Individual Acts of Kindness and a Movement of Ministry

There is a difference between individual acts of kindness and a movement of ministry. I think that the culture of fear, war mongering, hate, classism and extreme individualism has created the context for people of conscious to invest the best of their energies in individual acts of kindness. I also think that for Africans living in America this has created some very difficult challenges. People of African descent have thrived our best when we operated as a community. A community is forced to put up with one another's idiosyncrecies, likes dislikes, moods, and differences of opinions for the greater good. But in the times we exist in that is no longer necessary (a) because we are not in our homeland where it once was the norm, (b) we are no longer situated in the South during slavery, Segregation and Jim Crow where we were forced to be a separate community. People now days do not feel they should nor have to be around people that tend to rub them the wrong way. Many people now days do not feel thay should find common ground; many people do not feel they have to make peace, not put up with people they don't particualrly like. In fact because of the nature of this Absurd American context of isolationism many people do not see value in staying close regularly with people they like, are biologically link with or married to. Thus among many conciously inclined folks who want to do something Individual acts of kindness serves as the outlet for the drive to do something about the conditions of other people. In individual acts of kindness I can regulate my interaction, I can choose when and where without anyone from outside challenging me to go father or do more; i can pick the person(s) I will help and I can feel good that I have done some good. I think some of this was the case when Harry Belafante called out Beyonce & Jay Z. Their publicist quickly rolled out the list of charities that they have been giving large sums of money to and making spot appearances. Yet this never addressed the heart of what Harry was getting at concerning Black entertainers these days. Harry put his career and public persona on the line to tell the True story of our people. Harry used his talent, notoriety and money to say and do that which aided a movement that was very unpopular among America's white population. Harry took humanitarian risk to fight consistently for the liberation of Black brown and white by saying and supporting that which his agents, record company execs and media personalities found distaateful. Beyonce and Jay Z give money but hold their silence tightly in order to not offend the Corporate white power structure of the record labels, media, Hollywood and agents. Individual acts of kindness will never free a people, nor move the masses nor subversivly change systemic evil. Yet no movement of ministry can exist without Individual acts of kindness but those acts are a carefully orchestrated symphony of people striking at the designed times and in strategic ways in order to organize masses of people to change oppression into liberation. Finally, I believe the Black Church is still the best place for Movement ministry. I know what is going on and am sick to my stomach of stale, stagnant and self centered spirituality that has seeped into the Black church. Constantian Christianity of the Imperial cult has created the mindset among far too many Black believers that the state is to be upheld while focusing on personal and sexual activities as most important. That way the Empire would not cultivate insurgents against itself (L.H. Whelchel's "History and Heritage of African-American Churches) Constantine knew that he had to control this group of peasants proclaiming their liberation brand of religion or it would eventually bring down the empire itself. Thus the Empire called the great meetings to deal with issues but covertly co-opt control of how the faith would from then on be communicated and WHO would do the communicating. That is not how it started however. When Jesus made his calcualted assault on the Imperial Cult of Rome which ended at calvary in his Murder Jesus had already established a "Shadow Conferacy" in his Disciples to strike and keep striking. He was not a "Lone ranger" he did not waste time on a persons personal sexual behavior. Liberation for the Black people of Palestine was far more important (Ched Myers - "Binding the Strongman) And when Africans in America were presented with this European Constantinian form of the faith they covertly rejected it while overtly feigning acceptance. They covertly defaulted to their original activities in the faith because they were the ones who were first vouchsafed with the "Religion of Jesus" (Howard Thurman). Now far too many Black Clergy and Black parishoners have let Jesus the revolutionary, Bookman, Dessalines, Rev. Gabriel Prosser, Rev. Harriet Tubman, Denmark Vesey, Rev. Nathaniel Turner, Rev. Jerena Lee and David Walker be pulled out of their hands and replaced with Billy Graham, Norman Peale, Joel Osteen, Paula White, Kenneth Hagan and Kenneth Copeland. I name the white one's because they pull the strings of the Black ones. Yet I still believe that the Black church is the place for Movement Ministry! Movement Ministry allows us to not get oo inpressed with ourselves because everybody has worth. Movement ministry forces us to walk in the footsteps of Jesus who also had to put up with the idiosyncrcies of the people closet to him; Jesus had be patient with their issues; Jesus taught them to not try to correct one another until they had connected with one another; Jesus taught them by example that people don't care how much you know until the know how much you care. Movement ministry knocks all of us down from our Horses of arrogance to find common ground for a greater cause than ourselves. There are still are Soldiers of Emmanuel both Black and White who have never taken off our uniforms of Liberation in the Church. Many have had to go into hiding secretly moving about recording names and places of both sympathizers and betrayers to the Faith of that African Warrior of hope Jesus. While many of our troopos have turned to Individual acts of kindness to help feed the need to do something we need you in the ranks. The Black church needs an Influx of Insurgents to build up the ranks. Only Movement Ministry will ultimately tear down Satan's stronghold and the willing Host to Satan's oppressive schemes through Governmental systems, Corporate militarism & materialism, classism, Sexism, Homophobia and Racism. Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. asked "Where do we go from here: Chaos (Only Acts of Individual Kindness) or Community (Movement Ministry through the Black Church)? You decide!

