I told myself I wasn’t gonna write about this, but that seems to be the first indication that I’m going to wind up writing about something.

Everybody knows that there has been some controversy surrounding The Passion because of some possible anti-Semitic content. My personal belief is that the viewer will see whatever he or she expected to see, only more. If the person went in thinking she was going to see an anti-Semitic movie, that’s what she’ll see. If the person went in thinking she was going to see a visual representation of one of the central elements of her faith, that’s what she’ll see. I personally don’t believe the movie has anti-Semitic intent, but I do believe that a person who is extremely sensitive can find it offensive. I wasn’t planning on writing about that, but I hadn’t told myself I wasn’t going to write about that. I told myself I wasn’t going to write about the other controversy; the one where some Black people are criticizing the movie because Jesus is depicted as being white.

Now, I like to think that I’m hip. I understand all the ramifications of Jesus being white in the popular American imagination and all of that. At some point a few years ago, I used to really get uptight about things like that. However, being a little older and having more perspective, I really have to question the motive of the inquisitors. For instance, inthe first article I saw raising the issue, the person doing the protesting was Malik Shabazz, of the New Black Panther Party. Now I could be wrong, but somehow I suspect that he doesn’t believe in Jesus in the first place. Moreover, I doubt that his objection to Christianity has anything to do with Jesus’ physical characteristics. In my experience, many of the same people who will tell you that Jesus was Black will tell you that Christianity is the white man’s religion. Now, I’m not going to get into all of that right here in this post (although I probably will at some point) but I will say that it can’t be both ways. If Jesus himself is Black but the American Christianity which sanctioned slavery is based on a white Jesus, then the integrity of true Christianity cannot be questioned because the version that is in dispute is not authentic in the first place. Later, I read a review in which an AME minister raised the same objection. Kept telling myself I wasn’t going to say anything, but at this point, I just can’t help it.

First of all, it was kind of interesting when they used the description in Revelation 1:14 & 1:15 on the “Black Jesus” episode of Good Times, but it’s getting out of hand now. Good Times was a situation comedy. As much as people may want to use those verses as biblical proof that Jesus was Black, that’s just incompatible with the text. The description provided in Revelation is not a physical description. Unless the proponents of that interpretation would also go as far as to say that Jesus was walking around the world with seven stars in his hand, a sword coming out of his mouth, and looking as bright as the sun. (Rev. 1:16) (So now what, is somebody gonna say that’s proof he was high yellow?) No, the description of Jesus in Revelation 1 is not a literal physical description. First of all, it’s a description of Jesus in his glorified form, not as he appeared as a human. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the description of Jesus in Revelation is as symbolic as the descriptions of nearly everything else in the book of Revelation. Unfortunately, I have seen Christian ministers use this same “proof,” which definitely saddens me. The seven candlesticks which he was in the midst of, the golden girdle, the white hair (and please, please, please pay attention to the fact that the phrase “white like wool” is not a description of the texture of the hair, but a description of the color, which is amplified by the next phrase, “as white as snow”), the fiery eyes, the brass feet, the many-waters voice, the seven stars, the sword, and the bright countenance all have specific spiritual significance. It would be nice, but to read those verses as “Jesus is Black” is just wrong. Sorry.

What’s more, I think that living in the post-modern, 21st century United States, we place far too much importance on what Jesus may have looked like in the first place. If you believe that Jesus’ purpose in coming into the world was to shed his blood for the remission of sins, then the color of his skin really doesn’t matter. That’s not a capitulation to the establishment, that’s just a point of fact. If the race of the person who rescued me from drowning when I was 6 did not matter, then how much more should Jesus’ “race”(which we scientifically know to be a false concept anyway) be irrelevant? Jesus’ Godhood was not determined by how he looked, so we should not attach undue significance to his appearance. Unfortunately, because of the historical use of Christianity to support and justify racist practices, this is an issue.

Regarding the question of the psychological effects of believing in a white Jesus, I concede that there could be some negative psychological effects. However, I would submit that those questions really have nothing to do with Jesus himself, but with the people who claim to have believed in him. Like I said earlier, if it’s a misrepresentation and we know it’s a misrepresentation, then the fault has to lie with the liars. Moreover, I think that when you really believe, whatever psychological difficulties may be encountered are more than compesated for by the spiritual benefits.

