Category Archives: Black & White & Other Colors

Michelle & Larycia: Two Remarkable Women Speak

The uproar that led to the firing of Larycia Hawkins was what we call a total flustercluck, which surfaced so many ugly currents that swirl through the evangelical constituency that the oppression bean counters had to scramble to keep up: there was race (of course), but also gender (& single too, i.e., not under a man’s “headship”, and — dare I say it — attractive); she’s also an accomplished intellectual; staunchly Christian, yet theologically adventurous; well-spoken, vocal and assertive.
“Wheaton College cannot scare me into walking away from the truth that all humans, Muslims, the vulnerable, the oppressed … are all my sisters and brothers and I am called by Jesus to walk with them.”
Michelle Obama spoke today (10-13-2016) in New Hampshire, and her speech will, I believe, go down as a landmark of humanist political rhetoric. She was angry, she was eloquent, she was unanswerable & unstoppable, and the crowd (sounded like students) went totally bonkers.

Yes, it was a campaign speech. But I’ve left out the parts that urge her listeners to vote for a particular candidate; because that’s not what I want to highlight here.

I want to pass the heart of the speech, a woman speaking to other women, and men, about the issues that have leapt to the fore in the past few days. You know what they are. But she says it best:

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George Gershwin: Rhapsody In –Cultural Appropriation?

Today is George Gershwin’s 118th birthday (1898-1937). And I’m an unabashed fan. This despite the fact that a key part of his artistic achievement has also made his work controversial for some.

Yes, I’m talking about one of this month’s hot buzzwords, “cultural appropriation.”

This phrase came along after Gershwin left us (way too soon, dead of a brain tumor before age forty); but the charge was around even when he was alive and composing.

Yet from all I gather, Gershwin would not have denied it. Indeed, he was proud of mixing various streams of American musical cultures in his work, even gloried in it.

Yet Gershwin also took pride in not “borrowing” other music, but being influenced by it. His melodies, he insisted, were his own.

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A Concentration Camp in California: The Past Haunts the present — And sketches the future?

Ten thousand of them were packed into a camp called Manzanar, in the remote Owens Valley of California. Owens Valley could be a good definition of the “middle of nowhere.”

It’s almost 120 miles north of Death Valley in California, and 100-plus from the eastern entrance to Yosemite. This is the Owens Valley. It’s home to bands of Paiute-Shoshone Indians, some hardy fruit farmers, cattle ranchers, and not much else on two legs.

From here it’s 336 miles to San Francisco, 226 to LA, and almost 250 to either Reno or Vegas. “Manzanar” is Spanish for apple orchard.”

This is high desert, nearly 4000 feet, so it’s hot in the summer, freezing and snowy in winter, and whipped by strong winds at any season. Twenty miles or so west are the Sierra Nevada mountains, usually capped by snow and fantastic slow-swirling cloud formations.

Conditions were tough in the camps. Legal challenges to the internment were turned aside, even by the Supreme Court. Most Japanese-Americans were kept in the camps until late 1945, when the war ended.

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Cloudy Skies for Friends General Conference — Part 1

for Friends General Conference — Part 1

Early in July, I was at the 2016 Gathering of Friends General Conference in Minnesota. And not long afterward, a Quaker I’ll call “Goodfriend” sent me an email, passing on a message from another, Friend, called here “Onequake.”

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Chuck—I thought you might be interested in this email. It’s from a member of our Meeting . . . .Do you know anything about racial tensions at FGC?

Begin forwarded message:

From: Onequake
Subject: FGC and race

Hi all,

This morning we attended [a Meeting far from home]. We heard that there were racial incidents at [the] FGC [Gathering in Minnesota early in July]. And that the area of MN chosen for the gathering is well-known for racial problems.

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