Dwayne: Brandon said...

I agree with Tom that Obama being the first black person to become the President is an momentous event. Groovy. Peace. Love. All that. But I don't want this to be any bigger than it should be. What I hear from Dwayne is basically "group identity politics."

Brandon: I glanced over this. As I'm re-reading this...I'm starting to get pissed off. Sounds like a form of minimization and invalidation to me by people of privilege.

How big should this be to me, Brandon?

I'm starting to get a little hot here. We'd better get some common ground here quick, yo.

...sigh...

strong ego-flare. I repent, Lord. But really, I DO want to get some understanding of what you are trying to say, Brandon. For real.

Brandon:  OK. I’m not saying that Obama’s election is not significant given what Greg has said ie. in contrast to what Greg has said. I’m also saying that he is your basic Democrat and thus he’s gonna work within Democratic principles and ideology and politics. I really don’t anticipate much change outside of what we’ve been given under both Republicans and Democrats who are from the same liberal tradition. The other thing is that I’m wondering why we are making a big deal out of his race. Let me explain like this.

Reconciliation at the religious root-level will help overcome hatred and conflict in all institutions of society. No problem there. But what does this mean? What are the POLITICAL implications of racial reconciliation? Yes, there might be people groups in which struggles over power is the issue, but this only raises the question of HOW POWER OUGHT TO BE JUSTLY DISTRIBUTED. In other words, how can we have a just distribution of power in a pluralistic and multicultural society? Reconciliation, important as it is, is essential in all cultural contexts, but when different people groups and races stop hating each other? The question of the just distribution of political power is still there right? THAT power HAS to be distributed according to what Dwayne? According to the DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONS AND RESPONSIBLITIES. This is no longer about race PER SE (so why bring race into this?), but about knowing who is responsible for what. It’s ultimately about JUSTICE. Again, this ALL comes back to the issue of clarity on living justly within a complex differentiated society.

Dwayne: True peace is not merely the absence of tension,
it is the presence of justice.
--Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

So, what, Brandon. Do you feel like we meaningfully and fundamentally disagree on something with this?

As a side thing, I think Obama would have been better off talking about "economic justice" rather than "spreading the wealth around"...just as far as buzzwords go...

Brandon: I agree with the quote by MLK. But it is a rather generalization as far as what I’m saying in terms of differentiated responsibilities. Second, I’m asking you why race is an issue here given the fact that injustices are presently occurring within and between government and non-governmental organizations and relations effecting all people and given the fact that I don’t think change (justice) will necessarily be coming in terms of setting things right while still working out of a traditional liberal ideology as Obama will surely do on many issues. You can’t say that you are the party or candidate of change and leave everything as it is.  Gotta head out to work.

Tom:  www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-steele5-2008nov05,0,6553798.story

Ran across this. HAD to post it. Don't have a lot of time to discuss it though. I'm swamped for the next week or two.

Brandon, I'd be interested in your thoughts (as our resident Canadian fellow!) on this too.

Tom

Brandon:  Well, this is a good place to start with a response to the last few posts that have preceded it. Instead of responding to every comment I’m just gonna lay as much as I think is necessary so as to try to bring things into focus as someone who follows sphere sovereignty and the works of Jim Skillen and some others. Also, are you saying that as a Canadian, I can therefore provide some sort of an outsider’s view? I don’t know if I will be of much help as most people in this area are pretty much Americanized because of our proximity to the border. I’m pretty much trying to see this as influenced by a biblical view point from a particular tradition (Kuyperian and Calvinism being the main ones).

Having said that, again, even this issue of racism comes down to knowing what is and isn’t governmental responsibility in terms of doing justice to people as citizens as well as church members, workers, universities, etc. What I mean is this.

