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29 Nov 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The reading from 1 Thessalonians this Sunday begins with a prayerful wish: "May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all." If hate crime statistics are any indication, that wish has yet to be fully realized. Reports of hate crimes against gay people and religious groups increased sharply in 2008, according to FBI data released Monday. The overall number of reported hate crimes increased about 2 percent. These same figures show a nearly 11 percent increase in hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and a nearly 9 percent increase in hate crimes based on religion. The largest category, racially motivated hate crimes, fell less than 1 percent. Among all categories of hate crimes, roughly a third take the form of vandalism or property damage. About 30 percent involve intimidation of some kind, and another 30 percent include physical attacks against people. The FBI does not compare year-to-year trends in hate crimes, saying the number of agencies reporting changes too much. And in fact the bureau cautioned that the increase reported Monday might well be due to more agencies tracking such incidents. In total there were 7,783 hate crimes reported to the FBI last year, and seven murders were categorized as hate crimes. Half of all hate crimes are motivated by race, according to the FBI. One out of every five is driven by religious bias, and one out of every six is based on sexual orientation bias. Source: An article by Devlin Barrett for the Associated Press

religion hate crimes fbi sexual orientation racism

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Racism not our cup of tea, say Tea Party loyalists

18 Jul 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“One who walks blamelessly and does justice” will live in the presence of the Lord, the psalmist says this Sunday. Accused of fostering racism, Tea Party loyalists said the charge is unjust and they are blameless. The debate intensified this week after the NAACP approved a resolution condemning racism in the movement. Some Tea Party groups tolerate bigotry, said NAACP officials. The resolution approved Tuesday “calls on the Tea Party and all people of good will to repudiate the racist element and activities within the Tea Party,” said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau. Tea Partiers weren’t buying it. Even before the formal vote at the NAACP’s annual convention in Kansas City, Missouri, the St. Louis Tea Party put out its own resolution. That measure condemned the NAACP for “lowering itself to the dishonorable position of a partisan political attack dog” and demanded the organization withdraw its “bigoted, false, and inflammatory resolution.” Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, a Tea Party favorite, issued a statement saying that NAACP claims that Tea Party members judge people by the color of their skin are “false and appalling.” Palin said she was “saddened by the NAACP’s claim that patriotic Americans . . . are somehow racists.” Tea Party activists say their loosely organized movement’s guiding principles center around the need for a smaller federal government and lower taxes. Charges of racism have surfaced in the past, however, largely in response to individuals at Tea Party meetings making comments or displaying signs that minority groups find offensive. A recent survey by the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race & Sexuality suggests that “people who are Tea Party supporters have a higher probability of being racially resentful than those who are not Tea Party supporters,” said Christopher Parker, who directed the study. “The Tea Party is not just about politics and size of government. The data suggests it may also be about race.” Source: Articles by Peter Grier for Christian Science Monitor and Ellis Cose for Newsweek

sarah palin racism tea party naacp christopher parker

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White House, USDA stumble over employee´s remarks

25 Jul 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Themes of justice and reconciliation, innocence and guilt, run through this Sunday’s reading. After what turns out to have been a rush to judgment, an apologetic U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack reversed course Wednesday and offered a new position to ousted USDA employee Shirley Sherrod. Sherrod was forced from her USDA post Monday after a conservative blogger posted an edited clip from a speech she gave that appeared to condone racism. Andrew Breitbart posted the two-and-a-half-minute video clip at biggovernment.com, calling it “evidence of racism coming from a federal appointee and NAACP award recipient.” In what turns out to have been a brief excerpt from a much longer speech, Sherrod says she initially didn’t give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago, when she was working for a nonprofit farm aid group. In the aftermath of the video's posting, the USDA hurriedly demanded Sherrod resign from her position as director of rural development in Georgia and the NAACP sent out a statement disavowing her comments, which had been delivered at a local NAACP event. Sherrod said she had been unfairly attacked and taken out of context and that her remarks were not an expression of racism but part of a larger story about racial reconciliation. People who knew Sherrod were quick to defend her, including the white farmer she mentioned in the speech. After reviewing the entire speech, NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous said in a statement that his group had been “snookered” into believing that Sherrod expressed racist sentiments. The NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus called for Sherrod to be reinstated. In the full 43-minute video, Sherrod tells the story of her father’s death in 1965, saying he was killed by white men who were never charged. She says she made a commitment to stay in the South the night of her father’s death, despite the dreams she had always had of leaving her rural town. “When I made that commitment I was making that commitment to black people and to black people only,” she said. “But you know God will show you things and he’ll put things in your path so that you realize that the struggle is really about poor people.” The new job offer comes after an embarrassed White House also apologized to Sherrod Wednesday for having supported her ouster. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration did not know all the facts when it acted. "This is a good woman," Vilsack said. "She's been put through hell." Source: Articles by Mary Clare Jalonick and Ben Evans for the Associated Press and Judy L. Thomas for the Kansas City Star

