The Inauguration: The Joseph Lowery Benediction

Related Post: Your Obama on Top of the World Updates (22 January)

In the discussion of the Inauguration, we've been overwhelmed by e-mails from readers praising the Inaugural Benediction by Reverend Joseph Lowery. Lowery, now 87, helped lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955, which brought Martin Luther King, Jr., to prominence. He is a founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which helped organise the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and he led the Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965. More than forty years later, Lowery is still at the forefront of the ongoing quest for civil rights, both at home and abroad.

This wasn't just a prayer, this was a call to unity reaching from the past to look to the future.

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7pEH37JIgBU[/youtube]

Comments

[Dave]

"Monday, March 15 -- ......The church was packed. The TV cameras, the newsmen were there in force, tired but still there. The nation needed to see this; better since Sunday, it even wanted to see. A shabby, backwater church, that had sheltered and comforted generations of Negroes, and had rung with the passion and anguish of a trodden people, was for this week the heart and focus of America. In it, the most astounding ironies were being taken for granted. Black store hands and field workers sat beside distinguished theologians. Hawaiians met New Yorkers, believers shook hands with the unchurched, beatniks sang along with nuns. Men who differed in every conceivable respect -- faith and race and culture -- found themselves bewildered by a sudden unity whose implications went far beyond the unpredictable days they were enduring together. But they knew beyond any doubt that they would never again be the same men who had lived Before Selma."

Fr. Daniel Berrigan, a marcher.

[Half-breed "White" Hillbillly]

Thoughts from a Half-Breed “White” Hillbilly Boy

Statements that villify 'whites' as a class of people do not promote diversity, and are NOT good PR.
Take out the 'white=evil' message created by the implication that 'whites continue to embrace wrong' resulting from the phrase "when white will embrace what is right" and you've got a totally different rhetoric.

The fact that it is poetic form, and not simply some off-the-cuff comment tossed in shows that, this speaker gave considerable thought to making this statement and to precisely how it was crafted. In short, the message that 'white=evil' is in my view not a coincidental one but a quite intentional one.

There are definitely racist people in America, and people who, whether they are conscious of it or not, suffer from a variety of biased or prejudicial thinking. I hypothesize that one's so-called 'racial identity' exhibits virtually zero association with their degree of racism or other forms of social-identity bias.

Indeed, I am afraid to say that, because of the continuation of resentful, and vindictive if not hateful philosophies of racial conflict (e.g., Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan) and the insinuation, if not mainstreamization of ideas from these philosophies into everyday contemporary American culture (particularly African American pop cultures), the degree of association between 'race' and 'racism' seems to be as likely to be associated with 'black' identity as it is with 'white' identity.

A lot of us 'whites' already embraced what is 'right' in our view, and we are alienated, and indeed disappointed when African American rhetoric falses attributes us with bias, racism or 'wrong' simply because we are 'white' in their eyes.

Or perhaps some of these folks think they know our minds, our behavior, and our lifes better than we know our own, simply because they are 'black' and they got us 'whites' all figured out? Now if that is not a reversal of bias portraying itself as the correction/removal of bias, I don't know what is.

I voted for the man, I have high hopes that he will do a lot of good, and I would LIKE to believe in him. But if this is the sort of thing that will be tolerated in Obamaland I cannot say I am impressed whatsoever. I guess I should not be surprised given his 20 years in Wright's church.

Implying that all whities are racists is simply not implying something that is likely to be empirically true, much less socially progressive and useful.

In all honesty, it offends me when someone just calls me WHITE, much less that they infer that I am a racist based on their perception of my belonging in some particular social category that they erroneously and ignorantly think is validly labeled 'race.'

I am of mixed ancestry, and I am from a disadvantaged background; I would say at least as disadvantaged as our 'black' President. But by virtue of labeling me white and him black, I am automatically placed stereotypically into a historically dominant, more powerful, oppressive social group, which I would tell is simply not the case.

I look down at my arm . . . I see no white here! Beige, tan, pink, even some greenish in the veins . . . "WHITE" is simply a useless term, just as is "BLACK" "YELLOW" "RED," and all the other nonsensical terms to divide humanity into racial clumps.

We should be working to ELIMINATE these concepts from our minds, and from life on Earth. We are all HUMANS, PEOPLE, PERSONS, FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES, NEIGHBORS, etc. When we automatically think of one another, talk to one another, and refer to one another with these non-segmentary conceptions of joint membership instead of those tired and frankly evil racial typologies, THEN we will be making real progress toward the world that Dr. King and others dreamed about.

I have no doubt that Lowery was a hero in his day, and fought the good fight for Civil Rights. But the Civil Rights movement is over, we are in a new phase of the evolution of true liberty and equality in our society, and to burden ourselves with unnecessary references, and false attributions to past divisions among us is simply not helpful.

Very bad idea to have Lowery give your benediction Bama, or at least very bad idea not to have a look over his speech before you let him say it. But then, you did smile when he said it, so maybe you agree with the idea that you and I really are different because you are 'black' and I am 'white' and that those labels really do adequately describe our life experiences, our views, and our predispositions.

