An Even Better Reason to Celebrate

Print of enslaved Africans on "The Wildfire".

Did you know that January 1st 2008 will mark the 200th anniversary of the prohibition of importing enslaved Africans into the United States? I didn't either until I was fortunate enough to stumble across this Op-Ed piece in the New York Times:

WE Americans live in a society awash in historical celebrations. The last few years have witnessed commemorations of the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase (2003) and the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II (2005). Looming on the horizon are the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth (2009) and the sesquicentennial of the outbreak of the Civil War (2011). But one significant milestone has gone strangely unnoticed: the 200th anniversary of Jan. 1, 1808, when the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited.

This neglect stands in striking contrast to the many scholarly and public events in Britain that marked the 2007 bicentennial of that country’s banning of the slave trade. There were historical conferences, museum exhibits, even a high-budget film, “Amazing Grace,” about William Wilberforce, the leader of the parliamentary crusade that resulted in abolition.

What explains this divergence? Throughout the 1780s, the horrors of the Middle Passage were widely publicized on both sides of the Atlantic and by 1792 the British Parliament stood on the verge of banning the trade. But when war broke out with revolutionary France, the idea was shelved. Final prohibition came in 1807 and it proved a major step toward the abolition of slavery in the empire.

The British campaign against the African slave trade not only launched the modern concern for human rights as an international principle, but today offers a usable past for a society increasingly aware of its multiracial character. It remains a historic chapter of which Britons of all origins can be proud. (Read the whole thing here)

The silence in the media, both mainstream and alternative regarding this significant milestone in the long walk to freedom is both deafening and disappointing. It is also ironic given recent stories of the resurgence of the noose, Latino gangs killing blacks simply for being black and a man declaring "open season" on members of an NAACP chapter in Maine of all places (are there really enough black people in Maine for anyone to be upset about?!).

Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), Founder of the Baha'i Faith was unequivocal regarding the moral bankruptcy of the ancient practice of human bondage for profit:

"It is forbidden you to trade in slaves, be they men or women. It is not for him who is himself a servant to buy another of God's servants, and this hath been prohibited in His Holy Tablet. Thus, by His mercy, hath the commandment been recorded by the Pen of justice. Let no man exalt himself above another; all are but bondslaves before the Lord, and all exemplify the
truth that there is none other God but Him. He, verily, is the All-Wise, Whose wisdom encompasseth all things."
(Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 45)

My friends and I will be marking this anniversary by watching the new Denzel Washington film The Great Debaters. You might also wish to acknowledge that there is something more to January 1st than recovering from public and private drunkeness in your own way. At the very least I encourage everyone to tell everyone about this anniversary so it does not pass unnoticed. You might even include in your New Years resolutions a resolve to redouble your efforts until racial unity and justice prevail in America.

Best Baha'i Thinkin' 2007

Photo of the Seat of the Universal House of Justice. My favorite place on the planet.

It has become a kind of tradition on this blog to do one post where I bring together what I consider to be my best blogging of the past year. Because of the new focus on the Baha'i Faith and black Americans, the posts included here will be restricted to those dealing with this topic. For those who are new to Baha'i Thought, it will give you a survey of some of the writing that has been done on this blog in 2007. For those who are long time readers, it can offer a chance to read something you haven't read for a while or make suggestions on the posts you would have chosen as the best of 2007. Here goes:

1. Racial Moral Relativism
2. Will The Real African American Please Stand Up?
3. The Baha'i Faith and Black Nationalism
4. Black Power Comes From God
5. Baha'u'llah: Prisoner, Prophet and Promised One
6. What Kind of Witness Am I?
7. Achieving Blackness?
8. A New Creation: Black Americans
9. Living While Black
10. Black Like Me?
11. Unintelligent Question
12. The Color-Line is A Rainbow

"...whosoever standeth firm and steadfast in this holy, this glorious, and exalted Revelation, such power shall be given him as to enable him to face and withstand all that is in heaven and on earth. Of this God is Himself a witness. O ye beloved of God! Repose not yourselves on your couches, nay bestir yourselves as soon as ye recognize your Lord, the Creator, and hear of the things which have befallen Him, and hasten to His assistance. Unloose your tongues, and proclaim unceasingly His Cause. This shall be better for you than all the treasures of the past and of the future, if ye be of them that comprehend this truth."
(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 330)

PS: Welcome to recent visitors from Korea, Saudi Arabia, Barbados and Japan!