usda racism naacp benjamin todd jealous andrew breitbart shirley sherrod tom vilsack

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Charleston: farewells, flags, and the aftermath

28 Jun 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living,” but evil interrupts the divine program, we hear in this Sunday’s reading from the Book of Wisdom. A week after Reverend Clementa Pinckney and eight others were fatally shot while engaged in Bible study at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, those slain are laid to rest and the nation engages in an emotional debate on the legacy of racism and the proper place of symbols such as the Confederate battle flag in the public square. Homily hint: How do we as a diverse and multicultural nation heal the breach? How do we overcome fear, hatred, bigotry, and the long legacy of racism? Family members of those slain in Charleston showed the way with their incredibly courageous statements of forgiveness to the troubled young man who took their loved ones’ lives. For more on the aftermath of the Charleston shooting, see: Mourners Pay Respects to Clementa Pinckney at South Carolina Statehouse; Some S.C. lawmakers say Confederate flag removal no sure thing

church Healing racism multiculturalism mourning and healing

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Confederate flag coming down

12 Jul 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The psalmist this Sunday praises justice, which “shall look down from heaven.” Politicians in South Carolina agreed the just thing to do is to remove the Confederate flag from state capitol grounds, voting to do so this week. Three weeks after nine parishioners were slain at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, the bill headed to Governor Nikki Haley Thursday, who has said she wants the flag to come down and will sign the bill. Homily hint: Flags with historical significance from painful chapters in our history belong in history museums, not on public property. We’ve seen the damage that divisive ideologies can wreak. Let’s be peacemakers and reconcilers. For more on South Carolina's decision, see: South Carolina to Remove Confederate Flag from Capitol

racism south carolina confederate flag

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Resurrection matters

27 Mar 2016 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In the reading from Acts of the Apostles this Easter Sunday, Saint Peter pulls no punches describing the manner in which Jesus died: “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.” The haunting lyrics of the song “Strange Fruit,” written about the horrific practice of lynching and recorded in 1939 by jazz musician Billie Holiday evoke the image from Acts: “Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.” Lynching was practiced most frequently against African Americans in the southern U.S. in the late 19th century and well into the 20th century as a tool to enforce white supremacy. Lynching was also common in the Old West, primarily against Mexicans and Chinese immigrants. An unseemly part of a past long left behind, right? Alas, in February, A Joe’s Crab Shack restaurant in Minnesota came under fire after using an old photograph of a lynching in its table décor. The image, embedded inside the table, was captioned "Hanging at Groesbeck, Texas on April 12th, 1895," and was spotted by two black diners who had come to celebrate a birthday. Added to the photograph was a speech bubble that appeared to be coming from the man being hanged. It read: "All I said was that I didn't like the gumbo.” “They are trying to make a joke out of bodies, Black bodies, being lynched, and I had a real problem with that,” said Chauntyll Allen, a community activist who first raised the objection to the picture. Texas lynched 376 black men and women between 1877 and 1950, according to research compiled by the Equal Justice Initiative. Georgia lynched 586 black men and black women; Mississippi lynched 576; and Louisiana lynched 540. Photographs of lynchings were often made into postcards and were celebrated throughout the South with white families holding picnics as they witnessed men being hung, according to the Equal Justice Initiative’s study, “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror.” The legacy of racism is very much still with us, brought into high relief in recent years by attention brought to the disproportionally high number of black men killed by police. The Black Lives Matter movement challenges the dominant culture to examine what is sometimes called “white privilege,” the set of benefits that are conferred on someone simply because of their skin color. One writer refers to white privilege as “an invisible package of unearned assets.” Some of us among the dominant culture might object, “But I’m not prejudiced. I’m not a racist!” But the notion of white privilege doesn’t claim that we are consciously biased, rather it speaks to a set of advantages that white folks enjoy but may not even recognize that we have—regular cultural affirmations of our worth in media, art, history books; greater perceived social status; the freedom to move, buy, work, and play in desirable locations without being questioned, stared at, followed, or harassed. Examples of not enjoying white privilege might include being followed around a department store by a security guard for no visible reason or being pulled over by police without being guilty of a driving infraction but simply because of your race (being guilty of DWB, “Driving While Black,” as activists sometimes refer to the practice of racial profiling). Lessons drawn from the gospel Easter is about new life, hope born of the ashes of despair, new life that matters, and most of all, new life that serves. Jesus reminds followers then and now that leadership is service, not privilege. He invites us to take the seat in the back of the bus, not the front. Jesus emptied himself on the cross so we could see and remember the strange and bitter fruit that malice nurtures. We’ve been harvesting this strange, bitter fruit ever since. This spring, let’s plant a new crop, a crop of love, service, and cross-cultural respect. Final thought in light of the news Lynching is no laughing matter. Christians above all should understand this, because we belong to the outcast savior who was hung from a tree, in the clear-eyed words of Saint Peter. Thankfully, the story did not end there. It should never end there. New life matters. Resurrection matters.

