A Challenge to the Black Church

article here: Blacks, Mirroring Larger U.S. Trend, 'Come Out' As Nonbelievers

Frederick A Hanna


I don't honestly see this as a threat to the Black Church, but a challenge. I hate when people criticize black churches without having spent significant time inside of them. AND when I say "inside" I don't mean some jaded experience you had that disenchanted and marred you as a youth, nor do I mean a cursory outsider's perspective based on your intellectual opinion.

Nonetheless, statements like,

"...religious principles get in the way of effectively addressing the social ills facing the black community, including a higher proportion of HIV and AIDS cases compared with other races and ethnicities."

AND

"... black churches are sometimes be part of the problem, not the solution... We need clinics, jobs, and schools in black neighborhoods... We need proactive solutions, and praying and churches is not the answer." (which I would change to "is not the full extent of the answer")

are at least partially true for far too many churches. Movements like this should force churches to critically analyze their role in society in a post modern age. Preaching and praying isn't enough. I have said it before, it's not enough to "have" church we have got to "be" the church. Far too many Christians don't truly understand what that means because they have become ensnared by religion. Still, as a good friend of mine once told me, "you can't blame the people for that, it's what they've been taught."

Remember who killed Jesus? Religious folk! The religious elite... the establishment...

Having said all of that, if I'm going to roll the dice, I'm rolling with Jesus!

Building a Better Teacher

Doug Lemov gets to the point... well, at least one of the points that are of importance when looking at educational outcomes... "The smarter path to boosting student performance, Lemov maintains, is to improve the quality of the teachers who are already teaching."


This is the path I favor in improving educational outcomes. We can't just sellout and fire all of the teachers in failing schools. We have to help the ones who need help and want it. If they don't want it, then out they go. Too many teachers are victims of poor training, and I don't think it's fair to hold them accountable where the system has failed them without offering to help make up the difference. We also need to elevate the standards for those coming into the classroom now and in the future so that the cycle is ended, and we need to pay teachers in accordance with the significance of the job they do.

Nothing new in this article from my perspective. It's just something that needs to be said. Subject matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical competence add up to good teaching. PERIOD


Building a Better Teacher - NYT Article

School’s Shake-Up Is Embraced by the President

If an entire faculty needs to be fired - which I find hard to believe yet not impossible - then there are clearly some deep and pervasive issues here.

School’s Shake-Up Is Embraced by the President - NYT Article

Bill Perkins Opposes Charter Schools Popular in Harlem

Mr. Perkins' voice needs to be heard. I'm with him insofar as questioning the wholesale selling out of public schools that seems to be being advocated today. If bureaucracy is such a huge issue for public schools, then let's change the system so that we can devise better ways to educate!

“When you are dying of thirst, you will drink whatever is wet,” Mr. Perkins said of the parents who yearn for more charter schools. “You are at the mercy of whoever is holding out some hope for you. So I don’t see the number of applicants as evidence of success for charters, I see it as evidence of failure of others.”

Bill Perkins Opposes Charter Schools Popular in Harlem - NYTimes.com

Time and Space

I read a great essay yesterday by Ira Berlin, entitled “Time, Space, and the Evolution of Afro-American Society on British Mainland North America.” I read the article on the advice of Hilary Moss (Schooling Citizens: The Struggle for African American Education in Antebellum America)who recently commented on a draft of my dissertation proposal. She was cautioning me on an assumption that I seemed to be making in my writing that suggested a monolithic African American/Black culture in North America. While this wasn't my intention, I could see that she was correct. In my thinking, I always make the distinction between northern and southern black culture especially since I married a woman who's regional and cultural tendencies are decidedly southern.

In informal conversations I find that most Southerners think that Northerners see them as stereotypically simple and stupid (Here is a Southerner's Response). While it is probably true in many cases that Northerners see Southerners as gullible, charming folk, who speak with a drawl, drive pick up trucks, and prefer fishing to intellectually stimulating conversation; not all Northerners would agree to such stereotypical representations of our southern brothers and sisters. For me, Southerners are just different... from me. My sensibilities, likes, my style, what I am attracted to, reflects my upbringing in the urban centers of northeastern United States. Even down to what I like to experience in worship. This is something I am acutely aware of, so it was strange to think that I would write pages upon pages melding northern and southern black culture together as though they were one.

