"Do you see the problem?"

Yep. She had to drag Jeezus on the bus. But, she's a professor of religion. She probably can't help herself.

"Rosa Parks' decision did help catalyze a revolution in race relations. But hers was not the action of a single individual. Rather, it was the culmination of a long-standing religious commitment nurtured in a community of faith."

I guess she fails to grasp the irony of the fact that Africans were shipped to the slaveocracies of the so-called new world in the holds of slave ships named Jesus, Providence, etc., captained and manned by Christians of all denominations.

Our storian you are correct. There's a diagnosis for such failures "to grasp" the reality of matters" COG NI TIVE----DIS SO NANCE!!!!!!!!!!!

Winston is going the longest way around to make a spectacularly mundane point.

OK, so Rosa Parks didn't just wake up one day and decide, "You know, I think I'll go out and become a symbol of a movement that will change America."

Who on earth thought that she did?

Ms. Parks had a history before that day on the bus. She had teachers and friends and organizations that shaped her ideas and gave her strength.

But when the time came, she stepped up all alone.

I read Winston's op-ed a little differently than P6 does, I think. I'm reading her as saying that communities of faith run the risk of losing their bearings if they're not busy looking for and supporting the next Rosa Parks. I'm not reading this as revisionism of Ms. Parks' accomplishment.

Then she shouldn't have claimed Mrs. Parks' efforts for her own.

She used typical revisionist technique...invalid expansionof reference. It's like saying "a bunch of guys planned it, I'm a guy, ipso facto..."

It's like saying "a bunch of guys planned it, I'm a guy, ipso facto..."

Yes, it is.

I admit, I'm having to try very hard to read Ms. Winston with a chairitable eye.

Just a rough cut at the problems in the op-ed: if I was Winston's editor, I'd move this up:

When she boarded that Montgomery city bus, her convictions had been shaped by years of service in the NAACP and her local African Methodist Episcopal church. The summer before, she'd spent several weeks at the Highlander Folk School, an institute for social change begun by faculty and former students of Union Theological Seminary in New York.

But the media, both then and now, depict her as an accidental hero who made an on-the-spot decision that she'd had enough. The distance between the reality and the "story" is the difference between an individual and a movement, a lone act and an ongoing strategy, a weary worker and a spiritual warrior.

And lose this:

Not exactly.

Rosa Parks' decision did help catalyze a revolution in race relations. But hers was not the action of a single individual. Rather,it was the culmination of a long-standing religious commitment nurtured in a community of faith.

Those changes wouldn't fix all the problems, but I think they'd go a long way toward avoiding the problem you called out.

I don't think so, QB. The woman is a wordsmith. She knew what she was writing.

The woman is a wordsmith. She knew what she was writing.

Yeah, but she's also an academic. They tend to hide their light, if not under a bushel, then at the bottom of the article:

If the next Rosa Parks was not in that room, she may be listening and learning in a church or synagogue. She might work sewing clothes in a sweatshop, picking fruit in a migrant labor camp or cleaning bathrooms in a hotel.

The simple truth is "communities of faith" had little or nothing to do with the Civil Rights movement. Mrs. Parks and her partners were a continuation of a freedom movement for Black people that goes back to the 1700s.

I don't want another Rosa Parks. I want people who know the deal to speak the truth. I want them to stop doing the things that made Mrs. Parks' community necessary. And I want them to stop using Black people as a flail and our history as a cudgel for their issues.

"And I want them to stop using Black people as a flail and our history as a cudgel for their issues."

OK, that I can understand.

Ms. Winston's hobbyhorse is how the media covers religion, and she's trying to use Rosa Parks as a way to advocate her own cause.

I wrote and re-wrote several longer responses and erased 'em all. I follow you now.

Mrs. Parks and her partners were a continuation of a freedom movement for Black people that goes back to the 1700s.

what were the primary institutional conduits through which this movement was preserved, transmitted, and enlarged across generations?

Will and intention, followed by economics (basically in the form of our own bodies) and law.

Didn't work but so well. 

The exaggerated role of the black church as opposed to the role that many black Christian men and women who were determined to push the envelope of Christianity and break through the strictures and barriers that had been placed on them by the same church is a story that still needs to be told again and again.

Well, the church has to figure in there somewhere. I mean, it wasn't by accident that so many civil rights leaders had things like "Rev." and "Dr." in front of their names.

Yes, that is true; it may not have occurred accidently. That does not mean, however, that it happened as a result of design or intention either.

What? A relationship that defies oversimplified assumptions about cause and effect?

What fun is that?

