Bill Cosby’s recent speeches to black audiences across
the country, dropped on heads like a wave of U.S. cluster bombs
on the poor folks of Iraq, have been wisely critiqued and judged
accurately for what they are: well-intended polemics on the moral
and political failures of the post-civil rights generation, yet
a bit caustic when you consider the objective conditions facing
us today. Dr. Cosby is caring deeply and genuinely about a situation
from which he is at the same time estranging himself.
In all events, it was just taken for granted that
extremely harsh black self-criticism is par for the course. After
all, African American intellectuals, from jackleg preachers and
political organizers down to eminent scholars and critics like Harold
Cruse, John Henrik Clark, and Amiri Baraka, as well as our Nobel
laureate in literature, Toni Morrison, are famous for never holding
any punches when analyzing all backwardness among the people, such
as misogyny, anti-democracy, provincialism, covetousness, opportunism,
fatalism, dependency, and laziness. This hallmark of the African
American tradition, evident in Dr. Cosby’s critique, is the surest
sign that a democratic culture and a healthy collective are alive
and still flourishing. Praise God.
But it got me thinking. When was the last time you
heard a big white celebrity with moral authority raining down critical
bombs on white people’s heads? For instance, Barbra Streisand taking
the bully pulpit to chastise white Jews for members of their tribes’
betrayal of the civil rights agenda, and, no less immoral and directly
related to civil rights, for their unconditional support of the
Israeli apartheid state?
How about the Reverend Billy Graham? I don’t recall
him ever blasting white Christians for making a disgrace of Jesus’
name by continuing to support racist leaders and reactionary social
policies such as war, capital punishment, the Crime Bill, de-funding
public education and U.S. cities in general, de-unionizing the workforce,
repealing welfare, the aggressive assault on Affirmative Action,
the upward redistribution of wealth in the form of tax cuts for
multi-millionaires – each a different cause of racial segregation,
widening socioeconomic inequalities, and the moral debasement of
our society.
We know the answer: it’s called “white race” solidarity.
For as soon as any prominent white leader starts criticizing white
people’s bad behavior, the white identity falls apart and then the
doors are pushed wide open for a new multiethnic U.S. populist movement,
which remains the ruling class’ absolute worst nightmare. In this
spirit, I have written the sermon that Reverend Billy Graham would
have delivered on to the heads of white America had he forgotten,
for just a day or two, his own whiteness – if he had been a white
Bill Cosby.
Ford Field, Detroit, Michigan
70,000 people in attendance, June 5, 2005
Reverend Billy Graham , Preaching a Sermon titled
“Now Explain That to Jesus”
Brothers and sisters, today we are living through
the worst moral crisis that’s ever threatened our Christian nation.
Tonight I want to be like Jesus and get right to the heart of the
matter. We need to stop blaming the victims. That’s right. We need
to look at ourselves first, at where we’re at today morally.
I know many of you are unaccustomed to hearing such
language from your leaders, and in particular from me. Yes, Brothers
and sisters, I come to you tonight as a sinner. I have been silent
about the sin of racism. I have supported immoral wars; these wars
I supported were wars of aggression against innocent people, against
poor people fighting for independence and a way out of poverty.
I supported the war in Vietnam and I was wrong. I supported the
war against Nicaragua and I was wrong. I supported South Africa
when they practiced apartheid and I was wrong. I supported the first
Gulf War and I was wrong. I supported the current war in Iraq and
I was wrong (stunned silence).
I have given my consent to an endless war
on terror that is a sham and a waste of lives, that is weakening
every day the foundation of our Christian democracy and is embarrassing
us around the world as a Christian nation. Urinating on a Holy Book!
We have become a nation of heathens and the whole world is watching!
And God is watching the whole world! Tonight, brothers and sisters,
I want to talk in plain terms about our democracy and who is threatening
our democracy.
Brothers and sisters, WE are threatening our democracy!
It’s just us! Nobody else. The black comedian Richard Pryor used
to have a joke about the American criminal justice system (a
few gasps from the audience). He said, “I went to the courthouse
to get some justice and all I saw there was just us” (confusion
is breaking out). Brothers and sisters, do you understand?
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Woe unto you that are rich!
Ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that laugh now!
For ye shall mourn and weep.” This was Jesus Christ’s most important
sermon and I have ignored it for forty years. But this morning I
came out of the wilderness and into the light! Praise God! Jesus
was never wrong and if he was then I don’t want to be right! (a
few amens, the crowd is beginning to warm up).
