As a Christian I believe that we all have a divine call to God's service and that we are called to lead a life worthy of our vocation. For those called to serve people and communities we are admonished to do our work with humility, gentleness, patience, and love, to work for unity of the spirit and peace.
I realized almost 3 decades ago that I was being called to be an evangelist for the cause of justice. It was not so much a realization as a personal imperative. Since my childhood I have been deeply empathic. In many ways an outsider who enjoyed certain insider privileges, I was familiar with the pain of isolation, the anger of injustice, the feelings of helplessness in the face of religious intolerance and lawful discrimination.
The hopefulness I have found in my vocation has been steadfast and enduring. Each of us was given the gift of grace, some to be followers, some diviners, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.
What is your calling and are you today living a life worthy of your vocation?
Recently I have become involved with a local community development organization where I quickly found myself conflicted, the clarity of my justice calling abandoning me. There are the expected challenges of any community-based organizations, and then there are the much more complex community manifestations of more global issues for economic and social justice. Layered on to this add the conflicts that take on tones of race, gender and sexual orientation.
Reservoir Hill has a long and storied history. There are conflicts between the haves and the have nots. There are new comers, some the gay urban pioneers, with grand renovated homes, long-term residents who struggle to afford the repairs and upkeep required, Black professional, churches and synagogues. There are pockets of concentrated poverty—fenced in to keep the bad elements at bay—trapped by the very intervention intended to improve their state. Of course there are underlying issues and racial divisions which can without warning erupt to the surface. And then there is the hope, the opportunity, the beauty, the potential to lead the way in urban developments.Across the nation, gentrification and similar community transitions are presenting some of the most compelling justice challenges of our day.
Many historically African American neighborhoods have experienced these changes. Some of these communities have been perennially wracked with poverty, disenfranchisement, violence and despair; and certainly gentrification can have a positive impact. But change is seldom easy and there often seems to be winners and losers.
I have been examining the arguments and case studies on the impact of these changes on communities. In the coming weeks I plan to share my discovery with you. I hope you will share your advice and counsel as well. I hope to learn, contribute and find a new way to make a difference that brings greater justice.
In the end, each of us must call upon our faith, wisdom, knowledge and that of others to guide the work of our hearts, hands and minds. Whatever your vocation, be mindful of the changes in the environment or area in which you work or practice. Constantly examine your motivations. Seek unity of purpose, work for justice to achieve peace.
Representative Alcee Hastings isn’t letting President's vacation in the Vineyard get in the way of taking care of the business of civil rights and ending discrimination against gay and lesbian servicemembers. He sent a letter to the President Barack Obama yesterday complaining that he has not received a response to an earlier letter urging an end to investigations of gay soldiers.
AIDS expert Dr. Helene Gayle, president and chief executive of the charity CARE USA, has been named to chair the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), the U.S. government said on Monday.Gayle will advise President Barack Obama on fighting the virus, which has infected an estimated 1 million Americans and 33 million people globally.
I have known Helene and her brother Jacob Gayle the head of the Ford Foundation’s Global Initiative on HIV/AIDS for many years. Like so many others I value their contributions and feel privileged to count these heroes and lifesavers and colleagues and friends.
When I met Helene she was living in Atlanta. Later she would host President Clinton’s PACHA for dinner at her home. Helene was born and raised in Buffalo, NY. She completed her undergraduate degree at Bernard College of Columbia University, and then received her M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She also completed her M.P.H. at Johns Hopkins University.
I know Helen best as the director of the National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and as Assistant Surgeon General. She has also headed AIDS efforts at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.Congratulations Dr. Gayle this is good news for all people living with HIV and AIDS and the nation.
The musicFirst coalition, the group of record labels and artists supporting a fee for music airplay on terrestrial radio, has released what it calls a handbook filled with "lies and mistruths" used by radio to distort the issue.
Under current law, stations only pay copyright royalties to artists who compose hit songs, not those who perform them. Other media, such as satellite and Internet radio, must pay royalties to performers.
The group says the Performance Rights Act would bring fairness to artists and to Internet and satellite radio. Opponents, most prominently NAB, say that if passed, such fees would force many stations, struggling in this economy, to go out of business. The Raben Group headed by former Department of Justice official and openly gay man Robert Raben represents MusicFirst and former DC Black Pride president Courtney Snowden (pictured right) has been active on this issue on behalf of the firm.
