Category Archives: Race

The USA: An Unrequited Love

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I simply love “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” the patriotic song I had to learn in kindergarten. This song by Samuel F. Smith (1831) speaks of beautiful people and bountiful land, and the music gives me goose bumps every time I hear it. This is America, the way it was meant to be. But in too many ways and for too many people, the United States of America never became Smith’s “My Country ’Tis of Thee.” Proverbs 14:34 tells us why: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” Lack of morality, particularly acknowledging that God-given ability to discern between right and wrong, has brought disgrace among us. Our history and the continuance of racial and gender discrimination, monetary greed and unrestrained sexual appetites cause those of us who see these as problematic core issues to seek change. This is why an abolitionist in 1843 rewrote “My Country ’Tis of Thee” and why Henry Dumas couldn’t bring himself to call the United States his country in the poem ’Tis of Thee, his tale of unrequited love. And this is why I seek for people to give their lives to Jesus Christ, making Him their Savior and Lord. Jesus is righteousness and having Him not only as Savior but Lord (master) of their lives can bring about the change we need so that our nation can be exalted the way it needs to be.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

My Country, ’Tis of Thee
By Samuel F. Smith, 1831

My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!

My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills,
Like that above.

Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom’s song;
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.

Our fathers’ God to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright,
With freedom’s holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.

Additional Abolitionist Lyrics
By AG Duncan, 1843

My country,’ tis of thee,
Stronghold of slavery, of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Where men man’s rights deride,
From every mountainside thy deeds shall ring!

My native country, thee,
Where all men are born free, if white’s their skin;
I love thy hills and dales,
Thy mounts and pleasant vales;
But hate thy negro sales, as foulest sin.

Let wailing swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees the black man’s wrong;
Let every tongue awake;
Let bond and free partake;
Let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong.

Our father’s God! to thee,
Author of Liberty, to thee we sing;
Soon may our land be bright,
With holy freedom’s right,
Protect us by thy might, Great God, our King.

It comes, the joyful day,
When tyranny’s proud sway, stern as the grave,
Shall to the ground be hurl’d,
And freedom’s flag, unfurl’d,
Shall wave throughout the world, O’er every slave.

Trump of glad jubilee!
Echo o’er land and sea freedom for all.
Let the glad tidings fly,
And every tribe reply,
“Glory to God on high,” at Slavery’s fall.

'Tis of Thee

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From my tirade about how my countrymen are treating President Obama you can probably tell I have been thinking about the United States a lot lately. And though this is the land of opportunity and I’m so glad to have been born here, I realize that the country’s foundation is uneven. For instance, on one slab the United States was built on Judeo-Christian values and on another slab it was built upon the backs of enslaved Africans. That’s an uneven foundation because Jesus Christ does not approve of the type of slavery that our ancestors experienced. Certainly there are other events that have contributed to our country’s foundation being uneven, but the promotion of Christian ideals while promoting something opposite of a Christian ideal is a standout contradiction for me. Anyway, when your foundation is unstable, there’s going to be a lot of quaking going on, literally and figuratively, both of which we now see happening in the United States. To call more attention to this uneven foundation and the quaking it’s causing, I want you to let my literary love speak to you through his poem “’Tis of Thee”:

You are oversized, you are overrated, you are overblown,
fat and filled with hardened rocks.
You are sick and stumbling like an old man without
a stick in the mud.
You make me sick to my stomach, and I am sad
that I have to look at you.
You have eaten too much garlic
And drunk too much beer,
And built too many empty churches.
You are fat with starch and lies.

Your steeled cities range like malignant cancers across
The belly of your land.
Your sons race death in metal machines that
defecate poison into the air.
Your ideas are machine made,
your values operated by machines
your truths nourished by machines,
your history written by machines,
your language sounds like millions of coins jingling
into an empty barrel.
Your heroes are dead.
Your wars are massacres.
You are an overkiller,
oversexed, overripe, overrotten.

You are a sinful old man who has no repentance
in his heart,
a lecherous old winebelly vomiting blood.
You are a murderer of your sons
and a raper of your daughters.
You are cold and filled with death.
Few flowers grow from your gardens
and the snow and the ice shall be your grave.

You are a despiser of black and misunderstander of white.
You are a mystery of yourself and a hater of that.
You once were a star that blazed,
but now you are overcivilized, oversterilized, oversated.
If you were a barren tree in my garden
I would come and cut you down.

By Henry Dumas
From Knees of a Natural Man
Copyright 1989 by Loretta Dumas and Eugene B. Redmond
Published by Thunder’s Mouth Press

Unlikely Shero

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I’m not a socialist or feminist and never thought of myself as either of these. Never found myself on a blacklist, the FBIs Most Wanted List or serving or working in a prison, though I never know what may be in store for me. I don’t advocate lesbianism or atheism, but Angela Y. Davis has been associated with all these, and she is my shero.
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My First White Friend, Again

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My God sister, Gracie, has always been a prophetess in my life. We don’t talk much, but this woman, 15 years my senior, has always been connected to me in the spirit. Recently she sent me a journal right after I had just given one away. Then she sent me a book on prayer when I had just committed to more in-depth prayer. Only the Lord could have led her like that. Years ago, when I was steeped in rebellion, her prophetic voice through a letter warned me of the consequences of selling certain greeting cards in my company’s We Dare to Go There line. And then there was the more subtle admonition about me not having any white friends; she sent me the book My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love, and Forgiveness by Patricia Raybon.

