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Friday, May 6
View Article  Purchasing Success and Equality with 50-Cents: Blame as Dysfunctionality
by Laurence Thomas on Fri 06 May 2005 04:19 PM EDT

If there is one thing that we can all agree upon, it is that 50-cents is not much money.  Why, that amount will barely by a bad cup of coffee.  Coffee with one of those fancy French or Italian names affixed to—latté or a cappuccino—is absolutely out of the question.  There have been occasions when I have given 50-cents to a beggar only to have the individual look at me slightly bewildered, as if to say “What on earth do you expect me to do with that?”  Not even in the eyes of the poor does 50- cents count for much. 

But suppose that each black who attended church on Sunday gave 50-cents to, for instance, the United Negro College Fund (UNCF).  There are roughly 25 million blacks in the United States.  Let us suppose that only 5 million attend church each Sunday.  If each gave 50-cents to the UNCF sum total on a single Sunday would amount to 2.5 million dollars.  Over 52 weeks, the amount would total 130 million dollars.  In 10 years, the UNCF would have over a billion dollar endowment. 

So the most interesting question on the face of this earth is why hasn’t the black church made precisely this move.  The black church is the most independent black organization in the United States.  No one controls it.  So whatever the explanation might be for why this proposal is not being followed in the black church, it is simply not possible to blame white folk in this regard. 

I sometimes wonder why neither Jesse Jackson nor Al Sharpton has made the suggestion.  For surely no one is more interested in the success of blacks than these two individuals.  Or did I get that wrong.  Is it that no surely one has used racism as a basis for self-promotion more successfully than these two have?  Please do not misunderstand me.  I am not under the delusion that racism exists no more.  But what, pray tell, does the existence of racism to varying degrees have to do with my proposal of giving 50-cents to the UNCF? 

Suppose that I give you poison that will cause you to become exceedingly ill, but God mercifully sends an antidote that will fully restore you, perhaps it will even make you much stronger.  You need only reach out your hand and take it.  Now, there two basic approaches here: one is that you consume yourself with blaming me, and fail to take the antidote; the other is that you make use of the antidote that God sent you.  Obviously, the latter approach is eminently rational.  On the one hand, taking the antidote does not mean that I did not wrong you; on the other, taking the antidote that God provided you is a powerful solution to the wrong that I did to you. 

Now, to be sure, you can prefer wallowing in illness to taking the antidote, which in turn will support feelings of bitterness and rancor towards me.  But if that is the case, then what we have is a clear instance of dysfunctional behavior on your part.  Dysfunctional behavior flies in the face of straightforward commonsense.  Health is always preferable to serious illness, however it may be that one became ill.   

The 50-cents proposal regarding UNCF would so change the very face of the black experience in the United States in a most positive way that the very remnants of slavery would disappear.   Accordingly, it is simply dysfunctional not to implement it in the name of blaming white folks.  Furthermore, no matter how I might help you, there is no substitute on the face of this earth for your having the wherewithal to help yourself.  There is no substitute for the sense of worth that would come about as a result of your helping yourself.  The saying, lest anyone may have forgotten it, is that “God helps those who helps themselves”. 

If tomorrow both Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were to suggest the 50-cents proposal regarding the UNCF, I am absolutely confident that it would be implemented.  So why have they not do so?  Imagine the black unity it would forge.  The poor black woman who now does housework for whites could make her contribution no less so than the Harvard professor could.  Oh how spiritually resounding that would be.

Imagine: the UNCF with a billion dollar endowment for scholarships for blacks.  If that isn’t empowerment, then I do not know what is.  Most painfully, the fact that the United Negro College Fund does not have a billion dollar endowment has nothing at all to do with racism.  But if this so, then we know something very poignant and illuminating: The real obstacle to black success is not that racism in varying forms and to varying degrees still exists.  Rather, it is the steadfast refusal on the part of blacks to move beyond the blame game. 

The unvarnished truth is this. The best evidence in the world that individuals take themselves seriously is not that they wallow in the harms that they have suffered or in the opportunity to blame others for those harms, but that with ingenuity, determination, and foresight, they make themselves better off whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself.  Blacks are not the exception to this truth.

