It is indeed an honor to once again visit with my friends here at Emerson Chapel. I gave one of my first public addresses here two years ago, a few months after I was hired at the Post. I've given many since then, but I fondly recall how at ease, in tuned and welcomed I was made to feel here at Emerson.
Much has happened since we last talked. The war in Iraq rages on with more than 2,000 soldiers dead. What started as a war to rid the world of an evil dictator has morphed into a holy mission to deliver democracy in the Middle East.
I was roughed up live on Bill O'Reilly's Spin Factor after comparing his and other conservative TV pundit's impact on journalism to the impact Jerry Springer had on reality TV.
Fortunately, I was vindicated after catching O'Reilly in the midst of his own spin. He bet me live on TV he'd buy me dinner at Tony's if my allegation against him proved true.
It did. He admitted it on the air the next night.
I'm still waiting for my dinner at Tony's.
Since we last talked I've had the opportunity to host a forum with Dr. Bill Cosby that was broadcast live on a local radio and cable station. Some of you might have caught that broadcast.
My loyal readers know that I disagreed with Dr. Cosby's comments back in 2004 when he talked about "lower-economic people," and how kids with names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed … wear $500 tennis shoes and wear their clothes backward, with their pants down around their crack, and how their parents use words like "why you ain't" and "where you is?
I wrote that Cosby was stereotyping and stereotyping is dangerous and wrong, no matter who's doing it.
When we stereotype, we stigmatize, when we stereotype we colorize. If we can colorize a crime or a negative social condition, we're able to dismiss the problem; we give people an "out" a reason to point fingers at the problem without claiming the problem.
It's not a problem with my son or my daughter. It's not all our youth; it's just those black kids, those Hispanic kids or those poor kids. If we "colorize" the negative attitude of young people we miss the core challenges that face all our young people.
Dr. King said:
"All too many of those who live in affluent America ignore those who exist in poor America. In doing so, the affluent Americans will eventually have to face themselves with the question that Eichmann chose to ignore: How responsible am I for the well-being of my fellows? To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it."
If we focus on blacks and crack, we miss the pain, poverty and low self-esteem that fuels the meth problem, the heroine problem, the powered cocaine problem, the prescription drug problem or the teen suicide problem.
Back in the late 1980s when crime started to grow more rampant in urban schools, when kids showed up with guns and knives, the response of the Reagan administration and local governments was expulsion, automatic punishment and jail time.
In the 1980s violence in school was a black problem: in 1999 after 12 students were shot to death by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Columbine High in Colorado, it became America's problem.
What if we heeded the signs? What if we came to understand that the least amongst us will show signs of stress and strain before those with means. An old beat-up, worn out car, with a shoddy engine will stop running under stress before a brand new car?
But that new car needs constant maintenance, too.
If we colorize how black kids talk, comprehend or read, we miss the warning signs that we have an educational crisis in this country. That, compared to kids in Europe and China, our kids aren't being prepared to succeed and excel.
I was reading an article last month about the results of the 2003 nationwide National Assessment of Adult Literacy test .. this test, given every 10 years, gauges how well adult Americans can read.
The study showed steep declines in the English literacy of Hispanics in the United States, but significant increases among blacks and Asians.
The astonishing conclusion of the study was that the average American college graduate's literacy in English declined significantly.
When the test was administered in 1992, 40% of the nation's college graduates scored at the proficient level, meaning they were able to read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences.
However, on the 2003 test, only 31 percent of the graduates demonstrated high-level skills. 53 percent scored at the intermediate level, 14 percent scored at the basic level and 3% of college graduates (some 800,000 American kids) demonstrated "below basic" literacy, meaning they could not perform more than the simplest skills, like locating easily identifiable information in short prose.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have an American educational problem
When we colorize, we give into confusing static ……
The static drowns out our "oneness" … the static blocks out the warning signs provided by the universe …
when we give in to the divisive sound of static; we miss the voice of God.
Now, I know many of us in this room have different concepts of God … and that's OK. We don't have to accept the image of a wise, bearded almighty on high.
