The Ordinariness of the Newtown Massacre

The words “unimaginable,” “unspeakable,” and “unbelievable” have been used countless times to describe the killing of children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut. Indeed, my good friend Brad East has said, “This is not intelligible. This is not comprehensible. It is absurd. It is evil. It is not a genus of a species (whether this be “evil things” or “mass murder shootings”); it is not an instance of a larger nameable phenomenon. It is entirely dumbfounding.” And, while I understand the sentiment behind such statements (which are almost always ironically followed by thousands of words of commentary which make it clear that they believe it is none of those things), I believe they are mistaken and actually hinder our ability to respond appropriately to Newtown. In reality, someone did imagine Newtown, we all now believe it can happen, and we have been speaking about it for nearly a week. And if we continue to act as if this is not the case and that it is truly unintelligible and incomprehensible we will be saying the same words in a few months when the next Newtown occurs. Instead, we should admit that, sadly, Newtown was to be expected in contemporary America.

Perhaps one of the saddest facts about the massacre, other than the dozens of deaths, is that what so surprised most of us was that it was children who were the primary victims in a mass school shooting and not that there was another mass school shooting in the US in 2012. Part of the reason for that is that in so many ways Newtown was so ordinary. And it is the ordinariness of Newtown that so troubles me.

I’ve written before about the peculiarity of American male violence. Ours is a culture which shapes boys into young men who see violence as an organizing principle of life in the world. We are formed by our society to be violent. Prof. James Garbarino’s research has consistently made this clear. In a recent CNN op-ed, “How a Boy Becomes a Killer,” he says,

We start by recognizing that many young Americans (and other young people around the world) develop and carry with them a kind of moral damage, which I have come to call “the war zone mentality.”

However it develops, they grow up with a damaged sense of reality. They view the world as if they are soldiers confronting a hostile environment that they perceive to be full of enemies. Once they get fixated on this damaged world view, they may hatch the delusion that even teachers and young children are their enemies. For Adam Lanza, apparently even his mother was an enemy who had to be destroyed.

There is no one cause. It is as if they are building a tower of blocks, one by one, that can get so high it falls over, with innocent people dying. These building blocks can be found in a dangerous neighborhood or a school rife with bullying…through the internet and mass media…web sites and videos that promote paranoid views of the world…in pervasive and intense playing of video games…

But moral damage and a misperception of reality usually are not enough to lead to murder. The typical killer is emotionally damaged and has developed mental health problems, perhaps exacerbated by being bullied and rejected by peers, or abused and neglected at home…

The crucial point is that even “crazy” people operate in a particular culture, a particular society, a particular time and place, and within a certain world view of how to manage your rage, your hurt, and your sadness. While not uniquely American (it has happened in recent years in Europe and the Middle East), the mass murder that took place in Newtown, Connecticut, is especially American.

Our socially toxic culture promotes paranoia, desensitization to violence, almost unlimited access to lethal weapons, opportunities to practice mass murder via realistic “point and shoot” video games and games that justify violence as a legitimate form of vengeance in pursuit of an individual’s or group’s idea of justice.

And, in a related op-ed Prof. Michael Kimmel says,

Why are angry young men setting out to kill entire crowds of strangers?

Motivations are hard to pin down, but gender is the single most obvious and intractable variable when it comes to violence in America. Men and boys are responsible for 95% of all violent crimes in this country. “Male criminal participation in serious crimes at any age greatly exceeds that of females, regardless of source of data, crime type, level of involvement, or measure of participation” is how the National Academy of Sciences summed up the extant research.

How does masculinity figure into this? From an early age, boys learn that violence is not only an acceptable form of conflict resolution, but one that is admired. However the belief that violence is an inherently male characteristic is a fallacy. Most boys don’t carry weapons, and almost all don’t kill: are they not boys? Boys learn it.

They learn it from their fathers. They learn it from a media that glorifies it, from sports heroes who commit felonies and get big contracts, from a culture saturated in images of heroic and redemptive violence. They learn it from each other.

In talking to more than 400 young men for my book, “Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men,” I heard over and over again what they learn about violence. They learn that if they are crossed, they have the manly obligation to fight back. They learn that they are entitled to feel like a real man, and that they have the right to annihilate anyone who challenges that sense of entitlement.

