By Gil Caldwell.
To Alan Gilbert.
“Dear Alan,
This morning I awakened as I have done before since his death, thinking of Vincent Harding, and wondering what Vincent would say about something that is taking place in our nation and our world. This morning, I am wondering what would the late, Dr. Vincent Harding say about the visit of Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu to the Congress; a visit in response not to an invitation from our nation’s first black President, Barack Obama, but from the Speaker of the House, John Boehner. An invitation extended without the consent of President Obama.
I remember well your writings about Vincent Harding and your sharing his insights with your readers. Therefore I am writing this to you in a “thinking out loud” way as I used to write our late colleague, Vincent Harding. You should know this about me; I am an 81 year old retired African American United Methodist Minister who from 1997 to 2001 was the first African American Pastor of the multi-racial Park Hill United Methodist Church. And, in my life and ministry, I became influenced by the book of Henri Nouwen, Wounded Healer. I have sought to allow the wounds that I and my black colleagues, past and present, have experienced because of the anti-black racism that has and still exists in the USA to shape my writings and my wish to heal the deep-seated anti-black racism that not only harms those of us who are black, but also harms the well being of the nation.
The visit of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the USA while he is in a political campaign in Israel, that does not have the sanction of President Obama, has reminded me of another manifestation of a street corner bit of analysis that I first heard as I was growing up in North Carolina, Texas and South Carolina; “If you are white, you are alright, if you are brown stick around, if you are black, stand back.” The whiteness of Prime Minister Netanyahu trumps the blackness of President Obama, and the assumption of those who invited the Prime Minister is that President Obama must stand back, because he is black.
Some thoughts;
1. This week my heart is in Selma as persons gather to remember the Selma to Montgomery March. I was at that March on the Tuesday following “Bloody Sunday” and then returned to the March as it ended in Montgomery. I mention this because Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said of his marching with Martin Luther King in the March; “When I marched in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.” It is this kind of Jewish solidarity with the black struggle, expressed by Rabbi Heschel, that has made me hope that the realities of anti-blackness and anti-Semitism, past and present, would forge a continuing bond between Jews and Blacks. But, as one of my colleagues has said over and over again, even as I have disagreed, “The ‘whiteness’ of Jewishness separates Jews and Israel from the struggles of people of color.” I still disagree with him. but his words are present with me as Prime Minister Netanyahu visits the Congress. {Many Jews are opposing this visit and war; see, for instance, Tikkun from the New York Times and The Hill; I, too, am one of the more than 2400 signatories].
2. I have never forgotten that 59 years ago as a Seminary Student, I signed up to participate in an American Friends Service Committee-related workcamp in Denmark. I was one of a very few black students on the ship that took us from Quebec City to Le Havre, France. I found out there were some Jewish students on the ship, and I sought to be in conversation with them, thinking that theirs would be some identification with me because of the racism I had known in the south. I thought that their being in limited communication with me, would not jeopardize their relationships with their white, non-Jewish friends. But, they chose their whiteness and avoided being in communication with me, because of my blackness.
3. Later, as the black struggle for independence was being waged in South Africa and other places in black Africa, I remembered that shipboard experience as Israel was less-than supportive of the boycotts, and disinvestment efforts that were essential to challenging South Africa’s racist apartheid. And, I know that some were fearful that Israel would allow its sophisticated weaponry to be used by the South African military.[the apartheid party in South Africa was pro-Nazi; many of the non-black emancipation movement were Jews; the next statement is not quite on target, referring only to the state of Israel and not to ordinary Jews]. The visit of Prime Minister Netanyahu to the USA compels us to ask again, “Why does South Africa with its rightful articulations of the historic oppression of Jews, seem to be insensitive to the oppression that people of color experience in the USA and the world?” Is Mr. Netanyahu blind, deaf and dumb in response to some of the race-based criticisms that President Obama and his family have experienced and still experience? His visit this week represents another one of those race-based insults our nation’s first black President has experienced.
4. Prime Minister Netanyahu in response to the anti-Semitism that is tragically taking place in Europe, has urged Jews to come and settle in Israel [one might underline how instead of praising the French government for upholding civil liberties, Mr. Netanyahu, being anti-civil liberties and base, said that jews could only find safety in domineering little Israel – a remarkably unsafe place].
Where in the world do blacks find solace and safety in the world, as Jews do in Israel? Sunday’s NY Times, (March 1) has an op-ed titled; “The Next Great Migration” The writer, Thomas Chatterton Williams writes this; “A powerful way to sidestep America’s reluctance to become postracial would be for more black Americans to become postnational.” Jews have Israel, where in the world can blacks find what Jews find in Israel? Africa with its obvious residuals of its colonial past, despite black governance, seems not to be the place to go. And, the presence this week of Mr. Netanyahu in Washington, coupled with the treatment of black and brown people in Israel and the middle east, means Israel is not the place to go.