Black radio stations and the Congressional Black Caucus are sharply divided over a music industry-backed effort to impose a performance fee on radio stations, with the NAACP reportedly stepping in to try to make peace between the two sides.
Radio One founder and Chairwoman Cathy Hughes (pictured left) has run a series of ads critical of the proposed fee and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Michigan., who is the chief sponsor of the bill. Hughes's stand on the legislation is shared by the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, while the American Federation of Musician of the United States and Canada, the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens have sided with Conyers.
Writing on the Huffington Post, the soulful signer and AIDS activist Dionne Warwick says it is about economic justice for African American artists.
The Los Angeles County coroner has ruled the Michael Jackson's death a homicide. The Los Angles Times reported that Michael Jackson died of "lethal levels" of the powerful anesthetic propofol. Conrad Murray (pictured), Jackson's personal doctor, told detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department that he had been treating Jackson for insomnia for about six weeks. He had been giving Jackson 50 milligrams of propofol every night using an intravenous line, according to the court records.On the morning of his death Jackson had "lethal levels" of propofol in his blood.
Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach is a highly decorated combat pilot. A graduate of Notre Dame, he is the recipient of nine air medals. Fehrenbach is being discharged from the Air Force for violating the policy known as "don't ask, don't tell." Now, for the first time, the Idaho Statesman is reporting the underlying details.
This weeks homily comes to me by the grace of Sister Lucy Y. Steinitz, a friend and colleague of my husband Greg Satorie. Greg has visited Namibia and worked with Catholic AIDS Action on HIV prevention. Text for his speeches and community forums with people living with HIV and AIDS were complied and published in a booklet, “12 Steps to Living Positive."
This account contains many lessons. Please take a moment to read this letter and comtemplate your blessings and the gifts you may well have to share with those in need.
Dear Friends,
A few years ago, Catholic AIDS Action – the organization I co-founded and headed in Namibia for six years -- gave birth to a child in Tanzania, and called it Uzima (“Wellness”). I hadn’t seen the offspring until last week. Uzima is a small holistic organization based just north of the Mozambique border, whose mother is Catholic AIDS Action’s other co-founder -- my mentor and friend, Sister Dr. Raphaela Haendler.
Getting to Uzima required enormous coordination and support from lots of people. The rinky-dink airline that I dubbed (Im)Presicion Air doesn’t allow anyone to book flights from outside the country. To add insult to injury, the flight left Dar es Salaam five hours late. Fortunately, I met a nun who was waiting for the same plane and of course she knew Sr. Raphaela and could assist with logistics. A car picked us up in Mtwara, which is a coastal town that I couldn’t even pronounce before I got there, and drove two hours to the convent where Sr Raphaela serves as Prioress. (Although almost 70 years of age, this is just one of Sr. Raphaela’s many duties. She also oversees medical care at the district hospital, provides leadership for a new Catholic high school, and helps run Uzima.) When I finally arrived, she greeted me with open arms. Then Sr. Raphaela and I chatted like old school-friends, late into the night. Finally she said. “It’s time for sleep. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to Uzima and then we’ll go swimming.”
We set off early to meet the people involved. Uzima is a beautiful “child,” ably led on a day-to-day basis by local Tanzanian staff, a volunteer social worker from Switzerland, and Catholic AIDS Action’s first accountant, Piet Hein Meckmann, who followed Sr Raphaela to Tanzania three years ago. Like Catholic AIDS Action in Namibia (which is still going strong), Uzima provides care and support to local villagers who have been ravaged by poverty, AIDS, and other tragedies. Many of the principles we carved together in Namibia have been replicated: the organization trains and supervises local volunteers who visit the sick in their homes, provide counseling, make referrals to the local hospital or schools, distribute emergency assistance, and above all, offer hope. The same training curricula are used, as well (translated into the local language, of course) -- both for home-based care and HIV-prevention.
Uzima works in six local villages, relying on small donations from the Catholic Church to meet expenses. Yet many of the clients and almost half of the volunteers are Muslim. In working side by side, the volunteers don’t just care for the sick; they also nurture a fresh ecumenical spirit in the area. Thus, for group prayers, they switch off – one time Christian and the next time Moslem. Similarly, when they had to design a logo for Uzima, the volunteers opted against any religious symbol but agreed to the picture of the Catholic Church because, as they explained, the church represented their region and not just the Christian faith.
