Lex said:
SIGH.
I disagree here with you, Stronzo, and I love you enough to say so. I think in reading these last few posts, that b.c. really highlighted where he IS on the same page with you while also showcasing where he took some exception or has divergent thought.
This is remarkably similair to the veiled racism thread where you and I debated/argued for pages until we both (each?) took a break and reflected and really found the common ground that seemed to not be there before hand because we are both too busy trying to be heard and beat the other down with our point of view to effectively listen and reflect (this is not a condemnation).
Debate and disagreement do not have to yield argument and malcontent. Sometimes, more kinship can grow from it, no?
I'm outta here for a bit--these racism/religion threads (and coming out) have really exhausted me. You guys have fun.
Hugs all around.
I appreciate, Lex, that you "get it" and know exactly what I'm saying and where I'm coming from on this. Stronzo doesn't because (by his own suggestion) he has "no common ground" with me. He has no idea how wrong he is on that point, but it seems that everything has to be "his way or the highway" with Stronzo...he isn't given to compromise (as another member noted in another thread).
What's ironic (and strikes me with some degree of amusement) is that I appear in these posts to be some defender of Christianity and religion in general. Never thought in a million years I could ever be perceived as such. I who fairly loathe Christian Fundamentalists, those conservative "holier than thous" who speak of God in every other sentence, but do and think evil things and follow narrow minded concepts. Well aware, I am, of the effects of religion on social order (the cause of many a war and genocide), its effects on the obliteration of native cultures (and peoples) the world over (the continuing Muslim extermination the Nuba, for example) via some missionary's zeal to "spread
their word".
I could go on and on but that it would seem an overly ingratiating attempt on my part to qualify me as something akin to Stonzo on this line of thinking, when in fact, I don't care if he believes I am or not. Suffice it to say, I am no lover or defender of religion.
But what I do (and have defended) I think is the right of every individual to make a personal choice as to what he/she wants to believe in, as to what religion, if any, one wants to follow.
Stronzo seems to unequivocably reject all religion and all followers of any religion because (as he confided in another thread) he quit his church and rejected his religion when he discovered how they view homosexuals.
I think there is a distinction between faith and religious dogma anyway. There's a whole bunch of things one could reject one's "church" for. Besides homosexuality, many religions take a dim view on birth control, pre maritial sex, abortion, gambling, drug abuse, family planning...the list goes on. Plenty of reasons to reject the church (any church). But even that was not the bone of contention I had with Stronzo's take on the subject.
I guess I found myself wondering what was all this concern about African American faith in particular? As I noted somewhere in an above post, there are plenty of targets to go after with regard to religion's persecution of homosexuality: the so-called Moral Majority, the conservative Christian fundamentalists who hold sway over the President, Congress, the Supreme Court, the churches themselves that set doctrine and all those "family value" bastards who presume to tell us how we should live
our lives. Plenty enough to rage against, no?
But instead,
his focus is on African Americans who (in his view) have accepted a religion that is not their own, a religion that has oppressed us, and one that WE (mind you) are now using to oppress homosexuals.
We are the enemy because we have the audacity to now "perceive [ourselves] mainstreamed", and (in his mind) "are sitting back, wiping [our] brows and thinking 'better them [gays] than us'".
All of this, of course, causes me to wonder just how much "on my side" he really is. Call into question how connected
he is to his ancestrial religions and he is quick to say his ancestry (and religion) are well intact, while in almost the same breath he insists that I (and therefore, all Black people) HAD a religion. How unenlightened we all are, that he needs must save us from ourselves.
And this is perhaps the crux of my problem with Stronzo's threads. Not his take on religion (we agree) or its effects on the world, or its divisiveness, or influences on war, conflict, discrimination and the like.
Rather,
it is his elitist type of presumptiveness to think he can tell a people what it is they should believe in, to presume to tell us we had no choice. (F**k!! we have a choice NOW... we make them every day). In his mind we (Blacks) need return to our roots, to discover and practice some original African religion practiced by an untraceable ancestry (notwithstanding any other ancestry we may also have ties to). After all, Whoopi did it.
It's as if he's saying the ancestry of African Americans, the culture, the practices, the faith, the entire American experience is a lie...of no consequence...should be of no inherent value to African Americans. Quite and eye opener, to discover that we've been living a lie...in a fool's paradise, I guess. What a condescending load of crap!
I understand he wants our help. But don't dictate to me what my choices should be. And I think I can decide for myself, what is or what isn't "a lie", thank you very much.