She's Having a Baby

Just tripped over an interesting piece in the Boston Globe about teen pregnancy:

NEW YORK - In the new hit movie "Juno" and now in real life with Jamie Lynn Spears, 16-year-old girls get pregnant and decide to bear the child rather than opt for abortion. For many social conservatives, it's a challenging story line - they condemn the teen sex but hail the ensuing choice.

"It's a double-edged sword in the Christian community," said Bill Maier, a vice president of the conservative ministry Focus on the Family.
"We should commend girls like Jamie Lynn Spears for making a courageous decision to have the baby. On the other hand, there's nothing glamorous or fun about being an unwed teen mother."
In "Juno," the spunky heroine continues attending high school even as her pregnancy progresses, and she scouts out a married couple who want to adopt the baby. (Read the whole thing here).

I believe that a more challenging moral debate would be about whether or not there is a double standard regarding teenage pregnancy when race is taken into account. For many the unmarried, black teenage mother has become a virtual icon of the alleged depravity and decline of "black culture". How often do you hear pundits, politicians and intellectuals bemoaning the depravity and decline of "white culture" because sometimes a young white woman gets pregnant when she didn't plan to? Like so called "black on black" crime, it appears that the rules are different when a white teenager gets pregnant. I wonder if the movie Juno (which I have not yet seen), would be hailed as a brilliant comedy with a "spunky" lead if the story had been about a black girl rather than a white one, or rather a tragedy filled with violence and drug abuse. How many black girls are described as "courageous" for chosing to have their children when they face the challenge of an unplanned pregnancy? Our discource surrounding teen pregnancy must reflect justice and equity. Morally speaking teen pregnancy is teen pregnancy regardless of race . Let's have a moral debate about that.

"Tell,...the loved ones of God that equity is the most fundamental among human virtues. The evaluation of all things must needs depend upon it."

Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah

The Color Line is a Rainbow

Are these faces of a future America?

When you imagine the color-line so eloquently described by W.E.B. Dubois as the problem of the last century, what does it look like to you? I imagine a line that is big, bright and red like blood representing all the blood that has been spilled due to fantasies of racial superiority/inferiority. Turns out the color line is more like a rainbow, at least as suggested by a recent multilingual poll of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans that demonstrates whites don't have a "lock" on racial prejudice:

The nation's three largest minority groups — African Americans, Hispanics and Asians — view one another with deep suspicion, though there's evidence that the racial divide could be breached, a poll released Wednesday showed.

The poll of 1,105 African Americans, Hispanics and Asians found that all three groups held negative stereotypes of one another — though in some cases, a majority or nearly as many respondents rejected such beliefs.

In Oakland — where the three groups comprise nearly 75 percent of the city's population, according to the 2000 U.S. Census — academic and community leaders stress that negative stereotypes can be broken if people step out of their comfort zones and try to get along.

"If you want to generalize, it's easy to assume that the three groups have these deep suspicions about each other. And if that's the case, it's understandable. So much is done to separate the groups from each other culturally, socially and economically," said Peter Kim, the managing director of the East Bay Asian Youth Center in Oakland. Kim is Korean.

The poll found that 44 percent of Hispanics and 47 percent of Asians are "afraid of African Americans because they are responsible for most of the crime." (Read the whole article here)

You can also get a nice description of some of the key findings of the poll here.

In fairness, the results of the poll are mixed and if you read about them, you’ll see that there are
also some hopeful signs among the attitudes represented. Overall though, it seems that at the dawn of the 21^st century, hope and despair regarding America’s most vital and challenging are in a neck and neck race to claim the future of this country. Unity remains the only viable option if we want to avoid the inevitable consequences of the color line, yet ethnic groups seem to rebuild the walls of distrust as quickly as well-intentioned multiculturalists tear them down. That we live in a time of war, economic insecurity and the virtual breakdown of institutions we depend on for our well-being, from marriage to health care, only serves to encourage a retreat into the familiar comfort of racial alienation and competition. The American Baha’i community, of modest size and still in its spiritual infancy, offers credible evidence that the people of this nation, through the power of the love of God can transform the lethality of the color-line into a circle of unity that embraces all humanity. When our nation does this, it will be fit to provide leadership in the creation of a united, just and peaceful global society.

