Betty: Swearing.
Jim: Thank you, in swearing, came up and offended some people who assumed (a) he doesn't believe so (b) when he says "Oh my God" or whatever it is doubly insulting. C.I. does not generally talk about religion so we're all interested to see how that aspect of the roundtable will go. Betty's already leapt in and she's one of the people who's been strongly advocating for months now that we address this topic. Therefore, let me toss to her.
Betty: I am religious. I was raised in the Black church and I remain in the Black church. I found a lot of the sop tossed out by 'progressives' following the 2004 election insulting but, these days, I find even more of the actions of the 'progressives' offensive. That's the main reason I've been advocating for some sort of feature on this topic. I think C.I.'s coverage of the Iraqi Christians was very revealing. Look at the weeks and weeks of that coverage and notice how many of the sources are either international or religious. Meaning, the topic is being ignored in the US by non-religious based outlets. That's shameful and it goes to a discomfort that I think we need to address.
Jess: Let me add that The Los Angeles Times became the first major US daily paper to editorialize on the crisis for Iraqi Christians currently in Mosul in surrounding areas. I'm not sure how much I will or will not contribute here so that may be it for me.
Jim: Okay, I'm not going to be outing anyone during this roundtable. We do, however, have three participating who are known to be Catholics: Kat, Mike and Ava and they might want to weigh in on this topic since a great deal of the coverage has come from Catholic outlets and the Vatican. They might not but I'll put that out there.
Mike: Yeah, early on, when C.I. had started covering it . . . Okay, it was on a Thursday when C.I. started covering it and a Sunday night, four nights later, that C.I. pointed out the silence from The New York Times on the issue and how the Pope had commented publicly in addition to the Church issuing statements. That was weird. That was very weird. The Pope is considering an international figure and generally he makes news with everything he says or does. If you're Catholic, like I am, you follow him a little more closely but the Pope is always news. So the silence -- and The New York Times has done at least one article that's focused on Iraqi Christians in all these weeks -- when even the Pope is speaking out publicly is just really appalling.
Kat: Because of Betty, because of remarks she's made advocating for this topic, as the plight of Iraqi Christians unfolded, I wasn't that surprised to see so little interest from the press; however, like Mike, when I read the Sunday night piece C.I. wrote where C.I.'s pointing out the silence even in the face of the statements coming out of the Vatican, it was -- it just really illustrated points Betty has been making about how certain groups aren't worthy of concern to our press -- big and small.
Jim: Ava's waving her hand -- she and C.I. are taking notes -- so I'm going to go back to Betty. Betty, I know you've made a lot of points advocating for this story, but the issue Kat just raised "about how certain groups aren't worthy" is probably a good place for you to start.
Betty: Actually Jim, I think the place to start is with my race. I really think, and I know Marcia agrees with me, that another point needs to be established first.
Jim: Sure.
Betty: I want to talk about the anger and scorn directed at Christians from 'independent' media. But before we can get to that, I really think we need to go into which Christians because it's not the Black Church being scorned in 2008. Marcia?
Marcia: Absolutely not. The ones doing the scorning are largely White 'progressives' and they think they're 'funny' and 'cute' but they don't direct that same hatred at African-American churches. Jeremiah Wright damns the United States and these losers fall over themselves to excuse it, these White losers. They think that's how my race is, that we're all Jeremiah Wright making crackpot statements about how AIDS was a government plot and gay sex is the same as murder and all the rest of his nutty comments.
Cedric: Exactly. It's very insulting and it's been very amusing for me to watch how these White Honkeys who've built up the legend of Jeremiah have avoided the issue that he's now being sued for firing his mistress. Yes, Wright who got wife number two when she and her then-husband showed up for marital counseling done got caught cheating again. But there's some sort of desire on the part of the Honkey set -- I'm referring to a specific sort of White person -- to romanticize and mytholigize African-Americans so we're given a pass.
Ty: Even when studies show that if same-sex marriage is defeated at the ballot box here -- California -- a finger can be wagged at the African-American community which opposes same-sex marriage in this state in a greater percentage than any other community.
Marcia: Exactly. And that's what's so damn irritating about what Cedric's talking about, this attempt by the Honkeys to act like every Black church is the same and they're all wonderful and beyond criticism. I should probably define "Honkey" as we're using it.
Cedric: First though, a Honkey was originally a White person who had an African-American working for them and the White person would show up to pick them up and honk -- hence the term "Honkey."
