As Christians, our compassion should extend beyond the corner our churches are located on. But I can’t imagine justifying sending money away from our neighborhoods to help the huge corporations who own the beachfront resorts or the comparatively well-off sole proprietors who are certainly suffering but whose misery index remains much cheerier than that of much of Black America. The ecological disaster is heartbreaking but, again, unless you live in those areas, the heinous impact of the virtual genocide of dozens of sea species in the Gulf remains in the abstract. It is The Other. The Other Thing Happening To Other People. Our faith demands that we pray for those stricken communities, for those suffering people, but it’s difficult to draw a straight line from the sinking Deepwater Horizon to black pulpits across America.
...what has defined us as a nation
since our founding is the capacity to shape our destiny -– our
determination to fight for the America we want for our children.
Even if we’re unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we
don’t yet know precisely how we’re going to get there. We know
we’ll get there.
It was a bad speech.
On Tuesday, June 15th, shortly after 8PM Eastern Daylight Time,
Barack Obama, President of the United States, delivered one of
the most tepid and mealy-mouthed Oval Office speeches in
American history. The speech was such a jaw-dropping
disappointment, completely bereft of substance, leadership or,
frankly, anything at all we didn’t already know, that I wondered
why he bothered to deliver it. Political friends and foes both
panned the speech as insignificant bordering on meaningless, the
president delivering only the most vague promises of an end to
the ongoing ecological disaster while shaking his fist at
BP—whom the government is relying on to solve the problem. This
faux-rage at BP included an apparently empty threat to demand BP
set funds in escrow for the economic and ecological damage from
the oil spill, but no legal scholar has come forward to conclude
the president actually has the authority to force BP into doing
anything. At a time of national crisis, the spewing well in
split-screen on many televisions, the president provided no
fresh news, no new answers and no concrete solutions to the
crisis. He made empty threats to British Petroleum while
rambling on a bit about the importance of green energy and
making references to World War II, of all things, that I’d
imagine most people under 30 simply didn’t get.
It was a bad speech. Which puzzled me, considering this is one
of the best speech-ifiers the world has ever seen. And if ever
we needed a rousing speech from Barack Obama, we need one now.
But, maybe that wasn’t entirely his fault. I mean, what did we
expect him to say? “The Navy, in conjunction with the CIA and
Star Trek, have a top-secret submarine that will now go down
there and seal off the well?” If the Navy could do that, they
would have done it by now. The sad fact is, there really isn’t
much, in the near future, this president or anybody else can do
to stem the awful, sad tide of ruination visiting the Gulf
region and, soon, the pristine beaches of Florida. With the
economy still on the ropes, the massive losses in tourism
revenue and jobs will deal a savage blow to national morale as
the stock market seesaws and high unemployment numbers continue
unabated.
The president, at the end of the day, is pretty helpless in the
face of this disaster. Going on TV was a terrible idea because
his lame speech, clearly (and overly) vetted by one committee
after another, confirmed it. This disaster is a political body
blow to this president who was slow to respond, slow to grasp
the enormity of the problem, and way too slow getting out in
front. He now appears to be playing catch-up, having to tell us
the government has been involved since day one. Had the
president been involved since day one, we would have seen those
pictures. Instead it’s dead birds all the time, the president
strolling along beaches in shirt sleeves pointing at tar balls.
Each year, at the beginning of shrimping season, the region’s
fishermen take part in a tradition that was brought to America
long ago by fishing immigrants from Europe. It’s called “The
Blessing of the Fleet,” and today it’s a celebration where
clergy from different religions gather to say a prayer for the
safety and success of the men and women who will soon head out
to sea -– some for weeks at a time.
The ceremony goes on in good times and in bad. It took place
after Katrina, and it took place a few weeks ago –- at the
beginning of the most difficult season these fishermen have ever
faced.
The president’s speech marked him as a one-term president.