In other words, our culture intentionally creates people – overwhelmingly men – who commit violence, and in the extreme mass murder. From the violence we inflict on children to the violence we teach them to inflict on others and the violent definitions of masculinity we insist they conform to we create young boys and men who believe it is natural and right for them to commit acts of violence. This is why Ta-Nehisi Coates had so many stories of men committing violence against women to draw from in his recent commentary.

And, while Garbarino and Coates are correct that better mental health care and stricter gun laws would help curb potential violent perpetrators from committing specific crimes, these legal and political restraints will not help us form nonviolent citizens instead of the violent ones we now create. For that to occur, as Prof. Garbarino also points out, we need a radical change in culture – from entertainment to parenting to politics to religion. We must become a different people if we are to avoid future Newtowns. Because – and it hurts to write this – we are a violent people for whom domestic violence, inner-city youth violence, constant warfare, and even mass shootings are our way of life.

In basketball they say “ball don’t lie.” In other words, at the end of the day the ball goes in the hoop or it doesn’t, and the winners are the ones who put the ball through the hoop more than the other team. We could say when reflecting on our common life together, then, that “bullets don’t lie.” And the bullets keep flying. And they keep killing. Because this is who we are.

Bullets don’t lie.

The Most Incredible Christmas Card Ever

And I mean incredible.

A friend received this Christmas card in the mail. There is so much that could be said about the Coca-Cola Santa Claus bowing in front of a lily-white baby Jesus that I’ll let the image speak for itself.

Merry Christmas!

On Dying Well: The Witness of Ryan Woods

I never met Ryan Woods. But the way those I know who knew him speak of him is evidence enough to confirm he was an extraordinary human being.

Ryan died last week. Fortunately for us, he spent time during his last year-plus of life sharing his thoughts as he went through the process of death. And one thing he taught us through his reflections is how to die well.

Americans are funny people. We do all that we can to deny death. We get surgeries and botox and color our hair and use magic creams all in attempts to cover up the evidence that we are all getting nearer to our death. Indeed, we have birthed theologies devoted to the idea that (enough) faith should always lead to healing even as we know that all of must die and, therefore, all of us must (in the end) never have “enough” faith. And, as Dr. Thomas Long has taught us, we have spurred evolutions in funeral practices that increasingly avoid facing head-first the realities of death.

Ryan refused to do any of this and, in doing so, he joined the centuries-long chorus of Christians who have declared that death is not ultimately triumphant (indeed, it has already been defeated), that resurrection is real, and that God is good especially in sickness, pain, and death.

Many theologians, philosophers, and medical practitioners have recently lamented the fact that contemporary practices of medicine increasingly focus on cure rather than care. The goal of “beating” death is overtaking the goal of dying well. However, the former goal is futile. And one thing that the Christian faith teaches is how to die well. In dying well Christians proclaim God’s goodness and grace and ability to transfigure human experience at the end of life as much as at one’s baptism.

I am thankful to Ryan for his example in dying well, for in doing so he has taught me of God’s grace in difficult times and of God’s peace that surpasses understanding.

Please, read his blog. Donate to this fund for his wife and two young children. And watch these videos of his story:

Why Libertarian Philosophy is Foreign to the Christian Tradition

I recently made the claim that Christians should consider Libertarian philosophy a heresy. In part, I was just being provocative; however, I am very serious in claiming that Christians should not embrace the Libertarianism that is increasingly influencing the conservative political movement in the United States. I do believe that at its heart Libertarianism is opposed to some of the core values and beliefs of the historic Christian tradition.

To flesh this claim out a bit I point you to a recent series of blogs by Reformed theologian and ethicist Matthew Tuininga.

Does the Christian Tradition Agree that Property Rights Trump the Rights of the Poor?

Aquinas and Calvin Believed Property Rights were Subject to the Rights of the Poor

Letting Christian Theology Shape our Politics: The Christian Tradition and Property, Part 3

Now, Matthew gets the general scope of the history of Christian teaching on this topic 100% correct. There is a long tradition of the best and most influential Christian theologians insisting that the needs and rights of the poor are among the most important in any Christian politics. To think otherwise is to reject the heart of Christian social teaching. However, that is not the only reason I point you to Matthew’s work. I could have made a similar historical analysis, but the regular readers of this blog would not be surprised to find such an argument coming from me.