Marcia: Right. Okay, as we're using the term, and we don't mean it as a compliment, these are White "helpers" who are doing serious damage to the African-American community with their 'help.' They're 'progressives' which really means that we're mainly talking about Communists and Socialists.
Betty: And their hands off approach when it comes to criticism of Black churches is in start contrast to the way they treat White churches or churchgoers. I mean, let's just grab the homophobia issue, 'independent' media refuses to call out Black churches for homophobia. In fact, they will broadcast the homophobia of Bernice King and not even call it out, not even point it out. Honkeys like Amy Goodman will demonstrate how White they are and how much they wish they were Black by lapping that crap up when they should be calling out and when they would be calling it out if it were a White person saying it. And on this issue in particular, I've long noted that my own church has been very active fighting homophobia and how that is not true of all the churches in my area -- Atlanta -- but the work we do is undercut and destroyed by these Honkeys like Amy Goodman who refuse to call out homophobia unless it comes from a White person.
Jim: Okay, let's move on -- and this may still be with Betty because she has a number of examples of the intolerance towards religion -- to the issue of the way 'independent' media treats White church goers.
Rebecca: Jim, let me jump in. I think Marcia's "Shannon Joyce Prince on Tim Wise" is a good starting point because it's actually a transition between the two communities.
Marcia: That's true. I hadn't thought about it, but it's correct. Shannon Joyce Prince had a wonderful essay at Black Agenda Report entitled "Word to the Wise (Tim Wise, that is)" and I wrote about it -- community members Martha and Kendrick e-mailed me about it -- because it more nicely covered a topic I've been repeatedly addressing at my site. Shannon, an African-American Christian, doesn't find White Tim Wise's little jabs at Christianity funny even though they're mainly aimed at White Christians. Shannon was very brave to write that piece and I'm glad Rebecca remembered it because I would've forgotten it. But there's a screen now -- for those of us who are African-American and go to church --
Cedric: And not all of us go to church.
Marcia: No, we do not all go to church. I think all participating in this roundtable, all African-Americans participating do, in fact, I know we do, but in society at large, not all do. But those who do see these Honkeys like Tim Wise rip apart White Christians repeatedly and it only underscores to us how there is a double standard and either Honkeys are afraid to call out anything to do with the African-American community or they're hoping to trick us into believing they're with us when they really aren't. Like the 30s Communist recruitment drives all over again!
Ty: Let me just read in some of Tim Wise's garbage. He's writing about how he thinks -- though 'thinks' may be too strong for what Wise has done -- fascism will come to the US:
this is how it will happen: not with tanks and jackbooted storm troopers, but carried in the hearts of men and women dressed in comfortable shoes, with baseball caps, and What Would Jesus Do? wristbands. It will be heralded by up-dos, designer glasses, you-betcha folksiness and a disdain for big words or hard consonants.
[. . .]
If fascism comes it will come from faux populism, from anti-immigrant hysteria, from persons who have more guns in their homes than books, or whose books, when they have them, are principally volumes of the Left Behind series, several different copies of the Bible, and a plethora of romance novels.
Ty (Con't): I think Timmy Wise is confusing fascism with his own personal dislikes. And, for the record, if he visited my grandmother's house, he'd find at least twenty copies of Bibles and a whole lot more romance novels. And, yeah, he's trying to slime White Christians, but my grandmother reads Marcia's site and she read about Shannon Joyce Prince's essay and went and read Tim Wise's garbage. She didn't say, "Ty, I'm offended he'd talk about White Christians like that," she said she was offended he'd talk about Christians that way. If I haven't noted it already this roundtable, I'm African-American. So my grandmother is among those in the African-American community that sees this sort of garbage aimed at White Christians as an attack on all Christians and she especially notices how Amy Goodman plays that game. In fact, she stopped listening to Goodman last month -- for good -- as a result of that attitude. It doesn't make any difference to my grandmother that Amy shines it on for African-American Christians and only spits on White Christians because my grandmother, a Christian, believes that the Lord doesn't welcome us into heaven based on skin color but based on whether or not we're Christians. Therefore an attack on any Christian is an attack on all Christians.