I have been preaching Born Again Christianity for
fifty years now and you know what? I was not the first. I have been
reading the sermons of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and he was
calling on the people to be born again before I knew what it really
meant. What did Dr. King mean? (murmurs from the audience: he
called him Dr. King?) He meant a moral transformation, brothers
and sisters, from a state of sinfulness to a state of grace. And
how did that happen? By being right by God. By being right by our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What would Jesus think of you if he
came back tonight? That’s the question Dr. King was always asking
his congregations and they responded to it. Yes, brothers and sisters,
they responded by taking to the streets, by marching for their God-given
rights to live as decent human beings on this earth, protected by
the Christian laws of the land, to love your neighbor as you love
yourself. But first they chastised their own sinners and made them
get right by God.
Brothers and sisters, I’ve been studying closely the
situation of our Christian nation. Every day I read the news on
the Internet and every day I become more revolted by what I see.
Tonight we’re going to talk about ourselves. Tonight we’re not going
to talk about Muslims, teenage mothers, atheistic liberals, environmentalists,
abortion doctors, gays, or the feminists. Tonight we’re going to
talk about our own sin (you could hear a pin drop). Tonight
we’re going to come out into the light of self-criticism. Tonight
we’re going to name names and come clean with ourselves. Tonight
we’re going to question ourselves, as Jesus did himself on the Cross
of Calvary.
I read yesterday in the Detroit Free Press that the
white people of a suburb called Grosse Pointe are expelling the
black students from their school district because they say black
parents are falsely claiming residence there. Brothers and sisters,
I ask you: is this what Jesus would do? These parents are trying
to get their children the best possible education and the white
people there are opposing the education of children. That’s immoral
and we need to call out those white people for being un-Christian
and anti-American (a heavy silence).
Have you seen the facts, brothers and sisters? Our
schools are being resegregated. Today 80 percent of white students
go to all-white schools. Wealthy white schools get the most money
and they hire the best teachers and have the best facilities, computers
for every student, send them to the best colleges so they get the
best jobs. Yet in black and Hispanic schools, the average career-span
of a teacher is less than three years. Brothers and sisters, why
is that? Is it because the children don’t want to learn? Is that
how you would answer Jesus? Or is it because the pay is so low,
the funds have been cut off, and the facilities are built like prisons
not educational institutions? What would you tell Jesus?
Let’s talk about prisons, brothers and sisters. We
need to speak honestly now about one the greatest dangers facing
our Christian nation – crime. In states like Illinois, Michigan,
New York, and California, nearly 90 percent of the inmates are black
and Hispanic. Is it because blacks and Hispanics commit more crimes
than whites? Is that how you would answer Jesus? Would you lie to
your own Maker and the Savior of your own filthy soul?
I was studying the state of Illinois. Last year, the
state of Illinois graduated less than 900 African American students
from its public colleges and universities yet released from prison
8,000 on drug-selling offenses. Are African Americans the only people
who sell drugs? Not according to the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. They calculate drug
use trends from data gathered through the federal National Household
Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA).
Stay with me now, people, I know you’re not used to
facts, listening to Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter all the time.
But listen to the facts. In a report based on NHSDA data, SAMHSA
estimates 3,727,680 whites use cocaine compared to 720,130 blacks.
Why, then, are the prisons filled with black people
instead of white people? If Jesus asked you, what would you tell
him?
Let me tell you how I would
answer Jesus. I would site for him a vital
statistic. Thirty-seven percent of all people arrested on drug charges
are black yet black people use drugs five times less than whites
do. I would tell Jesus, it’s an example of white skin privilege
– of “black robes and white justice,” as the honorable African American
judge Bruce Wright has said (whispering is heard).
No, we cannot lie to our Maker and the Savior of our
filthy souls, especially here tonight where we have gathered together
to come clean in His presence. You see, brothers and sisters, we
have been protecting drug addicts and drug sellers in our own communities
merely because they’re white. We have allowed our Christian communities
to become dens of sin, where people traffic in drugs and prostitution
openly and freely because they have white skin. Our obsession with
skin is the sin! We must drive out these white criminals! How can
you allow this to happen in your own neighborhoods? Now how would
you explain that to Jesus?
In my reading over the past year, I have made other
discoveries that revolt me. Unemployment among blacks is more than
double that for whites, 10.8 percent versus 5.2 percent in 2003
– a wider gap than in 1972. Black infant mortality is also greater
today than in 1970. In 2001, the black infant mortality rate was
14 deaths per 1,000 live births, 146 percent higher than the white
rate. The gap in infant mortality rates was 37 percent less in 1970.
Now how would you explain that to Jesus?
