[Vision2020] Black History Month

[Tom Hansen]

Thank you for reminding us, keely, and very well stated.

 

I would also like to recommend a book, a more contemporary look at Black
America, a book that I am currently reading for the umpteenth time . . .

 

"Soul on Ice" by Eldridge Cleaver

 

I realize that this book may lack the "good 'ol boy" appeal of such local
publications as "Black and Tan". But, like "Uncle Tom's Cabin"  and the
autobiography of Frederick Douglass, it reflects the truth from a person
that lived it.

 

I do strongly urge our fellow Visionaires to indulge and commit themselves
to read these books and dare to reflect on what life must have been like for
these Americans, because as Gil Scott-Heron so appropriately emphasized . .
.

 

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

http://www.tomandrodna.com/Poetry/Revolution.mp3

 

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

******************************************

"People walking up to you
Singing glory hallelujah
And they're trying to sock it to you
In the name of the Lord."

- Joe South (from "Games People Play")

****************************************** 

  _____  

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of keely emerinemix
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 7:14 PM
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Black History Month

 


Visionaires,

Over Christmas, I was wandering through Barnes & Noble when I saw a copy of
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," which I had never read.  I bought it, thinking that it
might come in handy if I ever found myself in the company of people who
believe that slavery was, on the whole, a pretty good deal for the slaves
and a conductor of virtue for slaveholders.  Just in case.

I realized last night that February is Black History Month -- as if all of
African-American history could or should be crammed into a single month,
although I suppose it gets it out of the way for the Anglo-American History
devotees.  But it occurred to me that much of what I was reading spoke not
only to the obvious theme of slavery, but also to the issue of justice and
charity overall, and justice and charity to undocumented immigrants in
particular.  "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has taken some knocks from enlightened,
20-th and 21st-century readers offended by Harriet Beecher Stowe's rendering
of slave dialect, as well as the seeming passivity of Uncle Tom, a Christian
slave sold under dreadful circumstances to a slave trader who muses early on
in the book that someday, he'll settle his accounts with the Good Lord --
after he concludes his man-stealing business.  Nonetheless, and I say this
as someone who has seriously studied Black history for decades, this book
has had an undeniably positive effect on American history and is, even
today, a blistering argument against those who would revere the "harmonious
existence" of slaves and Christian patriarchs in the antebellum South.

I'll be offering some quotes and perspectives from the book here on Vision,
and I also have a proposal for Douglas Wilson and his elders and Logos
School board members.  I will donate 25 copies of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to
Logos School to aid them in what I'm sure is their goal of a proper, true,
and comprehensive teaching of American history.  I will also gift Douglas
Wilson with the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, a compendium of
correspondence from free and enslaved Black women in the South called "We
Are Your Sisters," and a book chronicling the evangelical Quaker beginnings
of the abolitionist and other social reform movements in the United States,
"Mothers of Feminism" by Margaret Hope Bacon.

Because I don't for a moment believe that our paleo-Confederate local pastor
can seriously argue that his Christian witness and fidelity to the Gospel is
enhanced by his pro-slavery testimony and affiliation with The League of The
South, I invite him in all sincerity to avail himself of my offer.  I ask
only that he respond, and respond publicly on Vision 2020, regardless of the
content of that response or not.

"I will take the measuring line of justice and the plumb line of
righteousness to check the foundation wall you have built.  Your refuge
looks strong, but since it is made of lies, a hailstorm will knock it down.
Since it is made of deception, the enemy will come like a flood to sweep it
away . . . "  Isaiah 28:17

Indeed, to quote Pastor Rob Bell, a Gospel that is not good news for
everyone isn't good news for anyone.

Keely



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