This may or may not be true, I mean, Bill Clinton came back from
Lewinskygate. However, in every way that matters, the BP spill
is Obama’s Katrina. Of course, it’s nothing at all like Katrina,
which dealt death and suffering to thousands, trapping thousands
more in squalid detention camps with overflowing toilets where
people were assaulted and raped. What we have with the BP spill
is dead birds, but the similarity is the seeming disconnect of
the president from the reality on the ground or, in this case,
beneath the sea. President Bush was extremely slow to respond
and slow to grasp the enormity of the crisis and then bungled
the response at every turn. President Obama was just as slow,
seeming almost dismissive of the event initially—I mean, it was
BP’s problem. Since waking from his coma, his management of the
crisis has been mostly symbolic, as the government admits BP has
more expertise and technology for handling this event than
anyone else. The president is trying to appear presidential, but
the more time he spends on TV the more impotent he looks. The
fact is, he really can’t do anything but wait, along with the
rest of us, hoping one of the two relief wells BP is digging
will hit their target the first time (such wells rarely work the
first time). Absent some real action, like a nuclear sub
arriving on-scene with a dozen elite Navy SEALs mustered on
deck, there really isn’t anything the president can do, which
makes his effort to look presidential a real roll of the dice.
Each failure on BP’s part is considered a failure on Obama’s
part, which lends the appearance of mismanagement when, frankly,
the president is not managing—BP is. But each Wyle E. Coyote
ACME atom-smasher plan BP comes up with inevitably becomes a
failure on the president’s part, making the president seem inept
when he really isn’t. Perception becoming reality, however, this
mess becomes Obama’s Katrina, even though it is an unfair
comparison.
The president seemed powerless in the face of enormous tragedy
and harm to the American people. Additionally, the significance
of this having been the president's very first address to the
American people from the Oval Office weighted the speech with a
great deal of political significance. Eloquence and gravity are
this president's strength. Here, he had neither. He seemed lost
in rhetoric that was neither here nor there; words so fussed
over by department heads that they'd been stripped of all
meaning. Barack Obama is never boring, yet he was boring Tuesday
night. He was, dare I say, almost George Bushian in his
vagueness. Better to have cancelled the speech or, better,
thrown out the lame script and spoken from the heart. The vague
references to the president's Cap And Trade bill (which he
himself derailed in favor of an immigration bill the White House
knew, going in, would never pass), World War II (of all things)
and prayer reminded me of the literary sparring I'd do to flesh
out thin term papers. More typing than actual writing, it was
all fluff; Hamburger Helper designed to help me reach the bottom
of the page. The president's speech seemed filled to the brim
with this verbal fluff, which only served to make the horrible
ever more so and it became evident, early into the speech, that
the president really had no solid answers, no big stick with
which to whack this problem.
Black America has, in large measure, paid limited attention to
all of this. I mean, we have our own problems. Black
unemployment remains steady at 15%, and there aren’t a *whole*
lot of black shrimpers or black pleasure boat owners in the Gulf
area. I imagine some of us are actually gloating—the relatively
well-to-do fishermen, restaurant owners, hotel owners and
tourist attraction operators being mostly white folk, some of us
may be grateful these people are getting a sense of what blacks
have been going through since Katrina and Rita. Which is a bit
ignorant considering these very same people, white and black,
were savaged by Katrina and Rita, the Gulf coastal area having
only recently begun to recover from that devastation.
But what is our response? What are we saying about all of this
in our churches, in our homes, at the buffet table? Not a lot.
I’m not hearing a lot of discussion about this in our churches.
At the barber shop last week, the talk was all about the NBA
playoffs. It may remain to be seen how, beyond our president’s
political trouble, the BP spill has any relevance to the black
community. I mean, its taken two months to even show up, here on
the PraiseNet.
Suffering is nothing new to Black America. So much so that our
misery index may be quite different from others, perhaps to the
point of indifference to the suffering of others. The Gulf story
has worn out its welcome in an instant-gratification, 24-hour
news cycle. We are, quite frankly, tired of hearing about it.
Mainly because none of that BP cash will help us save our homes
or feed our kids. As tragic as the goings-on are, we find
ourselves observing the suffering of a community that has not,
to my thinking, ever been much a part of our own. I am unaware
of any African American churches or social services chartering
busses to rush to Pensacola to clean up those beaches in order
to save the Florida tourist trade. What does Florida’s tourist
trade mean to us? Aren’t we still waiting for assistance
rebuilding lives in Louisiana and Alabama?
As Christians, our compassion should extend beyond the corner
our churches are located on. But I can’t imagine justifying
sending money away from our neighborhoods to help the huge
corporations who own the beachfront resorts or the comparatively
well-off sole proprietors who are certainly suffering but whose
misery index remains much cheerier than that of much of Black
America. The ecological disaster is heartbreaking but, again,
unless you live in those areas, the heinous impact of the
virtual genocide of dozens of sea species in the Gulf remains in
the abstract. It is The Other. The Other Thing Happening To
Other People.
