Category Archives: RACE

POLITICS, RACE

What Black Millennials Who Still Believe in that “Old Time Religion” Must Do To Save Black America

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While putting the final touches on an essay about the Black Panther Party’s demise, Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton’s view of the group’s biggest mistake shocked me. According to Newton, the Black Panther Party’s most grievous error is Eldridge Cleaver’s unwise decision to distance the Panther Party from the Black Church.

A profound study of Panther history will implicate Eldridge Cleaver, the Panther Party’s Minister of Information, in what Newton considered an unjustifiable pattern of attacking Black Pastors in their place of worship. Making matters worse in Huey P. Newton’s mind was that Cleaver did such things in front of a startled and frightened congregation. Contrary to Eldridge Cleaver, Huey P. Newton believed that the Black Church was essential to the Black Panther Party because it was their only buffer against law enforcement agencies such as J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Huey P. Newton’s view of the utility of the Black Church to Black liberation struggles validates my long-held belief that our praise houses have been, are, and will always be the most important institution in Black America.

I am confident that many people will take issue with the above assertion. I ask those people to consider that the Black Church is the only institution capable of rallying millions of Black folks, votes, and dollars behind a single cause overnight. Within a Capitalist nation that rests on a system of representative democracy, there is strength in numbers. Despite wild assertions from naysayers, the Black Church is a powerful entity if guided by enlightened leadership. Without courageous visionary leadership, the power of the Black Church remains dormant.

For those who do not believe that the praise house remains an important gathering spot for Black Millennials, recent data tells us that six in ten of them pray at least once a day; less than 40% of their non-Black counterparts pray at the same rate. According to a Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Study, Black Millennials also outpace their counterparts when it comes to attending religious services by a whopping 13%. The above study also reports that 64% of Black Millennials consider themselves highly religious — believe in God, consider religion important, pray regularly, and attend worship service.

When one considers the continuing importance of the Black Church to Black America, two things should be apparent.

  1. Black Pastors need to deliver sermons focused on the uplift of Black America.
  2. Black Millennials need to either leave or execute a hostile takeover of churches that refuse to focus their energies on the uplift of Black America.

It will be difficult to find Black Millennials raised hearing that old-time religion who disagree that the gospel must do much more than prepare our souls for the afterlife. I pray that Black Millennials will be able to do what those who came before them failed to do, that being, divorcing themselves from exhilarating emotionally charged messages devoid of substance.

If we learn nothing else from the history of the Black Panther Party, lessons regarding the essential nature of the Black Church to the advancement of our people are one of the most resounding. Now, suppose we could only get the Black men of God to realize that their leadership and sermons matter mightily to those who listen to them weekly. Were that achieved, Black Pastors would recognize the true power of the hermeneutical slices of the breath of God that they deliver to starving people every Sunday. I could make a strong argument that Sunday’s sermon is the single most significant factor in positioning our people’s minds for an exodus out of their earthly suffering.

Can I get an Amen?

James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2021

 

 

African-American Males, African-American Men, Black Males, Black Men, RACE

Happy Belated Birthday James Baldwin: How My Favorite Social Critic Led Me Down an Uncertain Path

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I will tell you the truth. So many of my judgments regarding what is morally correct and immoral flow from my rearing within what I like to call an authentically Black family. In many ways, that is a cute way of saying that although we loved each other through and through, there was so much diversity regarding our appearance, priorities, and life aspirations.

Please make no mistake about it; we were an eclectic bunch whose viewpoints were forged by our individual relationships with Islam (Sunni, Shia, Nation of Islam), Bahia, and Christianity (Baptist and C.O.G.I.C.). Despite having such a different basis of faith and belief in God, we all somehow agreed that homosexuality was a mortal sin.

The stern message that I received from my family and my University employers at a later date was never to acknowledge nor address the issue of homosexuality. I did my best to hold that line.

And then I met James Baldwin.