Sr Raphaela and I joined several volunteers on their supervision rounds. One difference for us is that we had the luxury of a car, but usually the volunteers must walk. They spend hours doing this work every day, without any monetary compensation. I find this incredible, knowing that most are just as poor as the clients they visit. So what is their motivation? Later in the day, I heard some reasons: “Our neighbors need us.” “I am grateful to God to do this work.” And “I appreciate the training I got, which gives me respect in the village.”
Uzima aims for the alleviation of suffering, human dignity, and the chance for a better life in the future. Yet these are difficult goals to achieve. In Tanzania, 17% of all children are considered “most vulnerable,” due to illness, the loss of one or both parents, child labor or abuse, disability, and/or grinding poverty. Okay, you may say, in a country where most people are needy, just how poor is poor? By way of one example, the national standard for the “adequate material well-being” of children is two sets of clothes, one pair of shoes, and a blanket. And shockingly, this remains far out-of-reach for most. According to the government own documents, less than 20% of all Tanzanian children currently meet this standard.
At each home we visited, we met outside under a tree or on a grass-mat, as the mud-and-stray home of the patient was invariably small and unsuitable for visitors. One woman we visited had just started medical treatment for HIV the week before. Previously, she had lain bedridden for months, and had almost died. The volunteers were delighted to see her. “I’m feeling much stronger,” the patient explained. “I can already sit up for long periods of the day.” Then she looked at her elderly mother who sat on a straw mat few feet away, and who takes care of the patient’s children. The woman continued. “But we have a new problem… Now that I am on treatment, I am hungry. Our harvest failed last year and we don’t have enough to eat. My appetite means that either I don’t eat or else someone else in the family has to skip food for the day.” One of the volunteers checked the storage-baskets and saw that they were almost empty. “Uzima will allocate some maize-meal for the next few months,” the volunteer said. “Once you get stronger, you can start working the fields again.”
At another home, we met an eleven year old girl who had first come to the volunteer’s attention some months back. It turns out that this child had never gone to school, and instead functioned as the household servant. The mother, who was undergoing medical treatment, had also never received any formal education as a child and didn’t understand what was wrong. “This won’t do,” the volunteers said. “In Tanzania today, every child has the right to a primary education.” Then they arranged for tutoring so the youngster wouldn’t have to start at Grade One, and got the mother to agree that her child would be given sufficient time each day to attend classes and do homework. The day we visited, the eleven year old was very excited but also a little scared. She would start attending school for the first time in two days, beginning in Grade Three. “Don’t worry,” the volunteer comforted her. “Soon you will make new friends and then everything will work out fine. Next week, we’ll come back to see how you are doing.”
In yet another household, we met a small girl that the volunteers had never seen before. The child, around four years old, looked horribly malnourished and dirty, with many small scabs covering her skin and big bald-patches on her head. “Whose child is this?” they asked. “She’s the daughter of our neighbor who ran away to Dar es Salaam and left the girl behind,” came the answer. “We couldn’t let her die but we also don’t even have enough food for ourselves. Even the water needed to wash must be paid-for.” The family members added that they keep hoping a relative will come to claim the child, but so far no one has. The Uzima staff and volunteers quickly conferred with each other about the situation. Ideally, they need the involvement of a government social worker to find a temporary placement for this child and then track down the parent(s). But Tanzania’s social welfare system is so broken that this will likely prove impossible, and meanwhile the child’s condition will only worsen. Fortunately, Uzima has its own social worker who can access some immediate treatment and start to make inquiries in the area. “We’ll be back on Monday,” the staff said. “Then we’ll figure out the next step, together with you.”
Back at the office, I reviewed Uzima’s excellent accounting and data-base systems, and stopped next door at the parish hall. Here, 80 high-pitched voices chorused joyfully to the beat of a hand-made drum. Sr. Raphaela introduced me as a visitor who was born in America. “Do you know anything about America?,” she asked in KiSwahili. Half a dozen hands shot up. “Obama!” the children shouted. I was amazed by the recognition until I hit the roadway the next day, on my way back to Dar es Salaam. Every third fourth bus has a huge picture of Barack Obama plastered on the back, with messages of “Hongera” (“Congratulations!”) and more. Could anyone have imagined this level of pro-American imagery in the heart of Africa, nine or ten months ago?