Basically when legalized racism came to an end, addressing blacks in a differentiated society required more than the means use to oppose slavery. That is, there had to be “the positive construction and reconstruction of society requiring diverse judgments and discriminating strategies about economic, educational and cultural and political forms.” (Skillen). In other words, human identity could no longer be reduced to “black” etc, as it had been under slavery. Human identity had to be understood as differentiated as true human identity requires. In other words, blacks lived as “complex, diversified persons in many different human relationships and institutions.” (again, Skillen). You have to take all these different areas on their own terms which is to say that not every inequality comes down to racism (which is very hard or next to impossible to trace) in which even the legal fight against racism could actually unintentionally cause injustice. Let’s think of this in terms of education.

Basically, it goes like this. People want to seek racial integration in society. They seek racial integration through schooling. This requires busing.

If we are to treat all as equal citizens then we have to over come racial separateness and unequal treatment by proportionately mixing differently coloured children throughout publicly controlled schools. The technical means of achieving this is via busing so as to disperse children in a manner that achieves integration.

The problem is that justice has to be done to people of all races and colors which means that there are other variables at work. What about families, neighbourhoods, social networks, religious communities, etc. Schooling is has to do with more than one institution and relationship and responsibility. It involves parents and child rearing responsibilities and family well-being and close connections among families and parents and teachers and between families and neighbourhoods. Busing has often did more damage by weakening these because it divides them. What if the negative reaction to busing is not racism and objections to blacks receiving equal education, but rather is because parents regardless of their race or ethnic background do not want their children bused far from home or to a school serving a community that is culturally foreign to them? What if education can be done in such a way as to achieve a more equal education opportunity for all children of all races in their social, economic and religious variables? Justice must be done to all with their diverse views of life. Many people opt to educate their children for religious and cultural reasons right? A poor black Muslim family who wants to educate their child should not be discriminated against because they are black or Muslim or poor! Each of these qualifications requires what? It requires different levels of consideration. Justice is not done if this family is discriminated against because it is black. Justice is not done if this family is discriminated against because it is Muslim. And justice is not done if it is because this family is poor! Do you see the issue here? When racism became illegal there was the matter of integrating people into society in their diversity. Any attempt to secure racial equality that violates this family’s tradition, values, religious freedom, is not justice. You can’t deal with these issues and many others via using race as a qualifier and then use economic, educational or other means to try to over the inequalities. You certainly can’t use it with the same means use to end slavery. Yet, there is every reason to address injustices in economic, educational, healthcare and other arenas to make sure that no legal barrier stands in the way of equal rights for minorities. In the end, it’s really justice all around for everyone.

Having said that one other thing needs to be noted. As there is a fundamental call to the equality of all citizens not to be discriminated against on the basis of race, skin colour or family origin, etc, this does not mean that we absolutize different ideas of what we think a nation should look like. That is, the U.S. or Canada is not to be defined solely as some undifferentiated community ie. “nation,” “family,” “faith community” etc. For example, Shelby Steele has said this in other works, “There will be no end to despair and no lasting solution to any of our problems until we rely on individual effort within the American mainstream--rather than collective action against the mainstream--as our means to advancement.”

“American mainstream” is a highly undifferentiated term and has been defined and controlled in its political, economic, and educational history by a majority culture that has not always done justice to the diversity of cultures, confessions, institutions and relationships. This also means that society is not composed MERELY of individuals any more than it is composed of undifferentiated ethnic groups. To speak in this way is to make an idol out of race, nation, faith community, etc. If God is the Creator than no single institution or community on earth can function as an all-encompassing master or integrator of human society. This was the problem of the pharaohs of Egypt in which ancient kingdoms organized themselves around the myth of a universal monarch who represented divinity. This was not to be so with a liberated Israel. Their liberation showed that Pharaoh was not such a person. He existed by God’s grace. Even Moses was not a master monarch but was subordinate to God’s divine covenant. When something else is mistaken for God it and other areas of creation will be partially misunderstood, mislocated and distorted in the process (something to think about in terms of our being “gods?”).