The Scourge Of Racism
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As the 25th Year Anniversary of The From Slavery To Victory Education Project (FSTVEP) conducted by the organizational parent of Strong Man Ministries, Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. (both of which I have been blessed to lead) draws near on Juneteenth this year, I am filled with excitement and gratitude to God.1 I write this post as the Lord leads in obedience to the instruction of the ancient Psalm writer He commissioned to exhort “the redeemed” above all to give thanks to Him for His goodness (Psalm 107:1-3, NKJV)! As well, with that Psalmist’s heart, to express the spiritual “what for” of the FSTVEP to the children of men among fellow black Americans.
Talk about amazing confluences. I write this realizing that it will be fifty years ago this upcoming September that I was asked by my no longer standing Fremont Junior High School, Seaside, CA, English teacher, Mr. Earle Rosenberg, to write a column reporting on our flag football teams. I have not stopped writing since and am overjoyed to have done so in the Lord’s cause for nearly forty of those years! As it turns out, 1969 was also another of a long string of great years for Rhythm and Blues or if you will, Soul Music. On September 23rd that year, the Temptations released their Temptations Puzzle People on Motown’s Gordy label with a number of impressive songs.
One of those songs composed by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong was entitled, Message From A Black Man. Arriving as it did just over a year after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the bold and yet reasoned lyrics of the song directed to white America were delivered deftly by the singing of the Temps as well as the catchy, forceful rhythms of the band. Bold were such lines as, “Yes, my skin is black, but that’s no reason to hold me back…I have wants and desires just like you. So, move on the side ‘cause I’m comin’ through. No matter how hard you try, you can’t stop me now.” Call to action words for a thirteen year old who had been angrily watching the revolution on TV.
Even today, it is hard to honestly refute the logic in the lines, “Black is a color just like white. Tell me: how can a color determine whether you’re wrong or right?” Whitfield and Strong wrote and the Temptations delivered Message From A Black Man as decent “every black man” who were still coming out of the shell shocked silence of intimidation caused demoralization to firmly, yet, peacefully stand up to their oppressive and abusive intimidators. This is not unlike women today who are applauded for standing up to their abusers. While the message from a black man was certainly cathartic and necessary at that moment in 1969, it needed to also be given biblical feet and built on.
I carried the raw message throughout the rest of my secondary education and the first two years of college; leading out as a Black Student Union President giving speeches, helping to organize events, engaging white authorities, publishing materials and writing editorials. At Monterey Peninsula College (MPC) I also began to take the many newly rolled out Black Studies Courses offered and did well because of my intense interest. A desire to attend historic Howard University in 1976 was fueled by my interest in all things black. But as I have testified in other places,2 my passion for pursuing an education began to lose steam as I lost my way at Howard--itself a serious reality check.3
Coming to Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord who redeemed me from a life that had become empty, without purpose and meaning began to change me as a person to include my thinking and worldview after full surrender to Him. Now, for example, nobody could ultimately stop me from being who God created me to be and doing what God wanted me to do with Him working on my behalf (Romans 8:28-39; Philippians 4:13). Moreover, being black skinned in the human skin color spectrum was not a curse or something contemptible, but a blessing because God made me this way (Acts 17:26). Indeed, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” by God (Psalm 139:14, NKJV)!
After receiving the Lord’s call to serve Him in broadcasting in August 1979, I returned to school at MPC that spring, then San Jose State University in San Jose, CA in fall 1980. There, I celebrated God as the inspirational, sustaining hand among black Christians in a radio documentary on the history of Black Gospel Music I wrote and produced. Inevitably, though, even after seminary studies I was stuck attempting to understand why the black American experience beginning with slavery was so in the first place. I had all of the major facts of our historical experience, but of themselves, they brought no satisfying appreciation for why. Instead, as is the case for so many black Americans, the painful facts of our history alone brought nothing but hopeless futility, grief and anger.
1 Too, I am grateful to the 1993-94 Ministry Board of Directors, Rev. Ira Gay, Jr., Rev. Richard Young (with the Lord), Rev. Ron Oliver and Mrs. Linda Beard that gave unanimous approval for the project and the 2018-19 Directors, Messrs. Alvin Johnson, Richard Anderson and Philip Lovings who also in one accord approved this year’s anniversary celebration. Not to be left out is my wife, Mary, and our three daughters Sherie, Roberta and Patricia at home at the time as youth and having to bear with my very involved work on the project. You can learn more about the FSTVEP along with its flagship national Radio Special and now Webcast, From Sla- very To Victory: One Man’s Journey, to be rolled out Juneteenth 2019 on its newly revamped Web Site, https://fromslaverytovictory.org.