In the afternoon, I joined Sr Raphaela for the best lake-swimming I have ever experienced, halfway up a nearby mountain on church property. (The lake is certified with pure spring-water that tastes like silk, and is sold in bottles as an income generating project for the parish.) The next day, before leaving the area, I also stopped to see the CatholicHigh School that Sr Raphaela is building. It started in 2005 but quickly floundered due to a lack of finances and good management. Then the Bishop asked Sr. Raphaela to take over. Today, 270 students attend, with the projection of doubling the number in two years’ time. Frantically, Sr Raphaela tries to raise scholarships for those who make the grades but can’t afford the school fees. In addition to academics, many life-skills are taught. On the brand-new campus, you can already see a half-dozen classroom blocks, the start of a girls’ dormitory, a science-laboratory and an IT room with 38 computers. Students often walk 90 minutes each day to school and back, so hot porridge is served daily – cooked outdoors on an open fire. Already, this is the best school in the area, with both Muslim and Christian families clamoring for their children to attend. This blew me away, once again: Muslim families choosing to send their children to a Catholic school because they know, deep down inside, that what really counts is the quality of the education and the moral values that their children will be taught. It seems that here in rural Tanzania, a whole new world order has begun.
Back in Dar es Salaam, a strange sensation rolled over me. I had already been in Tanzania for two weeks, conducting both research and training. That night, I spoke to Bernd on SKYPE. He told me that Kelev, our 13 year old shepherd dog, had contracted a massive infection and was possibly dying. When I hung up, I started bawling like a baby and felt depressed for two days. Not only because I loved this dog and will miss him terribly, but also because it felt preposterous to me that I was so upset about the passing of an old dog who, by anyone’s measure, had had a better life than most of the people in Tanzania. Fortunately, Bernd informed me later in the week that Kelev was making a remarkable recovery and would surely be around a little while longer. And yet, what does this teach us about the inequalities to which we have grown so accustomed?
Over and over, I kept thinking: Is it too much to expect that, at the very least, every child in this world should have access to basic food, health and education – let alone, two sets of clothes, one pair of shoes, and a blanket?
In the crowded Detroit City Council race, former Fox 2 reporter and openly gay man Charles Pugh was the top finisher with 9%, or 59,560 votes. Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. took second place, followed by former Detroit Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown.
Pugh was one of 18 candidates to advance to the Nov. 3 primary for the nine-member council. Already a national gay notable, his early success, puts Detroit into the national spotlight in a very different way than the parade of scandals have over the last four years. In what could be a may to other LGBT candidates Pugh's success may in part be credited to the fact that he got the backing of both the AME Ministerial Alliance and the Council of Baptist Pastors despite being open and honest about being gay.
Bryon Clay the Interim President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference confirmed three of the five candidates seeking to become the group's seventh president were: Rev. Bernice King, SCLC Georgia State President Samuel Mosteller and activist Markel Hutchins, founder of the National Youth Connection.
Los Angeles State SCLC President the Rev. Eric Lee is said to be a candidate as well. However, Lee may have fallen out of favor with the SCLC because of his active opposition to Proposition 8.
Reverend Samuel Mosteller grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Georgia. He received a degree in political science from West Georgia College and served for 22 years in the U.S. Military from which he retired as Major. Mosteller is the assistant pastor at GoodShepherdCommunityChurch and High School Administrator at the Green Pastures Christian School in Decatur, Georgia.
I am still looking into Mosteller’s views on LGBT issues but for those of us who are pro-life and support a woman's right to choose, and if the friends he keeps is any indication, we may be in trouble here too. Mosteller is Vice President of Pro-Life Unity, an organization whose members agree to the Life Principles, which urge the adoption of a Mandatory Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Reverend Markel Hutchins is an associate minister at PhiladelphiaBaptistChurch in Atlanta, Georgia. Born Decatur, Ga., Markel is Chairman and CEO of Markel Hutchins Ministries and Managing Principal of MRH, LLC. In 1997 he established the Atlanta-based National Youth Connection. He AttendedMorehouseCollege and received an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity degree. Markel ran as a pro-LGBT candidate in a three-way race against civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, he was second.
Clay has been quoted as saying that the “SCLC has never had the conversation about gay rights,” stressing the organization’s neutral position California’s Proposition 8.
Congressman Alcee Hastings continues his efforts to protect gay servicemembers this time speaking up on behalf of Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, an 18-year airman who has served overseas tours in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, faces a discharge from the service after a review board found he had violated the Defense Department's ban on homosexuals serving openly in the ranks.