Elaine: You're making some important points but I have to scream, "Hold on!" Tim Wise is so filled with hate that he's decided he can get away with lying and we need to call that out. His crap is entitled "THIS IS HOW FASCISM COMES: REFLECTIONS ON THE COST OF SILENCE." He has done just what he accuses the other side of doing and he's a dumb liar. I don't have time for people like Tim Wise. Here's his opening sentence: "For those who have seen the ugliness and heard the vitriol emanating from the mouths of persons attending McCain/Palin rallies this past week--what with their demands to kill Barack Obama, slurs that he is a terrorist and a traitor, and paranoid delusions about his crypto-Muslim designs on America--please know this: This is how fascism comes to an ostensible democracy." Ava and C.I. tackled the lie regarding "Kill him!" supposedly yelled and even Newsweek has called that lie out. But there's the idiot Tim Wise repeating it because he's so consumed with hate for people who are different than him that he doesn't feel it's required to get his facts right.
Wally: Any lie is justified.
Elaine: Exactly. And then he wants to claim he's got some sort of moral superiority when in fact his entire column can be seen as outlining the facist state he wants -- first step demonize all who don't believe as he does.
Betty: Tim Wise can be heard on various Pacifica outlets and he only proves Marcia's point about the Honkeys who try to insist that all Whites except for them are racists are Honkeys we in the Black community know not to trust. Someone who has to tar and feather an entire race has to do so for a reason and I suspect Tim Wise has a lot of racism in him -- I'm not talking towards his own race, I mean towards Black people. I hear it when he tries to 'Black.' And of course he's married to Hustle & Flow Michael Eric Dyson who knows how to be Black better than anyone . . . if that's judged by whether or not a Black person marries a White one. I love it when Dyson tries to pull his more-authentic-than-thou crap. And I'm off topic, I know but Ty told me last Tuesday a reader had written in wanting that point made. I'm happy to toss it out there.
Rebecca: If you think about some of the stuff that's been coming out, I mean Robin Morgan has never had a kind word to say about religion but that crap, that anti-feminist screed against Sarah Palin, went beyond Morgan's usual intolerance and, if you missed it, she tied religion in with women having 'litters.' I found that insulting to Christians, to women and to mothers. And I think it really says a lot about hatred -- including of ones own gender -- when you're trying to write a 'helpful' and 'uplifiting' column and you're referring to women who reproduce as having 'litters.' I may have been the only one who was offended by that --
Betty: I know what you're talking about now but I didn't notice it on my own. I'd say it was offensive. And Morgan's only one example. What about Socialist Barbie Barbara Ehrenreich? I'm sick of them. I'm sick of them controlling the conversation, I'm sick of their intolerance. I have never attempted to turn anyone into a Christian. I have never -- and am not now -- insulted people for not believing in a God. So it's really not fair to the discourse that these Honkeys -- who will not call out the Black churches -- are allowed to demonize White Christians. That's Morgan, that's Socialist Barbie, that's Esther Kaplan and all the rest.
Wally: I think we're seeing, behind the intolerance, an attitude of "I'm so much smarter because I don't believe." I mean, that's Matthew Rothschild's MO whenever he wants to slam someone. And so it's not like -- Betty's point -- they can be fair or equal because they don't just believe they are right in their disbelief, they believe you must disbelieve with them and, until you do, they will inflict their poor attempts at jokes upon the country. By the way, Ruth should speak.
Jim: Absolutely. Ruth?
Ruth: As the resident Jew, I am laughing, I am not really sure what to say. See, for me, a great deal of this aminosity is not merely coming from non-believers in Christianity. It is also come from Jewish people -- some of whom practice the Jewish faith and some of whom are ethnically Jewish but do not believe in God. So for me, there is that aspect which really turns the conversation into another avenue.
Betty: That is interesting and I wish we'd talked about this together because that's something worth pursuing. As I understand it, you're saying that an added factor is the Jewish issue and for non-practicing Jews -- or non-believing Jews -- that's factored in?
Ruth: In the aminosity, absolutely. "Independent" media tends to attract the 'radical' which includes a number of Socialists and Communists and the latter group, of course, does not believe in God. The latter group has always had a strangle-hold on a certain type of NYC Jew. And there is real derision aimed at Christians. I am going larger here but just to finish my points, "Goyum." That is something I and other Jews will say dismissively but not meaning any harm. And there are many sayings and attitudes on the part of Jews towards Christians that acknowledge our differences and make light of them. But what I am seeing from people who are ethnically Jewish these days on the 'left' goes beyond Jewish humor and is outright hatred. It is intolerance -- that words been used in this discussion and I agree that is the term for it -- and it is hatred and it, honestly, frightens me.