But I think it's safe to assume, that the majority of us in this room believe we're not here by accident. I would venture to guess that many of us believe that we have a higher calling, that there's something greater than ourselves demanding that we discover the greatness of ourselves.
DROWN OUT THE MAN-MADE STATIC
I personally believe that if we're quiet, if we're still, if we can drown out the man-made static of our confusing, hurly-burly lives, we'd recognize the warning signs … we'd realize that God, the Universe, a higher power is trying to tell us something.
Here, I'm reminded of a scene from Steven Speilberg's movie: "The Color Purple"
It's the scene were the juke-joint singer, Shug Avery, who's been rejected by her father, the preacher, hears a tune way off in the distance, coming from her father's church …
An old tune from her childhood days a catches her ear….
She's walks down the road to the church and the words are clearer…
She bursts through the door and hears the choir …
Shug sing the words with all her might ...
"God is trying to tell you something, right now, right now, right nowwww!"
Well folks, if we're very still, if we cup our ears we hear humanity's whisper:
God is trying to tell you something…
When 37 million Americans today live in poverty, God is trying to tell you something …
When there are more than 2,000 homeless people in your city God is trying to tell you something …
When our state cut off health care for almost 90,000 Missourians - working moms, working dads, the disabled, the elderly… when 24,000 children lost coverage because their parents could not afford to pay higher premiums…
God is trying to tell you something!
When more than 2,000 soldiers have died (still dying) in a war based on "faulty evidence," God is trying to tell you something!
When we've spent billions on a nebulous quest to deliver democracy to a foreign land but couldn't deliver food, water and rescue to dying Americans, God is trying to tell you something!
It wasn't politicians or activists who made "poverty" a hot topic in America's households … it was God.
It was the wrath and winds of Hurricane Katrina that ripped through the rhetoric of patriotism and showed how little we actually care for the poor.
It was the angry waves of the storm that washed away the thin coat of patriotism and honor. …
Days after a state of emergency was declared in Louisiana and Mississippi, after water toppled over New Orleans' levees, after 30,000 evacuees were shuttled into the superdome, the President was still on vacation, zipping around the country defending the Iraq war, touting the benefits of Medicare and Medicaid reform and sharing a birthday cake with Arizona Senator John McCain and strumming a gift guitar from country singer Mark Willis.
As Americans died, we heard repeated rumors (which we now learn were unsubstantiated) of wanton rape, murder, looting and bodies piled high inside the Superdome. We saw state and federal officials expertly prepared to kill looters but woefully ill-equipped to save lives.
For a brief moment all of America got God's message:
"Watch out for the least amongst us …"
For a brief moment there was no denying that economic disparity kills. For a brief moment we realized that if there were another terrorist attack, the government has no plan for the poor.
I say "brief" because time is short, denial is swift and it's easy to become distracted by the static.
Many Conservative pundits have already blamed the poor for their plight. It was their fault they couldn't get out of New Orleans in time. It was their fault that they needed the government to rescue them. Someone in our town described New Orleans' poor as "America's Flotsam."
Many of us welcomed their spin. Many sought excuses to deny what their eyes, ears and hearts showed them, told them and made them feel.
Dr. King talked about this duel battle going on in the psyche of many Americans. Dr. King said:
"Overwhelmingly America is still struggling with irresolution and contradictions. Too quickly apathy and disinterest rise to the surface when the next logical steps are to be taken...."
The next logical step was to understand that Katrina wasn't just a black tragedy, it was an American travesty. Yes, we saw black faces on TV begging for help and rescue. Yes, we heard there were black bodies floating through New Orleans' streets but, make no mistake about it, Katrina was an American tragedy.
Maybe you all already knew this, but I didn't until I called the Louisiana health department Friday and asked about the racial breakdown of Hurricane Katrina victims. Of the 1,101 bodies they've recovered and identified so far, 51 percent were African American and 45 percent were white.
Katrina was an American tragedy.
Somewhere between Katrina, Cosby and King, the echoes of the 'Dream,' the call of the universe, beckons us towards our greatness …
Yes, we can point fingers, we can pretend it's a black folk's problem or a po' folks problem but, in doing so, we miss the opportunity to grasp our greatness, to touch our higher selves.