2 For my most recent sharing on this aspect of my testimony, read the February 17, 2019 post, Surrendering All To Jesus, under the category, Glory To God!
3 Howard brought me face to face for the first time with the full mix of socio-economic classes, their divergent political thought and corresponding worldviews in what I soberly learned was truly not a monolithic black community. Among other sobering realities, I especially had my conscience awakened to the contradictions inherit in my chosen field of Marketing and the black struggle after spending an afternoon giving away free, addictive and destructive cigarette samples in Southeast DC--its most economically challenged section. I also had to face my own hypocrisy in personally contributing not to the uplift of my community as I loudly called for, but its destruction through abusing drugs and alcohol, sexual promiscuity, mistreatment of our women in that lifestyle and practical abandonment of two children I had fathered.
In preparing to make this edited 2012 repost, I had to refresh myself on the circumstances that stirred me up before the Lord to write it in the first place. Ms. Rosen’s now famous rebuke of Ann Romney which she walked back the next day certainly led to what is presented spiritually in the post and which I fully stand by in step with the posts I made on feminism last spring.1 However, also heavily on my heart that I did not include then was how that debate was so much one of race and class privilege. Mostly white women up until recent times could have such a debate about the work of women at home or outside of it.
Black women from slavery have had little choice but to work outside of the home to help support their families. What is striking is that the black women I have read about and known personally such as my grandmother, mother and wife did not complain or believe that they somehow were being cheated. Working to help support their families was something that had to be done and they did it with a resolute joy--though they came home tired and with sore feet; looking only for us children and when I married, husband, to show some appreciation by helping with household duties. I confess resentment in my youth I regret to having to wash dishes and do other household chores.
I did better as a Christian husband--although my daughters still laugh about my combing their hair on occasion for school. Women that work outside of the home in black and other communities of color is a fact of life. I salute all that do so including the memory of my grandmother, mother and with thanks to God, my wife, Mary, still with me whose employment and other sacrifices down through our thirty-eight years together have helped make it possible that I could serve in this Ministry. Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers who work in and outside of the home; blessing their families as a result!
Originally Posted April 15, 2012
To tell the truth, I was not shocked by the national collision and resulting discussion of worldviews that took place last week on the issue of women that work in and outside of the home. In the second chapter of my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, I am led by the Lord to address the 21st century confusion on what a man and woman are head on.2 It is an inescapable issue in light of the rejection of God’s ancient instruction on the matter by the secular world and a rising number of professed Christians along with their churches. And of course, it is the rejection of the absolutes of God’s Word that gives rise to the confusion and subsequent worldview collisions.
Democrat Hilary Rosen’s declaration on a News show that Ann Romney, the wife of Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, “never worked a day in her life,” sparked the latest round of national heated discussion over not only whether stay at home mothers really work or not, but the larger question of a woman’s role and place in the family. Whether she is a card carrying feminist or not, Ms. Rosen’s comment and attitude with it is typical of many women that are. Having encountered many feminists in my years of ministry, there seems to be antagonism toward especially Christian women that willfully choose to be full-time wives and mothers. In their minds, “real women” do the home thing, but only as they also pursue personal ambitions--whatever they may be.
The truth is, the woman that devotes herself full-time to her husband and family is pleasing to God and so is the one that in support of her family, chooses to (or must) work outside of the home as long as she does not neglect any of her divinely assigned responsibilities (Titus 2:1-5). Ah, and that is the catch for the career minded woman who like her male counterpart must often sacrifice family on the altar of achieving success. Clearly, God is not pleased with either a man or woman who does this. Both the stay at home and the employed woman can work hard; aspiring great women of God in the image of Christ in either situation will work very hard in order to please Him and their families. I devote two chapters of my book discussing such women.
Incredibly, the aspiring great woman of God does not feel nor is she chained to the home if she commits to serving her family full-time. As demonstrated by the woman of Proverbs 31:10-31, she sees fully after the needs of her husband and children first. But then she uses her home honed skills and God-given management abilities to operate businesses and/or serve others. At the end of the day, the family of this hard working woman is blessed by and calls her blessed that is motivated foremost by a desire to please God (Proverbs 31:30)!3
1 Read the posts beginning April 15-June 3, 2018.
2 The book is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
3 Visit our Strong Man Store to hear a sample of and consider purchasing the audio resource, Great Woman Of God Mothers.
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