My exposure to Jimmy Baldwin, who I maintain to this day is the foremost social critic this nation has ever produced, began while pursuing a degree in African-American Studies at THE Ohio State University raised a host of questions for me.

  • Did my adoration of Baldwin’s writings make me a hypocrite as I refused to embrace others who chose a different lifestyle?
  • Was I complicit in the oppression of a segment of Black America by not speaking up for them?
  • Was it possible to love Baldwin and be repulsed by the rest?

Tonight MRCi discussion will cover this issue of Black men and their relationship/view of Black male homosexuals. Although a risky topic, I think that our intellectual community will be able to handle it. As always, you are welcome to join us as we delve into what many still believe is a taboo subject matter among Black men.

MRCi discussions occur every Thursday @ 7:30 (EST) – 6:30 (CST). Click on the link below to join our intellectual community.

Join us as we discuss pressing matters facing and impacting Black Men and Black America.

If you can not get the link to work, use the information to join the Zoom session.

Meeting ID: 353 334 8869
Passcode: 1YF4BG

James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2021

RACE

The Unforeseen Political and Economic Ramifications of Blacks Swirling their Racial Identity

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Truthfully, I can’t pinpoint where my belief that self-conception is crucial to politico-economic allegiance began. It could be that politicized parents raised me. Maybe it was reading Marcus “Mosiah” Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois’ calls for Black folk to turn inward and take care of their own, or perhaps it was my grandfathers’ examples as “race men.” My belief that self-conception is a significant factor in politico-economic allegiance will never change.

The above statement is why I find US Census data indicating increasing diversity in how they self-identify so concerning. Census reports report that those reporting themselves as only “Black or African American” have declined over the past two decades from the 2000 US Census. In 2000, 93% of people self-identified as Black. Nearly two decades later (2019), that number dropped to 87% of people reporting as Black or African American, non-Hispanic. In the 2019 Census, 3.7 million (8%) reported as Black and another race, usually White, while 5% self-identified as Black Hispanic.

In a world where there is strength in numbers, the decision of some Black folks to swirl their racial identity is troubling as it signifies a shift in self-conception, the most significant factor in where one’s politico-economic loyalties rest. Now let’s be clear about this matter; I do not deny that the DNA of other races courses through the veins of Blacks; one needs to look no further than the various hues and colors that adorn our beautiful people for verification. Of course, this process began with the rape of stolen African women forcibly deposited in the Caribbean, Brazil, North American continent, and all points in-between by a host of European exploiters.

This already diverse supply of stolen Africans produced a unique cultural identity that facilitated their loose agreement that they were neither African nor European; they were Black. A term that surpasses being a mere descriptor and has transitioned into a political statement.

In time, SNCC organizer Willie “Mukasa” Ricks would mesmerize young Black activists by debuting a Black Power slogan in Greenwood, Mississippi, during the continuation of James Meredith’s March Against Fear. Radicalized segments of our community have always rallied around Blackness. Please do not think that I am unaware of the propensity of some twentieth-century Blacks to exoticize their Blackness by claiming a distant Cherokee grandmother whose DNA contribution explains why they have “good hair.” Yet, even they understood that they were Black, and that’s where their politico-economic allegiance laid. Even the most exoticized Blacks with hazel or blue eyes, fair skin, and flowing locs understood that they remained inextricably linked with other Blacks.

This new millennium effort to self-identify as something other than Black seems much different from prior attempts by Blacks to differentiate themselves. While so many groups appear to be doubling down on their political identity, there is a segment of Black folks that are desperately running from identifying with their kind and thereby forfeiting potential political and economic gains that only come through racial solidarity.

In a land where numbers matter regarding political power and the development of economic might, this secession movement threatens to weaken Black America in unprecedented ways. One can only wonder where this illogical migration away from Blackness by persons that will always be seen as Black by those they desperately seek to join will end.

