In Defense of the Color Purple/Uncertain of TD Jakes

I’m watching “Not Easily Broken”. This is the second TD Jakes movie I’ve seen. I am appreciative of the fact that there is a big time black preacher delving deep into issues of gender and the negativity that exists between black men and black women.

BUT!

I’m a little concerned that he tends to paint an overly simplistic view of the relationship between black women and black men. The tension between black men and black women is acknowledged but the cause and solution is too often boiled down to something to the effect of “those damaged black women need healing”. This may be true. We do need healing. But my question is what about the men in the scenario? The abusive fathers? The bad ex-boyfriends? Where is the discussion of the culture and the systems within the black community that make it ok for black women to face such damaging situations? And more importantly: How can we go so quickly to the solution when we haven’t really fully investigated the problem?

Alice Walker attempted to delved into these questions with her book The Color Purple. She attempted to show a very real history of physical and sexual violence against black women at the hands of not white men but black men. And there was such an unbelievable backlash from the black male community. (There is this dude who always calls me “Lisa” and tries to bate me into an argument by saying “Alice Walker hates black men, right?” Dude! My name is not Lisa and no and go away!) The thing is I don’t think these men (Lisa-dude included) are upset because they are in disbelief about these issues showing up in our history but more because they didn’t want the dirty laundry out there. (Ya can’t wash ‘em without putting ‘em “out there”). They didn’t want to deal with it in front of “them”. But who cares about them in the face of such devastating violence in our own community? How can we tell “them” not to kill us as we kill ourselves? It’s like my sister said when we were protesting again police brutality and members of the Bloods walked up beside us with protest signs: “They can’t kill you but we can.” We take that position way too often in our community. We do everything to make sure white people aren’t abusing us but we think it’s ok if we abuse each other.

And I think TD Jakes is attempting to look at some of the same issues from a more faith based, less historical perspective. But we can’t move forward without first truly understanding and “unpacking” what happened before. (Sankofa) We’ve yet to do that as a community, really delve into the ways that slavery has so painfully damaged the relationship between black men and black women.

Somehow it has become the burden of the woman to heal and forgive the abuse perpetuated against her by black men. We do need to heal and forgive. But what I need is someone like Jakes to also say that it is also the responsibility of the black man to STOP. Stop abusing women. Stop being so permissive of misogyny in our communities, in the church as much as it is in the streets. And really start talking about gender rolls and strength in ways that don’t strangle your emotional stability. Strength doesn’t have to be so restriction. And talk about faith in a way that has no tolerance for abuse. YES be strong. But be strong enough to talk about those things things that are hard to talk about. Yes pray. But pray for understanding, mutual respect and healing of our whole history and the trauma we face in response to the legacy of slavery.

Michael Jackson: a prophet with no home.

I’m starting with the man in the mirror”
“If you can’t feed the baby, then don’t have the baby”
“Mama always told you be careful who you love. Be careful what you do because the lies become the truth.”
“Blame it on the Boogie”
“Don’t stop till you get enough”

The words of a disturbed prophet without a home… Michael Jackson’s artistry defined the lives of many, especially those of us socially awkward artists. His words and music marked major moments in my life. Thriller came out when I was 3. Ricky, one of the boys my mother babysat would sing Billie Jean saying, “but the chair is not my son.” That was the beginning of a life long use (or misuse) of Michael Jackson sayings.

We sang “Ebony and Ivory” at our performance at our all black day care center’s graduation ceremony. We sang “We Are the World” at my 6th grade graduation from Horace Mann. I remember when my oldest sister Niki was applying for colleges and was trying to get the application postmarked by the deadline. She had to trek all the way down to the Main Office on 34th and we sing to her, “Keep on to the POST OFFICE. Don’t stop to you get enough.”

I remember my sister Gabrie’l setting up our TV in my other Niki’s room and we all got together to watch the premiere of the Thriller video. I was pretty young. My mother had her concerns but I wasn’t scared at all. I watch it now and the threat of dancing zombies brings fear to my heart but at 3 or 4, I was captivated. My friends Michael, Kyle, and Janet (did I really have friends named Michael and Janet? Yes) would have regular Thriller sessions. We’d put the vinyl on our record player. I had a toy guitar and we’d get down and go crazy. Our favorite was “Beat It”.

