Tuesday, January 20, 2009

benediction for an extraordinary day

..."help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right."

rev lowery's riff on ''black brown and white" by big bill broonzy was a bit of humor to remind us how far we've come down the road from racism to to ''embrace-ism''...in fact, i learned that for a long time, back in the '50's, this song was not allowed to be played in the U.S.

unfortunately, from reading some of the blogs today, there are a lot of people just flat silly with infuriation about rev lowery including these words at the end of his prayer...they didn't get it that this was humor about racism, and were most especially not racist remarks.

'tell you what... i'm going to work for the day when we don't have to explain this stuff.

and especially will i not only pray but also work for a day when everyone, all over the world, can live just such an extraordinary day, and laugh

2 comments:

Wormwood's Doxy said...

This makes me wonder why I argue so passionately for public schools. What ARE they teaching them these days?!

t.l.h.heller said...

GOOD QUESTION...and since most of my professional life was public education policy, it seemed that every idiocy was a double hit, first for what didn't happen in the classroom, and second for what didn't happen in the lege...