Alan, W.E.B. DuBois, you and I, know spoke of the 20th century as “The century of the color line”. The calendar convergence of the anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March and the visit of Israel’s Prime Minister to Washington this week, in different ways, illustrates what we all knew, the problem that DuBois identified as a 20th century problem is a problem for the 21st century as well.
I have been pleased as I have read of the efforts of the United Methodist Bishop and United Methodists in the Denver Area to respond to the tragic mistreatment of Native Americans by the Church and State. It is time that we in the USA and the world acknowledge and admit that people of color, despite our numerical majority in the world, with some exceptions, are still rendered less-than-equal and without comparable economic power and influence in the world to that of those who are white.
May the visit of Israel’s Prime Minister to Washington this week reveal for to all to see that on matters of justice, freedom, equality, power and influence, in the USA and the world, “If you are white….”
Gilbert H. Caldwell
Asbury Park, New Jersey
To: Dr. William B. McClain, Dr. Donald Messer, Dr. Pamela Lightsey/Lowell Lecturers, 3/3/15
From: Rev. Gil Caldwell
Congratulations on the success of your Lowell Lectures at Boston University School of Theology
as you discussed your visit to the Selma to Montgomery March when you, Bobby and Don, were students at the School. And you Pamela, as you spoke of your involvement in the struggles in Ferguson. The three of you and the Lowell Lecture have stimulated the following.
1. This week’s Selma Memorial Event, hopefully, will spend most of its time, allowing the meaning of the Selma to Montgomery March address the present and the future. The “living contradiction” of the Supreme Court and the Congress, rescinding some aspects of the Voting Rights Act, an Act brought about by much blood, sweat, tears and deaths, should be a centerpiece of what happens in Selma this week. Remembering and reflecting on the first Selma, compels a re-dedication to confront the Selmas that are present in 2015. There is a symmetry between the police violence of “Bloody Sunday” 50 years ago, and the police violence directed at black men and boys today on the streets and in prisons, that must be admitted, acknowledged and confronted. The release of the Justice Department’s critiques of policing in Ferguson, could not be more timely.[though the refusal to indict the officer who murdered Michael Brown reveals the shame, without a movement form below to push them, of our leading public figures, including Barack and Eric Holder. That a police officer can draw a gun on an unarmed young man and shoot him many times, killing him, and be “protected” by current “legal practice” – the cop who drew his gun on Taj Blow, a student on the Yale campus, is similarly and bizarrely “protected” – is a great scandal of modern America. If this is a free regime, what is a police state?]
2. Today’s New York Times (3/4/2015) has this title; “Alabama Court Halts Licenses For Same-Sex Marriages” for its story about the 7 to 1 decision of the Alabama Supreme Court that halted the issuing of marriage licenses to same sex couples. This rejection of a federal Judge’s decision cannot help but remind those who gather in Selma of the race-based state’s rights decisions that made the Civil Rights Movement necessary, 50 years ago. [Indeed, as Phil Ochs once sang of Mississippi, “Alabama find another country to be part of…”] Regardless of faith-based resistance to same-sex marriage that some who gather in Selma may have, to ignore and not challenge this “in your face” flaunting of federal authority by Alabama re; same sex marriage, is to compromise the essence of the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King said it best; “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
3. The “Selma Memorial Event” can undergird, what must become the major, Justice Struggle of the 21st Century; From Economic Inequality and Injustice to Economic Equality and Justice”. Marcus Borg, the late Biblical/Theological Scholar has written an article that appears in the winter 2015 issue of Tikkun titled; “Embracing the Radical Economics of the Bible”. Borgwrites; “Many believers are eager to use the Bible against same sex relationships…..but devote no energy to fighting for the implementation of (the Bible’s) clear edicts on debt. We seldom hear voices….arguing against interests on loans or for periodic debt forgiveness and restoration of land to families who have lost their land.” Borg offers these Biblical references for the above; Exodus 21:2, 22: 25, Deut. 23:9, Lev. 23 – 28.
History has validated the significance of the Selma to Montgomery March of 50 years ago. May Historians of the future, be able to write of how Selma 2015, transformed for the better, the nation and the world.
Gilbert H. Caldwell.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
The Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell was a young seminarian when he met the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at Boston University. He spent time with the civil rights leader as part of an effort to support public schools in the area. The experience shaped Caldwell’s future as a footman in the civil rights movement and as a United Methodist pastor. In early 2015, Caldwell looked back, and forward, at strides for justice. “When there is institutionalized prejudice against a person for one reason or another, how can we be at ease in Zion? The job of the church is to address these.” He is a co-partner in Truth in Progress and the film documentary;
“From Selma to Stonewall – Are We There Yet?“