State Of The State Of The Union
At least nobody yelled out "You Lie."
I've known people who’ve said being a Christian is just too hard
to do. It’s not, really. People think of a Christian life like a
diet. No This. No That. None Of The Other Thing. Being a
Christian has little to do with your habits or behavior, it’s
about your posture. Not sitting up straight, but a posture of
submission to God’s love, giving it up to God’s love. Church
Folk like to say more legal-sounding, threatening stuff like,
“God’s will,” but God’s will for us is love. Love is the sum and
substance of God, of His power and sovereignty. Living a
Christian life is, therefore, less about rules and regulations
than it is about allowing God’s love to wash over you, to
breathe it and drink it and eat it and allow that love to become
a part of you. Before you know it, you’ll begin to lose the
appetite for things that do not please God, for things that are
not like God. Most Church Folk I’ve met are not like God. Most
ultra-conservatives I’ve met are nothing at all like God. They
just like going around pointing fingers and banning things. And
the world sees these people and assume they are like God and
therefore God is either a liar or a fraud or really, really
mean, and who wants to be a part of that.
If the president’s
State of The Union Address proved anything, it was that
congressional Republicans (and many Democrats as well) simply
refuse to accept this man as president. Racism being as
intangible and often as inexplicable as sexism, I’m sure the
number of white men apparently tweeting (using handheld devices
to post to Twiitter.Com) while the president spoke seemed
unbearably disrespectful, unprecedented in both scale and
manner. Grown men behaving like teenage girls who can’t put the
blasted thing down even for a minute. I have never before in my
life seen such capriciously calculated displays of disrespect
and, yes, irrational and overtly racist hatred aimed at a
sitting U.S. president. I am told John F. Kennedy had similar
detractors, particularly in the far right. But the rule has
always been to show the president of the United States a
reasonable and expected measure of respect and temperance, most
especially during such national events as the State of The
Union.
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Of course, Obama was heckled during last year's address
to a joint session of Congress (it wasn’t officially a state of the union speech). And every black man, woman and child knew what the talking head pundits debated and poked at with a stick: that Joe Wilson’s loathing of the president was—as is most other burgeoning irrational hatred directed toward the president—colored by racism. To deny racism plays any role in the surreal refusal to accept a duly elected sitting president simply insults my intelligence, and I’d guess that of millions of other Americans who sat horrified, watching flabby old men ignore one of the most provocative SOTU speeches in U.S. history.
Which isn't to say it was one of the best. Obama’s cautious tip-toeing around likely only added to the disingenuous front of these guys’ refusal to accept him as president. It boggles that so many of these men accepted George W. Bush—demonstrably and unquestioningly the worst U.S. president in modern history—while treating Obama with a contempt I can scarcely imagine.
It
reminded me of James Earl Jones playing a U.S. circuit judge in
the Jodie Foster film Sommersby, gasps elicited from the gallery
as Jones’ judge entered the 19th century courtroom. There was a
kind of reluctant, minimal respect accorded Jones, whose
character was packing heat at the time, but Jones’ thoughtful
portrayal told the same story the president’s face often does:
he expected no less. As the first elected black president of the
U.S., I suspect Barack Obama knew the hypocritical racism in
government would not only be exposed but would be on full
display. The only people who can’t apparently see it are the
racists themselves, most of whom cling to increasingly
ridiculous and torturously thin distinctions between racism and
political differences.
I’ll have to check, but I seem to recall Republicans hated Bill
Clinton. Despised him. Wasted a billion dollars on a useless
trial over what should have been a private family matter simply
to humiliate him and sully his record. But, at this writing, I
cannot recall a single time when even one of those Republicans
treated Clinton as abusively as they routinely treat this
president. This lack of civility, on full display to the world,
only encourages fringe wing-nuts who, seeing these hateful white
men behave like children, reinforce and validate their own
fringe thinking as racist vilification of the president becomes
both acceptable and deeply ingrained into our society.
And I have to blame the president for some of it. I’m sure he’s
been coached not to respond to senators and congressmen dozing
off or ignoring him as they send text messages, but he is the
president of the United States. He should have embarrassed them.
He should have pointed out, there and in the moment, that their
calculated displays of ignorance and hatred are precisely the
kind of incivility that has polarized the political process.
Obama should have called these guys out—not for personal reasons
or out of ego, but because of the lesson being taught to our
children and our society. A lesson that will be taught whether
the president teaches it or the bloated, ignorant, hateful
morons wearing their racism on their sleeve do.
Even sadder: I’d bet serious money (if I bet, or if I had
serious money) that most if not all of these guys slouching in
their chairs and pretending to ignore a man they dressed up and
drove across town to see consider themselves Christians. As if
Christ would ever, under any circumstances, behave that way.
This behavior is the political equivalent of Church Folk. Nasty,
easily-offended, motor-mouthed, gregarious, mean-spirited,
ridiculous people who, I suppose, measure their status in the
Kingdom by how fluent they are in tongues or how well they
dance. These are people trapped in a bubble,
Lost In the Matrix, having
become so consumed by their charismatic Sunday experience that
they’ve completely lost track of Christ.
The 60-year olds behaving like 13-year olds during the
president’s speech likely consider themselves to be Christians.
So much so, in fact, that I doubt I’d be very welcome in their
churches. And this is the lie that needs to be challenged. If I
were to find fault with the president’s speech, it would be that
he, perhaps, chose to let the congressmen’s poor manners speak
for themselves: these guys looked like ignorant racists. I mean,
had we footage of them behaving like that during one of George
W. Bush’s tortured oratories, I’d be much slower to suggest
racism. But these guys sat up straight for Bush. They didn’t
fidget on Clinton—a guy they loathed.
Memo to our congress: if you don’t want people calling you
racist, stop doing racist things. And, whatever you do, don't
blame (or credit) God for it.
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