Paula Deen and the Supreme Court

I told myself that I would stay away from politics for a while on my blog, then politics reared its ugly head.  I find it unfortunate that within a week’s time,  Paula Deen, whose primary sin is promoting food that that is part of an unhealthy lifestyle, has been vilified in the media for admitting to having used the “N” word in the past while in Washington, D.C. the legal system has made racism more acceptable. Paula Deen became a scapegoat for a nation still living with institutionalized racism even as the Supreme Court issued a decision that eviscerates the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Now we can all eat our fried chicken and pecan pie, AND keep minorities away from the polls. I have one question: Which is worse, to long for the days of plantations and minstrel shows, or to legalize the disregarding of the Voting Rights Act? Okay, both are pretty lame and both reveal an innate, perhaps unconscious racism. Paula Deen finds black servants in white coats and gloves appealing as a quaint look at an idealized past. The U.S Supreme Court has just allowed for disenfranchisement of minorities in the basic right of American citizens to vote.  But no one on the Supreme Court used the “N” word. They just made it easier for minorities to be treated as that which we are uncomfortable in naming. The Supreme Court decision allows the country to continue with its institutionalized racism while giving lip service to racial progress by shunning Paula Deen.

A couple of years ago I quoted Will Campbell in a blog post discussing a new “revised” version of Huckleberry Finn. It had to do with the use of the “N” word vs. how we actually treat people:

Sometimes we educated folk can get so caught up in political correctness that we end up missing the point entirely, living in a dull, flat landscape, so to speak. It reminds me of something Will Campbell relates in his acclaimed memoir, Brother to a Dragonfly. Campbell tells of a salty Baptist preacher, Brother Thad Garner, he knew in the Deep South. One of his stories is about how Brother Garner used his influence in the local Lion’s Club to make them aware that it was wrong to support a bond issue for a swimming pool in their town when earlier a bond had been defeated that would have provided running water for those living in the Black community (who were having to draw water from a single well). This was a decade prior to the civil rights movement. Brother Thad had first warmed up the crowd with some jokes, including one about an “ole colored preacher.” After the meeting, Will chided his friend for telling “ole colored preacher" jokes. To which his friend Thad replied:

“That’s the trouble with you shithook liberals, Willie. You had rather see a hundred children die of dehydration than to have the sound of ‘nigger’ heard from your lips. Whether I say ‘nigger’ don’t matter a damn. If one of those young’uns die of thirst he ain’t nothing. Just one more dead nigger, whether I say the word or not, or whether I go to Hell for saying it or not. But if he lives to get grown, maybe he can lead his people out of this godawful Egypt and there won’t be no more niggers."

May the Supreme Court justices enjoy their fried chicken and pecan pie which will probably be prepared by some people who won’t quite make it to the polls next time. As the song says, “Not dark yet…but it’s gettin’ there.

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For All the Saints: Remembering Andrew Greeley and Will Campbell

Andrew Greeley

Will Campbel

I am a dedicated ecumenist, and have found much to be savored in a number of faith communities.  Thirty-five years ago I was a Baptist seminarian and in the years since that time I have found much benefit by worshiping within Episcopalian, Unitarian, and Roman Catholic communities.  For that reason I must stop to honor two great champions who have departed this life within the past week: Andrew Greeley, and Will Campbell. Will Campbell showed me how to live the faith as a Baptist. Andrew Greeley likewise gave me great encouragement within the Catholic community. Both men demonstrated how to live faithful authentic lives without mindlessly caving in to convention.

Will Campbell’s book Brother to a Dragonfly was published while I was in seminary in Mill Valley, California.  A couple of my friends were reading it and speaking high praises for it, so I bought a copy for myself. As I began reading, that book quickly took precedence over all of my official studies that I was involved in that term.  Will Campbell’s eloquent memoir was monumental in helping me to understand what it means to be a southern white Christian having grown up during the 1960s. It remains one of the handful of books that I count as landmarks in my own pilgrimage of faith. 

Will Campbell was a renegade among Southern Baptists, standing up for the oppressed black community in the South but also recognizing that the white bigots were just as much slaves to the system as were the blacks they tried so desperately to keep down.  Campbell was an outlier whose life was a prophetic call for justice, love, equality, and redemption.

You can read a Campbell’s compelling account of his spiritual awakening as recounted in Brother to a Dragonfly in a Sojourners magazine article here.

Andrew Greeley was a priest, a sociologist, a writer, a teacher, a newspaper columnist and a novelist.  He was often controversial in his critique of the Catholic Church and clerical culture, advocating such things as equality for women and ordination of married priests. As a sociologist, he dared to conduct research to find out what Catholics at large actually believed and how they lived. He met with the expected ire of the Church hierarchy for reporting such sociological data.  Many also wondered how a priest could write such steamy novels which often pointed out the hypocrisy of church officials.

