Right now, I need to talk to the Bible Belt African American family. I'm not excluding others from this conversation, it's just that the Bible Belt is the reality that I know and can comment on. Family from other parts of the country, if you want to weigh in on this, go ahead and do so. Also keep in mind that I am a post-post-post young adult. I am post-Civil Rights, post-feminism, and post-Reaganism.
For the past month of Sundays, my pastor has preached a series of sermons called, "From the Crumb to the Loaf." His question is, why are we settling for crumbs when Jesus promises the whole loaf? Why are we taking humiliating words at a crumby job from crumby bosses that we hate to buy crumby cars and clothes to put in our crumby houses? Why are we staying in the same crumby neighborhoods, marrying crumby people, and raising crumby kids? His theory is that we are afraid and full of fear. We stay at those jobs because, either for fear of failure or fear of success, we are afraid to do otherwise. Why tangle with the devil you don't know when you know how to deal with the one you do?
These sermons have at once inspired me and terrified me. They have put my mind at ease but have put my faith in my people ill at ease. These sermons have answered many questions, and have caused me to raise questions that I so badly wanted to bury.
What my pastor did not mention, is an economic factor. For many African Americans, moving up into the middle class is new. Having nice homes, cars that run, being able to buy whatever out of the grocery and clothing stores is a new thing for them. For the first time, being able to live like many white Americans have always lived leaves one feeling new and satisfied. It's good to make a little economic progress. Right?
But what about the spiritual? What about our souls? Better yet, do Black people even believe in God any more, or have we surrendered our faith to the man-made, Bitch-goddess of material success? For those of you getting angry at this post, you have to remember that I grew up when people were killing each other for a pair of Jordans, and that Jordan never even acknowledged any of this.
In order to keep receiving a pay check so that we can pay mortgages on overpriced homes, do we keep quiet when injustices are directed towards us and our people? I have seen this happen in all levels of the educational system. In fact, we may take it a step further and tell our children that they can't go to college, and discourage our own boys.
Do we let supervisors talk to us like children or pets, and treat us like we don't have the common sense of a dog, and continue to say, "I know who I am at the end of the day. And my bills are paid, so they doesn't bother me?" How long will it take for the condescending attitudes to bother you? Can you look in the mirror and not be bothered after swallowing a humiliating remark from a supervisor? At your job, do you feel the need to compete with younger people, and make them feel bad? They are half your age, the Bible said you should be teaching them, not competing with them. So if you are a middle-aged worker, why are you jealous of somebody who is probably younger or the same age as your children? I can't tell you how many of my friends get harassed by folk who should be teaching them and passing the torch. What are we doing instead, Baby Boomers?
Women, are we going to subscribe to a gold-digger mentality, and continue to latch onto others when we can go to school and major in anything we want? In case you don't know, doctors and lawyers bring home as many trophy wives as athletes. Are we going to raise another generation of Black children to be dependent upon Section 8, food stamps, and Social Security disability benefits? Does nobody see anything wrong with making a child pretend to have ADHD or some other mental disability for $350/month? What's $350/month, when you could push that child into a liberal arts college or a trade, and that child could stand to make $350/day/week, according to his/her career choice?
And church folk...Why have we turned our faith into a cash cow? Why is Black America still struggling when we have more megachurches than football stadiums? Especially here in Memphis...why is Hickory Hill fastly becoming one of the most crime-ridden sectors of the city when there are two megachurches within five miles of each other? Why are more us becoming homeless with nowhere to go when some our churches can house thousands of members at a time? Why do we continue to attend church? Why do we need $1000 suits on to be in church? Why do we have to be dressed to be blessed? Why do we shout on Sunday and sang that we trust in the Lord, and let a supervisor half our ages treat us like children because we are scared to venture out for another form of employment? Why do we say we are God's children, and then are overcome by the devil spirits of fear and material acquirement? Don't get me wrong, we need money to survive in this world. Nobody wants to be in a state of discomfort, either. But when does it go beyond being comfortable? How low are we stooping for extra money? How much of ourselves are we willing to sell or betray Christian, black folk?
In short, my pastor's sermons have forced me to ask, are we an amoral people? Do we trade in God for the almighty dollar? Do we let all of the rights and priviledges that people have marched and died for slip away for a couple of extra cents to the hour? Is the prospect of having a big, showy, overpriced home and car worth crippling our children? We are failing to teach our children our own history, and for what? If you have moved from the farms of Mississippi to the ghetto of Detroit, have you really made any progress? Or, have you just made lateral movement? If you gave up 10 acres of land that your family owned in Alabama for apartment rent in Richmond, what have you accomplished? Is it safe to say that you've moved backwards for the sake of being able to look down on your country cousins, make a few jokes, and call them "Bama?" Are we returning ourselves back to slavery? Are we trading rurual slavery for urban slavery? Are we doing it on a volunteer basis?
Oh, yeah, 29.9% on a maxed out credit card is slavery! And you know what the worst part is, we are destroying our children, families, and futures for trinkets. What's a pair of Jordans or a new set of rims compared to the rest of our lives? Have we traded in our walking by faith for cheap trinkets? Let the rappers tell it, we got cars, clothes, and 'hos, but where, Black America, where are our souls?