See, Matthew is one of the most serious theologians I know – and we disagree about much. We entered Emory’s program in Religion, Ethics, and Society (E&S) at the same time. He and I make up one Emory E&S “cohort.” (And it is a testament to the intellectual freedom one may have at Emory that we have gone through our studies together as friends. One of my favorite stories concerning Matthew is the surprise registered on both of our faces when he learned I had not studied John Calvin in seminary and I learned he had not read Martin Luther King Jr. prior to arriving at Emory. Let’s just say, we come from different theological backgrounds!) He is unabashedly Reformed in his theological orientation, and, in a sea of liberals, is a confessed political conservative at a leading American research university. I do not read his blog because I agree with him on everything. I read him because, though we often disagree, I find him to be one of the most careful and nuanced conservative Christian thinkers in the country who also refuses to allow political commitments to cloud his commitment to the historic Christian tradition.

The point here, however, is that even Matthew Tuininga (a theologian trained at Emory willing to publicly defend an anti-gay marriage stance!) thinks it important to point out the un-Christian foundation of Libertarian economic philosophy.

Dear conservative friends, don’t drink the kool-aid. It is, as far as I can see, impossible to claim an intelligible and faithful Christian politic and at the same time embrace Libertarianism. They are trees grown in different soil and cannot be faithfully grafted together.

On Penn State and David Brooks: The Case for Social Ethics

My progressive friends are quite upset about the most recent op-ed by David Brooks. The piece is, um, provocative to say the least. Take this quote for example: “[T]oday’s elite lacks the self-conscious leadership ethos that the racist, sexist and anti-Semitic old boys’ network did possess.” With quotes like that it’s no wonder folks have responded with such fervent disdain for Brooks’s message.

The argument of the article goes something like this: While the US has mostly replaced its “old boys network” of financial, political, and social leadership with one of a meritocracy (a debatable point, for sure), this has not actually made the US a better place to live. He rhetorically asks if Wall Street or DC is working any better than they did 60 years ago. His answer? “The system is more just (meaning not excluding people based on race/gender/religion/etc), but the outcomes are mixed. The meritocracy has not fulfilled its promise.”

Why does he think this is the case? Contrary to Christopher Hayes, whose book inspired Brooks’s post and thinks it’s because our meritocratic society fosters cut-throat competition that encourages those who get to the top to become corrupt to stay at the top, Brooks thinks it’s because these are people who weren’t raised being told they were a part of the noble and virtuous ruling elite. Rather, they had to scratch and claw their way to the top with no one to show them the way. They worked smarter, harder, and longer than everyone else, and once they reached elite status they refused to accept the label. Rather, they choose to see themselves as “countercultural rebels, insurgents against the true establishment, which is always somewhere else.”

What is missing from our business, university, and government leaders, then, are the virtues of acknowledged privilege. More specifically, “The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations.” We don’t have any philosopher-kings; rather, we have an oligarchy of the talented and driven. Thus, “Today’s elite is more talented and open but lacks a self-conscious leadership code. The language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous). Wall Street firms, for example, now hire on the basis of youth and brains, not experience and character. Most of their problems can be traced to this.”

Brooks concludes by saying, “The difference between the Hayes view and mine is a bit like the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution. He wants to upend the social order. I want to keep the current social order, but I want to give it a different ethos and institutions that are more consistent with its existing ideals.”

Now, the most common response I’ve seen, primarily on Twitter, is for folks to begin listing all of the moral failures of earlier generations led by America’s legendary WASPs. Slavery. Jim Crow. Oppression of women. Failure to act in a timely manner in WWII. The reign of the Robber Barons. Etc, etc, etc. However, I think this misses the point.

What Brooks is pointing to is not something new, and it’s not totally off-base. Like Alisdair MacIntyre, Brooks is pointing to a perceived, and not necessarily wrongly, moral fragmentation that has occurred in western societies. In plain terms, pluralistic societies don’t have a shared morality and, thus, can’t agree on “the good” such societies should strive for and encourage. Specifically for Brooks, this fragmentation has created a void in which there is no lasting gaze toward or concern for the future. Rather, our most talented are a diverse group of people who, having not been trained to “lead,” focus solely on their own advancement. Hayes says the problem is corruption; Brooks says the problem is short-sightedness.