James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2021

 

 

 

 

 

African-American Males, African-American Men, Black Males, Black Men, RACE

What a Black Man Should be and Ought to do: A MRCi Panel Discussion

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I am sure that I do not need to tell you that the issue of Race continues to serve as one of the most divisive factors in America. If it can be stated that racial matters are a divisive issue within the nation, it makes sense that it would be problematic within the Black community. So, much of the in-fighting occurring within our community revolves around the issue of Black men and their general failings to be leaders within our community and a suitable provider and head of household. These matters raise the question of “What a Black Man Should be and Ought to do.” The Manhood, Race, and Culture interactive intellectual community took this issue on during a recent discussion. I hope that you find it worthwhile.

Please enjoy the two-part discussion pinned below.

EDUCATION, RACE

Truly A Frightening Time: What Texas Republicans Assault on US History Means for Our Right to Think

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I guess that the passage of House Bill 3979 in Texas offers yet another piece of support to the axiom that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The recent actions of Texas state senators seeking to expand restrictions on discussions on current events and racial matters in the Lonestar State’s classrooms should sound alarms for American educators seeking to illuminate the minds of our youth. Apparently, Texas Republicans believe that the introduction of substantive classroom discussions regarding America’s tumultuous racial past and present will lead to irreparable damage to the minds and self-esteem of White children.

I must give it to Texas Republicans that the intellectual sleight of hand that they are using to fortify historical politico-economic monopolies that were in place prior to John Hancock boldly signed the Declaration of Independence is an impressive charade. Consider the following steps that have propagated a grand educational lie to naïve Whites; a populace with a vested interest in participating in this intellectual injustice.

  1. All parties agree that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is taught at the collegiate level.
  2. Yet, CRT is a catchy and easy-to-remember slogan that must not be discarded as it has significant utility.
  3. The CRT slogan is an Excalibur that Republicans used to cancel all efforts to discuss racial inequities in America’s K-12 schools.
  4. Republicans used CRT to denounce any mention of past and present racial inequities.
  5. The CRT slogan has been used to further morph America’s contemptuous racial past in an unprecedented manner.
  6. Texas Republicans have taken issue with heretofore givens such as
    1. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s., March on Washington Address — an example of Critical Race Theory and must be banned.
    2. Caesar Chavez’s legacy — yet another example of trying to browbeat White children and must be banned.

I am sure that you get the picture. Anything that even threatens to turn a critical eye toward the methods that Whites have used in the past or are currently using to entrench themselves as powerbrokers is off-limits for classroom discussions.

Texas Republicans’ determination to dictate what is and is not permissible in K-12 schools reveals them as dictators seeking to brainwash citizens by crafting educational curriculums that paint them as superior to others. Any resistance to these Nazi-like plans occurs under the threat of economic devastation for already impoverished educators. This is what totalitarianism looks like in its early stages.

If only the verbiage found in House Bill 3979 that “diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective” were applied throughout the course of American education, opposition to the actions of Texas Republicans would be unnecessary.

If the above statement were adhered to, I would no longer encounter undergraduate students who have read The Diary of Anne Frank and not The Autobiography of Malcolm X. If educators were not forced to adhere to a curriculum created by self-promoting politicians with little knowledge of anything in the realm of education, my students would learn that Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a man of flesh and bone and not see-through. Perhaps my students would realize that James Baldwin is the most significant social critic this nation has ever known and not the missing sibling of Alec, Daniel, Stephen, and William.

As a historian that has studied racial matters for decades, I understand the slick maneuverings of Texas Republicans seeking to extend the unjust reign of their ancestors and therefore have no expectation that they will give one inch to those opposing their tyranny. Their type prefers to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.

Rest assured that they are nowhere near finished with their drive to whitewash American history. If unchecked, these dastardly rascals will continue until American history is unrecognizable. Freedom-loving educators will no longer be a need to assert that figures such as David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Maria Stewart, Malcolm X, and Assata Shakur should be included in history/social studies curriculums because no one will know about their contributions to the world. This is a scary time, my friend, a frightening time for anyone who values their right to think for themselves.

James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2021