HAPPY NEW YEAR

It's been waaay too long since I posted; the holidays and exams have had me swamped. I wanted to post today over the $110 copay I had on a GENERIC medication, or on how our students are grade-driven rather than knowledge-driven, but there's just not enough time in the day. I wanted to post on the Knicks win over San Antonio last night and how I got to sit in a Box Seat, and how outrageous the prices were (no, I didn't have to pay. It was a seat given to us by the Liberty. But they didn't pay for food. This was the box seats, and everything was catered. The cheapest thing on the menu was popcorn: a 6-person serving was $33.00. Caesar salad was $71.00. Not sure I looked at any more prices; suddenly the $4.00 water and the $5.00 hotdogs they sold 4 floors beneath us seemed reasonable. Amit and i went down and we got: an Iced Tea, a bottle of water, an order of onion rings an order of fries, and a caesar salad. He paid $28.00 and change. And he had a ball.,)

But instead of writing on all that, I'm going to copy in something from a paper I wrote in seminary in 2001. (note: the original paper properly cites sources with footnotes. Those footnotes did not copy over here. It is not my intention to present all of this as my original work; I'm just too lazy to copy in all the footnotes. This is a seminary reflection paper, and the original is properly sourced and cited. So please don't lift this, and if you do, don't attribute it to me because I cited my original sources). The paper mentions Rev. Jesse Jackson, but could easily refer to numerous public clergy figures. It makes me long for my seminary days, when I was actually TASKED with reflecting on things. Perhaps I should do it more often. Anyway, I wrote:

This paper is not meant to be a personal attack on Rev. Jackson, but one must look at him -- not to judge him, but to evaluate how effective he can be at galvanizing and motivating the black community after having engaged in behavior that have resulted in division of that community. I return now to Barth’s idea of humanity, that it is a “fellow humanity,” that a human creature is “defined by divine promise to be the covenant partner of God,” and that “...the human creature in his or her own sphere of activity ... should reflect and correspond to this destiny as covenant partner by living with others in fellowship. The normative human life is never expressed in lonely isolation ... it is rather a being-in-encounter in which one’s distinctive life is qualified by and fulfilled in connection with the life of the other.” To my knowledge, Rev. Jackson has understandably been silent about alleged financial and personal indiscretions. I happen to believe that everyone is entitled to a private life; I understand and normally would agree with such silence. But Rev. Jackson is a public figure who chose to remain in public life. The Barthian view on fellow humanity is that “each fellow must be open to the other with a view to his or her benefit .... he or she must be seen realistically as bearing particular needs and a particular point of view. Mutuality of speech and hearing requires that each party try to interpret him- or herself to the other, in order for both to discover in particular a common sphere of live and interest. The discovery of this intersubjective space is directed towards assistance – each party helps and is helped by the other from within the shared space. Human creatures ought to bear responsibility for their lives, but they are also essentialy dependent. Self-responsibility and dependence are acknowledged and coordinated though patterns of mutual help, and the “secret” of humanity is that this qualification of the action of humans manifestly fulfils them. The relationship is enacted on both sides with gladness"(CD III/2, pp. 250-72). I guess that’s where Rev. Jackson’s humanity comes out. He engages in the very human behavior of remaining silent, but in that silence, he fails, both by Barthian theology and by the estimation of my aunt, some of my classmates, and untold other African Americans – he fails to engage with his fellow humans as one of humanity. I would be much more comfortable with him issuing a statement about the allegations of financial misuse, or issuing a statement about the child out of wedlock, taking a stance as having been human and having done something less than perfect. That way, the drama could be over and we could focus on his work rather than on his personal life.

In my estimation, Rev. Jackson makes the mistake that many leaders make. Accustomed to the mini-deification that we give to our religious and civic leaders, they then display a lack of willingness to acknowledge mistakes, to “get down and dirty,” perhaps feeling a need to maintain a certain ministerial distance. But in maintaining that distance, Rev. Jackson fails to embrace that intersubjective space, fails to use, build upon, and be sourced by that common human space from which we all understand and empathize because of some mistake or indiscretion in our own past. By failing to embrace that space, Rev. Jackson becomes the Emperor with no clothes.

Historically, I think that the naked Emperor has become a characteristic of our African American clergy. Aside from presenting an ironic juxtaposition of imperial pomposity with unintentionally unconcealed nakedness, failure to embrace that shared intersubjective space is a failure to embrace all that is common among humankind. And that is why I think that the message of the church is perhaps not as effective, or perhaps not reaching as many people, as it could be.

Later on, at the end of the paper, I wrote:

And, then, what about empowering the people? I know that I have cited Barth all through this discussion, but now I am going to switch to Paul Tillich for a moment. I am throwing in Tillich because of his theology about economic production. Tillich equates participation in and contributions to an economically productive society with giving us a sense that our lives have value have value and meaning. We participate in our culture through our productive progress, and economic participation is a condition for participation in our culture’s power. Only as participants can we confront the anxiety of non-being. But if we come to a place where we regard our participation in the production process as senseless, then we will not be empowered to confront the anxiety of meaningless.

This puts the good Reverend in a place where, as a leader, he needs to do some damage control, or at the very least, needs to not set himself up for further ridicule. When I first heard of the economic literacy program, I was very excited. I was shocked and surprised when I attempted to speak to people about it. The reaction in the Black community was very mixed, with 66% of the people I spoke to attacking Rev. Jackson personally. About half of those were simply uninterested to hear anything he had to say; others wanted to hear it, but only to ask about past allegations, or to discredit him. It is unfortunate, since I happen to think economic literacy is a good plan, but I also think that these concerns are valid and need to be addresssed. Isn’t it ironic that you’re teaching people how to be accountable and responsible with money, but no one’s listening because of your lack of accountability and responsibility with public finances? This is a serious issue that demands an answer. Rev. Jackson needs to be able to lead the people again, not just for Rev. Jackson’s sake but, according to Tillich, for the sake of the people, so that they might “be saved” to economic productivity.