Tag: race

Back to the Regularly Schedule Outrage

Published on by D. G. Hart39 Comments

So as I was cooking yesterday morning in preparation for last night’s congregational hymn sing and December (near Christmas) pot providence supper, I had NPR on with Diane Rehm leading a group of men through a discussion of the Senate’s report on CIA torture. And I’m thinking, first Ferguson, then Ray Rice, then Eric Garner. How do I manage my outrage?

Well, in the world of grief followed by getting on with life, the way Diane decided to ease her listeners back from a view of the CIA far too close to Homeland was by devoting the second hour to Mr. Rogers? Imagine how African-American listeners might have felt if Diane had decided to follow an hour-long discussion of Ferguson with a segment on holiday weight-gain. Would that topic trivialize the injustice?

Maybe you devote two hours to U.S. intelligence and its abuses.

Or perhaps, if you have a job to do and you put together roughly 250 programs a year, you don’t feature outrageous events all the time. After all, with all the sin, misery, and injustice in the world, we could be outraged most of the time (as the missus suspects I am). The fact that we are not more outraged more of the time may be an indication of how relatively good life is this side of glory. As anyone who grieves the loss of a loved one knows, the world doesn’t stop and you don’t get a day off from adult responsibilities just because dad died. Maybe even the day after you observe the burial of your father you clean the bathrooms. Does that trivialize the grief? Or is it possible to live a life based on intense grief (or outrage)? Experimental Calvinists please don’t answer.

Upon further reflection, though, with help from Ross Douthat, John McWhorter, and Diane Rehm, I have come to wonder whether the extensive discussions of race relations and police brutality disguise a much bigger problem — the use of force by people whose self-interest coincides with justifications for it.

Ross Douthat, for instance, thinks that Ferguson does not make the case for improved policing policy that many do:

Ferguson is turning into a poor exhibit for the policy causes that it’s being used to elevate. We will never know exactly what happened in the shooting of Michael Brown, but at this point the preponderance of the available evidence suggests that this case is at the very least too ambiguous, and quite possibly too exculpatory of the officer involved, to effectively illustrate a systemic indictment of police conduct. Meanwhile, while I continue to believe that the looting and vandalism in Ferguson do not, by their mere existence, prove that a full-metal-jacket police response to the protests was wise or productive — quite the reverse; I still think it contributed to a dynamic of escalation — the fact remains that if you’re trying to make a case to anyone on the center-right (or the non-ideological public, for that matter) that American police forces have become too aggressive, too armored-up, too bullying, a story in which they ended up failing to prevent the destruction of businesses and property is not necessarily the ideal exhibit to introduce.

Douthat points to John McWhorter, always a good read, who thinks the Brown and Garner incidents point to a problem about police-community relations:

The right-wing take on Brown, that he was simply a “thug,” is a know-nothing position. The question we must ask is: What is the situation that makes two young black men comfortable dismissing a police officer’s request to step aside?

These men were expressing a community-wide sense that the official keepers of order are morally bankrupt. What America owes communities like Ferguson — and black America in general — is a sincere grappling with that take on law enforcement that is so endemic in black communities nationwide. As Northwestern philosopher Charles Mills has put it, “Black citizens are still differentially vulnerable to police violence, thereby illustrating their second class citizenship.”

This is true. It is most of what makes so many black people of all classes sense racism as a key element of black life, and even identity. Now, some suppose that the reason for what Mills refers to is black people’s fault, that black people are just too dumb, lazy, and immoral to understand what it is to be decent citizens. Most would disagree, however, which logically implies that something has gone terribly wrong from the other end — from law enforcement itself. The President’s statement on the verdict got at this point: what we must get past is larger than the specifics of what happened between Wilson and Brown.

And in that vein, as someone who has written in ardent sympathy with the Ferguson protests, I find this hard to write, but I have decided that it would be dishonest of me to hold back. As I have written endlessly, America will never get past race without a profound change in how police forces relate to black men.

The one point of disagreement I have with McWhorter stems from the reality that today U.S. police forces include many African-American men and women. This is not like the televised incidents of white police beating up protesting blacks in urban neighborhoods on fire. African-Americans are now — can you say President Obama? — on both sides of the law. In which case the issue of race may actually cloud the matter of privilege. Do Bill Cosby or Jesse Jackon’s children face the same relations with people who enforce the law as do Michael Brown and Eric Garner? And do the poor white residents of Hillsdale, Michigan fare better with the local police than the children of African-American University of Michigan professors do with Ann Arbor’s finest? Of course, in some parts of urban America, African-Americans are disproportionately situated in communities that police treat differently. But is that merely a function of race or is it much more a case of wealth?