"Every edifice is made of many different stones, yet each depends on the other to such an extent that if one were displaced the whole building would suffer; if one is faulty the structure is imperfect. Bahá'u'lláh has drawn the circle of unity, He has made a design for the uniting of all the peoples, and for the gathering of them all under the shelter of the tent of universal unity. This is the work of the Divine Bounty, and we must all strive with heart and soul until we have the reality of unity in our midst, and as we work, so will strength be given unto us. Leave all thought of self, and strive only to be obedient and submissive to the Will of God. In this way only shall we become citizens of the Kingdom of God, and attain unto life everlasting."
(Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 53)

Healing the African American Mind

Just found this short piece in a Philly paper about a recent conference seeking to address the stigma surrounding mental illness among black Americans:

Debra Jackson tried desperately to get the words out yesterday.

"My son was . . . my son was . . . murdered recently," the 49-year-old Harrisburg woman said, weeping and gasping for air. "I am still grieving."

Those who stood behind Jackson to take their turn at the microphone during the Breaking the Silence conference at the Convention Center quickly moved in to embrace her and help prop her up.

That willingness to show support was the theme throughout the two-day summit that addressed an often-hidden and still-taboo topic within the African American community: mental illness and the dangers of not treating it.

Jackson, a minister and mental-health advocate, said she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder - a mental illness characterized by severe mood swings - six years ago. She has attempted suicide three times, she said.

Jackson said that her son's homicide on Oct. 24 - just three hours before his 33d birthday - has put additional enormous stress on her, and that just getting out of bed in the morning was difficult.

"My psychologist is really concerned I will go into a very deep depression," Jackson said after a panel discussion. "I'm in a state of shock." (Read the whole article here)

This sounds like a remarkable conference and I applaud the organizers for taking on a challenging issue. Whether one is talking about severe mental illness or suicidality or simply the chronic stress associated with living in a society where black humanity remains an open question, the need for healing the African American mind is an urgent concern. Dr Joy Leary's work on post-traumatic slave syndrome is one example of an attempt to meet this need, but so much more is needed especially when one considers the low representation of blacks within the mental health professions. This is part of what interests me in exploring connections between religion and African American mental health as a possible topic for my dissertation. I recently was able to take a very humble step in this direction through investigating a possible relationship between religiosity and resiliency among a sample of black evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. I'll end with a short portion of the Long Healing Prayer:

Sanctified art Thou, O my God! I beseech Thee by Thy generosity, whereby the portals of Thy bounty and grace were opened wide, whereby the Temple of Thy Holiness was established upon the throne of eternity; and by Thy mercy whereby Thou didst invite all created things unto the table of Thy bounties and bestowals; and by Thy grace whereby Thou didst respond, in thine own Self with Thy word "Yea!" on behalf of all in heaven and earth, at the hour when Thy sovereignty and Thy grandeur stood revealed, at the dawn-time when the might of Thy dominion was made manifest. And again do I beseech Thee, by these most beauteous names, by these most noble and sublime attributes, and by Thy most Exalted Remembrance, and by Thy pure and spotless Beauty, and by Thy hidden Light in the most hidden pavilion, and by Thy Name, cloaked with the garment of affliction every morn and eve, to protect the bearer of this blessed Tablet, and whoso reciteth it, and whoso cometh upon it, and whoso passeth around the house wherein it is. Heal Thou, then, by it every sick, diseased and poor one, from every tribulation and distress, from every loathsome affliction and sorrow, and guide Thou by it whosoever desireth to enter upon the paths of Thy guidance, and the ways of Thy forgiveness and grace. Thou art verily the Powerful, the All-Sufficing, the Healing, the Protector, the Giving, the Compassionate, the All-Generous, the All-Merciful.