Permanent Link  |  Cosmos
View Article  God, Hitler, and "Fags"
by Laurence Thomas on Thu 05 May 2005 07:49 PM EDT

The Fulsome Website Award

“GodHatesFags.com”

There is much on the internet that is utterly fulsome.  For many, the prevalence of pornographic sites readily springs to mind.  For me, though, nothing is more fulsome than preaching hate in the name of God..  At the very least, it can be said that pornographic sites have the virtue of not pretending to be driven by a profoundly virtuous and holy consideration.  But a site that preaches hate in the name of God is entirely disarming precisely because hate is claimed to be justified in the name of He who is said to be completely righteous and holy. 

*     *     *

One of the most ominous claims ever to have been made in history was made by Adolph Hitler in Mien Kemp: "And so I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord."  The parallel between Hitler (and many Christians of that era) and the Westboro Baptist Church, which sponsors the website "Godhatesfags.com", is frighteningly uncanny. 

There are lots and lots of passages in the New Testament that imply or suggest, perhaps even claim outright, that Jews are despicable people owing to their outright rejection of Christ; and until the latter half of the 20th Century it was common enough for people to think of Jews in this light.  Whether Hitler actually held any religious convictions or not, he very conveniently availed himself of the very vivid anti-Jewish sentiment that was an ever-present feature of Europe during that era. 

As is well known, in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible there are roughly four passages in all that are taken to condemn homosexuality quite vehemently.  And in the name of doing the work of the Lord, the folks of Westboro Baptist Church have seized upon these passages with a vengeance.  Shamelessly, they have a website entitled “Godhatesfags.com”.  In fact, a Google search for the church’s name will often turn up a link to this website.  Of course, the internet was non-existent during Hitler’s lifetime, but if it had been around there can be little doubt that he would just as shamelessly have had a website entitled “Godhatesjews.com”. 

Now, if there is any name on the face of this earth that is associated with unbridled evil, the name of Hitler is; accordingly, I have always supposed that no well-meaning individuals would want anything they might do to resemble in the least anything that specifically calls to mind the deeds of none other than Hitler.  He used to the Bible to justify and fuel relentless hatred of the Jew.  The Westboro Baptist Church is using the Bible to justify a relentless hatred of homosexuals.

It is a fact that the New Testament makes a number claims that, on the face of things, appear to be quite critical of Jews.  It is a fact that together the Old and New Testaments make a number of claims that, on face of things, appear to be quite critical of homosexuality.  There is no gainsaying these points.  The problem, however, lies in holding that these critical claims constitute a justification for hating either Jews or gays. 

The Wesboro Church takes much comfort in the biblical assertion that homosexuality is an abomination.  This supposedly supports their assertion that God hates homosexuals.  The problem is that the word “abomination” literally occurs hundreds of times in the Bible, most occurrences of which have nothing at all to do with homosexuality.  In Proverbs (6:16-19), for instance, we find the following passage:

These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: (1) A proud look, (2) a lying tongue, and (3) hands which shed innocent blood, (4) An heart that deviseth weaked imaginations, (5) feet that be swift in running to mischief; (6) A false witness that speaketh lies, and (7) he that soweth discord among brethren.

Strikingly, homosexuality is not mentioned in this passage, either explicitly or implicitly. 

But let us suppose merely for the sake of argument that God does hate homosexuals in some way or the other, it is not at all obvious that this would be a license to provoke mere mortals to behave in a hostile manner towards homosexuals.  For all that the folks at the Westboro Baptist Church know, God’s hate could be a righteous hate that has no analogue in the sentiment of hate that human beings experience.  Thus, provoking human beings to be hostile towards one another, far from doing God’s bidding, could in effect amount to inducing human beings to act sinfully, which is never God’s bidding.

This is why the analogy to Hitler is so very striking.  Nothing but arrogance of a most abominable and fulsome kind could have inclined anyone to think that he was doing God’s will in setting out to annihilate Jews off the face of the earth.  As a rejoinder, the folks at Wesboro Baptist Church will no doubt point out that they have never advocating killing homosexuals.  True, but nothing facilitates the will to annihilate a people like the sentiment hate.  And there is no mistake about it, Westboro Baptist Church has unrelentingly, unrepentantly, and shamelessly advocated the hatred of homosexuals. 

It will no doubt seem blasphemous to many to talk about a litmus test for God.  So I shall refrain from doing so.  But there is surely a litmus test for the whether or not our religious convictions have a claim to being righteous.  Whether the religion be Judaism, or Christianity, or Islam: It is surely blasphemous to have as a religious conviction the view that God has licensed—nay, ordained—the unbridled hatred of other human beings.  Insofar as it is possible to defile God or His name, then preaching hatred in His name has got to be first among such acts of defilement. 

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