Given your membership in Wright's church for so long, I really do fear that this is what you believe, and I fear for what this means for our nation and the world, not to mention for your safety and well-being.

Honestly, I think all the hoopla about Obama has made me just a tad bit depressed. No joke; while all you people have been having the time of your life cheering and shouting, and passing through waves of ideo-politic-ecstascy, I have been progressively cringing more tightly and worriedly with each CNN video and each blogosphere scan I endure.

It is so discouraging to be so poignantly reminded of how simple, emotive, and pliable people are. I'm not saying he is 'the Anti-Christ,' but I would like to point out that: the cult of personality which has steadily grown, and most recently erupted into Krakatoa proportions is disturbingly similar in some basic social psychological dimensions to those which surrounded some very sketchy past leaders. For example, Hitler and Mussolini . . . yes, yes I know, 'good guys' have also had massive cult followings too (JFK comes to mind, but beyond that . . . hmmmm, can't actually think of any others) . . . but there is just something that is honestly [to me] rather creepy about how people feel about Obama.

He strikes me as a very smart, very capable, respectful and thoughtful man who will surround himself with people who are highly knowledgeable in their chosen disciplines. I also do not doubt that he really is a visionary with an inspired mission to 'make the world better,' who has an incredible charismatic ability to inspire people that whatever the specifics of that 'mission,' they believe in it, and are devoted to it.

With the exception of every single one of those descriptors except respectful and to a certain degree thoughtful, you could use the paragraph above to describe Adolf Hilter. He was very smart, very capable, 'thoughtful' depending on exactly how you want to deploy that word. He surrounded himself with people who are highly knowledgeable, and he clearly was a real visionary with an inspired mission to 'make the world better,' and who had an incredible charismatic ability to inspire people that whatever the specifics of that mission, they believed in it, and were devoted to it.

I am NOT saying that Barack Obama is the latest incarnation of a genocidal maniac despot who is going to usher in a period of massive bloodshed, suffering and catastrophe. I am simply pointing out that, many of the dynamics of a Great Leader with the capacity to inspire people are not mutually exclusive with megalomania, prejudice, vindictiveness, even callous inhumanity and hatred.

I guess if he had been in the Senate for 20 years, and we had more of a history of how he actually thinks and feels, how he tends to vote, and what he really believes in, I might feel differently.

But we don't have that. What we have is a past that is hard to pin down with any particular term except 'ambitious, tending to be liberal, populist, litigiously-competent and eloquent.'

How many times is it that he voted 'Present' during his legislative days?

Add to this the whole Rev Wright connection, some comments he has made during his campaign, his response to the Lowery benediction . . .

'Uneasiness' sincerely describes how I feel about this man at this point, and I am DEFINITELY not a 'conservative.' I am pro-Gay Marriage, I voted for Clinton, Gore, and Obama, and I tend to think that socialized medicine is a good thing.

Understand, I am not saying that I am dead-set against Obama; I am not firmly convinced that he is malignant force, and I am not [yet] opposed to him . . . but just uneasy, a bit wary, and very much skeptical.

This latest incident with Lowery's Benediction is IMO, just the latest "blip" in a series of blips that indicate a kind of megalomaniacal elitism and vindictiveness as a person of color. Perhaps we are on blip #11 or 12, but we are not yet on blip #20.

Barack Obama still "IS MY PRESIDENT." I voted for him. I hope for the best for him, and for us; and I very, VERY much _WANT_ to believe in him, and place my trust in him that he will always do what is right for the greater good of America and the world. After 8 years of Bushes general incomptence, bullheaded stubbornness and arrogance someone who really had the characteristics of diplomacy and skill which Obama seems to have would be a refreshing change.

But when I see repeated instances of his complicity if not agreement with what I consider to be racist views of Black-White relations in the U.S., I get very uneasy . . . VERY uneasy, and I am reminded of just how inspiring Adolf Hitler was to the German people.

In the present PC climate, in which reversal of bias is all too often portrayed as 'leveling' or 'righting wrongs' or as reforming bias, I am planning to keep my head down . . .

Stop and consider this: If McCain had won, and they got some aging born-again preacher from a holdout racially segregated white privilege district of the South. Say for example, a Jerry Falwell type of caricature.

What if, during his benediction, this joker gave some poetry something about like this . . .

Would you think that that was equally as 'trivial?'

Or how about this, leave everything the same as in Lowery's original transcript

[quote]
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around … when yellow will be mellow … when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.[quote]

But just change "when white will embrace what is right" to "when non-whites will embrace what is right."

Would THAT be trivial?

No it would NOT be trivial, and neither is implying that "whites embrace what is wrong!!"

[Good American]

Its obvious that obama is doing things for boths sides but his real agenda is to further along the chicago way of thinking, open your eyes and see the light just as Reverend Wright or Reverend Dr. Joeeph Lowery says.