DISQUS

TheGeoffRe(y)port: A Benediction to Live By

  • rick · 11 months ago
    Cool except you didn't find the last bit to be racist? Hmmm.
  • Geoff Matheson · 11 months ago
    In what way? I'm not a big fan of telling yellow to be mellow - is that your concern?
  • Mark E · 11 months ago
    this is the bit he is referring to...
    "Dr. Lowery also ended his speech with the controversial statement "When white will embrace what is right", meaning that white people as of now do not embrace what is right. Racism is Racism no matter who says it." (from wikipedia....although I doubt it will be there for much longer)

    Personally, I dont know whether it is 'reverse racism' or not. I get the feeling it is a common saying, and with Lowery's track record, he probably has earnt the right to push back a bit.

    have you seen this clip of him? Its a beauty!
    http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=a3j9ltp1qM8
  • Geoff Matheson · 11 months ago
    Thanks Mark, I wondered if that might have been it, but I still think the yellow comment is probably the most racist part. I take your point Rick though (assuming Mark's right about your opinion) - I understand why it's possible to take that as a racist slur, but I'd see it as a call on the people in power (and black president or not, white people still hold the power across the western world) to do right. And I think it's a very true sentiment that if more "whites" would "embrace what is right", the picture in the previous paragraph becomes much more possible.
  • rick · 11 months ago
    :-)

    I took the "yellow to mellow" as just silliness to make a rhyme - my paradigm doesn't get bothered by that. I do that kind of thing all of the time and I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it.

    Perhaps because of my own prejudice, I thought the white embracing right comment tainted the prayer. Politics aside, a high percentage of the excitement around Obama is the forward progress against racism. Personally, this is great and long overdue. Unfortunately, the expression of celebration is laced with reverse discrimination. My assumption is that an inaugural prayer is not some ad hoc sort of thing and I would have been more cautious with my words.

    On a related note, I had a warm fuzzy feeling regarding Warren's prayer.