Will and intention, followed by economics (basically in the form of our own bodies) and law.

of which the church is (was), the corporeal instantiation. of course, labor unions and other institutional players (HBCU's) had a role in the conservation and transmission of collective will, intention, and economic means, but far and away the single most influential repository of the above decidedly non-institutional motive forces was the church.

As the lone voice of orthodoxy out here on the porch, I can easily understand derogation of the protestant and catholic anti-Christian manifestations which dominate Murika. However, being anti anti-Christian, is insufficient grounds for belittling or minimizing the role of the black church as a capacitor of historical social change forces in Murika.

It played a role then, which it is far less capable of playing now, because there are vastly more lucrative opportunities for the individuals who were great Reverends and Dr's back in the day - and because there are vastly more forums for edutainmental discourse now than then, so both, far fewer of what would have been those leaders have donned vestaments, and, far fewer of what would have been lay provocateurs in those congregations any longer serve that role in that present social context. imoho, these facts have as much to do with the apartheid configurations in which we were formerly constrained to live and operate which concentrated the efforts of black leadership.

Looking at the degenerate condition of today's black church, and the weakness of leadership prevailing therein, we can infer quite a lot about the condition of our present will, intention, and economic wherewithal..., fundamentally, however, what stands out as obvious to me is the abject failure of the assimilationist approach in which black partisan aims were encapsulated.

As the lone voice of orthodoxy out here on the porch, I can easily understand derogation of the protestant and catholic anti-Christian manifestations which dominate Murika. However, being anti anti-Christian, is insufficient grounds for belittling or minimizing the role of the black church as a capacitor of historical social change forces in Murika.

The Black church in this instance was functioning as a social institution, not a "community of faith." They weren't fighting for religious freedom or seeking spiritual development. They were trying to save they physical asses from a brutal apartheid.

They weren't fighting for religious freedom or seeking spiritual development. They were trying to save they physical asses from a brutal apartheid.

LOL!!!

You'll get no argument from me on that point. If I recall correctly, a great many jackleg responsible kneegrows infested the black pulpit exploiting the credulous and practicing anti-black treason, as well.

Nevertheless, it is inarguable that the church was an enabling institution - and - I suspect it will serve that purpose yet again despite its more advanced contemporary degeneracy. Frankly, if my hood is any indication, I don't see any credible institutional alternatives.

The trick is for the savvy partisan to manipulate and induce the institution into serving its utilitarian infrastructural role. It's there and you either figure out how to make use of it or you fight it. I consciously chose the former approach quite a few years ago.

The trick is for the savvy partisan to manipulate and induce the institution into serving its utilitarian infrastructural role.

You ever see The Word Network? It's like Jackleg Central...truly makes me feel building new institutions, difficult as it may be, is easier than reforming corrupt ones. There's enough sorcery and money changing there (blessed handkercheifs, little bottles of holy water sold in exchange for "donations") to bring joy to Aleister Crowley's heart.

Best you can do is meet people...God help you if you take their lessons to heart (though believe it or not, on the strictly practical tip I'll make an exception for Joyce Meyer, even though she seriously falls into the People of the Word category).

Am I reading you right, cnulan? The leadership came through the church because nobody else could put together the talent for leadership with the reach into the community.

I believe in giving credit where credit it due, and this means recognizing the role of the Christian church as an organizing locus, but we need to re-examine how Africans in America converted to Christianity and what kind of Christianity early African adopters of the religion practiced.

The overwhelming majority of Africans in America did not start converting to Christianity until the 1830s. The reasons for this are several. First, the vast majority of enslaved blacks lived in rural areas that were not readily accessible. Second, few slave owners saw any profit in conversion. Third, there were few missionaries or traveling preachers who could minister to far flung rural plantations. Fourth, Africans did not arrive in the new world as blank canvases; they came with their spiritual beliefs and cultural traditions intact. Given this scenario, we should consider what organizing principles and philosophies Africans developed as liberation strategies and tactics in the centuries before the masses sought conversion, and what spiritual practices and beliefs they brought to Christianity that informed, supported and sustained the fight for freedom.

Am I reading you right, cnulan? The leadership came through the church because nobody else could put together the talent for leadership with the reach into the community.

dayyum QB!!! that's a cup's half-full reading of my cup's half empty perspective. gotta back that down several notches.

I'm saying that in the absence of rewarding opportunities in the corporate, military, and other realms, black clerical and educational ranks were formerly occupied by a vastly more stellar professional and managerial demographic.

furthermore, the church provided irreplaceable memetic cover for the the airing of collective political grievances and corresponding organized response that few other institutional settings afforded black folk.

