Author: mopress

A Texas Civil Rights Review Editorial

Terms like ignorance, indignation, hatred, divisiveness, and racism surely apply to the typhoon that swirls around the sound bites of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. You can tell by how nobody pays any attention to Rev. Wright’s insistence that he be judged by theological standards.

For his own part, the right Reverend couldn’t have been more clear about it. When he was invited onto Fox News March 1, he begged for a conversation that would be literate in the works of black liberation theology. But this is the conversation that was denied to him. Instead, the Fox News interrogator smirked about Wright’s “black church” and asked a hateful question about why there can be no “white churches”.

Perhaps Fox News should break the ice and name itself White News, if that would satisfy their juvenile sense of fair and balanced branding.

Rev. Wright is a preacher, a pastor, and a theologian of accomplishment and distinction who has now been relegated to a whipping boy of ugly white backlash. It is quite hateful and divisive what has been done to the man, and a bolder crop of presidential candidates might be calling on so many grown men to apologize for their disrespectful treatment of the Reverend.

Returning to the juvenile question of why there is such a thing as Black Entertainment Television, but not White Entertainment Television as such, or a proud black church but not a proud white church as such, one only has to know the basic facts of American history. Pretending that one does not know these basic facts while at the same time drawing a salary as a professional journalist is stark evidence of racist malice aforethought.

In ten days, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is scheduled to be honored in Texas; therefore, Texas has the opportunity to honor him properly as a distinguished theologian and pastor.

Here’s all the Governor has to say as he hands Rev. Wright the first James Farmer, Sr. award for unflinching courage to speak truth to power:

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, I am not a theologian, I am a Governor. You and I have chosen lines of work which have long traditions of close relations. There has hardly been a time when your profession and mine have not rubbed close together. Thank goodness the ancient Hebrew people had the strength of character to treasure the words of their prophets, even when the words must have been scathing to hear. We are here to say that today, we commit to the courage it takes to hear a prophet, and to the justice required to honor the prophet’s voice as an indispensable public good. This is a free state in a free country, and we have the audacity to hope that you to will enjoy your stay.

Note: we have found one item on the internet that pays Rev. Wright the respect that he requested from Fox News: to be treated as a man of the cloth. Please see “Race and Religion in Context” by Daniel Pulliam at getreligion.org.

See also Mary Mitchell, ” Wright caught in undeserved political glare: Whites don’t get it, blacks do — and it’s time to move on” (March 20, 2008) Chicago Sun-Times.

Oops! Posse gets wrong man. See Fox News’ effort to curb ‘excesses’ of the great media riot of ’08.

Emial from John Wheat Gibson:

“Today the US attorney filed a motion to abate or dismiss the suit in Abilene to drug Rrustem Neza. He said he filed it because of Congressman Louie Gohmert’s private bill.”

Note: for more information on the case of Rrustem Neza and the efforts of Rep. Gohmert, please see the Texas Civil Rights Review Index of Documents, “Saving Rrustem Neza.”

The Spring Break Border Walk from Roma to Brownsville has been wonderfully chronicled by Matthew Webster’s Walk Diary at Smart Borders

“It was hotter than a human heart, the organ this entire walk has targeted. Believing that people are innately good, we feel that they simply must not know the wonderful people and beautiful places which a wall would destroy and immigration legislation could enhance.”

Email from Irma Muniz

Dear Friends:

Ramsey Muniz had a vivid dream. In his dream we were together–sharing
sentiments of love, and I asked him what it was that he desired. His response
was, “I desire my freedom NOW. I do not wish to die in the prisons of America
for a crime I did not commit.”

Our wish is that this country grant Ramsey his freedom now, and that he be
given a fair chance to prove his innocence. We ask your assistance in
accomplishing this, as we are preparing to send information and plead our case
again upon my return from Oklahoma.

The greatest assistance that you can provide is in thinking and believing that
Ramsey WILL be granted his freedom. Please take several minutes during this
Holy Week and ask God, through your thoughts and prayers, for Ramsey’s chance
to prove his innocence, and for his happiness and freedom. Our collective
thoughts and prayers will make this come about.

Ramsey states,

“Jesus spoke of love, compassion, harmony, respect, and sacrifice. My highest respect and honor go to the courage and conviction that
He maintained to the last seconds of His life. Even non-Christians must agree
that history does not record the sacrifices that man makes for the love of humanity. His own followers and politicians betrayed him at the end. How He
must have felt alone in a mode of darkness with chains and shackles, and whipped with the lashes of hatred and oppression, knowing from the beginning that this would be His destiny.

As a spiritual warrior of the Sixth Sun, we pay our highest respect to this spiritual Man who sacrificed His life in order that others be freed. To be free is to love, and without love in one’s heart we can never be alive. His spirits, like those of Quetzalcoatl and many others, are alive today.”

Ramsey Muniz – Tezcatlipoca

“HOW it will happen, HOW the Universe will bring it to you, is not your
concern or job. Allow the Universe to do it for you. When you are trying to
work out HOW it will happen, you are emitting a frequency that contains a lack
of faith — that you don’t believe you have it already. You think YOU have to
do it, and you do not believe the Universe will do it for you. The HOW is not
your part in the Creative Process.”

Rhonda Byrne, The Secret

www.freeramsey.com