Irrespective of the incidents in New York and Ferguson, the United States faces a much bigger problem — perhaps the granddaddy of them all — a branch of the federal government that has almost unlimited power (in the name of national interest) to brutalize people. But before we let ourselves off the hook as innocent bystanders to these incidents, Noah Millman has a useful reminder that many of us asked for this after 9/11:

I’ve written before about the overwhelming fear that afflicted the country in the wake of 9-11, and how, perversely, exaggerating the severity of the threat from al Qaeda helped address that fear, because it made it acceptable to contemplate more extreme actions in response. If al Qaeda was really just a band of lunatics who got lucky, then 3,000 died because, well, because that’s the kind of thing that can happen. If al Qaeda was the leading edge of a worldwide Islamo-fascist movement with the real potential to destroy the West, then we would be justified in nuking Mecca in response. Next to that kind of response, torture seems moderate.

Willingness to torture became, first within elite government and opinion-making circles, then in the culture generally, and finally as a partisan GOP talking point, a litmus test of seriousness with respect to the fight against terrorism. That – proving one’s seriousness in the fight – was its primary purpose from the beginning, in my view. It was only secondarily about extracting intelligence. It certainly wasn’t about instilling fear or extracting false confessions – these would not have served American purposes. It was never about “them” at all. It was about us. It was our psychological security blanket, our best evidence that we were “all-in” in this war, the thing that proved to us that we were fierce enough to win.

You can probably make a similar point about the police and community relations. Lots of Americans, black and white, vote for candidates who will be tough on crime. When that toughness becomes something from which we would prefer to avert our eyes, do we side with candidates who say, “let’s treat criminals charitably”? I don’t think so.

And maybe that is why Diane Rehm has a nationally syndicated radio show and I don’t. You program both outrage and sunny-side up sentimentality. That’s how we get through the g-d day.

W-w is Hard

Published on by D. G. Hart4 Comments

Well, there’s the brother-in-law who thinks he’s a chicken:

Some things are more important than football. A lot of things are more important than what kind of nasal strip a particular player wears while he plays football. I have written before about how image-obsessed the NFL relative to racial issues; these recent events have offered even more evidence of this imbalance. As players commit horrible crimes and sustain life-altering head injuries, the league regulates how long their socks must be. Caught up in minutiae, it has missed the more important things.

Welcome to the NFL, the league run by Pharisees.

Then’s there’s I and I need the eggs:

Catholics in the Windy City are smiling. In fact, all Chicagoans are happy right now.

Things are looking up, and there’s reason for hope.

Wait, what? New archbishop? What are you talking about?

DAAAAA BEEEAAARS!!!

Looking both Ways

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

What would happen to race relations in the U.S. (at least) if Americans of African descent sometimes tried to identify with the experience of a white person? It may happen more than blog posts after racially charged incidents suggest, but the theme of many an African-American pastor after the Michael Brown shooting was that white people need to empathize with the experience of African-American men.

Well, sometimes, an African-American does see the world through the eyes of a white man (or boy). How could that happen? Well, in the case of mixed-race couples who reproduce children who look white, an African-American parent will need, as Trillia Newbell reminds her readers, to consider the experience of white folk in the U.S.:

Because he is white-looking, I fear my son will grow up in an environment that is hostile towards white males. I do live in the south where racial tension and strife have plagued our history. So what if we end up doing just the thing we’ve fought so hard to stop? What if we, black Americans, begin judging other brothers and sisters solely based on the color of their skin? Could my son be thought of as an ignorant, uncaring, privileged white male? There is a good and needed call to repentance, action, and – at the very least – acknowledgement that there remains a problem in America regarding racial reconciliation. We haven’t arrived—far from it. And yet I wonder how it feels to be a white male in America today. There are some who have indeed acknowledged that racism continues to rot the hearts of men and women—even those within the Church. There are many who feel a weight of responsibility that could prove to be useful, but there are others who I believe feel a weight of responsibility, guilt, and fear. I want my son to know about our country’s history, to realize the sin of man, and to not retreat when faced with difficult and heart wrenching situations like that of Ferguson. But I don’t want him to walk around feeling guilt, shame, and fear.

If a mother can empathize with a son in this way, what about an African-American pastor who ministers to white and black people? Does a minister of the word, no matter what his background, need somehow to lay aside his own experience based on race or class or nationality and minister to the people in his congregation whose experience may be very different from his? It makes sense that a mother looks out for a son. It also makes sense that an undershepherd looks out for his sheep whether they are white or black.

From "The Wire" to Ferguson

Published on by D. G. Hart121 Comments

David Simon, the creator of The Wire (say that in hushed tones), wrote this before Missouri authorities revealed the identity of the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown. It reinforces the point that police and law enforcement professionals bear an enormous responsibility for the health of race relations in the U.S. But Simon also displays a healthy regard for the work of police, the burdens they bear, and the value to a democratic society. For the full letter go here (which is the most recent of three missives — thanks to our Hillsdale correspondent):

Understand that I am someone with a high regard for good police work. I covered a large municipal department for a dozen years and spent that time writing in detail on extraordinary efforts by professional detectives and officers, and, too, on systemic and individual failures within that same agency. I am not unsympathetic to the complex truths of practical policing.

To that effect, I’m offering no judgment as to the legitimacy of the police action in the death of Mr. Brown, nor am I critiquing your department’s militarized performance with regard to the resulting civil disturbances in your municipality. I leave the former for the more careful assessments of prosecutors and, presumably, a grand jury; the latter, I am sure, will be a subject of continued discussion within your community, in Missouri as a whole, and elsewhere in the country.

But for now, let’s simply focus on the notion that you, as head of a police department accountable to the citizens of your jurisdiction, actually seem to believe — along with local prosecutors — that it is plausible for a sworn and armed officer to kill a citizen and do so in anonymity.

Regrettably, I know that you are not alone in this astonishing breach of trust. More than a decade ago, some of our most authoritative federal agencies began a tragic retreat from basic accountability, shielding their agents from any scrutiny for their use of the most signficant power that a law officer can possess — the taking of a human life as an act of personal deliberation. Following the lead of the FBI, other large urban departments have since followed suit, or attempted to do so at points.

But the cost to our society is not abstract — and the currency in which that cost is paid is trust. Your department has shown that you do not trust the public with the basic information about who specifically has, in the performance of his or her duties, been required to take a human life in Ferguson. And that same public is now in the street demonstrating that they do not believe that Ferguson law enforcement can therefore be relied upon for anything remotely resembling justice. How could it be otherwise?

If you cannot see the contempt inherent in your policy, then you, sir, may need to reconsider both your own role and the premise of law enforcement in a democratic society. You may need to yield your position to someone who retains the basic notion that your officers, armed with the extraordinary authority of using state-sanctioned lethal force on fellow citizens, are equally burdened by a responsibility for standing by their actions in full. You, your department, and the prosecutors in your jurisdiction are now running from that responsibility. In doing so, you lose the trust and respect of your citizens, your state and the nation.

Male Pattern Sensitivity

Published on by D. G. Hart21 Comments

Who is more sensitive?

Bill Smith in response to Thabiti Anyabwile on crazy Confederate uncles?

I should not have to say these things, but I will, though I know some, perhaps including Brother Anyabwile, will take it as the equivalent of “I have black friends”: (1) I have no sympathy for the League of the South. I have never been to Monroe, Louisiana, or attended a Confederate Ball. While I am eligible for membership, I have not joined the Sons of the Confederacy because I do not want anything to do with the racism of some of its members. (2) In seminary in the early 1970s I spent two summers working as an assistant to a black Presbyterian pastor in Jackson, MS. (3) I was run off as a RUM campus minister, with a wife and five babies, in part because of my racial views and practice. Ours was the only integrated RUF in Mississippi, and we integrated the statewide conferences. I stood by an interracial dating couple which included my sitting in an office hearing one of them described as a “white N-word” by a person threatening my job. (4) I have a love-hate relationship with the South, and particularly with Mississippi. Mississippi is a place where place (both geography and status) and people (your family and social group) make a great deal of difference. I hate indirection and insincerity in relationships. But the South is like my family. I can point out theie faults, but if you go to talking bad about my people, I’ll bow my neck and clench my fists. (5) I read B.B. Warfield and listen to B.B. King.

