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Election 2016: Postracial Blues, #BlackVotesMatter, Evangelicals for Trump, and “Who Are We Now?”

By The Editors

…ic side, however, we see how much is not in any flux or transition. African-American religious organizations continue to turn out voters, and once they have settled on a candidate, they form arguably a more important part of the base of that candidate than the fractured (and overwhelmingly white) religious right does for their candidate. In 1998, Toni Morrison famously (and controversially) referred to Bill Clinton as America’s first black preside…

‘Barbaric’ v ‘Progressive’ Islam; Catholic Church Objects to Mexican Court OK For Gay Adoption; Malaysian Court Weighs Boundaries Of Civil and Shariah Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…s” and so on.” This fact has raised serious, repeated concerns at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in part because these criminal provisions result in the general perception that “the right of association for purposes of promoting and defending the rights of LGTBI persons are prohibited, the argument being that their organizations and activities are ‘illegal’.” Furthermore, the generalized ridicule of LGBTI persons, in combination wi…

An Untold Tale: American Fiction vs. The Religious Right

By Christopher Douglas

…ple knew what the God Gap was. (It’s the measurable difference between more-religious Republicans and less-religious Democrats.) I thought of Postmodern Designs & Multicultural Grafts. I thought of neat Biblical quotations, like Scattered Among the Heathen or By Faith Ye Stand. I think the title I finally chose is pretty good. It’s a quotation from one of the novels I examine in detail—I’ll let RD readers discover which one. How do you feel about…

The Visceral Vote: Obama-as-Sojourner v. McCain-as-Mythic-Hero

By Ira Chernus

…in that tragic conflict. It’s why many more trust him most to be commander-in-chief and wage the war against terrorism, our modern-day substitute for the communists of the cold war era. McCain gains all that trust because of his experience, not in government, but in prison, where he seems to have sacrificed the most basic human desire — the desire to escape physical pain — in order to serve his military comrades, his sense of honor, and his belov…

The Only Common Denominator of American Conservatism is Anti-Blackness

By Yannick Marshall

…mitted to public consciousness that American conservatism is organized anti-Black politics. American conservatism is, however, well-dressed white nationalism. Racists have put conservatism on like a hat, then disappeared in front of the eyes of those for whom object permanence would preferably remain a mystery. Liberal citizens require a veil, no matter how thin, to believe or claim to believe that, in what they’ve known as their flawed but progre…

Public Shrines to Treason: Charlottesville and the Cult of Confederate Memorialization

By Spencer Dew

…el Southern civil religion—with the explicit racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-American vitriol Trump refused to name. By rallying a wide range of white pride, neo-Confederate, American fascist, and anti-communist organizations together with kek-meming internet trolls—some suited up in armor and others in khaki-and-polo combos possibly patterned off of the president himself—the organizers created an orgy of radicalization. Rally participants chanted…

America’s ‘Jesus Problem’ is Making Progressive Christians Complicit in Christian Supremacy

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…o the charge of false equivalency between progressive Christianity, African-American Christianity, and that of the white Christian nationalist impulses of the religious right, I should point out that I wholly agree with these writers about the dangers posed by the increased intersection of political power with religious dogma that characterizes much of contemporary white evangelical Christianity. However, I cannot embrace the assessment of these a…

Did You Read About Conservative Judaism’s Anti-Black Antisemitic Smearing of Hebrew Israelites? Neither Did I

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…ymbolic-identification theory can be found in Walter Isaac’s “Locating Afro-American Judaism: A Critique of White Normativity” In short, the symbolic identification theory argues that enslaved and emancipated Blacks who listened to Bible stories, sung the Negro Spirituals, and practiced freemasonry became confused and started believing they were really Jews. And, because they were ashamed of being Black, they appropriated the beliefs and culture o…

Gays Attacked in Uganda After Mag Publishes Info

By Jody May-Chang

…eabouts of many homosexuals who, they told Yiga, they will be “visiting one-by-one [on a] warning mission.” Warned not to go to the police, and that they had better cooperate on the next “visit,” the gang threatened to come back to steal the family’s belongings and smash all the doors and windows. “[Since that night] I have been scared for my life,” Yiga told RD. Yiga’s pastor, the one person he could turn to, was out of the country on a five-week…

As an African American Who Loves Thanksgiving, Must I Simply Ignore the Historical Suffering of the Wampanoag and Pass the Sweet Potato Pie?

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…only offers a partial glimpse of the date’s ominous meaning within African-American religious thought. The oft-quoted quip by Malcolm X from a 1964 speech, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us,” has long served as a reminder to Black folks and others that the ancestors of African Americans were already present in this country when the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth. Within some streams of Black religious nationalist numerolog…