The Republican outcry against President Obama’s proposed tax increased for the wealthiest of Americans shows how completely out of step they are with the vast majority of the working populous they claim to defend. In fact, all the Republicans seek to defend by characterizing the President’s plan as “class warfare” is their own personal bank accounts. Their quick response, with the proposal not yet made public, reminds me of an old saying, “A hit dog will holler.”

Drawing from recent census data, one recent news article offered this analysis, “About 47% of US people pay no federal income taxes, either because their incomes are too low, or because they qualify for enough tax breaks to eliminate their liability.” (Dominic Rushe www.guardian.co.uk, 9/18/2011)

I don’t know what “Americans” the Republicans speak of when they declared they are speaking “for the American public.” Certainly, they don’t speak for me. I think the wealthy ought bare the bulk of the tax burden. I’m fed up with Republicans coddling the wealthy and protecting their personal bank accounts.

“Class warfare”? The GOP is a day late and a dollar short. Make that several trillion dollars short.

I did not expect “The Help” to be without flaw. In fact, I knew it could not possibly give a factual rendition of the life and work of black maids during Jim Crow era, especially those who worked below the Mason Dixie Line. I know there are other books written about this subject that have not gotten such press. I was not expecting that a white woman’s novel-made-movie (especially one who both grew up with maids and now has one in her employ) would be sans stereotypes and errors. And so it was. The kind of movie and book that has folk writing protest letters and critical commentary.

But it was a good movie, nonetheless. The following commentary I write as a child of “Abilene” and “Minnie”, as the daughter of Lillie.

My mother, Lillie Mae, was a maid for the better part of her life. Her mother was a maid. I am not a maid. I am a scholar who stands proudly on the life-stories of those two women who cleaned the homes of racist and wealthy white folk in south Florida. I am hardworking and have tough edges, I believe in doing for myself and find it difficult to let anyone do for me what I am capable of doing for myself. My mother often said, “Owe no one anything but to love them.” My relatives say my mother would be proud of me. Well, I am proud of what she did for me.

Monday through Friday she put on her white work dress and white shoes and left the house right before we left for school. On rare days, my mother spent the night at her employer’s mansion sleeping in the “maid’s quarters.”

She walked to the bus stop most days, when she could afford she called the jitney (taxi). Walking was no easy task as most days in West Palm Beach the temperatures were well above the 90s. After she got off in the afternoons, she’d spend most of her earnings at the grocery store to feed her seven children. During the summer, occasionally she’d have employers who, leaving for their northern homes, would allow her to take the food from the house that would otherwise spoil during the months the house was not occupied.

As in the movie with the character, Minnie, my mother also told a story of defecating in food which she served as revenge for being poorly treated by an employer; of watching cats “wipe their asses on the cake” just cooked and left open on the counter; of “shaking the shit out of” a misbehaving child (I know, not done today). Mostly, my mother always tried to get paid properly for the work she was required to do. When she was dying of breast cancer, we were making calls trying to get her employers - rich and living in Palm Beach - to pay her last check. They refused citing she “failed to come to work.” I will never forget that last indignity. If you - the final employers of Lille Mae Lightsey who died in 1985 - are still living, you should know at least one of her children remembers the caliber of person you were and I will not let you absolve yourself through gallant feats of white liberalism.

She is dead now, but the movie reminded me of how hard my mother worked and the stories she told. I thought of how her work, her stories and her life taught me strength, how to be subversive against oppressors, and gave me the courage to speak my mind knowing that somehow “God will make a way.”

Yet, there is something else the movie did: It reminded me of the need for persons of color in America to remain vigilant in writing our own story and to be faithful to our communities in our writing so that what we write can be read and utilized not only for the academy but for our communities. Never let the identity politics of the academy tell you that writing “that ethnic stuff” is “not good scholarship” or not valuable to the academy. It is extremely important, for the global world. Right it and write it well. It doesn’t pay a lot, probably won’t be on the NY Times Best Seller list but you have to do it to preserve our story within the academy, to offer our students the intellectual capacity to understand a world outside their own and to constantly reinforce the interconnectedness of all life.

On the other hand, while we must write those dense papers and books that few people outside the academy will read (I’m sorry, I have yet to see your papers or books read in my home neighborhood or within my recent neighborhood on the south side of Chicago) we must also be committed to writing works that are accessible for our people. Unpack it! Your people know that you are smart! Don’t dumb down, but hell, test it out on some teenagers and seniors in your community to see if they “feel ya”!

My final word: Get mad as hell if you want to about Kathryn Stockett’s work and others like it. I shall not. I’m thankful for the memories it has unlocked that I had tucked away.