“Bad” came our right as I was starting 2nd grade. At that point I was one of two black girls in my grade at Horace Mann Barnard Elementary School. I remember the other black girl, Dana Bethune, a descendant of Mary McCloud Bethune, lent me her tape. She really wanted me to hear the newest Michael Jackson songs. I took that tape. I don’t think I gave it back. (Sorry Dana.) This was probably because my sister Gabrie’l took the tape from me to choreograph a dance to “Man in the Mirror”. This is a dance that in many ways defined my sister for me. I will never forget my sister dressed all in white on the stage at Horace Mann doing that powerful dance to that powerful song. I will never forget crying to “She’s Out of My Life” when Gabrie’l left for college when I was only 9 years old.

I remember my mother always saying to me “You need to pull a Michael Jackson.” For her this reflected on how fiercely he’d perform in spite of how painfully shy he was. It told of the odd ability performers, preachers and prophets have to get over social awkwardness long enough to perform, speak or preach powerfully. Michael has often spoke of feeling the most comfortable in stage. He spoke of the music coming from God and the dances being spoken through the music. He spoke of feeling guilty giving himself credit because it was all God working through him. And I know some are screaming “Wacko-Jacko”. But as a person of faith I can’t help to think about one of my favorite Bible verses, Jeremiah 20:9, which says:

But if I say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.

I think sometimes God comes through the human vessel in such a powerful way that it leaves very little room for “normalcy” by human standards. Many of the most powerful artists and ministers and prophets of old are the most socially awkward. And I often thought of Michael Jackson as someone who society and even his family didn’t know how to deal with. We don’t know how to simply be blessed by those who bring divine gifts. Our society seems to need to sell everything. So these people become products. And I’m not sure Michael knew how to be a product. Who does? Like many other un-nurtured geniuses, Michael went crazy. We can’t deny that. But his craziness over the past 10 or so years does not take away the power of what came before. So many life changing moments. So many blessings… thank you Michael. You’ve blessed my life. I will not stop ’til I get enough…

Good Friday Sermon…

This is the sermon I meant to preach had I had the manuscript with me on Friday… I’m not sure what came out of me that day sans manuscript. I pray it was in someway good but for those who missed it, pretend that this is what I said:

“Forgive them Father for the know not what they do.”
We never get it right. As righteous as we think we are, somehow, we’re never quite right. From Adam to Dominique: God gives us clear directives, don’t eat that fruit and we eat it anyway. Here is my servant Moses, listen to him and we don’t. Here are my 10 Commandments, a written document (you know how we like written documents) filled with the law and we don’t follow them. He sends prophet after prophet and we don’t acknowledge them. And when all else failed, God morphed himself into the form of a baby and came into the world as one of us. And although Christ’s followers believed, they and many others still didn’t quite understand. Poor God. I wonder what it must feel like watching humanity so arrogantly stumble and bumble around, certain that we know what we’re doing. Forgive us dear Lord, I’ll be the first to admit that we don’t know what we do.

And yes I said what “we” do, not what “they” do. In order to give you a full view on the grace of God, I need to place all of humanity, you and me in the midst of this Good Friday story. “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” We tend to think of “them” as separate from us. We think of Judas. We think of those who stood and opted to free Barabbas and crucify Jesus. We think of the criminals on either side of Jesus. We can sometimes even go as far as thinking of the unchurched person on the street corner, the under churched who walked in her with the “wrong” clothes on, or the over-church person sitting next to us that somehow thinks their unyielding grimace is their ticket to the Kingdom. But it’s harder to look within and see the internal “them” that dwells within. We “yeah God, you should forgive THEM because THEY don’t know what they’re doing.” Little do we know that we are the THEM. THEY are us. We all are the ones in serious need of God’s mercy.

If we take an honest look at our lives we can begin to see how much we’ve tripped up and made mistakes. Like Judas, we were have been swayed in the wrong direction. We’d betrayed the one who loved us the most. Like those who screamed, “crucify him”… we’ve made rash decisions. Our going along with the crowd has had some serious consequences. We’ve stood very close to Jesus, like the criminal on the cross next to Jesus, yet our words and our actions mocked the notion of salvation through Christ. Whether intentionally or completely unintentionally, we are so often in the position where we need Christ to stand in the gap between perfect Divinity and flawed humanity and say “Father forgive him, forgive her. She doesn’t know what she is doing. He doesn’t’ t know the consequences of his actions.” And this is why I thank God that Jesus’ sacrifice acts as a reset button.