Resurrection equality Justice racism

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Quote of the week

27 Mar 2016 - Preaching the News for Sunday

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. ... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. —Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

martin luther king jr racism Love

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Fact of the week

27 Mar 2016 - Preaching the News for Sunday

A growing share of Americans say that racism in society is a big problem. Half of Americans now say this, up from 33 percent five years earlier. 5 facts about race in America

racism

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Homily stories

13 Jun 2010 - Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

"The Arizona legislature just passed the country's most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law," blogged Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony on April 18, 2010. "The tragedy of the law is its totally flawed reasoning: that immigrants come to our country to rob, plunder, and consume public resources. That is not only false, the premise is nonsense." Mahony goes on to point out--as many critics have--that the law forces people to make snap judgments based on appearance or accent. People who don't fit some preconceived idea of "American citizen," will have to prove their citizenship on demand. For a country of immigrants whose citizens lived through or had stories recounted to them about repressive regimes in foreign lands, the fear that America is edging toward a police state is far from hysterical. Cardinal Mahony paints a picture of this chilling propect when he asks, "Are family members and neighbors now supposed to spy on one another, create total distrust across neighborhoods and communities, and report people because of suspicions based upon appearance? Jesus regularly rebuked the Pharisees for self-righteous judgments against those they deemed unworthy sinners. It would seem that the current rebuke of state-sanctioned bigotry, racism, and inhospitable behavior is Christian to the core.

Authors Patrice J. Tuohy

immigration judgments racism immigrants

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Homily stories

13 Jun 2010 - Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Outside Johannesburg stands the Voortrekker Monument, which commemorates the Boer exodus into the South African hinterland, and in a sense marks the beginning of the South African system of racial separation and oppression, apartheid. Today, on the Salvokop Hill opposite the monument, stands a new edifice to the new South Africa, a country that has dedicated itself to democracy and a nonracist and nonsexist society. Freedom Park memorializes the country's painful past and symbolizes its future-a future that is the fruit of reconciliation. The park has a Garden of Remembrance and a Sikhumbuto ("memorial") commemorating all those who have contributed to South Africa's past, including the 68,000 who died violently. It is, the organizers say, a "national symbol for reparation, a symbol of healing, a symbol of cleansing, a place where the spirits of those who lost their lives for freedom must rest." The park also features sculpture, a living museum of South African history, and pan-African archives. Holy Family Sister Shelagh Waspe, who works with victims of apartheid and coordinates the Johannesburg diocese's justice and peace commission, said that the park is necessary to reconciliation but also that "we need to keep watch that we don't fall into complacency now that we have achieved freedom."

Authors Joel Schorn

south africa apartheid reconciliation Forgiveness racism

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