Since I’m talking about the movie again, I might as well get it all off my chest. I don’t think that this movie necessarily constitutes making a graven image, but I think it’s important to keep it in its proper context; it’s a movie. Mel Gibson didn’t get into a time machine and film the actual event. This is no more the crucifixion than that Madden game I just got through playing was the Super Bowl. And here, I think Madden is a good analogy. Madden is very similar to football; looking at it on the screen, it’s almost like watching a game on television. Almost. But in some very significant ways, it’s not even close. Real football is exponentially more difficult than any video game representation could ever be. For as hard as it can be to pass on a highly-ranked defense on the game, to actually be on a football field with the same players would not even rate a comparison. Likewise with this movie versus the actual event. It’s a representation of, not the. Remember that.

Why is it that when I first told people that I got a bass/was learning how to play the bass, they called the name of some Black guy who plays rock music? One of my friends was like, Darius Rucker! Another was like, Lenny Kravitz! I mean, there’s nothing wrong with either one of those, but nobody thought of Bootsy? Larry Graham? Just wondering.

Action Chicks - Sherrie Inness, ed.
Post-Soul Nation - Nelson George
From Brotherhood to Manhood - Anderson Franklin
After Whiteness - Mike Hill

I saw the 3 disc set of the first season of “What’s Happenin’.” Best believe I’m coppin’ it ASAP. I think I even saw the 2nd season of “Good Times.” If so, I’ll be coppin’ that soon, too. I just need to find out what episode James died, so I can be sure not to buy anything after that. That’s when Good Times jumped the shark.

I went and saw The Passion yesterday. It’s intense. Very graphic; extremely visceral. My take is that it’s not a movie that you see with other people; not for believers, at least. When you see something like that, the main thing you realize is that it was for you. That’s what makes it so hard to watch as opposed to other violent movies. I’ll put it like this- I cried watching The Passion, and the last time I cried because of what was going in a movie was, about, never. Moreover, I cut my teeth reading Luke 23, so I know the story of the crucifixion. I knew what was going to happen, which parts were scripture and which parts were artistic interpretation; there were even a few lines I was expecting to hear and didn’t. I mention that to say that I was not at all caught off guard. I have even read a physician’s description of the crucifixion, so the severity of the flogging was not surprising to me; I have been taught and personally believe that it was even worse than what was depicted on film. Isaiah 52:14 says “As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.” Still, watching a portryal of it is so different than reading about it that it almost defies description. It’s one thing to read about how brutal a Roman scourging was, but it’s something else altogether to see what one might’ve looked like. But I bet the difference between what the film portrays and what actually happened is even wider than the difference between what I imagined and what Mel Gibson suggested.

Having said that, I do believe that the violence is so graphic and so overwhelming that it’s numbing. If that scene was about a minute or two shorter, it would be even more powerful than it already is. I liked some of the dramatic devices like having the devil whispering temptation in the Garden and showing the devil moving amongst the crowd and the Roman centurions. Like I said earlier, though, there were some parts I was looking for that didn’t show up. What’s more, I wasn’t sure what the point of having Jesus say something that is not in the Bible until Revelation. I understand it in a larger sense, but it’s a curious inclusion.

All that said, I firmly recommend it. I would suggest first going by yourself and then bringing anybody who you think should see it. Like I said, though, it’s not the type of movie that you see together. You may walk into the theater with another person but you see this movie all by yourself.

Allow me to be one of the few to say that when it comes to the canonization of Tupac, I just don’t get it. Was Pac nice? Yes…sometimes. Was Pac the nicest? Not by miles. So my question has always been, when professors started using hip-hop in the classromo, what made them pick him? Sure, there are elements of his life that make for hearty discussions, but I still don’t get it. (Now, I’ve never taken one of these courses, so I don’t know what the syllabus looks like. It’s possible that everything I’m about to say is taken into consideration.) In a discussion of political rap, Tupac comes before Public Enemy and BDP? In a discussion of lyrics, Tupac comes before Rakim? Tupac comes within 20 feet of Rakim? So in the words of Mel Brooks, I’m like a eunuch at an orgy– I just don’t get it.