Baha'u'llah

Motherland News

Some familiar faces outside the National Baha'i Center in Accra, Ghana 2006

"That the African believers are fully capable of taking their full share in building the Kingdom of God on earth, their natural abilities and present deeds have fully demonstrated."
(The Universal House of Justice, 1998 Dec 16, Traditional practices in Africa)


There has been quite a bit of Baha'i News coming from the Motherland recently that I wanted to share with my readers in case you weren't aware of it. It makes me miss Africa terribly. I'm actually getting a little misty-eyed over here. God willing these tired feet will land on African soul again soon! I want to give a shout out to my Baha'i brothers and sisters who are moving mountains spiritually in Ghana. I love and miss you!!!

In Ghana, The Olinga Foundation is doing some cool work:

For years, Owusu Ansah Malik thought his native language, Twi, was second-rate. English, the national language of Ghana, was emphasized at his school.

But a program that offers instruction, books, and mentoring in Twi has helped the 16-year-old see the value of his mother tongue - and improved his English literacy at the same time.

"I thought our Ghanaian language was too poor to be learned, since its teaching was not encouraged," said Owusu, who is in Class Eight at the Gonukrom Junior Secondary School. "But with this program, I realized that our language is rich and can be learned. It has also helped me to read English easily."

Owusu is one of 22,000 students in Ghana who have participated in the "Enlightening the Hearts" literacy program, which is aimed at helping young people age 9 to 15 read and write in their own language.

Operated by the Olinga Foundation for Human Development, a Baha'i-inspired nongovernmental organization, the program has offered training in more than 260 remote primary and junior secondary schools in Ghana's Western Region since 2000. Read the whole story here.

In Uganda, the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity is doing what it does so well:

After five frustrating decades of stalled attempts at development, a group of Ugandans have come together to examine the experience in their country and search for effective approaches.

A cross-section of community leaders, policy makers, and educators discuss their thinking in a new film, which was premiered in Kampala last month before an audience that included former Prime Minister Kinto Musoke and other dignitaries.

"Development has not fulfilled its promises," states businessman Gimoro Laker-Ojok at the beginning of the film, which is titled "Opening a Space - The Discourse on Science, Religion and Development in Uganda."

"In the 1950s and '60s, the disparities between rich and poor in Uganda were not this marked," continues Daisy Namono of CELSOL Consulting Services. "There is a need to look at what went wrong."

From the Rev. Sam Ebukalin, who works with a program called Yiga Ng' Okola (Learn As You Work): "Development has, for the past 50 years, missed its target. ... What is missing?"

"We need to go back to the drawing board in some cases," says Elizabeth Kharono, program coordinator for Living Earth Uganda.

Produced by the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity, a nonprofit corporation associated with the Baha'i International Community, the film then develops the gist of the argument - that development programs have tended to view the poor as "bundles of needs" rather than as contributors to solutions. Read the whole article here.

Finally, Junior Youth Groups are making a difference in Zambia:

The Tonga tribe has lived in southern Zambia for hundreds of years, and members are proud of their longstanding traditions and strong social codes. But leaders say some of the customs are eroding - young people, for example, no longer seem to respect the elderly.

A new program involving hundreds of young teens working in small groups may help change that - and simultaneously help the youngsters get along better with each other.

"The groups have started with helping old people in the community," said Siankuku Sabantu, a local fisherman.

"This is something that sometime back was normal but in recent years has stopped. Now the youth have again started helping old people by drawing water for them, gathering firewood and cleaning their homes," he said.

The groups are part of what is known in the Baha'i Faith as the Junior Youth Program, a worldwide effort to help young people aged 12 to 15 - "junior youth" - make good moral choices in their daily lives. Read the whole story here.

The Color-Line Goes to College

On the wall of Cape Coast slave castle in Ghana, West Africa December 2006

The Boston Globe had a lengthly piece today about "racial tensions" at colleges in the area. Here's a taste of it:

"One girl said to me, 'Well, let's face it, the only reason you're here is because we need the statistics,' " he says. Hermonsillo, who attended Lake Forest Academy, a predominantly white boarding school outside his hometown of Chicago, told her he'd worked as hard as she had to get into college.