Of course, this is not the whole story. Take the Penn State football scandal, for instance. What we see there has been painted, primarily (and mistakenly), as a series of grave individual moral failures. (And it sure seems to have come out of a well-established “old boys network” of WASPy looking men!) Paterno, most recently, has been highlighted for his lack of moral courage. Earlier, his defenders claimed it was more for ignorance. However, I think it’s tough to argue that either his lack of moral courage or ignorance grew out of either “corruption” or “short-sightedness.” Rather, it seems to me that it’s the natural reaction we should expect from someone groomed in the world of big-time college football (as well as most of the rest of American society).

See, the problem isn’t the increasing diversity of our social leadership nor a lack of a common morality. It’s not even, at least not primarily, a preponderance of “cowardly” instead of courageous individuals. (And, in the case of Penn State, it wasn’t a lack of concern for the maintenance of an institution. In fact, that was a driving concern; namely, the money-making institution of Penn State football.) Rather, the problem across many of our social institutions is that they have one, and only one, common morality: the morality of the market.

And what is the logic of the morality of the market? The moral logic of the market declares that profit is the highest social good. Profit justifies corruption. Profit justifies short-sightedness. And profit justifies looking the other way from or actively covering up the systematic rape of children.

Contra Brooks, the problem isn’t a lack of a shared morality. The problem is that only one morality dominates our society, even in instances where it shouldn’t. Social theorists and philosophers, like Robert Bellah and Michael Walzer, have warned us that the danger in a capitalist society is that the logic of the market (profit, efficiency, utility, etc.) will overstep its bounds and dominate every sector of society.

And we see it happening every time a university board recommends cutting language studies to decrease costs. We see it every time a church judges its ministry by the number of worshippers on Sunday morning or the size of the offering. We see it every time a college sports coach recruits players they are sure won’t be able to graduate. We saw it when the financial industry tanked the global economy but no one was assigned blame because those who were supposed to get a profit got a profit. We see it everywhere.

The solution isn’t a reassertion of a homogeneous social leadership, and it’s not (only) the establishment of more laws to discourage corruption. Rather, the (beginning of the) solution is the reigning in of the logic of the market. Justice, not profit, must reign in politics. Love, not profit, must reign in familial life. Faithfulness, not profit, must reign in ecclesial life. Compassion, not profit, must reign in social relations. Truth, not profit, must reign in our public discourse. And I could go on. But as long as profit and self-interest (or efficiency or utility) continues to reign outside of the sphere of everyday market transactions our society will continue to have more Penn States, more financial meltdowns, and more political scandals.

It’s not (solely) about individuals; we should not be surprised at the actions of Penn State nor the bankers whose actions led to the recession. We, as a society, taught them to place profits over people. We are simply scapegoating those who acted as we told them they should.

It is the task of social ethics to teach us otherwise.

Frank Ocean’s “Bad Religion”: Or, Why Frank Ocean Understands Good Religion

Frank Ocean, a young R&B singer, has been creating a buzz for well over a year now and performed live on television for the first time last night. He performed the song which created the rumors that were eventually confirmed in this open letter in which he confesses that the first time he fell in love it was with another man. For various reasons related to perceptions of African American males in the US, R&B singers, and hip hop artists, this was deemed a groundbreaking event in the hip hop world. The internet was quickly abuzz about how this confession would impact the career of this seemingly brilliant young talent.

Unfortunately, this has led many folks to miss the profound theological point of the song: romantic relationships, especially ones in which the level of love and commitment aren’t mutual, can become idolatrous religions that bring people to their knees (and not in prayer). He’s experienced the pain of unrequited love, as many have (no matter the sex of the beloved), and nothing hurts quite like having one’s god not love them back.