The F-15 pilot said he was grounded last spring, just weeks before his unit deployed to Iraq, when a civilian acquaintance told his commanders that Fehrenbach might be gay. Fehrenbach said he doesn't know why he was outed -- for almost two decades, he had kept his sexual orientation a secret from military officials -- but the tip began a year-long review which culminated in a recommendation for discharge.
On August 4th, Congressman Hasting sent a letter to the Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley saying in part that he was “deeply troubled,” by DADT."Don't Ask, Don't Tell is not only an injustice to Lt. Col. Fehrenback, but a disservice to the U.S. military and our country as a whole," Hasting wrote. "While Secretary Gates and the Pentagon's general counsel continue their of Don't Ask, Don't Tell to identify possible provisional measures, you can take action right now to disarm the policy by keeping Lt. Col. Frebach in the Air Force."
According to an AP report the Rev. Bernice King is among the list of candidates to lead the Southern Christian Leadership Council.
Rev. King is the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a co-founder of SCLC. Rev. Bernice along with her brother Martin Luther King III is said to have played an active part in reforming SCLC. This should raise concerns for those who hope that SCLC would turn the corner on LGBT rights.
In 2004, Bernice King participated in a march against marriage equality for same sex partners in Atlanta. This action was in direct contrast to the advocacy of her Mother, Coretta Scott King, who was a long-time supporter of LGBT rights and the beliefs of Martin Luther King. Corretta Scott King said that her husband supported the quest for equality by gays and reminded her critics that the 1963 March on Washington was organized by Bayard Rustin, an openly gay man. Civil rights leader Julian Bond, chair of the NAACP, told a group of University of Virginia history students he chose not to attend Coretta Scott King's funeral at NewBirthMissionaryBaptistChurch (where Bernice King serves as a pastor) because of the anti-gay stance taken by the church's senior pastor.
In other developments, SCLC co-founder and long-term leader, Dr. Joseph Lowery, who is one of the country’s top civil rights leaders and the man who gave the benediction at the inauguration of President Obama, will be one of the 16 awardees of this year’s Presidential Medal of Freedom. The White House announced the list on Thursday.Lowery helped organize the famous Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in the mid-1950s. Lowery like the elder Kings and the late Yolanda King is a long-time supporter of LGBT civil rights.
Naomi Sims died Saturday in Newark. I was 10 years old when Naomi Sims became the first black model on the cover of Ladies’ Home Journal in November 1968. It was one of those infrequent occasions when pop culture was a topic of discussion and even pride in our household.
In my Black middle-class professional neighborhood outside of Richmond, Virginia, Sims was more evidence that Black was indeed beautiful and as a community we were on the move.
Sims, who is described as the first black supermodel went on to design successful collections of wigs and cosmetics for black women under her name she was 61.
There has been a great deal written about the passing of Michael Jackson on June 25th. Like so many others I grew up with Michael. We were born in the same year, and we shared something else which I believe had a great deal of impact on who we would become. Katherine Jackson and Bessie Mae Robinson were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Michael Jackson and I shared the faith of our Mothers.
There was much about the life of Michael Jackson that captivates the curious. What fueled his genius and animated his seemingly endless imagination, creativity and fascination with the paraphernalia of childhood? How did the unique cultural, social and religious environment that is the Jehovah’s Witness faith influence his family, his art and his life?
A devout Jehovah's Witness, Katherine Jackson is said to have nurtured her children's love of music by singing with them, and that she made her sons' costumes as their father booked local gigs. However, like so much else about Jackson’s life the truth about his relationship with the Jehovah’s Witnesses is hard to nail down. Some reports suggest that Michael was an ardent Witness throughout most, if not all, of his life.
One news report said that Jackson publicly proclaimed his adherence to that faith as late as four years ago. A Jackson family friend Firpo Carr told CNN that Jackson once said "he wanted me to study the bible with him because he was raised as one of Jehovah's Witnesses early in life, [and] he would want his children to be raised the same way." On the other side, in 2005 an Arab-Israeli newspaper reported that Jackson was moving from Jehovah’s Witness to Islam. An Iranian newspaper reported that he donated a huge amount of money for building a state-of-the-art mosque near his luxury palace in the Bahraini capital.