Dr. King said;
"The problem of race remains America's greatest moral dilemma. When one considers the impact it has upon the nation, its resolution might well determine our destiny.
The universe has long called for us to determine our destiny. We've come close so often. The dismantling of slavery, the recognition of women's rights, the New Deal programs that gave broken Americans the opportunity to fix themselves while fixing the country, civil rights and minimum wage laws …
But time and again, we go off track, we get distracted by the static of race, the terror of the unknown, by our racial insecurities.
This war we're engaged in Iraq is a perfect example. You cannot convince me that we would have allowed the extreme abuses of human and civil rights in this country and abroad if the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were destroyed by domestic terrorists like Timothy McVay or any other white supremacists organization.
It's easy to whip up mass paranoia if your enemy is an unknown, brown-skinned Muslim. We wouldn't tolerate preemptive strikes, domestic spying, mass arrests and imprisonment without due process or Abu Grabb-like atrocities if the assailants were angry white men.
The static of race and fear has blurred our American sensibilities.
But, just as I told an audience yesterday, …
we are where we are supposed to be …
Sometimes it takes extreme situations, dire circumstances, death and destruction before we understand that we must correct our ways …
Great challenges, insurmountable injustice brings out the best in us.
A woman who faced many obstacles, Helen Keller, once said:
"The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.
If not for segregation and vicious Jim Crow laws, Dr. King and others wouldn't have had the opportunity to demonstrate that courage, non-violence and love can change the heart of a nation and the evil deeds of men…
We are inherently prepared to face the challenges and traverse the dark valleys of our times. The universe has provided us example after example of men and women like Mahatma Ghandi, Mark Twain, Mother Teresa and Malcolm X who've shown us the power and universal rewards derived from speaking truth to injustice.
It was Dr. King who said:
"When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love. Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice."
It is incumbent that we find ways to rise above the static that divides us. We have to accept the wisdom of the age-old maxim:
"If not for the grace of God … go I!"
It is incumbent on all of us to find our courage and rise above the uncertainties of the unknown. Our world demands that we do so.
Yes, we can ostracize, stigmatize or criticize the poor for being poor, the addicted for being addicted or the uneducated for being uneducated …
Or, we could understand that their problem is our problem, their problem is an American problem, their problem is a global problem.
We can keep allowing our government to trample on our rights and international law, under the illusion that its protecting us from dark-skinned terrorists or we can lay the true groundwork for democracy by demanding that our leaders respect and abide by our constitutions and its inherent liberties - liberties for all!
We can, if we heed the whisper of the universe, come to the same realization of Dr. King when he said:
"We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers."
I know earlier I said I disagreed with Dr. Bill Cosby and I did … I disagreed with some of his words but I never doubted his passion or disagreed with his heart.
During a phone call before he came to St. Louis, Dr. Cosby told me;
"Mr. Brown, we can do this!"
He meant that, if enough of us pooled our resources and engaged ourselves in the battle to face the challenges, we could fix the problem.
Without the stereotyping and the finger-pointing, … that is a cause I am willing to champion. Because it's a universal cause that will help me leave this world a little bit better than it was when I was born.
It is a cause I can champion because Dr. King championed such causes. It is his unfinished legacy …
A year before his death, on 4 April 1967, Dr. King left these instructions for us:
"We must move past indecision to action. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
"Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the callling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response.
Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard?
Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history."
Shhhh! The Bible says, "Be still and know that I am God."
The Universe, God, is trying to tell you something …
Shhhhh! Somewhere between the comments of Cosby, the devastation of Katrina and the chaos of war, the whisper of Dr. King's dream beacons us to greatness.
Shhhh! If we listen closely, we'll hear the cry of humanity urging us to rise to our higher selves, to boldly step up, to stake our claim and grasp this crucial moment of human history.
Shhhh! If we quiet the static of racial division, fear and denial, we can hear it … the heavenly call to, as Dr. King said, rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world.
Shhhhh!
Return to top Drown Out the Static
Posted: 1/16/06