Watch the performance here. Lyrics below:

[Verse 1]
Taxi driver
You’re my shrink for the hour
Leave the meter running
It’s rush hour
So take the streets if you wanna
Just outrun the demons, could you?
He said “Allahu Akbar”, I told him don’t curse me
“But boy you need prayer”, I guess it couldn’t hurt me
If it brings me to my knees
It’s a bad religion

[Chorus]
This unrequited love
To me it’s nothing but
A one-man cult
And cyanide in my styrofoam cup
I could never make him love me
Never make him love me
Love
Love

[Verse 2]
Taxi driver
I swear I’ve got three lives
Balanced on my head like steak knives
I can’t tell you the truth about my disguise
I can’t trust no one
And you say “Allahu Akbar”, I told him don’t curse me
“But boy you need prayer”, I guess it couldn’t hurt me
If it brings me to my knees
It’s a bad religion

[Chorus]

[Outro]
It’s a bad religion
To be in love with someone
Who could never love you
I know
Only bad religion
Could have me feeling the way I do

In this song, Ocean provides a powerful view into the world of one who has placed their faith in the wrong person/thing. It’s a world of deep pain and regret. We all struggle, in our own ways and with our own idols, with the temptation of idolatry. For many it’s money. For others it’s power. And for others it’s nation. Or race. Or family. Or religious doctrine. (A sure test for whether something has the potential to become an idol is if people are willing to kill other people for it. History has shown that there are some things people repeatedly kill for. They are the most dangerous idols of all.) It doesn’t matter what the idol may be (and they can come in any form), the monotheisms, including Christianity, are consistent in their rejection of idolatry. Too frequently, people have taken that to simply mean a “graven image,” but this is an exercise in missing the point. The prophets remind us that graven images are nothing. Rather, it is the power that we give to idols, which they greedily accept, that is the danger.

Money. Power. Nation. Race. Family. Doctrine. Romantic Relationships. May Frank Ocean’s words remind us that we all struggle with idolatry and that it is always bad religion to give in to the temptation.

Thinking Theologically about Social Media

The New Media Project at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is pleased to announce the publication of six theological essays and four sets of recommendations about using social media in ministerial, congregational, and institutional settings. Together the material—located under the Findings tab on the project website —provides a one-of-a-kind resource for religious leaders seeking to interpret new media in creative and theological ways.

This looks quite interesting and includes essays from friends and colleagues, including Monica Coleman and Lerone Martin.

See the announcement and links to essays here.

Why White Christians Should Attend Nonwhite Churches

The church small group I am a part of has been studying William Stringfellow’s Imposters of God: Inquiries Into Favorite Idols. This past Sunday we talked about Stringfellow’s claim that a very common idol in the U.S. is race; specifically, whiteness.

In the course of our conversation I brought up the Trayvon Martin case as an example of the ways U.S. society separates people based on race (through the creation of ethnic suburbs and various other methods of ordering social space), and pointed out that our churches often reflect that separation. You know, the whole, “Ten o’clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week” thing. One way this has found expression in contemporary churches is the “seeker-sensitive church” model of church planting that has resulted in the birth of many megachurches. Very broadly and in not-so-sympathetic terms, this model of church growth, encouraged by Rick Warren (see his account of “Saddleback Sam”) and others, encourages churches to be homogeneous so that they create a comfortable and inviting environment to a targeted group of people. When churches are this way they grow quickly because the whole life of the church is structured to meet the needs of a certain sub-group of people.

Of course, in the United States this leads, more often than not, to racial homogeneity as well as the expected socio-economic and geographical sameness. This is because our cities are often quite segregated. So, this is an example of Christian churches simply accepting the social order and, thus, reinscribing certain of its injustices.

Ever since that conversation I’ve been thinking about writing this post. Well, today I heard an interview with Duke theologian J. Kameron Carter, author of Race: A Theological Account, make a similar point in reflecting on Trayvon Martin. He made the point that part of the reason the case has played out how it has is because our society is structured in such a way as to make it seem “natural” for George Zimmerman to assume a young black male didn’t belong in a gated community and was thus “suspicious.” Carter also made the point that churches perpetuate this ordering. (As a fun side note, Carter also said, “The logic of race is a logic of violence.” Hmmm, where have you heard something like that before?)

So, what should be done to combat this? I suggest that my white Christian sisters and brothers seriously consider attending a nonwhite church for an extended period of time (probably years). To overcome the racial ordering of American society Christians must go out of their way to live differently. There is no way to avoid it by “just doing what we always do.” Our society is structured in such a way as to separate people based on race and income. Thus, if you are white and relatively wealthy it is quite easy to avoid interacting, especially as equals, with nonwhite or poor persons. However, reconciliation is impossible when living within such a social ordering.