I would tell Jesus that it’s because for every dollar
of white income, African Americans have 57 cents. At the rate we’re
going, it’ll take 581 years to achieve income equality between God’s
people here in America. Do you think Jesus is going to wait 581
more years for you all to stop this immorality?
I would tell Jesus that the average black college
graduate will earn $500,000 less in his or her lifetime than an
average white college graduate, for doing the same work. Is this
how YOU would explain to Jesus that his black babies die 146 percent
times more often than his white babies die? You better be right
by Him when he asks you these questions on Judgment Day. You have
to be right by God! What did you do to stop this genocide? You better
have a good answer, brothers and sisters.
Now we need to talk about sex. Yes, brothers and sisters,
we have to speak openly about sex, as Jesus did himself. We cast
stones at others for sexual immorality but how would you explain
to Jesus the fact that pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry?
Ninety-five percent of Americans call themselves Christian and pornography
expands every day. Who here does not look at pornography (a
flurry of hands are raised in the air)? Who here has never
purchased pornography (the same hands in the air)? Then how would
you explain to Jesus the thousands of Internet porno sites that
exploit young women? Have you ever imagined your own daughters in
those same positions?
These are crimes against God, and so we need to return
to our discussion of crime. Ken Lay says that by stealing hundreds
of millions of dollars from working people’s pension funds he was
doing the work of God. That’s right, he said that. How would you
explain to Jesus that this criminal has been allowed to go unpunished
for blaspheming the name of the Lord? Why haven’t you organized
a citizens council to judge him and sentence him to Christian justice
the same way you’ve always carried out vigilante justice against
innocent blacks? How would you explain to Jesus that, instead of
sentencing Lay, you elected a close friend of his to the presidency
of the United States of America?!
Yes, brothers and sisters, now we need to talk about
our Christian president George W. Bush, one of Ken Lay’s best friends.
He calls him Kenny Boy. Thou shalt not lie. It’s time we admit publicly,
together tonight, that George W. Bush lied again and again to the
Christian people of our nation. He lied by saying Saddam Hussein
was behind 9/11. Then he lied even worse by saying Saddam Hussein
was plotting to destroy America with weapons of mass destruction.
But these were weapons of mass deception! And you re-elected him!
Now how would you explain that to Jesus?
These are President Bush’s worst lies but there are
many others, saying that Social Security is bankrupt. Why, the U.S.
government’s own Congressional Budget Office says that Social Security
has the funds to pay every benefit owed through 2048. Why is he
lying like this, brothers and sisters? What is his purpose? Could
it be to enrich the tiny minority of multi-millionaires who got
him into office?
I’ve been reading the facts, brothers and sisters.
I’ve come out of the wilderness and into the light, the light of
self-criticism. I told you I was wrong. Now here tonight I want
you to confess your own wrongs. How many of you have witnessed racism
and did nothing about it? How many of you ignore your children and
watch television instead of helping them with their homework? How
many of you worship sports stars? How many of you spend money on
a new car instead of books for you and your children? When was the
last time you took your grandmother out to lunch and talked with
her? How many of you know a language other than English? Jesus loved
all the children of the world and you don’t even love your own children!
You send them to daycare and hire nannies to raise them so you can
play golf and drink martinis!
How would you explain to Jesus that you allow a ruling
class to govern you that spends more money on weapons than it does
to fight poverty? Now how would you explain to Jesus, right here
tonight, that you do nothing about the fact that 3,000 African children
died today of hunger? How would you explain to Jesus that you have
allowed the rich, who according to Jesus will have a very hard time
entering the gates of heaven, a harder time than a camel has passing
through the eye of a needle, to enrich themselves even more than
they already are? You have the power! You are the majority! Everything
you do affects the whole nation and the world! You could end all
this disgusting immorality tomorrow!
Brothers and sisters, you need to march! What do you
think Jesus would tell you to do? Did he not march against the Romans?
Are you Romans pretending to be Christians or are you Christians
trying to be like the Romans?
I fear, brothers and sisters, I fear every day, that
if Jesus came back tonight he’d strike us all down. He’d destroy
me and you gathered here together tonight. His wrath would be furious.
All this slovenliness, this obesity, this collaboration with oppression
and narrow-minded racism, this over-consumption, this gluttony,
this lazy lethargy, this willful ignorance, this smug self-satisfaction.
Do you think Jesus doesn’t know we consume 25 percent
of all the earth’s resources yet we are only 5 percent of the world’s
population? Jesus is watching you, brothers and sisters. The whole
world is watching and God is watching the whole world. Now is the
time to come clean before the Lord!
Jonathan Scott is an Assistant Professor of English
at the City University of New York, Borough of Manhattan Community
College. He can be reached at jonascott15@aol.com.
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