Jesus offers us forgiveness. His sacrifice is a negotiation of sorts, freeing us from judgment from God, freeing us from the judgment of others, hopefully freeing us from self-judgment and reminding us that we are in no position to judge others. Knowing that I am the THEY, knowing that I know not what I do, knowing that Jesus sacrificed for my lack of understanding, I don’t look left or right at the flaws of the person next to me. All I can do is look up and thank God for his mercy. Thank God for listening to the pleas of the suffering savior. I do my best each day to learn, to study, and to read the word of God but I know some things that are just too vast for me to understand, too easy for me to forget, too tempting to get swayed away from. There are some things that I know Jesus must stand in the gap for. I do the best that I can to emulate Jesus but I know the only perfection is God through Jesus. And he died for my imperfection. He died because Jesus saw something worth saving. I am so eternally grateful that Jesus stood and saw the mess that is humanity and yet loved us enough to save us.

I promised this would be short. And indeed it is very short but before I go I want to share a piece of a song with you. Oddly it isn’t a religious song. It’s by the pop star Beyonce. And it’s even more odd to know that this isn’t the first time I’ve used a Beyonce song to illustrate my point about the Passion of Christ. But there’s something about these songs sung by female artist sung about their lovers that sound like the worship and devotion that is owned to Jesus. I’ll take issue with this in another sermon. But for now we’ll pretend that she’s singing to Jesus:

I don’t know why you love me
That’s why I love you
You catch me when I fall
You accept me flaws and all
And that’s why I love you

Proud for the First Time

Ain’t nothing like the real thing baby!

O-nauguration in the Racial Nation (Pt1): The First Biracial President

These are the people who raised our current president… Madelyn, Ann and Stan Dunham. Imagine if an Angel of the Lord came down then and told them… “Behold I give you great tidings of comfort and joy. You will bring forth the first Black president of the United States of America”… Crazy right!

The day after the inauguration I went to visit my good friend Michelle and her 15 month old daughter, Gabryel, who is also my goddaughter. Gabryel is the child of a white man of Eastern European heritage and Michelle, a Canadian born, black woman of Trinidadian heritage. As I sat on the floor with Gabryel, she began singing something. I discovered, at the third or forth round that she was chanting, “O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!” And later I asked her, “Are you going to be the next bi-racial president of the United States?” “Yeah…” she replied in a very nonchalant way.

I sit here now, watching two very light-skinned black women talk about our new president. They are opposed to the notion that Barack Obama would be considered the first bi-racial president. They said that this valued a certain type of “pigmentocray” (valuing lighter skinned African Americans over daker skinned ones). They made the point that most African Americans were of mixed heritage and the historical boundaries of race in the US would have legally pushed Obama into a “black” identity.

While historically this is very true, racial politics have shifted greatly since the days of legal definitions of race. This is by no means an attempt to ignore the legacy of things like the one drop rule, the 3/5 clause, Jim Crow laws and many other laws of the sort. It is more to say that we live in a racial climate where children of parents from two or more racial backgrounds can more openly identify with all of who they are. We live in an era when I, child of 2 black parents and Gabryel, a child of mixed heritage can celebrate all of who we are and Obama together. If a person is raised by one black and one white parent they can have love and respect for both. We no longer live in the era of Imitation of Life. Bi-racial people no longer have to chose between their black or white parent, between oppression and passing.

Again that doesn’t exempt bi-racial people from the oppressive and often (emotionally and physically) violent legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. But this legacy shouldn’t make people born of two black parents stingy. We should share in the joy of this new president. We should share this victory with the bi-racial, the people born to immigrant parents, the kids of color raised by white parents and so on… it’s not just our victory black folk!

This is some scary mess!

I happened upon this clip and I find it very disturbing. Though I do sometimes fear that I will one day get so tired of being single that I loose my mind and decide to marry Jesus, that’s not what disturbs me…

In addition to my wacky fears, I am also distressed over this because of the number the Apostle Paul (or the Pauline Scriptures) has done on the Black Church. We are so negative sometimes as a church that we’d rather focus on Paul’s hysteria-based theology than Jesus. Paul wrote in a time when he was just sure Jesus would be back in a few minutes. So at that point his extreme measures made sense. Don’t get married. And only get married if can’t control your sexual desires. It makes sense in his context. He’s saying let’s not screw it up before Jesus gets here. But my question is 2000 years later what the hell does any of this have to do with the body of a young girl? And what does it have to do with how we have come to understand marriage. Paul is saying don’t get married at all. And he’s saying to MEN only get married if you feel like your horniness will get in the way of your holiness. Therefore if people were following what Paul said, they wouldn’t have been looking for their soulmates. The men would basically be using women’s bodies to release the unholy. Sound crazy? That’s because it is…. in my humble opinion So why would you use this scripture in support of this girl choosing abstinence? This is the scary mess that makes me want to leave the church. I’m not anti-abstinence. But I do wonder why the church is so intent on being the regulators of women’s bodies. And I wonder why we insist upon using the sections of the bible that devalue the women’s body the most as support for the regulation and “holiness” of women’s bodies?