Of course, thousands of those "Other People" are, in fact, us.
They are resort staff and day laborers, truck drivers and food
processors, tour guides and chefs, waiters and busboys. Lots of
regular folk, white and brown, caught up in circumstances that
had nothing to do with them. NBC ran a story about a famous clam
house, which supplied clams to Red Lobster restaurants across
the country, shut down by the oil spill. Its work force seemed
75% minority workers, many of them now desperate to find work.
We know their story. We can certainly empathize with them.
But can we, should we, have compassion for rich folks? For
corporations and stockholders? Tourists? Beachgoers? Images of
dead birds and families driven off of beaches fouled by crude
oil certainly evoke sympathy but do they evoke empathy in places
where going to the beach is the least of our worries? Of course
the ecological disaster earns this story its constant-on place
in the news, but it’s difficult to draw a straight line from the
sinking Deepwater Horizon to black pulpits across America. To
Brooklyn or Watts or Little Rock or Chicago. Our faith demands
that we pray for those stricken communities, for those suffering
people. But it makes one wonder when’s the last time those
communities, those people, prayed for us. It is wrong to justify
indifference, but the truth, nonetheless, is the BP spill is a
much smaller story here in Ourtown and maybe in yours. The
nation, white and black, is most assuredly outraged. The impact
on the national economy remains to be seen, and the devastation
along the coast is surely tragic. But where is the nation’s
urgent response to gang violence? To poverty? To people
suffering without health care? Where is the nation’s empathy for
the least among us?
"We don't talk about the environment," PraiseNet Associate
Editor, Reverend Neil Brown, said. "In our church tradition, we
do not educate ourselves about the environment. It's not
something that I've ever heard discussed in a black church.
There's been no mention of the BP disaster in my church." When
asked what the black church's response to the disaster should
be, Neil was a bit stumped. "I have a lot of empathy for the
people trying to stop the leak. These are people who had been
doing their jobs, doing what they'd been told to do. Now they're
being scapegoated—given an impossible task mainly so they can be
blamed for not accomplishing it. I know what that feels like."
The president got his $20 billion without a fight.
I'm sure BP would have put a bow on it if they could. The oil
giant's first-quarter profits were $5.60 billion, up from $2.39
billion in the same period of 2009, thanks to higher oil and gas
prices. It is entirely possible, if not likely, that BP will
sacrifice in excess of a year's profits on reparations for this
mess. Of course, Republicans immediately criticized the Obama
administration, calling BP's $20B escrow fund—which is likely to
only be a down payment on the actual cost of this tragedy— a
"shakedown." Sarah Palin criticized the president for not
calling in the Dutch to fix the leak, whom Palin argued has lots
of experience, "plugging dykes and things."
This is the most powerful woman in Republican politics.
Foreign vessels have been thus far prohibited from assisting in
cleaning up the oil spill due to provisions of the Merchant
Marine Act of 1920, a United States Federal statute that
regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S.
ports. Section 27, also known as the Jones Act, deals with
cabotage (i.e., coastal shipping) and requires that all goods
transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flag
ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens,
and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents. The
purpose of the law is to support the U.S. merchant marine
industry, but agricultural interests generally oppose it
because, they contend, it raises the cost of shipping their
goods, making them less competitive with foreign sources. In
addition, amendments to the Jones Act, known as the Cargo
Preference Act (P.L. 83-644), provide permanent legislation for
the transportation of waterborne cargoes in U.S.-flag vessels.
[Wikipedia]
The president's to-date refusal to waive this law prevents BP
from assembling an armada of foreign supertankers equipped with
advanced skimmers capable of more effectively combating the Gulf
spill. Wikipedia: In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff temporarily waived the U.S.
Shipping Act for foreign vessels carrying oil and natural gas
from September 1 to September 19, 2005. There have been claims
critical of the Obama Administration that the act should again
be waived in wake of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Such
claims have persisted despite the need for a waiver being deemed
unnecessary in the current scenario by those involved in the
Deepwater response effort.
