Listening to the Tom Joyner Morning Show on the radio – 100.3 - and Malcolm Jamal Warner of Cosby Show fame is promoting his new show, “Reed Between the Lines” which is clearly on prime-time life support. It seems the TV show is too white to be black and too black to be white, yet trying to achieve universality and cultural cross-over by using the Cosby template of 2 “professional” parents who “just happen to be black” with cute, precocious kids. Good Grief! This along with polite, subtle, tactful references to the black buffoonery of Tyler Perry ‘s movies is so draining. How can black folks get around the endless need to be black enough or white enough depending on the venue –including the White House?
About Me
- Cross-Racial Clergy
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Joyce M. Anderson is a Provisional Elder in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church. She draws on her MBA and MDiv education and nonprofit and for-profit corporate work experiences to encourage an “Art of War” approach to spiritual warfare.
from an African American serving in a cross-racial appointment:
ReplyDeleteHearing people say, “He screams at us when he preachers” or “We thought she would want us to say ‘halleluiah’ and clap our hands in worship,” recalls the tension of being a good fit for a cross-racial congregation. I often think of myself as being good enough and white enough. I am quite confident in my gifts and graces for ministry even when they are overshadowed or dismissed. Picking our battles is an art. I rarely see a need to defend my SELF. I enjoy the fellowship of the Holy Spirit guiding me in subtle and sure acts of affirmation, support, or resistance. Spiritual issues, especially race issues are about power, and when I am at my best, I don’t compete or confront; I focus on the body of Christ – studying, praying, and nurturing our faith.
Some of my confidence probably stems from the fact that my earliest play mates were of Polish descent; I ate almost as much Italian food as I did soul food. Painfully, I was derided for blending in with white kids even though I sported a grand afro.
One sophisticated light-skinned Methodist sistah surprised me as she smiled, confessing that I did not look like I would ever eat chittlins which I did eat often. We never know what people have in mind when they look at us. So, we just try the best we can to “use what we got.”