Leaving 2008 Behind: A New Year Reflection

As I sit avoiding work, I reflect on the year that has passed. I am having a hard time remembering all that’s happened this year. A lot of it was really good:

I started the UCC ordination process and found respect and validation of my call
I sang with my choir at Jazz at Lincoln Center
I went to California for the first time
I had a really nice birthday party and basked in the diversity of my friends
I started my first full time job (w/benefits!)
I moved to a very nice apt in Brooklyn
I found some more allies and “brothers in ministry” (aka Pips) in my CPE co-workers
Barack (Freakin’) Obama!

In my mind I know that I am blessed and that I have been blessed in 2008. Yet there is so much old negativity that my heart can’t take anymore. I don’t want to/can’t carry it into 2009. My New Year’s ritual will be just to cry and cry until all of that ugliness and loneliness of old is washed out. I wish I could go to a Pentecostal church and just shout and scream the New Year in.

I want to enter 2009 with a renewed “joy of salvation” and ‘joy of call’. I no longer want to be resentful and untrusting of God because of all of the pain I’ve faced in my life. I want to move forward in my process. I want to feel my call and not feel like I am lying when I say I am a minister.

My father died in 2008. I really was expecting him to live longer. But he didn’t. And along with other things, I want to leave his legacy in 2008. I want to no longer feel his abandonment. I want to no longer feel his criticism. I want to no longer need his validation. And more importantly, I want to say to myself, “It’s not ok that you were abandoned, criticized and devalued” and mean it. And maybe this will push out the people in my life who treat me the way that my father treated me.

2009 will be the year that my circle will be filled with those who are present, loving and validating. I also want to be present, loving and validating of myself and others. I want to feel joy as much as I feel pain. I want to sing “I Won’t Complain” in a non-sarcastic way. 2009 will be there year that I make room for myself and the partner, who I don’t know but my heart breaks for…

I wish you all whatever your heart breaks for, whatever you ALWAYS pray for, for love, blessings and peace in 2009…

Mad Preacher

If I Were A Boy…

Not just a Beyonce song… simply my life in a nutshell. I wonder if I were a guy would I be like my male contemporaries in ministry (not all of you guys but most) who give me “simple” “solutions” to my “problems”. According to them, the roadblocks I’ve face have nothing to do with my gender it’s simply that I’m doing it all wrong. And by wrong they mean, I didn’t do what they did. “Just (fill in the blank with whatever those male preachers think they did), and you’ll be just fine.” See… your problem is (fill in the blank with something about not conforming). Just be quiet until you get ordained. And you’ll be fine.”

If I could be “quiet” and ignore the fire shut up in my bones I’d go take a civil service test and get me some job security. If God didn’t speak to me, wake me up at 3am to tell me what I need to do… harassing me when I try to give up, I have a feeling, I’d be doing something else.

And I’m not trying to say that I’m perfect and I should be the pastor of some huge mega church by now and the fact that I am a woman is standing in my way. But I am saying that most churches are still learning how do deal with women in leadership. Therefore as a woman there are things that you face that male clergy will never see. Many women have suffered this reality silently. It is true that if you are silent you will get through the process faster. But I think speed and silence often mute God’s voice and God’s intention. Did God really call us to process and silence? Or did God call us to divine action and an openness to God’s voice?

Alas… I’m trapped in the world of male dominated process. But I can’t help it but wonder if I’d be more comfortable with it all… if I were a boy…

Tell ‘em why u thankful!

Not a traditional thanksgiving…

I’ve spent the day in Brooklyn, on call as a hospital chaplain. I’ve responded to 1 page from an emotionally disturbed patient who needed some spiritual reassurance. It’s weird to say but this is a relief. In this field you get to the point where you are actually happy (thankful) when people are still alive and “just” having an emotional emergency. “This (I say in my superman voice) I can handle”… I don’t know how I feel about this.

But with a now quiet pager I sit back on my wonderful hand-me-down couch, and reflect on my life and what I am thankful for.

“Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings. See what God has done”

Oh that’s the Baptist jam right there! Let’s see if it’s true:

5. Love Songs I’m a hopeless romantic. I had to fast from these demonic things because they were depressing me. But now I’m back:

The earth that is the space between,
I’d banish it from under me to get to you.
Your unexpected love provides my solitary’s suicide…oh I wish I knew -Sara Bareilles

4. Mommy/Mama/Ma My mother and my “mothers” (female elders and ancestors) are the consistency in my life. My mother is the one who didn’t leave physically. “Momma”, my maternal great grandmother is the one who didn’t leave spiritually. Mama Edith, my paternal grandmother has been with me in both worlds, saving us with her small but significant monetary blessings during the holidays; and blessing me with peace-filled spiritual foresight as I face the last few conversations with my father. And “Grandma”, my maternal grandmother, who has blessed me with her fighting spirit.

3. Friends I love my friends, from those I’ve know from middle school to those I met in the trenches of CPE. I love the weird diverse mixture of backgrounds and culture. I love that maybe 75%-80% of them are total psychic/clarvoyant/”witchy spiritual diva(o)s. I love that I can think to myself “my I’m feeling a little sad” and like 10 people will call,tm,im, carrier pigeon… “I was just thinking about you. Is everything ok?”

2. Purple “You really like purple!” (Said in my Goofy voice) Yes, I know! I don’t know why. But my eyes are attracted to that glorious mixture of blue and red.

1. Jesus From Matthew 7:3-4

3″Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Sorry Whitey Martin Luther King Jr. DOES (did) like “Ethnic Music” (and so do I)

I’ve had two conversations with two very different white members of the UCC that disturbed me greatly. The first one happened at a planning meeting for my association’s Martin Luther King Day celebration. And the other was just in a one-on-one conversation. Both individuals expressed to me (and the group in the case of the meeting) that they were very distressed by our church gatherings because of the “ethnic people” and “their” music. The individual at the MLK planning meeting came to the conclusion that we shouldn’t hold the event at “one of the ethnic churches” because the ethnic music that these ethnic people liked so much would make the event go on for way too long. I’m not saying anything but I’m saying… wouldn’t you rather listen to some “ethnic music” than sit around talking in some boring committee meeting… Anyway the other person expressed similar feelings. The first time I heard this I was highly offended and I made my disgust known. The second time I remained quiet. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I’m tired…

Tired of what Dominique… tell ‘em why you mad!

Ok I will! I’m tired of Barack Obama button wielding white liberals mindlessly spewing words like “diversity”, “multiculturalism”, “openness” and “welcome” while not having any desire to actually interact with real, live um…(clears her throat) “ethnic” people. In response to this I’m going to venture to say something radical: It’s ok if you don’t want us around. I don’t particularly enjoy everything about white church culture. But that’s not why I’m saying this. I’m saying this because I want to usher in an era of honesty. In honor of our first non-white president, I’m calling for a “word fast”. If you still see “the ethnics” as a “they” who makes “our” events take too long with “their music” then I am asking to not use the word “diverse” (multicultural or open) to describe your organization, event or so on.

And while we’re at it PLEASE take off that Obama button! Actually I lied, keep it on. You have a right to celebrate. What I want you to do is stop talking about wanting him to join your UCC church. I don’t say this because I don’t love the UCC. I just know how huge and difficult it would be for many of our churches if a black family of 4 joined our church. There may not be a cross burning (we need to get rid of the cross burning unit of measurement when it comes to racism by the way but we’ll get to that in another post). But their presence wouldn’t be free of the sort of fear that led to the comments about “ethnic music”.

Anyway back to the “ethnics: I need to say, in the name of Truth, don’t be on a planning committee for an event for Martin Luther King if you don’t like “ethnic music”! As we approach MLK day I’d like to put up a huge stop sign for all of the liberal/progressive whites who need to talk about King’s anti-war and anti- poverty work. These things are important to highlight. But I think it’s a way to avoid his desegregation work. And until this country has actually finished this work I will not trust the need to move past that part of King’s mission.

Yes I do turn into the “Mad Preacher” when we sit by and say: “In honor of King’s life and violent death, the Metro New York Association of the United Church of Christ (God is Still Speaking) will hold an event at an all white church void of “ethics” and “their music”.” Lord have mercy! This is not what is actually going to happen. But I wonder what led to those comments. Why can’t we be honest about the race? Why do we use progressive politics as pass or exemption for the white supremacy that dominates us, yes, even as a black man becomes president?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. But I’m pretty sure that Martin enjoyed the ethnic music… more specifically a “big boned” black woman singing Precious Lawd for like 7 hours… Don’t be skerrrd you might like it…