"Then she was like, 'Well, ummm,' " recalls Hermonsillo, 18. "She didn't know what to say. She didn't even apologize or anything."

The subject of racial and ethnic tensions on college campuses has become so topical that a November episode of "Without a Trace" kicked off with a white student calling his black peer an affirmative-action "charity case" during class. Tufts University's conservative student newspaper, The Primary Source, generated controversy a year ago when it published a Christmas carol titled "O Come All Ye Black Folk." Asian students at Boston College complain of drunken alumni and students who shout racial epithets as part of their football game celebrations.

In recent months, nooses, a centuries-old symbol of racial intimidation, have been found at the University of Maryland, California State University at Fullerton, Purdue, and Columbia. "Crossing the Border" and "Ghetto" parties, in which white students wear blackface or crawl under barbed-wire fences to get in, generate outcry when images from these events turn up on Facebook. The blog Vox ex Machina offers a "College Racism Roundup" of incidents on campuses nationwide.

The tensions, says Daren Graves, an assistant professor of general education at Simmons College, mirror a nationwide movement opposed to political correctness that's occurring in response to the advances of the civil-rights movement.

"There is a cycle that happens when there are large social movements in any society," Graves says. "The people in power think things are moving way too quickly. . . . What you might be seeing on campus is a reflection of what you're seeing in society in general: 'Let's slow down with this PC stuff. It's taking people out of their comfort zones. I have to watch my words and that's not what America's about.' " (Read all about it here)
I really want to hear from the college kids or adults working in academic environments on this one. Are you seeing similar things where you are?

It's discouraging but not surprising to hear that the same kinds of things are happening in 2007 that were going on when I was an undergrad at the University of Massachusetts back in the 90's. Remember the '90's? Seems like years of multicultural education and diversity training didn't quite reach those who needed it most. Interestingly, there's a nice piece of blogging at Anti-racist parent that basically says "diversity training" doesn't work. It is worth reading. I was speaking with a colleague of mine today about racial issues in Boston and said "you can't legislate love". My understanding as a Baha'i is that racism, like all the other problems that humanity is facing at this time, requires a transformation that is spiritual and is not just about embracing the "right" political or ideological viewpoints about race or even just addressing structural issues like discrimination or income inequality. It also involves the institutionalization of this spiritual transformation in a way that its liberating and unifying energies can be channeled in a systematically, which is more powerful than individuals just trying to be nicer to people whose skin color is different than theirs. The Baha'i Faith offers both of these things which is why it is worthy of serious study be anyone who wants to see a meaningful and lasting change in race relations in America.

"Let there be no mistake. The principle of the Oneness of Mankind -- the pivot round which all the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh revolve-- is no mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope. Its appeal is not to be merely identified with a reawakening of the spirit of brotherhood and good-will among men, nor does it aim solely at the fostering of harmonious cooperation among individual peoples and nations. Its implications are deeper, its claims greater than any which the Prophets of old were allowed to advance. Its message is applicable not only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as members of one human family. It does not constitute merely the enunciation of an ideal, but stands inseparably associated with an institution adequate to embody its truth, demonstrate its validity, and perpetuate its influence. It implies an organic change in the structure of present-day society, a change such as the world has not yet experienced. It constitutes a challenge, at once bold and universal, to outworn shibboleths of national creeds -- creeds that have had their day and which must, in the ordinary course of events as shaped and controlled by Providence, give way to a new gospel, fundamentally different from, and infinitely superior to, what the world has already conceived. It calls for no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole civilized world -- a world organically unified in all the essential aspects of its life, its political machinery, its spiritual aspiration, its trade and finance, its script and language, and yet infinite in the diversity of the national characteristics of its federated units. It represents the consummation of human evolution -- an evolution that has had its earliest beginnings in the birth of family life, its subsequent development in the achievement of tribal solidarity, leading in turn to the constitution of the city-state, and expanding later into the institution of independent and sovereign nations. The principle of the Oneness of Mankind, as proclaimed by Bahá'u'lláh, carries with it no more and no less than a solemn assertion that attainment to this final stage in this stupendous evolution is not only necessary but inevitable, that its realization is fast approaching, and that nothing short of a power that is born of God can succeed in establishing it."
(Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 42)