The Professor’s Desk Blog

Et Tu, Professor Butler? Stop Blaming Black Church Folk for Everything

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:10:35 -0400

2010 has been a rough year for black church folk in the Afrosphere.

It began with Eddie Glaude delivering their eulogy on the pages of the Huffington Post. (Well, not really. But that’s the sermon a pissed cadre of black preachers heard!) And now there are some blaming black churches for low marriage rates. Surprisingly, my ace and Pentecostal alter-ego Anthea Butler has joined this latter anti-church mob with her own Sanctified Single Ladies anthem.

Let me begin where Anthea and I agree. First, the whole “black women can’t find a husband” meme is indeed tired and trite. The issues at hand are too multilayered for a three-minute Anderson Cooper segment, and too complex for the artistic ability of Tyler Perry.

Second, androcentric theology and the masculinist religious discourse that extends from it can be heard from the lips of preachers, imams and gurus across the globe, dehumanizing women of all faiths, races and ethnicities. It also should go without saying that just because a woman is married does not mean that her faith is life-affirming and healthy.

And Anthea’s attention to the economic implications that underlie this issue yet are often ignored is dead on. Professor Butler is talking dollars and definitely making sense.

But if bad theology is a problem across the board, and limited access to wealth is the real culprit victimizing black women (just as it is devastating to the pool of potential marriage partners), then why lay the blame at the doorsteps of Bethel A.M.E or Ebenezer Baptist?

Keep reading at Religion Dispatches...

High-Tech College Cheating

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:03:34 -0400

40-60% of college students ADMIT to academic dishonesty. Moreover, unlike cheat-sheets and/or simply looking over someone else’s shoulder (like many of us back in the day), today’s students have websites and advanced information technology to facilitate academic impropriety.

On this week’s segment, Tavis and I discuss how we might combat this sophisticated culture of cheating?

What Should I Do? Who Should I Be?

Listen Here...

Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:25:52 -0400

Here’s a brilliant and hilarious commentary on the faux outrage over the proposed Islamic Cultural Center in Manhattan.

One Luv,
JLW

Visions of Liberation

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:51:19 -0400

By Josef Sorett

As of late liberation talk seems to have entered into the lofty ranks of a "top ten list" of public enemies in American politics and popular culture. This development began roughly two years ago, during the most recent presidential election. It was then that Sen. Barack Obama publicly severed ties with the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, as the former pastor of Chicago's Trinity UCC Church was reduced to angry, out-of-context, sound bites on countless cable television news shows.

More recently, however, this phenomenon reemerged in a concerted effort by Fox News' Glenn Beck to attack Dr. James Cone, the academic father of black liberation theology. Cone is a longtime member of the faculty at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he has trained scores of dedicated religious leaders over a period of several decades. Together Wright (a preacher) and Cone (a professor) are two of the most prominent proponents of liberation theology in their respective professions. Yet despite long track records of quality service, both men were all too quickly cast aside as the embodied relics of the radical ethos and racial excess of the 1960s, aka, the decade of "black power."

Sadly, some readers probably clicked away from this reflection the moment they saw the words "liberation" in its opening sentence. Liberation has, unfortunately, become a code word for "communism," or "social justice," and countless other presumably undesirable ideologies. However, to relinquish the language of liberation from our religious lexicons would be to rob our spiritual lives of one of its most valuable resources. After all, at the core of black liberation theology is a simple scriptural message: The gods are preeminently concerned with precisely those whom society seems least concerned -- "the least of these" identified by the gospel writer Matthew. As so much in our contemporary culture of spirituality emphasizes the importance of our individual and interior lives, this passage draws us out of ourselves into those areas of our worlds that we would rather ignore.

The language of liberation insists that we prioritize persons living at the margins, rather than those who occupy the plum seats of privilege, which we so often covet...

Keep reading at ABC News Good Morning America...

Troubled Marriage

Fri, 9 Jul 2010 17:00:08 -0400

This week Tavis and I discuss the growing trend among adult couples who are choosing to have and raise children outside of the institution of marriage. Is this putting the cart before the horse? Or should we not worry about the decisions being made by responsible adults?

What Should I Do? Who Should I Be?

Listen Here...