Why should whites attend nonwhite churches rather than nonwhite persons attend white churches to achieve this end? Because nonwhite persons are already, at least, “bicultural.” By virtue of living in the U.S. nonwhite persons have no choice but to interact with white persons. To survive in a white world nonwhite persons must learn to speak and act in “white ways” to survive. Nonwhite persons, generally speaking, already know quite a lot about white folks. However, white folks can, if they want, avoid any significant interaction with nonwhite persons and are, thus, only “monocultural.” This is why white persons need to go out of their way to become “bicultural.”

So, white Christians – if you take seriously the gospel call to pursue racial reconciliation – I encourage you to attend a nonwhite church for an extended period of time. Drive through unfamiliar neighborhoods until they become familiar. Worship in spaces that, and with people who, sing different songs than the churches you are familiar with. Listen to sermons from preachers who interpret passages in ways you may have never heard before. And live with people who look very different than you and have quite different experiences of life in America than you. Don’t pursue a position of leadership. You are not there to teach. You are there to learn. Hear the stories of people. Live life with them.

After a few years you may, finally, begin to learn some things about race, America, God, Church, justice, and reconciliation. It is a long and hard process, but it is one that is necessary to truly be able to live as a brother or sister in Christ with persons who are not the same race or class as you.

And, if taken seriously, I suggest that you will come to interpret what life in America is really like. But more importantly, I am sure that you will also discover that what it means to be faithful to the God of and revealed in Jesus can be quite different than what is usually preached in those comfortable, segregated churches you’ve spent your whole life in.

Racism and the Myth of Redemptive Violence

While many of my friends have raised their voices to scream and protest in response to the killing of Trayvon Martin, I have thus far remained silent. I have remained silent because I have been mourning. I have remained silent because I am confused. And I have remained silent because I have not known exactly what to say. However, there’s a “fire burning in my bones” and I must say something.

Like many, I am saddened by the violent and unnecessary death of another American youth, and I am angered at the apparent negligence of the local police department. Again like many, I cannot help but think that race was a motivating factor, consciously or unconsciously, in George Zimmerman’s act of killing Trayvon and in the response of the police. His own rhetoric is, to anyone who has experienced racism and racial prejudice in the United States, clearly coded language for race inspired disgust. Every black male who has lived in the United States as long as Trayvon did knows what it means to be viewed as “suspicious” in a gated community. And the mounting evidence, including recordings of the 911 call and the call made to Trayvon’s friend while running from Zimmerman, call into question Zimmerman’s claims of self-defense. It seems clear to me that George Zimmerman should be arrested and tried. I reserve judgment of his guilt until he faces trial, but there seems to be enough evidence to consider him a suspect in a murder.

Clearly, I assume racism exists and that it negatively affects African-Americans in a way that it doesn’t affect anyone else. If this incident doesn’t make you see that then nothing I say will open your eyes either. And if you do see it, you now have no excuse to work tirelessly to end it.

Having said all of that, I will now focus on one overlooked aspect of the racism active in this story. And it is an aspect of racism that is too often overlooked by even the most ardent opponents of racism in America.

That story is the American myth that violence solves problems, especially in response to problems caused by someone else’s violence. Walter Wink called this “the myth of redemptive violence.” This myth is problematic for a multitude of reasons, but one important one is that it is a racist myth inasmuch as it disproportionately affects African-Americans, especially young black males. Now, this myth is not only an American myth. It finds expression in every culture that I know has ever existed. However, it has especial influence in America as evidenced by our extremely high rates of violent crime.

And, while this myth has power among nearly every social group in American life, it negatively affects young black males at a rate disproportionate to their presence in American society. For that reason, it is a racist myth. It is a myth believed by many young black males in America’s urban centers, and by many non-black males in American suburbs. Sadly, the power of the myth in both communities often leads, directly or indirectly, to the death of young black males wherever they live.

Almost a year-and-a-half ago 18-year old Bobby Tillman was killed at a party. He was literally stomped to death by some other teenagers. His offense? Being the first person to walk by these males offended by being slapped by a girl. In one of the most stupid reasons for someone’s death in the history of the world, these “chivalrous” males refused to strike back at a female and so killed the closest male they could find. They felt they had to somehow redeem their honor by proving they “wasn’t no punks.”