I recall when the groundbreaking Thriller was released; it created an enormous ruckus within the Jehovah’s Witness congregations. The Jehovah’s Witnesses vehemently objected to the imagines of and illusions to the supernatural, the occult and the notion of the living dead. This was just one of the many oddities of this faith where Jackson faced the paradoxes of the dictates of his Mother’s religion and possibly what remained as his faith at that time. Notably he separated himself from his own work reportedly saying he would never do such a thing again. It seems fairly clear that in the spring of 1987 Michael disassociated himself and was shunned by his former Jehovah’s Witness friends.
In general, Witnesses believe that true Christians should remain separate from the world as much as possible and that the Bible is God's word. It is however relevant to note that their translation of the Bible is not recognized by any other denomination and of dubious scholarship. They also believe that a select 144,000 faithful will go to heaven to rule alongside Jesus Christ, that death is a non-conscious state—there is no hell and resurrection to an earthly paradise free of the evil-doers is promised to the faithful.
The beliefs and practices of Jehovah’s Witnesses are based on the Bible teachings of its founder, Charles Taze Russell (pictured) and his successors, Joseph Franklin Rutherford and Nathan Homer Knorr. Since 1976 the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses have been based on decisions made at closed meetings of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Jehovah’s Witness beliefs are propagated through The Watchtower magazine and other publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and at conventions and congregation meetings. Members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses are expected to adhere to all such doctrines without criticism or dissent.
Jehovah’s Witnesses endeavor to remain separate from secular society, which is regarded as a place of moral contamination and under the control of Satan the Devil, refusing any political and military activity and limiting social contact with non-Jehovah’s Witnesses. Members practice a strict moral code, forbidding adultery, premarital sex and homosexuality. Drug abuse, smoking and excessive consumption of alcohol are prohibited, as are blood transfusions. Discipline within congregations is maintained by a system of judicial committees, which have the power to expel members (disfellowshipping) who breach organizational rules and demand their shunning by other Jehovah’s Witnesses. The threat of shunning also serves to scare off other members from dissident behavior.
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society publications teach that Jehovah’s Witnesses alone represent true Christianity and for that reason they refuse all ecumenical relations with other religious denominations. Members are expected to attend all congregation meetings that are held in local Kingdom Halls, as well as regular large-scale conventions, which are highly structured and based on material from Watchtower publications.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are instructed to make their preaching work the top priority in their life. Higher education is discouraged because of the futility of planning secular advancement in a world they believe faces imminent destruction, as well as fears about succumbing to “worldly thinking” and concerns that advanced education might lead to a lack of humility. Clearly being the King of Pop does not integrate easily into the demands of this restrictive life-style.
Despite my parents strict adherence to this faith and the many meetings, and conventions I attended I, like the Jackson children, am ill-suited for such a self-righteous, narrow-minded faith. Being gay and seeking out the mind-expanding opportunity of higher education allowed me to think for myself and have my own experience of God and truth. I no longer believe that Jehovah’s Witnesses’ narrow idea of God is “the truth.”
As some of you who know the story of my almost three decade long separation from my family you know that our strong disagreements on morality, faith and religion played a major role in sustaining our separation. That truly deep healing has only recently begun.
Other prominent individuals are known to be Jehovah’s Witnesses or have been raised in Witness families. Venus and Serra Williams’ (the aspiring tennis divas pictured on the right) mother is a Jehovah’s Witness and some news reports have it that they remain active in the faith. Damon Waynans was raised by a Jehovah’s Witness father though he is not a follower. Prince aka The Artist formerly known as Prince, is a convert and actor Terrance Howard wanted to be but could not live the “life-style” demanded of the servants.
There is a general consensus that Michael Jackson was a brilliant yet troubled individual. We many never know to what degree the conflict and the shame created by the narrow-minded; fundamentalism of his childhood religious indoctrination created a seemingly irreconcilable internal dissidence.
Political commentator, communications and not-for-profit advisor. The writer is the former and founding CEO National Black Justice Coalition, and served as chief lobbyist on gay and lesbian rights for the ACLU and on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS in the Clinton administration.
repairs and upkeep required, Black professional, churches and synagogues. There are pockets of concentrated poverty—fenced in to keep the bad elements at bay—trapped by the very intervention intended to improve their state. Of course there are underlying issues and racial divisions which can without warning erupt to the surface. And then there is the hope, the opportunity, the beauty, the potential to lead the way in urban developments. Across the nation, gentrification and similar community transitions are presenting some of the most compelling justice challenges of our day.