In There’s a God on the Mic, Kool Moe Dee provides a possible explanation, saying, “There are many emcees that rhyme better and are better lyricists than Tupac, but none can touch listeners on a mass level like Tupac did…he was like the hip-hop everyman.” Being honest, that was a possibility I had not considered because Tupac never reached me like that. But to extend on Moe Dee’s assessment, I think that the main thing that made people relate to Tupac was his passion. Tupac seemed to write from emotion and adrenaline, as opposed to writing (and rapping) as a pure display of skill. In that sense, I guess you could say that Tupac was real. In the sense that most people mean when they say “real,” though, I’m not so sure. I know that Tupac became real, but in his case, it’s like his life imitated his lyrics instead of vice-versa. I forget whether I read it somewhere or heard it somewhere, so I don’t know who to credit with the idea originally, but somebody once said that the beginning of the end for Tupac was when he played Bishop in “Juice.” Certainly, the timeline seems to support that, since the “Thug Life” Tupac came after he’d played Bishop. Before that, he was best known for his verse in Digital Underground’s “Same Song.”

Once in a conversation with a friend, I tried to make the distinction between Tupac and Ice Cube, saying that Pac was the gangsta’s thinking man while Cube was the thinking man’s gangsta. At the time I waffled back and forth on which as which, but at this point, I think it’s pretty clear that Ice Cube was the thinking man’s gangsta. Primarily because he is still here, thinking. In interviews about the evolution of his career, Ice Cube is quick to point out that he is not 18 any more. The things he wrote on “Straight Outta Compton” were accurate from his perspective then, but he can’t talk about the same things in the same way now that he’s over 30. I’d like to think that Tupac would’ve made a similar transition, but he never made it to 30.

With all due respect to Dr. Carter G. Woodson, I’m about done with Black History Month. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that it’s no longer necessary for America to highlight the contributions of Black people, I just don’t think Black History Month is the right means of dissemination. And while I understand and appreciate the joke that has February as being picked for Black History Month because it’s the shortest month, that has nothing to do with what I don’t like about it. I wouldn’t care if Black History Month lasted the whole May-ember, as long as it was for a set period of time, I would be against it. As long as we teach American history, we should be teaching Black history, because they’re braided together tighter than Bo Derek’s hair in that movie, “10.” So what I plan to do here is lay out my case against Black History Month (BHM, for short), then step up with some possible solutions or at least additions to the regular fare.

One of the main faults of BHM is actually inseparable from the way American history is taught in general. When it comes to America, it’s all about the individual, truth be damned. To be fair, not all history is taught in this fashion, but it is for the most part. Just think about what we know about Rosa Parks. Basically, the way the Rosa Parks story breaks down is that one day, she was tired and fed up and refused to give up her seat, then Rev. King came down and the Montgomery bus boycotts began. In a sense, that’s true, but it’s nowhere near close to the truth. In reality, Rosa Parks’ remaining seated was not predicated on her being tired, it was a planned event. Rosa Parks was not just a meek little domestic. She was the secretary for the NAACP, for crying out loud. Because of the way we make history hinge on the individual, however, many people don’t know this. They don’t know that the Montgomery boycotts were not spontaneous, but a planned event. According to Douglas Brinkley, author of Rosa Parks,
Claudette Colvin was a teenaged girl, eating a candy bar while sitting in the
“whites only” section of a bus. The bus driver barked at her in racist terms
to move, but she refused…The national NAACP was about to make her the prime
case to challenge segregation follwing the Brown v. Topeka ruling, but because
Colvin was an unwed pregnant teenager, she ended up being deemed an
unacceptable candidate by the black leadership.

My point here is not to discredit Rosa Parks (even though that suit against Outkast is absolutely ridiculous and without merit) but to point out that there’s just a general lack of knowledge about what really happened. I didn’t know this stuff until I got to college. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging more of the people and institutions involved than just one specific individual. That’s just not the way narratives go in our culture. That’s problematic.