It should not surprise me that the Republicans are desperately
inventing ways to blame this mess on the president. I don't
think any rational, thinking person could do that—blame Obama
for the disaster—and calling this "Obama's Katrina" is certainly
just as disingenuous. But this is precisely what his political
enemies will do, and the charges will stick. First and foremost
because, in large measure, the American people are not rational
and do not think. Barely 26% of us even vote, and of those of us
who do, I would guess at least 75-90% of those vote along vague
ideological lines: vote for Obama because he's black. Vote
against Obama because he's black. Rational thought has very
little to do with politics. It's all about managing appearances
because appearances, impressions, stick. People use them to
justify their gut feelings. In the case of this president, those
feelings likely resolve around Obama's race moreso than anything
he's actually done. But it is the politics of perception we wrap
our prejudice in to justify our choices. People predisposed to
support this president will continue to do so and find some
political cover to justify that choice. People who hate Obama
will certainly blame him for the oil spill and argue that this
is Obama's Katrina.
Which was why last week's speech was so egregious in its poor
timing and vapid content. Already politically hammered by this
tragedy, the president's speech only made things worse by
validating—as opposed to alleviating—our fear, and revealing a
president with feet of clay. Mere weeks before the disaster, the
president, moving against the political grain and infuriating
his base, announced his support for expanded offshore drilling.
During last week's speech, he announced,
As a result of these efforts, we’ve directed BP to mobilize
additional equipment and technology. And in the coming weeks and
days, these efforts should capture up to 90 percent of the oil
leaking out of the well. This is until the company finishes
drilling a relief well later in the summer that’s expected to
stop the leak completely.
90 percent? Where did the president get that number? Oh, wait,
of course—he got it form BP. The 90 percent figure is being
laughed off the air by talking head politicos on both the left
and right. It is an absurd claim, one that will do even greater
harm to this president when it fails to come true. Al of which
makes this not only an ecological, environmental and economic
disaster, but a political one for this president. And, perhaps,
a spiritual disaster for our church.
And still, they came and they prayed. For as a priest and former
fisherman once said of the tradition, “The blessing is not that
God has promised to remove all obstacles and dangers. The
blessing is that He is with us always,” a blessing that’s
granted “even in the midst of the storm.”
From Access-Jesus.Com:
God's character embodies the definition of compassion. God
desires to free others from their suffering. He has compassion
for people who are lost. He has compassion for people who repent
and have a true desire to turn away from their sin. God has
compassion for people who have faith in Him. God's compassion is
not just talk and feelings, but His compassion is full of
action. He desires to and blesses mankind because of His
compassionate nature.
But what should our action be? What should our response be?
The definition of compassion must include human kindness as well
as good deeds. Someone cannot have human kindness in them unless
they have the love for others. God is the best example of
compassion. He loves all of mankind whether or not any one
individual loves Him or not. Because of this love, God desires
to bless us. As our Creator, He desires us to be as
compassionate as Him and show human kindness to others. To be
compassionate we must have love in us that compels us to do good
deeds. If we just do good deeds for someone, but we have no love
for that person we are not compassionate. We have no human
kindness (1Cor. 13:3, "And though I bestow all my goods to feed
the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not
charity, it profiteth me nothing"). In fact, if you have
something to give and do not give it to someone in need, you
have no compassion or the love of God in you (1 John 3:17, "But
whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need,
and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth
the love of God in him? ").
The ongoing Gulf disaster poses this question uniquely if not
exclusively to the black church in America. For years, we've
reached beyond our walls asking other communities, other tribes,
for their compassion, for their empathy—most ironically with
blacks in this very same region with Hurricane Katrina. Yet we
seem slow to reciprocate unless we see our faces, our families,
in those news photos. In this specific case, rest assured those
faces are most assuredly there, even if they do not dominate the
news coverage. But, even if they didn't, this tragedy would
still be a major test for us, one I fear we are likely failing.
My suspicion is that our churches are treating this matter with
a great deal of indifference as we go about our business of
hollering, catching vapors and falling out every Sunday. Thakya
Jeezaas. Without one word, one prayer, even one moment of
silence for those suffering in the Gulf. A reality that makes
this tragedy truly universal in that our pastors continue to
fail to look beyond the square feet of dirt their church is
planted on, continue to fail to teach us how what happens to
this guy affects that guy affects that other guy... affects us.
What should our response be? Something better than this.
Christopher J. Priest
20 June 2010
editor@praisenet.org
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