists regime, is assisting the US and Israel obliterate Iran.

Mary McLeod Bethune organized Black women, writes historian Howard French. "As a result, the liberation of Africa and the Caribbean, and the way their fates were linked to those of Black America, became a growing focus of local Black civic associations, church groups, and organizations around the country." People don't recall this, he adds.

People, particularly Blacks, suffer when history is toss aside. Long before the banned books campaign, the removal of DEI initiatives and Trump's arrival, there was the delegation of Blacks from around the world, descending on the nearly independent Ghana. It was a celebration in which Dr. King and Adam Clayton Powell Jr meet with so many others. At the entrance, no one asked for religious credentials.

We had newspapers, such as the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier, French writes, and the editors weren't afraid to speak up and speak out on behalf of Black people. Young Blacks, facing down "baseballs" and "knives," appeared to James Baldwin, observing during his trip the South, unafraid.

In the 1950, a huge mass of Africans and Caribbeans attended Howard University, at the time, among those American institutes with the largest foreign population of students, writes French. Howard could boast of so many Black leaders from around the world coming together to talk about the future of Black people.

King saw civil rights as a first step in the struggle for justices. The main task of organizers, French explains, was to call for and work toward "greater equality of economic opportunity at home and peace and freedom for peoples dominated by great powers aboard."

Where are we today?

Wanting to know how he could be saved, a juror approached Jesus, Dr. King tells us. Jesus thought about the man's question, thereby, recognizing the man. In response, "Jesus didn't say, 'Now Nicodemus, you must stop lying.' He didn't say, 'Nicodemus, you must stop cheating if you are doing that.' He didn't say, 'Nicodemus, you must not commit adultery.' He didn't say, 'Nicodemus, now you must stop drinking liquor if you are doing that excessively.' He said something altogether different, because Jesus realized something basic-- that if a man will lie, he will steal. And if a man will steal, he will kill. So instead of just getting bogged down in one thing, Jesus looked at him and said, 'Nicodemus, you must be born again.'

"He said, in other words. 'Your whole structure must be changed.'"

A nation that kept Black Americans in slavery for 244 years, could only "thingify" the enslaved, given it's society is built on a plantation structure. A nation will go on to exploit those people, King explains. Economic exploitation will lead to "foreign investments and everything else." Soon, such a nation "will have to use its military might to protect" it's profits. In other words, as we see plainly today, a nation such as the US has to protect what it values. And it's not human beings! It's programmed to protect the system, to protect a way of life that is antagonistic to life!

All is "tied together," King concludes. "What I am saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, 'America, you must be born again!'"

Dr. Martin L. King did his part during his life on Earth, and now, our home, our planet needs our common sense! The silent ones, waiting for the Rapture, waiting for Armageddon, End of Days, should recognize that they are like Nicodemus, self-centered and culpable. What right, then, does any of us have to leave to others the fight for freedom and democracy that will save us all?

Otherwise, it's a win for White Christian Evangelical Nationalists. A win for fascists.

Achieving human rights involves everyone who will benefit from a better world. King understood this in his day. As did Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Paul Robeson, Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks, and so many other true profiles in courage.