Another problem I have with BHM is its limited focus. Every February, we hear about the same few people. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, maybe Malcom X if the teacher is feeling particularly adventurous; mayyybe George Washington Carver, but probably not. Garrett A. Morgan? Marcus Garvey? A. Philip Randolph? Nat Turner? Dr. Mae Jemison? Guion S. Bluford? Frederick Douglass? Booker T. Washington? W.E.B. DuBois? No shot. Black Wall Street in Tulsa? Eatonville, FL? Zora Neale Hurston? Langston Hughes? (well, Langston Hughes might get some run) Toni Morrison? Earl Lloyd? Larry Doby? Curt Flood? Come on. Art Shell? Bill Russell? Seriously. Black History is not just about getting brutalized and enslaved and getting brutalized during Jim Crow. All of that is important, but that’s not all there is to it. No matter what the focus is, all the action didn’t take place during the 60’s. (And by the way, Dr. King’s life didn’t end in 1963, after the March on Washington. He had a lot more to say than just, “…I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Why doesn’t anybody talk about his opposition to the war in Vietnam or the Poor People’s March? Like Chuck D says, Dr. King wasn’t just a dreamer, he was a doer. He didn’t go back to sleep.)

Even worse than the lack of content that’s passed off during BHM is the manner in which it’s given. Most people know Black history like a category on a game show. “Who was the first Black astronaut? Guion S. Bluford! Yessss!!!” It’s terrible. We spit random facts that may or may not be related to anything else that’s being taught, without much historical context and without any significant connection to what’s going on today, right now. As I write I am thinking mostly of middle school and high school students, but I’m convinced that there are a lot of Black adults who don’t know Black History outside of the aforementioned few and maybe Kunta Kinte.

So what’s my solution? First of all, I think that the way history is taught has to be changed. If not a wholescale change in curriculum, then at least at the classroom level by individual teachers. (And as I say this, it pains me to have to admit that when I taught I didn’t have the foresight or the classroom control to implement any of these ideas.) History has to be more than just a recounting of what happened, it should be a means of exploring what can happen and perhaps what should happen. (Althought that should kind of worries me these days.)

What about teaching not just actions but philosophies and ideologies? Why did Booker T. Washington propose the course of action he did? What about DuBois? What shaped his outlook? How were their philosophies similar? To what extent was their difference of opinion a precursor of what was to come between Dr. King and Malcom X? (And by the way, with this madness of trying to de-religify public education, how is it possible to really teach about Dr. King? His whole nonviolent philosophy was based in his Christianity. It’s just not possible to extract what he did from what he believed.)

How ’bout highlighting the strength of the Black community? For instance, in the movie “Once Upon A Time When We Were Colored,” there’s a part of the story where one of the young men in the family gets beaten up by the KKK. The audience doesn’t see that part, though. We just see him before and after. We never see an instance of white racism that is not met with Black resolve and dignity. Why not teach Black history like that? What’s wrong with teaching about Black Wall Street in Tulsa? There’s something in that story for every political bent. Wanna prove how Black people could achieve in the face of the most virulent racism? There you go. Wanna show how depraved some white have acted? It’s right there for you. Wanna show Black power before it became a catch phrase and an image? Right there.

But of course, ultimately, it’s not just about the content, it’s about the time. Even if a teacher were to present these ideas, why should it be confined to February? Why can’t it be a part of American history? Of course it can. And it absolutely should.

A couple weeks ago, LaShawn Barber wrote a very interesting piece about Black History Month. I commented on it a few times myself, but I still have some more to say about it, so I figured I will weigh in on the matter myself. Not right now, though. I don’t have too much time, though. The end of Black History Month (!) is next week.

I’m just tryin’ to say the way school need teachers
the way Kathy Lee needed Regis, that’s the way I need Jesus.

Kanye West - “Jesus Walks.”

I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to say anything about this, but I can’t help it. Free agency is coming up and if Andy Reid doesn’t get Donovan some help at WR, I’m defecting to the Colts or something. Not that it makes any difference, but I swear…I can’t take it any more. I can’t even watch the games because I don’t want to take the years off my life. Sure they would’ve lost to the Patriots, but come on! This is the same thing that happened last year. (And the worst part is, I say all this stuff knowing good and well that I’m gonna try and try and try not to watch, then they’re gonna string some wins together and I’ll be right there going through heart palpitations and short breath, hollering at the IB, both on good plays and bad, then next January I’ll be right back here, talking about how disappointed I am.) If they’re just gonna have some guys out there dropping passes, I’ll go up to Bethlehem next year for training camp. I can drop 6 passes and get shut down by a 5′9″ dude for league minimum.