I'm also a long-time fan of the traditional, independant black press, but that onetime powerful organ of truth-spoken-to-power and truth-spoken-to-each-other has fallen even more conspicuously silent than the mainstream press.

I had not seen the Word Network P6. Stepping up two levels from that site, I found the following instigators...,

I tell you what man, it's quickly resolving itself into big business. I've already forged my alliances in this space and I believe it's better to proact in pursuit of influence, rather than observe from a distance. It's still early enough in the adoption curve that serious players have not yet emerged.

I'm saying that in the absence of rewarding opportunities in the corporate, military, and other realms, black clerical and educational ranks were formerly occupied by a vastly more stellar professional and managerial demographic.

There's the talent.

furthermore, the church provided irreplaceable memetic cover for the the airing of collective political grievances and corresponding organized response that few other institutional settings afforded black folk.

There's the reach.

Yup. Half-empty, half-full.

I'm saying that in the absence of rewarding opportunities in the corporate, military, and other realms, black clerical and educational ranks were formerly occupied by a vastly more stellar professional and managerial demographic.

Yes, but not at the lower frequencies at least with regard to the clergy. 

furthermore, the church provided irreplaceable memetic cover for the the airing of collective political grievances and corresponding organized response that few other institutional settings afforded black folk.

Only within a certain stratum of black churches and, at best, that was still a minority.

I'm also a long-time fan of the traditional, independant black press, but that onetime powerful organ of truth-spoken-to-power and truth-spoken-to-each-other has fallen even more conspicuously silent than the mainstream press.

One of the reasons this occurred is that the old line black publishers got old and many of them had never made plans for their successors. I recall having a conversation in 1979 with the late Dr. Carlton Goodlett the publisher and owner of the Sun-Reporter. Dr. Goodlett was a giant in the black community there. He was, among other things, the first and for years was the only person to have received a Ph.D and an M.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

By 1979, unfortunately, Dr. Goodlett was on the wane in terms of his energy, vision and integrity. He was never a bad person but over the years he had compromised on those qualities that had made him such a powerful and revered figure. I went to see him to try to persuade him not to endorse a right-wing conservative Republican  who was being backed by certain opportunistic elements in the black community. In addition, he did not believe that the candidate I was backing could win, which was irrelevant because the other candidate, who was also the incumbent, stood for everything that Dr. Goodlett had opposed most of his life. We did not get the endorsement of Dr. Goodlett or the Sun-Reporter but we did defeat the Republican incumbent. Everyone in town was shocked except us and the black voters in our legislative district.

I believe it's better to proact in pursuit of influence, rather than observe from a distance.

Influence to do what?

I can't play at things I don't think are true or honorable. I'd rather work on reviving the Black press. 

Influence to do what?

The biguns have their own social networks and these are worth penetrating for self-evident reasons - think of it as porchfront dialoguing a la P6 - to the nth power...,

Avenues for promoting and proliferating Learning Center methods and curriculum - which comprise a layer cake with surprising depths of flavor and essential black partisan nutrients.

Commerce - like mini Oprahs - many of these church leaders are market makers and can help drive black partisan economics to an extent.

Lastly, I've found them to be good clients in need of lots of the type of infrastructural technology products and services I provide.

So militant assimilationism isn't a problem? And for me in particular, having to front like you're buying into beliefs shouldn't be a problem?

Because I'd have to...and won't.

The source of my understanding is...quite specifically...using words as indicators, pointers to actual existences. And the strength of my rhetoric isn't a function of logical presentation. It's strictly a matter of saying only what I know to be true, with all respect and no restraint.

If I change that, I'm useless. 

I can work with you...you can work with them. 

Dood,

You have skills that these cats desperately need and are willing to pay fair market rates for. Think about it, how many interactive websites you seen't anytime lately, even for the most well-heeled faith communities?

Second, I'm Christian and quite facile with chapter and verse and that may make the sheeps three-piece an easier and less irritating fit for me. Here-to-date, I've not experienced any intractible doctrinal headbutting then again, I haven't invited any.

Third, you know I respect your rejection of wiseacreing and peerless denial of evasion. That said, I would encourage you to do a little direct interpersonal field research and evaluation of black ecclesiastics on a case-by-case basis - some are far more pragmatic than they appear to be, dealing with professionals as professionals and true believers as true believers....,

If they can keep things on strictly on the business tip, I could do that. It's just been my universal experience that folks want to draft me into their thing. I'm really tired of it...and obviously it's not the subject matter that annoys me.

2006 is going to be interesting for me.