Back in 1978, I was a young zealous Pentecostal Christian. A member of a small church that was part of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) denomination. We were so young and so “on fire for God”! Barely in my twenties, I remember telling my gay brother he was going to hell for being proudly gay and that I loved him but hated his sin of homosexuality.

Did I say I was young?

Within a few years of being in this church - a place with people whom I loved and still love to this day though we have grown apart - I realized that the many questions I had about the Bible and about how to live a faithful life just were not being sufficiently answered and of the many answers I received most were quite illogical.

Did I say I was young and loved my pastor and church?

With time, because of my insatiable questions and quests for answers beyond what my pastors and elders could answer with any modicum of logic, I left the Pentecostal tradition. The interpretation of scripture was just too much beyond simplistic logic for me and much of it was so very oppressive to me as a woman. For instance, it made no sense to me that women were prohibited from wearing pants, jewelry or makeup based upon an interpretation of the scripture in 1 Peter 3:3, “Whose adorning let it not be the outward adorning of plating of hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel.” My logic in those days was, “Well I’m black and I plait my hair and I don’t like being nude so I put on clothes. So this not wearing pants, jewelry or makeup makes absolutely no sense.”

Did I say I was young, loved my pastor and church and smart?

Having left the Pentecostal church I was nonetheless still Pentecostal at heart. So much so that my Pentecostal friends telling me becoming a member of the United Methodist Church was unwise but perhaps God could use me to show “those people” the way to salvation both annoyed and made me curious. “Is that what God is doing?” I thought. Within months I knew that it was the Methodists who were showing me more about salvation than I ever imagined. “At least,” I thought, “Here I can ask the questions without being given a front row seat in hell by the pastor.” I fell in love with the United Methodist Church because I could always ask the tough questions and even if no one had the answer they didn’t play games with my faith. The members at the UM Church I joined let me ask the questions and even had a few questions for me. I’ll never forget in a Sunday School class I was teaching being asked, “Is oral sex a sin?” Wow! I was just a seminary student. These were the real life questions I learned to receive and appreciate in the United Methodist Church. And no one put me out of the church, no one “silenced” me, no one forbade me use my mind, no one called me “reprobate” because of the courage to ask the tough questions of life that were unresolved by a literal reading of the text. They understood the logic against a literal reading and the danger of such interpretations. At least this was once upon a time.

Nowadays, as I recall my early years, my entrance into the United Methodist Church, my seminary education and the “stuff of life” in between it all, I wonder how I might feel were I still the bigot I once was so many years ago. Hearing that several states in America have now made it legal for same sex persons to marry (just yesterday NY joined the ranks) and that several mainline Protestant churches are ordaining LGBTQI persons (that’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer and intersexed for those who don’t know). How might I feel were I still a staunch Pentecostal, biblical literalist or yes, a United Methodist who believes in the literal and “unadulterated word of God”?

I think I would believe as I was taught in my twenties: “That straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth to salvation and few there be that find it. But wide is the way and easy is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which enter thereat.”(Matthew 7:13) I would rationalize that just because there is overwhelming change going on in public opinion doesn’t mean that the public is right. On the contrary, they are going to hell and the “remnant,” that is, the faithful few need to hold on to “sound doctrine,” those things that they have been taught lest we give in and like the others who have been deceived, find ourselves susceptible to the divine judgmental punishment of the pit of hell and burning in the lake of fire.

Yeah, right about now I would be, even if I didn’t articulate it as such, scared as hell!

I did say what I used to be. I’m not any more. And I’m not scared at all. I’ve learned to love God without the false interpretations, without the scare tactics, without the “rules for life” that substitute for true faith in God in the midst of the true questions of life.

I used to be bound. Today I am set free. That’s really queer… Now isn’t it?

My father, the late Eddie Lee Lightsey died at the age of 67. Born in Doran, Georgia 1919, he was seventeen years older than my mom. Though he never completed even junior high, my father was brilliant. Each Sunday, he counted out six stacks of coins for our weekly lunch money. As he gave us the money he said, “Heyah nawh. You beddah keep up wid diz. You mess up, you not giddin no mo.” My best lessons in Finance 101 - Dr. EL Lightsey.

