Religion Dispatches
…zona. When the police arrested the shooter, he said: “I’m a patriot and an American. I’m American. I’m a damn American.” Muslim girl power The fictional war between America and “Muslims” (including actual Muslims, those who “look like” Muslims, and those who live close to Muslims, like Iraqi Christians) is perpetuated and extended by the uncritical visuality of the news media. While I believe the war is based on fictional understandings of “Muslim…
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…e. I feel an enormous level of personal responsibility to represent Muslim Americans and Islam, and to present them both in an objective and relevant light. This responsibility and focus on the Muslim American facet of my identity has taken priority over other facets of my identity for so long that sometimes I forget that they even exist. I see this in many friends too. General Powell’s simple and honest words that October day took me completely o…
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…als than symbolic statements articulating the historic prejudices of great numbers of Americans, who feared immigrants generally, and he decline of white American nationalism particularly.” And voila! Ten months later, and the primary enabler, publisher, and purveyor of those fears, Stephen Bannon, sits aside the President-Elect, while fake news outlets, white supremacist sites, and messengers of a populist ethno-nationalism have ascended to a cen…
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…d. And in response to the controversy and the barrage of outraged parental phone calls, many school systems decided it was safest not to air the speech at all. Others required that alternative activities be arranged for children whose parents refused to permit their kids to be subjected to an encouraging presidential pep talk. The evening after the talk, the local news station I was watching aired a report on the event, complete with footage of a…
Read More…even have the courtesy to check Trayvon’s phone for his mom and dad’s telephone numbers because it’s just a black criminal’s body to them. While Zimmerman the trigger man slept in his bed, the police ordered a drug and alcohol test for Trayvon’s lifeless body. A black body that was representative of evil against the whiteness of George Zimmerman. I hesitated to write about this story, because there are many good stories about Trayvon and his pare…
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…ential material,” said Mpofu. “Oh yeah,” echoes Bourland. “In my heart, I just begin to pray, God, let this woman rise to this place that you want her to go,” said Mpofu. “Number one, she’s a Christian. Number two, she’s a woman.” Watch a short video montage of the conference here. —Ed….
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…connection, once burning with possibility and joy, began to cool, as cell phone calls dwindled and numbers eventually changed or were disconnected. As our shared realities drifted apart in their likeness, like Pigpen, I also turned to technologies that promised connection to try to tamp down the yearning and temper that sense of loss. #5 : Three Ways to American Beauty by Aaron K. Kerr At the height of secular modernity, when Catholics were openi…
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…n Martin stood the ghost of whiteness, the narrative of proper or improper Americanness, or the specter of the “American god,” whose “will” Zimmerman saw himself as carrying out in protecting his neighborhood from the suspicious citizen or the out-of-place, hoodie-wearing “black boy,” to use that loaded phrase of the African-American writer Richard Wright. We must struggle against this “American god” or the idol of the white, western god-man. Inde…
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…also diffusing anti-U.S. sentiment. The manifestation of resentment toward Americans, this is merely on the surface, I believe, and will disappear if the American Government makes any attempt to win the good will of Dominicans . . . I deem it worthy of the Department’s notice that the American national game of baseball is being played and supported with great enthusiasm. The remarkable effect of this outlet for the animal spirits of the young men…
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…y little to what most Americans should know about Christianity among black Americans. Most Americans are largely unaware of the diverse Christian congregations and denominational structures that comprise what is called the Black Church. For many Americans, the oratory, quasi-liberal politics, and charismatic swagger of Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Jesse L. Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Tavis Smiley are the primary windows into Christianity in black…
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