But, nevertheless I am one of those crazy Confederates I suppose because I am (1) white (so far as I know, though there are questions) , (2) Reformed (in my case defined by the 39 Articles); (3) western (in civilization – the “dead white guys”); (4) Southern (by heritage and affection).

Like all paranoid schizophrenics, I feel I have been persecuted.

Or Jemar Tisby on Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson?

So, Blacks were happier during the Jim Crow era? Does he assume that all Blacks now are on welfare?

I’ve actually heard similar reasoning quite often. Usually these comments come from older Whites who grew up in the South and remember it fondly. I understand their point. They look back on their experience of a historical moment that was mostly positive, and they want to remember it that way. The problem in a segregated society, then and now, is that our perceptions tend only to reflect our particular realities. We have little exposure to the realities of others, including an awareness of their hardships.

What Phil Robertson and others get wrong is how they diagnose the state of race relations in America. They use external cues like the frequency of a smile, and their personal exposure to overt instances of racism to judge the climate of a culture. But what some people fail to understand is that there are unwritten rules of conduct when Blacks interact with Whites. . . .

It’s possible that Phil Robertson knew Blacks who were genuinely happy. It’s possible that in his community there truly were exceptionally positive relationships between Blacks and Whites. It’s possible, but not likely. What’s probably closer to reality is that he saw Black people who knew the rules. They knew what they could say and do around Whites who held the power. Even if those Whites were lower-income or “white trash” as Mr. Robertson describes it. There was still a cultural curtain separating the races.

I am merely asking, since it seems that everyone is sensitive and that everyone also expects others to moderate their sensitivity for the sake of getting along, though Joe Carter may differ.

I do believe that Tisby is correct to conclude that:

We all need to examine our tools of discernment. What are we using as evidence for a hypothesis about a people? Are we employing superficial and anecdotal proofs for our theories? Or are we engaging in meaningful dialogue with those who are different from us?

I am not sure that Anyabwile or Smith’s posts meet Tisby’s guidelines, nor do I think either man is without a point. The issue may be whether each man can acknowledge the other’s grievance, or whether one grievance trumps the other and lowers Tisby’s threshold for “meaningful dialogue.” That’s why Ross Douthat’s point (in the context of “12 Years A Slave”) is worth repeating:

A fruitful conversation about race in America, then, would require both sides to somehow pick a different starting point. To get a fair hearing from liberals — and, more importantly, from black Americans — the right would need to begin from a place of greater empathy for the black experience, and greater respect for the historical reasons that voter ID laws and Rush Limbaugh soliloquies can raise so many hackles. To get a fair hearing from conservatives, liberals would need to begin by imputing racism less frequently, attacking racially-entangled policies that aren’t remotely like Jim Crow on the merits rather than just calling them Jim Crow, Round Two, and recognizing that (as with Hitler analogies) the sooner you link your interlocutors to slaveowners, the faster they will tune you out.

Obama-era conservatism has often gone backward, not forward, where this potential conversation is concerned. But a liberalism that expects conservatives to see their present-day positions and rhetoric illuminated and condemned by a cinematic portrait of the evils of slavery in 1840s Louisiana — or that declares them unreachable when they don’t — is a liberalism that’s as unready for dialogue as any insensitive right-wing talk show host.

The Wisdom of the World

Published on by D. G. Hart2 Comments

In light of the recent discussions of Christian rap and hip-hop and the racial attitudes that plague middle-aged white men who don’t either care for or listen to rap, Ross Douthat has advice for worldlings to which Christians could well take heed:

A fruitful conversation about race in America, then, would require both sides to somehow pick a different starting point. To get a fair hearing from liberals — and, more importantly, from black Americans — the right would need to begin from a place of greater empathy for the black experience, and greater respect for the historical reasons that voter ID laws and Rush Limbaugh soliloquies can raise so many hackles. To get a fair hearing from conservatives, liberals would need to begin by imputing racism less frequently, attacking racially-entangled policies that aren’t remotely like Jim Crow on the merits rather than just calling them Jim Crow, Round Two, and recognizing that (as with Hitler analogies) the sooner you link your interlocutors to slaveowners, the faster they will tune you out.

What Happened to Gender?

