White Politicians - No Shame to Their Game

I was called to cross-racial ministry in predominantly white churches more than 10 years ago.  God’s idea, not mine. One thing I know I will not miss in the coming election-year is the “politico-circuit riders” who will plague black churches.  The browning and blacking of America has made this more necessary with every election. How sad that discretion and discernment go out the window when a non-African American politician feels the need to use the worship hour to beg for black votes in order to get elected to public office.

Soon white politicians, who are seeking coveted black votes, will circle the parking lots, atriums, narthexes, fellowship halls and pulpits of Black churches in the best and worst neighborhoods. Like sales people in the cosmetics section of a department store donning fluffed, fake, dyed or plugged hair, and flashing capped-teeth smiles, they will ask in syrupy sweet tones if you are willing to walk around for the rest of the day harboring some fragrance that may or may not suit your personal chemistry. They spritz you with a dab, and they’re off to the next aisle!

Before moving to the other side of segregated worship, it never occurred to me to be annoyed by the white politicians who shamelessly (and literally) popped their heads into the Sunday services of black churches to campaign. I guess I didn’t know any better, and apparently, neither did our pastors. Now that I’m on the other side, this political parade of pretense, in retrospect, is an abyss of condescension to the black community.   White politicians from every party and ilk, hopefuls from county commissioner and school board on the local level, to those obsessed with getting to the big house in Washington, DC, would show up early or late, but just in time to get their few minutes in the pulpit. I was too young or too chicken or too naïve to question this back then, but a little seminary education can be a dangerous thing. 

In more than 40 years of experiencing these shenanigans, I can only think of one white female public school board campaigner who stayed for an entire service and stood alongside our black pastor following worship to greet us. But come to think of it, she was the exception in every way, and a class act few could follow professionally or otherwise.

The rest of these politicians were never able to stay for the whole worship service. Never. The excuse was always that they had to hit several other churches [in the ‘hood] while the Sunday morning crowd was still captive. Subtext: After they finished promising what they thought we thought was the moon – after-school programs, reduced lunches, cleaner public pools in “our own” neighborhoods, and of course, more, more and more job opportunities targeted for our “communities”, they had to hurry back to the other side of the tracks before we turned back into ordinary black folks again.  And the sub-subtext is: “How convenient that you folks like to spend all day Sunday in church!"

Looking back, I cannot for the life of me understand why our black pastors allowed this.  Of course, the hook was always that “this” candidate, whoever he or she was, promised to be the savior of black and/ or poor folks. The other Savior we would hear about that morning got trumped, just until votes were cast, after which we would never – and I mean never – see these politicians in our church again. Well, maybe if they had gotten elected, and their incumbency was later threatened.  Most of these white politicians would never consider worshiping in a black church, much less having their caskets brought there. That is to say, they literally would not be caught dead in a black church.

Frantically waving carefully manicured hands as they all but sprint up and down the church’s center aisle, strategically shaking hands (mostly with the male deacons) in the congregation as they rush to the next venue is just as pathetic as it is irreverent. And the some of the white female politicians are the worst, often coming across like bad impersonations of Cagney and Lacey (“Rizzoli and Isles” for milennial viewers) like “bad-A”  women who will “kick butt” for single moms and old people, as if that’s all we need.  For the first time in a long time I will not miss being in a black church this coming year.

As a Philadelphia resident I could easily imagine former Mayor John Street standing in the pulpits of several different African American churches following his election declaring that, “The brothas have taken over the city!”   When he woke from his celebratory stupor, he realized, the hard way, that unlike his years on City Council, his entire life would be played out in a racially-mixed public forum no matter where he was.  Understandably, upon hearing this, the response from white constituents was that of betrayal and bewilderment: “Is he the mayor of all city residents, or did he pursue this office so he could exclusively give the brothas in the ‘hood the hookup with jobs and contracts?” These are reasonable questions unless you know that racially-divisive language takes place in the pulpits of black churches as regularly as worship itself. Dr. Jeremiah Wright helped to confirm and bring this to wider public awareness. His viral YouTube sermons bear testament.

Well, as my Mom used to say, “We got it honest,” because we inherited the worship conditions of our slave ancestors. In slave quarters or in a clearing in the woods, we resorted to using inverted wash kettles or large pots to capture, deflect and muffle the sound of our highly-charged and emotional preaching, praying and singing to God. Another method was to hang wet blankets from tree branches in the woods, also to muffle the sounds of loud, energetic worship. Slave masters and overseers severely controlled and limited worship opportunities for black slaves, and we were sometimes severely beaten for worshiping without permission or when we should have been doing something else. The worship context also served as a type of military barracks for devising maneuvers for escape to freedom. Consequently, to this day, black worship usually has more than praise to God on its agenda. It is black folks’ weekly opportunity to chart their practical and spiritual course through an endless maze of prejudice and evil.

Today there are 3 conversations going on when it comes to race and mainline denomination churches: the one that takes place in Black churches, the one that takes place in White churches and the one that takes place in the public square or “offline,” if you will. When white people show up in an all-black church where everyone is welcome, someone is bound to ask, “Who are those white people, and who do they know here?” Or “What are those white people doing here today?”  In the white churches there is an ongoing – whether sincere or insincere - plea for more diversity and multi-ethnicity, by any means necessary, even if blatantly ineffective – as if seeing a diversity of skin color in the congregation automatically means their church is not racist.  

In the public square, on the other hand, white folks will openly admit that the extreme emotion displayed in Black worship is superfluous, distracting and disturbing; while black folks declare that whites are “too stiff” and lacking a real manifestation of the Holy Spirit. No wonder true multi-ethnic and successful cross-racial/ cross-cultural worship is so evident in non- and inter-denominational congregations – they apparently, abandoned these 3 conversations and started their own.

Love this quote: "Love without truth lies, and truth without love kills".

When Scarlett O’Hara argued with Rhett Butler on the grand staircase at Tara in the epic movie, Gone with the Wind, she may have been responsible for more broken limbs and serious injuries to women than any other calamity around that time. In this dramatic scene, Scarlett ends up falling down the entire staircase, causing her to suffer a tragic miscarriage.  News back-stories tell us that some women, after seeing the movie, deduced that this must be an easy, relatively harmless way to get rid of an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy, and so they threw themselves down a staircase or hurled their bodies over a balcony.  No doubt some of these women did, tragically, harm their unborn babies, but more than likely, most ended up still pregnant, but limping, in a sling, in traction, or worse.

Perhaps this great movie of cinematic genius has an equally detrimental take-away as it translates into the modern-day cross-racial appointments of black pastors to white congregations.   For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel became the first African American actress to be awarded the coveted Academy Award – the Oscar.  Ironically, she was awarded for affirming the stereotype of the doting, selfless, self-effacing, devotee of pampered white people. Her sidekick, Butterfly McQueen, reinforced the profile as Prissy in the same movie.  Fifty (50) years went by until the next African American female, Whoopi Goldberg, was awarded an Oscar, again in the Supporting Actress category, for the movie Ghost, for essentially mediating and running positive interference for white folks stuck in a negative, transitional and formidable situation.

 In cross-racial appointments, particularly of African American pastors to white congregations, do we affirm and sustain the Prissy, Mammy, Stepin Fetchit, Bojangles and other classic black stereotypes as the quintessential nannies, valets, minstrels, mourners and entertainers of white existence?