Several years ago I picked up a copy of Greeley’s autobiography, Confessions of a Parish Priest and found it to be a warm and delightful read as well as an encouragement in my desire for the authentic expression of faith. He was obviously at heart a parish priest who cared about people and cared about the faith.  One of my favorite quotes from Andrew Greeley is from The Catholic Myth:

“Catholics differ from other Americans in that their imaginations tend to be more ‘sacramental.’ By that I mean that Catholics are more likely to imagine God as present in the world and the world as revelatory instead of bleak…”

To me, that quote is reflective of Greeley’s unflagging delight in life itself. As a Protestant turned Catholic, I appreciate that brightness and that hopeful aspect of seeing the world as a sacramental revelation of God. My own spiritual pilgrimage has been a continual stepping into broader and brighter places.  Father Andrew Greeley was always a welcome voice along that path.

You can read an article by Andrew Greeley in which he discusses his novels, his audience, and his Catholic critics here.

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The Inoffensive Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Cartoon by John Sherffius, 01/06/2011

The news came out the first week in January of a revised edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. The work is apparently spearheaded by a professor from Auburn University, which is just down the road from my Alabama hometown. As one who loves literature, especially the works of Samuel Clemens, I found this to be most disheartening news. There have been stories in the past of schools banning Twain’s masterpiece from libraries and curriculum due to the offensive use of the “N” word. There is frequent use of the word as the author writes in the colloquial speech of his day, and of course, prominent to the story is Nigger Jim, the runaway slave who travels down the Mississippi River with young Huck. The reality is that Mark Twain does more than anyone of his generation to illustrate the humanity of Americans of African descent, and to show the inhumanity of a culture that enslaved black people while using Bible verses to justify such enslavement.

Sometimes we educated folk can get so caught up in political correctness that we end up missing the point entirely, living in a dull, flat landscape, so to speak. It reminds me of something Will Campbell relates in his acclaimed memoir, Brother to a Dragonfly. Campbell tells of a salty Baptist preacher, Brother Thad Garner, he knew in the Deep South. One of his stories is about how Brother Garner used his influence in the local Lion’s Club to make them aware that it was wrong to support a bond issue for a swimming pool in their town when earlier a bond had been defeated that would have provided running water for those living in the Black community (who were having to draw water from a single well). This was a decade prior to the civil rights movement. Brother Thad had first warmed up the crowd with some jokes, including one about an “ole colored preacher.” After the meeting, Will chided his friend for telling “ole colored preacher" jokes. To which his friend Thad replied:

“That’s the trouble with you shithook liberals, Willie. You had rather see a hundred children die of dehydration than to have the sound of ‘nigger’ heard from your lips. Whether I say ‘nigger’ don’t matter a damn. If one of those young’uns die of thirst he ain’t nothing. Just one more dead nigger, whether I say the word or not, or whether I go to Hell for saying it or not. But if he lives to get grown, maybe he can lead his people out of this godawful Egypt and there won’t be no more niggers."

If this new version will get Huckleberry Finn back on the reading list in schools, maybe it has some merit. Better yet – perhaps it will call attention to the work to spur readers to go and find the original version. Mark Twain does have another book, his autobiography, which is currently making the best seller list. A Mark Twain renaissance might not be so bad.

What? Try to make Mark Twain inoffensive? What good is that? Mark Twain had a uncanny ability to make people lighten up and get serious at the same time. He was a writer of great humor and wit and he had a way of exposing human behavior for what it is. He didn't mind offending, especially the social elite, the religiously proper, the haughty and the proud.

I could go on, but I don’t think anyone could do better than columnist Leonard Pitts, of the Miami Herald. In his column on January 9 he writes, "Huck Finn is a funny, subversive story about a runaway white boy who comes to locate the humanity in a runaway black man and, in the process, vindicates his own. It has always, until now, been regarded as a timeless tale." You can read the entire column here (which I highly recommend).

Update and correction: A friend has corrected me that Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who has published the new Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (NewSouth Books), is professor at Auburn University at Montgomery. My friend is librarian at AUM and tells me that the book is a huge buzz over there and is having tremendous sales.

References:

Brother to a Dragonfly, by Will D. Campbell, 1977. Continuum: New York, pp. 175-176.

John Sherrifus Editorial Cartoons, http://www.sherffius.com/

March 25 addendum:

The following was aired on CBS's 60 Minutes program on March 18. You can hear some interesting comments about the new version of Hickleberry Finn. The editor at NewSouth Books is among those interviewed :





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