Musing from a Man who gets tired a little more these days

Throughout their sojourn in America, Africans have been taught the separateness of themselves from Africa and Africans. The teaching has been so ingrained that even in those communities which are “most African” there is the greatest scandal of “being African." By Dona Richards(Marimba Ani) At this point in my life I cannot turn back but I can't help looking back every now and then to check the depth of my We are such a biblically illiterate people and culturally deprived group that I wonder if I am not a firefly in the night. There maybe light but the darkness is so pervasive it cannot be truly penetrated. Americans of African descent are so far removed from the relevance of our culture that it is like reaching across the Grand Canyon with just the human arm and hand trying to bridge the gulf. Have you ever tried talking to a snail explaining why it would behoove it to speed itself up every now and then? That is what it is like looking into the vacant eyes of Black folks in America who find it too hard to believe the world waits on them to wake up. Have you ever tried to persuade a bumble bee that pollinating the personal flowers in the backyards of people hastens it's demise by people? That is what it is like trying to get Black people in America to see that the religious systems of every American Denomination is hazardous to their health. At this point in my life I cannot turn back but I cannot help looking back. Have you ever tried getting the Moon to be consistently full? It is as fruitless trying to get people to be consistently in community building from the inside our our only Free Black institution called the church. Have you ever tried to get the rain to be less wet because it's rhythmic moisture beating upon the ground creates a melancholy mood seductive to sleep? That is what it is like when tears roll over the levies of my eye lids cascading down my cheeks in the solitude of my own thoughts of the faces and lives of my people I try my best to inspire. I cannot turn back at this point in my life but I cannot help looking back, and saying Lord forgive me for not being better than I am. Musings of a Man who gets tired more often

Belchings from a Smoldering Soul on the Occasion of ‘An Olympic Opening’ By M Thandabantu Iverson

After years of existence as an angry member of an oppressed people and an exploited class, perhaps now I should be willing to acknowledge how wonderful it is to behold this current Olympiad as a final and irresistible indicator of the triumph of Western capital. Undoubtedly, there were no small number of “former” workers who watched teary-eyed at the spectacular opening ceremony of the Olympics in London with feelings of adoration for what capital claims as its accomplishments; so majestically proclaimed by the sounds, sights, and syncopated rhythms of the opening pageantry of The Games. Accomplishments indeed! These were the results of the coerced toil, sweat, privations, sicknesses, and premature deaths of other workers.

Yet “it is best,” we hear some say, “to let some things be!” Undoubtedly, these former workers felt rapturous pride in their own contemporary escapes from working-class conditions into conditions of greater status and economic comfort, if not security. These contemporaries will think me an ingrate that today, with a job as a teacher at a Midwest university, I continue to babble about the evils of oppression, the hypocrisy of the national pride of modern states mired in the history of colonial and imperial conquest, and the bourgeois theft of centuries of work by literally millions of workers. These contemporaries who have made their ways ‘up the ladder’ do not wish to hear us inveigh against those who stole and raped and maimed and murdered to create the racist, patriarchal, and capitalist hierarchies. Those voices will clamor that we are wrong to indict our good neo-liberal masters who control with such handsome smiles and such quiet drones and sinister prisons. Those who have longed to escape the working class may feel quite unnerved by our remembrances of how the nod was made by the Olympic Opening planners to the workers who dug, and dredged, and hammered, and lifted the Industrial Revolution into place; yet not a single slave ship was seen and not a single word was spoken to acknowledge the many enslaved African workers whose travails birthed the Industrial Revolution. My utterances now will only anger those who would like to continue to forget those telling black invisible creators of “progress”.

Some will say that I should “just get over it all;” but I will not. This Olympiad is yet another round of the games and entertainments by which entire Peoples and Nations can be momentarily bedazzled, and as Malcolm X put it, “bamboozled.” Millions are still jobless, homeless, landless, imprisoned unjustly, profiled inhumanely and murdered with legal impunity. Wall Street barons still live large, laughing at the prideful pimping they have turned into obscenity, and Democrats and Republicans sport their elegant and expensive finery while seeking ‘common ground.’ The rulers of Empire are congratulating themselves on their booty and their celebrations of international ‘brotherhood. But let them beware. There are millions of sullen souls who see this empty bombast and do not sing. We watch the events but we do not feel the pride of the elites. We are loath to cry with national satisfaction, watching those we may have to fight one day to fill some rich man’s pockets. We watch the contests as metaphors for the lives we live. We hope the underdogs can win, even if we cannot. But we are not entirely fooled. We will remember the work of our forebears, and how they built this world from which others seek to disown us. We are tired. We are starting to stir. The Games will not last always. Dr M Thandabantu Iverson is a professor of Labour Studies and a writer