This story has haunted me since I first heard about it. Why? Because I knew Bobby. He used to serve me and my wife Communion when he attended the church I was once a minister at. He spent his time before that fateful party at a church event. He wasn’t killed for anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What defined the “wrongness” of that place and time? The mentality and action of some teenagers who had been taught that “real men” practice redemptive violence. Even if it killed someone else.

Trayvon’s case is not dissimilar. Apparently, the neighborhood George Zimmerman lives in had been the recent victim of several property crimes. People were scared and angry about the violation of their personal lives. So, what did Zimmerman think was the appropriate response to these violations? Redemptive violence. He grabbed a gun, got in his car, and patrolled the neighborhood for “suspicious” persons. Unfortunately, and as is too often the case, the person who seemed suspicious enough to warrant the use of a deadly weapon was an innocent, young black male. Again, living out the myth of redemptive violence led to the death of an innocent black male.

Stories such as these could be retold a thousand times over. It doesn’t matter if the violence is perpetrated by black men, white men, or men of any other race. It doesn’t matter if the violence occurs in “the ghetto” or “the ‘burbs.” It doesn’t matter if the violence is perpetrated by overzealous cops or wanna-be cops. Too often it is young black men, often innocent, who are the victims of the practice of this myth in America. Therefore, it is a racist myth.

This myth must be debunked because as long as it continues to have power in our society young black men will be its primary victims. I pray there will never be another Bobby Tillman or Trayvon Martin. Unfortunately, if history is any indication, my prayers will not be answered. There are many reasons for this, but one reason that is too often overlooked is because we have all bought into this deadly, racist myth.

I believe the Christian story and the example of Jesus point to a way beyond this myth. I believe the examples of Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, Oscar Romero, and Desmond Tutu point to a way beyond this myth. I believe that American men need to start looking to these men as examples of the “manly” way to resolve conflict rather than to the characters played by Denzel Washington or John Wayne, the lyrics of studio rappers, or the obsession with military force by our government.

I beg each and every one of us – please abandon your faith in the myth of redemptive violence. Otherwise, there is nothing we can do to prevent the next Trayvon Martin story from hitting the news in a few months.

The Revolutionary Millionaire? On Jay-Z, Hip Hop Music, and Moral Ambiguity

Morals in rap is like an oxymoron.. – Jay-Z

Jay-Z tweeted that, but he doesn’t really believe it (or so I shall argue). In fact, a close examination of his lyrics, writings, and interviews quickly demonstrates that he has an ethic and thinks about morality on a regular basis. What he meant to say, as far as I can tell, is that a systematic approach to morality and ethics, as traditionally defined in the European philosophical tradition, is irrelevant to America’s urban ghettos and the music that sprung from them. According to Jay-Z, morality in rap (and ghetto life) does not consist in adherence to a categorical imperative or divine command, in the calculated weighing of utility or consequences, nor the adherence to a social contract made between equals. Rather, morality is contextual, imperfect, and ultimately ambiguous. As medical and social anthropologist Arthur Kleinman argues in What Really Matters,

Ethics, a set of moral principles that aspire to universal application, must be seen in a context of moral experience, which is always changing and usually uncertain, in order to provide a more adequate vision of values in society and how to respond to their clash and change. Taken alone, ethics, such as principles of virtue and justice, can be irrelevant to our local worlds, just as local moral experience, such as discrimination and oppression carried out in the interests of the dominant group, as in the American South in the era of segregation, can be unethical, even downright evil – and can render people unable to criticize their own conditions…[Thus,] Individuals’ efforts to live a moral life in the particular circumstances of moral experience can lead them to formulate ethical criticism of those circumstances as well as to aspire ethically to values that go beyond the local reality and seek universal support (pp. 25-6).

What Kleinman argues in this book is that to understand whether one has lived a “moral life” one must consider the dynamic interaction between universal values, cultural meanings, social experience, individual subjective experience, and political economy and political power. When examining lives in this way we have far less heroes and villains and many more “everyday” people who are doing their best to live a moral life in an oftentimes dangerous world. I propose that an examination of the life and work of Jay-Z articulates this truth as clearly as any example provided by Kleinman in his wonderful book, and also serves as an example of the way morality functions in hip hop music in general.

Why Jay-Z?