Raybon talks about her journey to forgive whites and her father because of his “[r]ules about always being better than the white people, so they couldn’t find anything wrong with you even if they tried hard.” These rules caused her to seek perfection and to please others and these unrealistic expectations eventually made her feel less than enough. But instead of remaining mad at her father, at her first white friend who befriended her despite others’ expectations and all white people in general, Raybon chose to forgive so she could love herself and others, regardless of their race or shortcomings. Her awakening had me ready to meet my first white friend, again. That was about 15 years ago, and my contact with white people was limited. There were a few at work, but they mostly kept to themselves. And the ones in grad school ignored me outside of colloquiums and group projects. I never reached out to them because I remember how my relationship with Stephie ended and I didn’t want to chance that again until I met Natalia.

Natalia and I are members of the same church. She and her family started attending and eventually joined last year after hearing our pastor on the radio. God has called her and her husband, Bill, to plant a multicultural church in an Arab American community. They believe God led them to Evangel to prepare them for their call. When I found this out during our brief talks in the nursery as we cared for our children, I believed their call is from God. See, she’s not the typical “white girl” that I usually find in a black community. You know the ones who get their hair done at black salons, date black guys and walk and talk in ways that “out black you.” Natalia is effervescent, yet soft spoken, and on first glance may appear to be the typical liberal, “we are the world” white woman. But I watched her and noticed that she didn’t try to stand out or fit in. She just was, is, a woman who is confident in her white skin and comfortable with me in my black skin. I found this to be true outside the pleasantries of church.

During our first phone conversation we talked about motherhood, marriage, feminism, Biblical womanhood, writing, college, spiritual gifts, and a lot more, including race. I told her my Stephie story, and she apologized, not on behalf of whites who had wronged blacks but because of the pain of rejection that I felt. “No one should have to go through that because of who they are,” she said. It was that comment, her framing her thoughts based on a Biblical worldview, and the overall spiritual and intellectual tone and comfort of our conversation that I knew Natalia was my sister. Not just because Jesus Christ is both of our Savior but because she knows who she is, she flows in who she is and freely embraces others with the love of Christ. Natalia is my first white friend, again, but I believe she will be my last. I don’t see any need for a do over because I believe this first white friendship will last.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

My First White Friend

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My bookshelf is peppered with them: dusty books on racial reconciliation that often scream for me to clean and read them. They sit among my favorites: books on spiritual warfare and women’s discipleship, Nikki Giovanni poetry and all things James Baldwin. But the racial reconciliation books sit there, tucked away with little chance of speaking to me and helping me to integrate my life. They remind me of my relationships with the non-black women that I have known: With Stephie, Denise, Gina, Laura Kim, and Laila, I was excited about the connection, but then something happened and the newness became a thing of the past. My relationship with Stephie is the best example of this.

We met during a rehearsal for the Saks Fifth Avenue Teen Board fashion show we were in. She just started talking to me, and we hit it off. Stephie was funny and fashion conscious and our conversations flowed freely. To be honest, I thought she was a light-skinned black girl because she had dark curly hair and a deep tan. I don’t remember when I found out she was white, but it didn’t matter to me. We had bonded and Stephie became my first white friend. This was the summer of 1984.

For the next few months, we talked for hours on the phone and made plans for a sleepover that winter. Her mom agreed that I would spend the night at their home, but the elder’s conversations with me revealed a change of heart. She warned me that I would be the only black person at Stephie’s high school basketball game and told me that I would probably be uncomfortable. And she wanted to know what “special foods” I ate, expressing her inability to cook something other than what she was used to cooking. In spite of her attempts to deter me, I went to her home in her nearly all-white town.

The basketball game was snowed out, so Stephie and I hung out in her room and chatted like we did on the phone. This time she occasionally included her mom in the conversations. “Mom, look at her Guess Jeans. Aren’t they nice?” “Mom, she has a Coach purse.” I felt uncomfortable being on display, and that discomfort continued when at dinner her mom asked me what my parents did for a living and a host of other questions about my family and lifestyle. Breakfast the next morning was comfortable, but I felt antsy again when Stephie blurted out “You have a big house” as they pulled into my driveway after bringing me home. They met my family, glanced around the house and then went on their way. That was the last time I saw Stephie in a social setting. After our sleepover she would sneak to call me because “my mother said I couldn’t be your friend.” When her mother caught her sneaking to call me, all our contact ended, and though I have my suspicions, I am not quite sure why.

So like my books, for years I have shelved any potential relationships with non-black women. The pain of rejection has been too great. But those books have been screaming to be cleaned and read. And because I met Natalia Powers I might just do that. You’ll have to read the next post to find out who she is.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith