FEATURE: What Is The Color of Your Religion

W.E.B. Du Bois said, on the launch of his groundbreaking 1903 treatise The Souls of Black Folk, “for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line”—a prescient statement.

Much earlier in life, Frederick Douglss, whom I think has been greatly sidelined by the United States of America, wrote extensively on the color line and attacked the idea of white supremacy on color. “If it should be the same as that sometimes exhibited by the haughty and rich to the humble and poor, the same as the Brahmin feels toward the lower caste, the same as the Norman felt toward the Saxon, the same as that cherished by the Turk against Christians, the same as Christians have felt toward the Jews, the same as that which murders a Christian in Wallachia, calls him a "dog" in Constantinople, oppresses and persecutes a Jew in Berlin, hunts down a socialist in St. Petersburg, drives a Hebrew from an hotel at Saratoga, that scorns the Irishman in London, the same as Catholics once felt for Protestants, the same as that which insults, abuses, and kills the Chinaman on the Pacific slope - then may we well enough affirm that this prejudice really has nothing whatever to do with race or color, and that it has its motive and mainspring in some other source with which the mere facts of color and race have nothing to do.”

This was as far back as June 1881.

The recent death of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the fundamentalist preacher who founded the Moral Majority and brought the language and passions of religious conservatives into the hurly-burly of American politics, brought into sharp focus a lot of contentious issues in our lives. Falwell grew up in a household that he described as a battleground between the forces of God and the powers of Satan. In his public life he often had to walk a line between the certitudes of fundamentalist religion, in which the word of God was absolute and inviolate. Mr. Falwell went from a Baptist preacher in Lynchburg to a powerful force in electoral politics, at home in both the millennial world of fundamentalist Christianity and the earthly blood sport of the political arena. As much as anyone, he helped create the religious right as a political force and defined the issues that would energize it. As a result, he was a lightning rod for controversy and caricature. After the Sept. 11 attacks, for example, he apologized for calling Muhammad a terrorist and for suggesting that the attacks had reflected God’s judgment on the USA, a nation spiritually weakened by the American Civil Liberties Union, providers of abortion rights and supporters of gay rights. He was ridiculed for an article in his National Liberty Journal suggesting that Tinky Winky, a character in the “Teletubbies” children’s show, could be a hidden homosexual signal because the character was purple, had a triangle on his head and carried a handbag. The late Jerry Falwell.

In contrast, you have Rev Al Sharpton, recognized leader of the African American people in the US. Sharpton recently led the charge against radio talk host, Imus, whose racial slurs energized Capitalist America to flex its dollars in order to preserve a growing “black” voice. The Rev. Al Sharpton was " …. deeply saddened by the passing of Reverend Jerry Falwell. …. though we were as politically opposite as two people could be, I truly respected his commitment to his beliefs and our mutual belief in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” However, during a debate on religion and politics at the New York Public Library with atheist author Christopher Hitchens, Sharpton said, "As for the one Mormon running for office, those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don't worry about that. That's a temporary situation." He was referring to Dick Romney, a Presidential hopeful in 2008. Asked if he thought Sharpton is a bigot, the former Massachusetts governor said, "I don't know Rev. Sharpton. I doubt he is personally such a thing. But the comment was a comment, which could be described as a bigoted comment.

And Sharpton is himself not without fault. An ABC news commentator, questioned how Sharpton was given a platform to comment on Imus’s outburst, without mentioning the Rev.'s own run-ins on matters racial? This is, after all, the man who burst onto the national scene as propagator-in-chief of the Tawana Brawley hoax, perpetuating the worst kinds of stereotypes. The man whose "white interloper" remark in the infamous Freddy's affair ended with a mass shooting and store-burning in which seven people died. The man who in the midst of a racially-charged atmosphere in Brooklyn leading to riots in which a Chassidic Jew was stabbed to death, referred to Jews as "diamond merchants."

These vocalists of extreme religious views are juxtaposed in a conflicting political America, searching for a solution to immigration issues and moral and ethical justification for a war in which America is on one side of the Red sea. I recently went to a funeral of friend, who lived and died a “white” Catholic. There must have been about 40 people at the Service, held in a very affluent part of a Maryland suburb in the US. I was the only black person in the river of white faces. No one spoke to me throughout the whole ceremony and when the priest suggested we all turn to each other with well wishes and God’s blessings, I faced the most awkward two minutes of my life, white people covering their melanoma guilt, hoping I was far away enough so that they did not have to move to “Mohammed”. SO I stood up and shook hands with all. How did I end up there? I met Gloria in a cancer ward by chance and we took to each other. I visited her often after that, drawing inspiration from someone, whose days were accounted for and who lived day to day with cheer, helping at least one person in some way, everyday of her remaining life. When death came, she knew it and embraced it wholeheartedly.

So, as I stood at the door of the Church, talking to one of Gloria’s cousins who had maneuvered to my side, my faith waned as he carried on a conversation about his 99% blindness, dependence on his wife for support and what a lovely and brief service it had been. I speak with an officious British accent when the occasion calls for it. The service started at 11am and ended at 12am as per the program. Nobody cried, nobody wailed, nobody danced, Gloria’s two children did not attend the service and Gloria left her “white” Catholic world very wealthy. I left feeling hollow. I had not had a chance to “give it up to the Alpha and Omega.”

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