Published on by D. G. Hart17 Comments

Carl Trueman has already raised questions about feminism but those thoughts returned while reading a variety of reactions to the George Zimmerman trial. You see a lot about race and class, but hear nothing about gender.

What does gender have to do with this? Well, both Martin and Zimmerman received their father’s surnames. That includes President Obama who gave a speech about the verdict on Friday (more below). What would the press and pundits have been saying about the case had Zimmerman been called George Mesa (his mother’s surname)? And what would those folks have said about race and ethnicity in the U.S. if Zimmerman were identified as a Hispanic-American with Afro-Peruvian blood (from his maternal grandfather)? And what about Zimmerman’s membership in the Democratic Party? The country has had a lot of debates for the last five years about illegal immigration or undocumented aliens (with Republicans trying to get out from under their white-only reputation), many of whom come to the U.S. from south of the border. Granted, Hispanic hardly does justice to Mexican-, Cuban-, or Peruvian-Americans, nor does Mexican do justice to the diversity of ethnic backgrounds in Mexico. But in the strange world of white/majority-non-white/minority relations in the U.S., George Zimmerman should qualify as a fellow as much on the minds of those who worry about race, class, and gender/transgender as they do about Sandra Fluke. In which case, the trial has an upside. A Hispanic-American, at a time when many Americans are skittish about immigrants from Central and South America, gained a welcome verdict in the nation’s white-dominated justice system. Obviously, that is no consolation to Trayvon Martin’s family. But since so much of the discussion of the trial and its aftermath has been about race, with the implication of how white Americans and their institutions mistreat non-whites, why doesn’t Zimmerman’s minority status provide some consolation to those sensitive to race and ethnicity?

Similar questions can be raised about President Obama. What if his name were Barack Dunham, and what if Americans perceived him as a white man instead of an African-American? (No one is really going to defend the idea that the slightest amount of African blood in a person makes them black, are they?) And what if the President himself thought more about being reared by a white mother and white grandparents before saying this:

You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.

Instead of the Trayvon Martin case showing how badly America treats blacks, the overwhelming reaction has been how much white America empathizes with blacks.

Does this mean that everything is fine in the U.S. and that we can all go back to work believing that this is a great land where the justice and economic systems work fairly? If you’ve seen The Wire (or read Wendell Berry), you never go to work thinking that. In fact, it is hard not to see a photo of Trayvon Martin and not think of Dukie Weems, or to have watched the series and not understand David Simon’s recent reaction:

In the state of Florida, the season on African-Americans now runs year round. Come one, come all. And bring a handgun. The legislators are fine with this blood on their hands. The governor, too. One man accosted another and when it became a fist fight, one man — and one man only — had a firearm. The rest is racial rationalization and dishonorable commentary.

At the same time, the inequities of the U.S. extend beyond white-black relations. Turning the George Zimmerman case into only a discussion of race and class will miss the larger canvass on which the tragic encounter between Martin and Zimmerman played out. I think I even learned about the complications of all social interactions from David Simon himself.

Pugilist, Hit Thyself

Published on by D. G. Hart56 Comments

Anthony Bradley has been dishing it out pretty good of late against Doug Wilson, almost to the point of making Wilson look like Tom Reagan from Miller’s Crossing. Bradley is alarmed by Wilson’s neo-Confederate arguments. He believes Wilson harbors racism because of his defense of slavery. And Bradley is surprised — maybe even aghast — at the traction that Wilson has among the co-allies of the gospel. These musings have led Bradley to wonder about a conspiracy among Christian Reconstructionists to use social and political issues to gain new recruits, especially among the young, restless, and gullible.

It’s been about 20 years since I first encountered this stuff but I think the combination America’s secularism, masculinity crisis, growing socialistic public policy, and the like, have opened the door for Christian Reconstruction to avail itself to new generation of young Calvinists but not through the front door–“Christian Reconstruction,” “Theonomy,” and the like–but through the back door of apologetics, the family, masculinity, big government, and so on.

Bradley even speculates on a connection between Christian Reconstruction and Roman Catholicism in that both groups use social teaching to gain converts.

What makes Bradley’s criticisms of Wilson, Christian Reconstruction, and the Young Restless crowd odd is that Bradley himself follows the political script that those he criticizes use. Bradley is generally a fan of neo-Calvinism. I have also heard him appeal to the language of cultural transformation in his interview at Christ the Center.