Berlin's article was helpful as it pointed to 3 distinct African American cultures developing in the 17th and 18th centuries. Distinctions which are probably still relevant today in many ways. These distinctions were mediated by time and space. Berlin suggests that one culture developed amidst a nonplantation culture in the North, a a 2nd was a Southern plantation system in the Chesapeake area, and a 3rd plantation system developed in the South Carolina and Georgia low country. To find out the particulars of the differences, I suggest you read the essay.

There are a number of things that these groups held in common however: a common African lineage, a common racial oppressor, and a common desire to create the richest life possible for themselves and their families amidst intensely difficult circumstances. Black life in the US is mediated by time and space; by social circumstances and local traditions; by cultural distinctions and regional sensibilities; and although African American life has grown immensely in diversity since the antebellum years, one might argue that it is still held together by the same commonalities today.

Written by Frederick A Hanna

US Christian Roots

Just a simple question...

If you can acknowledge the existence of racially based policies such as slavery, the near extermination of Native Americans and their removal from "their" lands, the super-exploitation and degrading utilization of Mexicans and various Asian groups as contract laborers, Jim Crow and any number of other degrading practices that were a part of US history from at least 1776-1960's... ...Can you still laud the Protestant religious foundations of the US as pure and true?

I love America and I love Jesus, but if I hear one more person talking about the Christian roots of our forefathers without acknowledging the bigotry and discrimination that excluded even most white men and all white woman from the rights of citizenship as part of the development of a liberal nation-state, I'm gonna throw up.

Holla Back!

Written by Frederick A Hanna

Christmas Dream

I was startled from my sleep on Christmas Eve by an urge to do good deeds. I looked at the clock, 11:59pm, without even a thought, I jumped into my Green Lantern costume, ran to the front porch, and took off through the air towards my hometown, Jersey City, NJ.

As I flew over the church steeple of St. Patrick's Church on Bramhall Avenue, and the clock struck 12, I knew there was no time for complacency or sloth. There was just too much to do.

I first flew over all the corners where drugs were being sold and turned crack rocks into skittles! BUT not only that, I instantly enrolled the young entrepreneurs into small business owners classes and arranged for them to get grants to start their own businesses, provided they finished their coursework.

Next I waved my hand and everyone with an addiction was enrolled in a program to help them get clean and stay clean...

Next, I got all of Jersey City's great athletes, business owners, professionals, and celebrities who had made it out of poverty and had them start up job training programs, as well as, open businesses in the community that would not only put people to work, but would give them long term stability and security. Then I put them in contact with all of the unemployed, under employed, and those who had just given up, and told them to get to work... TOGETHER.

Next I identified all of the undernourished children and arranged for them to have healthy, nutritious meals 3 times a day. Part of this plan involved making sure that there were food stores in the community that sold healthy, fresh, affordable foods.

I also arranged for all of the children to have access to free, HIGH QUALITY healthcare...

Then I flew over every detention facility and "bam" they all had REAL rehabilitation programs that help ex offenders to enter back into society with REAL hope.

After that, I made a pact with every ex offender that they would speak in schools and community centers about the mistakes they had made, and implore others not to do the same.

Next I pulled every corrupt politician together and had them make retribution Zacchaeus style. Read it for yourself:

Luke 19:1-10
Zacchaeus the Tax Collector

1Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. 4So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." 6So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

7All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner.'"

8But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount."

9Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

From there I flew over every courthouse and decreed that JUSTICE would prevail in every situation. That all people, rich and poor, black, white, brown, yellow, or red would be ensured impartiality and fairness in every situation.

Next I flew over all of the schools, identified all of the underachieving TEACHERS and ADMINISTRATORS, and enrolled them in programs to bring them up to an elite standard. I also gifted every under resourced school with all of the resources it needed to give young people the best possible education, so that every child has the opportunity to go to college.

Then I flew over the projects and the sub standard housing, turning them into beautiful places to live, and making many of the people property owners. I also launched programs in every community that taught people to value their properties, how to keep them up, how to save money, and create wealth.

I also, built homeless shelters that were safe, clean, and packed with resources that would help people get back on their feet.

Next I visited every house of worship and confronted the leaders with the urgency of the day. I implored them to act with self-LESS-ness, to walk the walk even better than they talk the talk, and we all prayed and cried together vowing to do our part.

I know there was much more to do, but I only had a few hours, and besides, it was just a dream... BUT it's not impossible.

Christmas isn't just a day, in fact the day itself is only "symbolic" in every possible way (no way that Christ was born in December). The true spirit of Christmas should be expressed in how we serve those less fortunate; those in need; the "least of these."

Written by Frederick A Hanna