He grew up during Jim Crow era and suffered the humiliation of being called “boy”, “nigguh” and “stupid” by po-dunk Georgia and Florida white racists. A “traveling man,” his lodge ring was taken by a white police officer as my dad, having no car, was walking home after curfew on the wrong side of the bridge that separated the wealthy white residents of Palm Beach from their black workers who lived in West Palm Beach. Yes, there was such a thing as a curfew for Black adults. Dad never forgot that nor other indignities. Like reading the sign near his neighborhood in Georgia that said, “Read nigger read. If you can’t read, you better run like hell.” And, the “hanging tree.” An old tree near the police station in our southern Florida neighborhood that had been used as a tree to lynch black people. Whenever we passed by it, my dad, as if to warn and keep us safe would say, “Dat dere is where deyh use tah hang us. Right deyh on dat tree.” My best lessons in History 101 - Dr. EL Lightsey

I had six siblings though only five lived at home all of my growing up and sometimes actually four, but that’s another story. Providing for six children was demanding. My dad worked as a daylaborer. I remember his leaving our tiny two-bedroom apartment during early morning hours to go stand on the corner to wait for hire by whatever white stranger needing manual labor for the day. The fruit of his labor was brought to us in bags of grocery that he carried home having walked miles from the grocery store because other than the corner “Mom and Pop” the better stores were all located outside our neighborhood. And so he worked hard and walked miles after work. My dad knew how to “make do.” My best lessons in Vocational Education 101 - Dr. EL Lightsey

Occasionally, my dad would use thread to measure each of our feet for shoes. It was just too troublesome and too dangerous to take six black children into southern department stores. When we did go out with my dad, he always prefaced the excursion by saying, “Nawh, we gwyan heah and ya’ll not gon’ sho’ ya’ll asses.” It was rare that my dad ever spank us but whenever my dad “laid his hand” on me, I knew it was well-deserved. My best lessons in Discipline 101 - Dr. EL Lightsey

I am a woman who loves to laugh, dance and “fix” household gadgets because my dad set that example in my life. I am a scholar because my dad and mom valued education. My dad often affirmed my intelligence by calling me aside to help saying, “Pam-Pam, come help me fill out deez paypuhz.” He trusted my ability to help him get the money and services he needed from corrupt and racist systems in our city and state.

My dad was no saint. I have the painful memories of several weekend alcoholic binges and his beating my mother when he could take no more of her mounting insults against his manhood. Racism and poverty, he could not control. His woman, well alcohol made him feel a sense of control in that area. My best lessons on The Effects of Oppression - Dr. EL Lightsey

More than ever, this Father’s Day, I think of not only the troubling life of my father but of countless other Black men in America. Jim Crow then and Jim Crow now. Poverty then and now. Alcohol then and now… and drugs. Slavery and modern day slavery through an unjust penal system. Mostly, I hope I have learned the lessons my dad taught and embodied well. I pray that my life helps not only my progeny but the progeny of many Black men. And, I hope through my work, to help usher in a day of justice and love for all of God’s people. For I have learned that my dad was so right, “E’rybody one ah God’s chi’ren. You beddah treat folk right!”

Happy Father’s Day!

Across the country, clergy members in the United Methodist Church are now being faced with the stark reality that public policy is far more prophetic and just than our current church polity as they witness the increasing passing of laws that support marriage rights and civil unions of LGBTQ persons. What are loving clergy to say to those persons whom they have had the honor of watching grow as faithful members of our church when asked to officiate and bless them in a ceremony – whether it be marriage, civil union or commitment – that honors their desire to be in lifelong relationships with loving partners?

Last week, 70 United Methodist Clergy in Minnesota pledged to defy church polity against performing such ceremonies. At this date over 200 clergy in the Northern Illinois Conference have pledged the same. If they follow through with their pledge, they face the possibility of losing their clergy orders. It should be noted that losing one’s credentials is not simply losing the ability to continue your called vocation as clergy but with it, takes away their authorization to preside over the sacred rituals of baptism and Holy Eucharist. I should also mention, it includes a host of practical entitlements such as health benefits, clergy housing allowance (a tax benefit), parsonages, and fellowship within several clergy peer groups. Sufficeth to say, their commitment is a boldly courageous posture.

As a clergywoman whose work has been about the business of civil rights, peace and reconciliation, I cannot sit idly by and have joined my fellow clergy in their commitment. Now, I wonder, with our denomination losing members in large numbers daily, how we will fare as we begin to see the groundswell of clergy facing trial and having their orders defrocked for their commitment to justice? Of course, I know the Church that is the body of Jesus Christ will not fail. I am not so sure that our denomination, The United Methodist Church has not entered a juncture where it can continue much longer as it now is – persistent in its majority support of polity that discriminates and which is so counter to its advertisement of “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.”

What we are doing is in fact challenging our church to keep its word and be an “open,” inclusive and loving member of the body of Christ. We are committed to this risk -taking ministry. I trust our Episcopal leaders will know that we are praying for them and that this action is our faithful witness “to do justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.” (Micah 6:8)