In which case, the problem with Wilson, slavery, the Confederacy and Christian Reconstruction may not be the actual forms these efforts to Christianize the social order take. The problem may be any attempt to read a social order out of Scripture. For instance, it would be interesting to know what Bradley thinks of his fellow Manhattanite, Tim Keller’s programs of word and deed ministry. Or for that matter, what does Bradley do with the use to which the creators of apartheid put neo-Calvinism? Does the gospel have a social program that Wilson, for example, misses or distorts? Or does the gospel have almost nothing to say about a social order?

Either way, it might be helpful to Wilson’s bruised ego to see Bradley acknowledge both men’s common debt to Kuyper.

And for what it’s worth, part of the appeal of the Confederacy, at least among political conservatives as opposed to the Religious Right, is that the South did stand for an understanding of the United States that was closer than Lincoln’s or the Progressive’s to the Constitution. The phrase, states’ rights, generally receives smirks from those who assume it represents a defense of slavery or worse, racism. But the Constitution itself was not particularly clear on how to sort out the relative powers of the states and the federal government, which was a large factor in the sectional crisis. But if folks want to dismiss states’ rights as simply the cant of “Crackers” who wanted to keep African-Americans in place, they should consider the good that states’ rights might serve today when applied to gay marriage and abortion. That may explain some of the appeal of the Confederacy, though I don’t presume to speak for Doug Wilson.

The Black Man's Burden

Published on by D. G. Hart79 Comments

I understand that some readers think I have an axe to grind about certain figures in the Gospel Coalition. But surely even those predisposed to discount Old Life in favor of the youthful, restless, thing that aspires to be Calvinistic — surely they can spot the difficulty with this. Tonight John Piper and Tim Keller are going to talk about Christianity and race. They are going to do so with an African-American on the platform. That man will be Anthony Bradley. But Bradley will not be one of the primary interlocutors. Instead, he will be the moderator.

Having been a moderator of various groups, I understand that the work is not difficult but is also not front-and-center. A moderator facilitates. He does not get in the way of the persons assembled to deliberate.

Maybe tonight’s format will be different and Bradley will be more than a “typical” moderator. But is it really unreasonable or uncharitable to wonder why Bradley himself is not one of the prime participants in this conversation about race, and why either Piper or Keller could not back out of the limelight to take the seat of moderator? I mean, even if evangelical Protestants are inclined to see nothing odd about this program because of their abiding appreciation for Piper and Keller, can’t they at least imagine how outsiders might see the billing for this event and the unfortunate implications of having a black man play a supportive role to white men can answering questions about Christian and race?

Postscript: I am dumbfounded that in the video promoting this event, Piper does not even mention Bradley. Holy smokes!

Is Reformed Worship Ethnic?

Published on by D. G. Hart22 Comments

While nursing a bad cold yesterday (which seems to be more, but heck if this child of Depression Era children is going to see a doctor), I went to the website of Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah and heard a couple of fine catechetical sermons by senior pastor, Terry Johnson. One was on effectual calling and one on justification and adoption. I believe I heard mention of “union” twice. But I digress.

While at the church’s website I also ran across a series of posts by Terry on Reformed Worship and Ethnic Churches. It is smart and reflects Johnson’s own work on the history of Reformed worship. Terry also shows the welcome capacity to read outside biblical and theological sources to understand the common realm of culture. What follows is from the second part of the series:

There would seem to be many who think that the only “authentic” black worship is of the Pentecostal variety. The DNA of African Americans, so the theory goes, requires “emotionally expressive” music, preaching and congregational interaction. Thomas Sowell, scholar at Stanford University, Hoover Institute, offers another perspective. He connects inner-city African-American culture, including black dialect and music, the ghetto culture of violence, promiscuity, and indolence, as well as the oratorical style and the emotionalism of African-American church culture, with the northern Britains who populated the Southern states in the eighteenth century. They brought their social pathologies with them from the lawless, violent, barely civilized border regions of late 17th to early 18th century northern Britain including Scotland, and northern Ireland, and perpetuated them in what became white “redneck” culture. Poor “crackers,” as rural southern whites are sometimes called, provided the cultural context within which slave and post-emancipation African-American culture developed. It was “cracker” social and religious behaviors which southern blacks often mimicked.

Whether you agree with Johnson or Sowell, this is a perspective worth considering and one that you seldom hear from sappy evangelicals.