THE BROWNING OF AMERICA

‘THE BROWNING OF AMERICA”

            I had intended this blog for last week, but the Anglo events in Las Vegas last weekend caused me to change to our Molechian worship of guns.  Because of our deep and powerful worship of guns, I now understand why the death penalty was prescribed for those who worshipped Molech (Leviticus 20:1-5) and who sacrificed their children to Molech.  I don’t agree with it, but I understand the urgency.  We all feel it now in the USA – we are sacrificing our children every day to the god of guns. 

            I had intended to write on the impact of Hispanic and Latinx heritage in our society as part of Hispanic Heritage month.  And, indeed the terrible slaughter by an Anglo man in Las Vegas (Hispanic feminine version of “the meadows”) happened in territory previously owned by Mexico and ceded to the USA in 1848 as the result of our imperialist war, part of whose motive was to expand slavery.  Molech makes his case.

            I remember seeing my first Hispanic people when I was in middle school.  We called them Mexicans (and much worse names too), and they began to show up in downtown Helena on Saturdays to go shopping, as did everyone else on the big shopping day of the week. I could not figure out why they were in Helena, but the farming kids let us know that they had come to work in the fields.  They came because African-Americans had been driven out by mechanization and by the oppressive working conditions and the huge system of injustice.   It was our first time to engage another racial group other than “white” or “black.”  It would take me years to realize that these folks were part of a developing network of people from Mexico and other parts south of the USA, who were becoming the primary work force for harvesting farm crops in America.

            My next conscious engagement with Latinx folk was in the early 1970’s when I participated in the boycotts of grapes and lettuce in support of the United Farmworkers in California.  I was living in Nashville at the time, and I remember going to the stores there to ask store managers not to carry California grapes or lettuce unless they were certified UFW grown.  In the non-union, “right to work” South, they looked at me and the others as if we were from outer space.   Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta co-founded the United Farmworkers movement in 1962 in California, but of course the work of Ms. Huerta has largely been forgotten.  A new documentary called “Delores” seeks to correct that, so go see it to get a sense of the history of “brown” people as well as the power of patriarchy and the determination of oppressed people to find justice.  It also outlines the cost of such work. 

            While I was pastor at Oakhurst, I was reminded of the costs and the depth of captivity in myself and in others.  Thanks to PCUSA, to Caroline and some of our members, we became involved early on in the movement of the Immokalee Workers in Florida, an organizing movement to raise wages and working conditions for tomato pickers in central Florida.   They stayed at our church several times on their way to Chicago and other places north to seek to develop support for their boycotts of Taco Bell, Pepsi, KFC, Burger King, McDonald’s, and others – their request was to seek 1 penny more per pound of tomatoes picked.  Our church participated in the boycotts. Their union was almost all dark-skinned people, most of Hispanic descent, but some of African descent.   They usually brought 50-75 people on these trips.

            On one occasion, they stayed in our church and in North Decatur church over

the Easter weekend of 2007.  Not a great weekend from an ecclesiastical point of view, but they were leaving after worshipping with us on Easter – many thanks to Loretta Jefferson and Buddy Hughes who coordinated our efforts!   They were headed to Chicago to drum up support for their boycott of McDonald’s. Sometime on Saturday, their organizer called me to ask if they could stay over on Easter Sunday night too.  My heart sank – Holy Week is especially demanding on pastors and churches, and I knew that we would all be exhausted.  I checked with Loretta about it, and she said “Sure – we’ll work it out.”  The layperson once again teaching the clergy, but I was still grumpy about it.  A full sanctuary on Easter Sunday, with so many Hispanic folk and with translators for part of the service, helped raise my spirits.   Still grumpy, though!

            We fed them lunch on Easter Monday, and they were on their way.  On Tuesday their lead organizer called me and thanked me profusely for letting them stay over an extra day.   I felt guilty for my grumpiness, but then she added:  “We were involved in secret negotiations with McDonald’s at the Carter Center, and because of your hospitality, McDonald’s agreed to our demands on Monday – thank you so much!”  So, I gulped and was reminded of God’s grace and power – sometimes even in grumpy soil, the fruit comes! 

            In this time of celebrating Hispanic/Latinx heritage, let us all be mindful of the browning of America, with folks of African and Hispanic heritage changing American culture profoundly for the better.  And Hispanic folk do many other things than farm work! There is obviously great resistance to this browning,  and the election of Donald Trump as president is part of that resistance.  So, let us all examine our individual and collective hearts and find that soil where the fruit of God’s grace can grow and blossom in us all in the browning of America.