Mike: Because.
Ruth: Because of what follows.
Mike: Meaning every action has a reaction?
Ruth: Right. There was a wonderful piece that I will try to highlight this week at my site but I cannot remember the author right now or where I saw it. Maybe Information Clearing House? But it was telling the truth about McCarthyism -- the way Ava and C.I. tell it, not the little lie Victor Navasky and others of my ethnicity spin. But McCarthyism -- a horrible time in history -- did not just come about from one side going on a witch hunt. Actions took place that led to hostilities which then led to a witch hunt.
Mike: So you're saying that what you fear is the intolerance tossed out at White Christians has a backlash that comes back on others?
Ruth: Yes, because we do not live in a vacuum.
Marcia: That is another avenue to pursue. Like Betty, I wish Ruth had been raising this issue when we've pitched this topic before.
Jim: Dona, whose keeping time, just handed me a note that if we're going to stay within our set time limit, we need to start winding down. Jess has stated he'd speak more if he wanted to and I think we've seen a pretty reasonable exchange but I'm going to drag C.I. into this because of an e-mail that comes in repeatedly, most recently from a guy in St. Louis, who wants to know why, when Jeremiah Wright's infamous statement is quoted, "God" is censored?
C.I.: Well that's the word that offended people. Ask Betty. She'll tell you about it.
Betty: Right. My father wasn't just calling Wright out to C.I., he was calling him out to our entire church, my father's a deacon. And how offensive it was for Wright to damn the United States from his position as a pastor and to call on God to do it. I mean, Isaiah did a comic on it and even he censored "God" out with "G**," I believe. But that's what made it offensive from a religious perspective. It was offensive, to damn the US, anyway. But the God aspect was what was offensive.
Jim: As noted at the top, I've said, "Oh my God" and "Good God" in pieces here. And that does offend people. You, C.I., do not do that at The Common Ills and you call me out on how offended people may be when I do it here. You're aware that the guessing game among some readers is attempting to determine whom the non-believers are and that you and Elaine are tied as the top guesses.
C.I.: I haven't commented on my own personal views of a religion or religion in general and I would ideally like to make it through my online life without ever doing so. So if you're hoping for a comment on that, you're not going to get it. The phrases you speak of are phrases that do offend some people. As late as the early seventies, you could not hear them on television. Ruth Warrick is infamous for telling the story about how she added "help me" -- while playing Phoebe Tyler on All My Children -- to some sort of "Oh God" and how, if she hadn't, the scene wouldn't have aired. I have no desire to offend anyone on what they believe or don't believe in terms of faith and certain phrases are just not used at The Common Ills. They may slip through -- and once one of the phrases you quoted did slip through and I apologize do those offended -- but there's really no point in using them. "Good heavens," for example, can be utilized in the same manner and not leave anyone feeling that they've just been insulted. I have no problem insulting people for many reasons -- just to be clear, I'm not going for nicest person online. But I've never felt the need to insult anyone based on their religious beliefs or lack of them. Does that answer the question?
Jim: Yeah. And I'm going to toss to Kat and Wally for closing thoughts because Dona says they were among the ones speaking least.
Kat: Wally's indicating I should go first. Look it, I'm not the biggest Catholic in the world or country. But even so, a lot of the statements about religion lately coming from the 'progressive' choir is flat-out offensive to me. And when we're to the point where you're offending me, it means you've already offended a lot of others. I was raised a Catholic, I go to Midnight Mass at Christmas and that's the only time I step inside the Church. I'm not Super Cath! So if I'm taking offense, you better believe you've crossed a line.
Wally: I think Kat's summed up the point about offense so I want to to sum up in a different manner. First, companion piece to this roundtable should be Mike's "Interview with C.I." Second, this hostility or hatred towards Christianity on the part of some 'progressives' is a problem and if you doubt it you just need to pay attention to how Panhandle Media has refused to explore the very real crisis -- which some call an attempt at 'liquidation' -- going on in Iraq. If that were Muslims being targeted for being Muslim, you know Amy Goodman would devote several entire broadcasts to the issue. But Iraqi Christians? They got one tiny headline. That's it. It's the story no one wants to address. And there's no denying at this point that it has to do with the word "Christian" after "Iraqi." So it is effecting coverage and a lot of people need to check their own bias and their own hatred.
Jim: And on that note, we'll wrap up this religious roundtable. Illustration was done by Betty's oldest son. This is a rush transcript.