Jay-Z is arguably the greatest rapper of all time. Any quick listen to his most recent work will let you know the stats to back that up. He has 11 #1 solo albums (besting Elvis Presley) plus his #1 joint album with Kanye West (Watch the Throne), two of which are considered all-time great hip hop albums (Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint), and several other albums and songs considered to be extremely important in the history of hip hop. He is generally considered to be, in addition to his unrivaled long-term popularity, a superb technician in the skills of emceeing, many considering him one of the greatest lyricists of all time. In addition to his success in music, he has published a NY Times best-selling book, Decoded, based on his life and the interpretation of his lyrics. And on top of all of that, he has been dubbed “Hip Hop’s Philosopher King.” (He’s also a bit of a theologian if you ask me.)

Jay-Z’s story is the dream of countless urban youth. Raised by a single mother after being abandoned by his father Jay-Z entered the drug business as a teenager. He quickly became, by all accounts, quite successful in this enterprise. However, he also had a talent and love for rapping and, just in time (soon after exiting the the drug business for the music business several of his former colleagues were arrested in a police sting), pursued a career as a rap star. Early on he was unable to secure a record deal and so he, with a few friends, eventually started his own record label, Roc-a-Fella Records. His first album is now considered a classic, and he has gone on to have arguably the most successful career in rap history. He is a hustler’s hustler with roots in the streets and real skill at an artist’s craft. He is a self-made millionaire, an entrepreneur par excellence, and the “bad guy gone good.” Jay-Z has lived the life most rappers only rap about.

“Rap critics say that he’s ‘Money, Cash, Hoes/I’m from the hood stupid what type of facts are those?”

“If you escaped what I escaped you’d be in Paris getting f***ed up too”

However, he is not without his critics. He has been accused of being an uber-capitalist who has disavowed the prophetic heritage of black religion, politics, and music for the shallow dreams of material wealth. At their most extreme, such critics accuse Jay-Z of selling his soul to the devil, often by joining the Illuminati, for the allure of worldly success. (MC Hammer even made a music video making this point. The video has since been removed from the internet.) Others accuse him of glorifying sex, objectifying women as mere sexual playthings or degrading them through consistent use of the word b****, and condoning the violence and criminal activities of America’s inner-cities.

His most flippant response to these critics is something like, “Look stupid, I’m from the hood. I was deep in the drug game. I’m not supposed to be living the life I’m living. In fact, I should probably be dead. Now why would you think I’d talk about anything else but the ‘good things’ in life? Namely, sex and money.” In these moments he accepts this characterization of (at least some of) his music, but defends it by appealing to the long distance he traveled from poverty to wealth and claims his critics would do the same thing if they were in his shoes. He appeals to his experience to qualify moral critiques of his life.

“Say that I’m foolish, I only talk about jewels/Do you fools/Listen to music/or do you just skim through it?/See I’m influenced/By the ghetto you ruined/That same dude, You gave nothin’, I made somethin’ doin’/What I do, through and through/and I give you the news with a twist, it’s just his Ghetto point-of-view”

However, he doesn’t always accept these critiques. In fact, he has made many songs exploring “deep” issues of love and life. Specifically, he regularly reflects on the pain of his childhood abandonment by his father and sees his experience as symbolic of the experience of many urban youth (Where Have You Been, Meet the Parents). He has made songs where he empathizes with, though doesn’t wholly justify, the life of a street hustler (This Can’t Be Life, Regrets). And he has made multiple songs dealing with familial and romantic love (Song Cry, You Must Love Me, Glory). Simply put, he doesn’t just rap about “money, cash, hoes.” He also raps about love, loss, and the difficult moral choices one finds in an American ghetto.

His reply to his materialistic critics doesn’t end with a list of songs that don’t fit their description of his music, however. He insists that he’s got a unique perspective on life, or “the news,” that provides a different insight into the nature of the moral life than one can find in the mainstream media, suburban churches, or America’s halls of power. Rather, he talks about many of the same things politicians and social critics discuss but with a “ghetto point of view.” He recognizes many of the problems that exist within American life, but his take, shaped by his moral experience of our social-political structures, is a bit different than those who haven’t seen what he’s seen.

In addition, he frequently refers to Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and even Jesus in his songs and claims to be following in their footsteps. Jay-Z understands himself, not unlike Tupac Shakur or The Notorious B.I.G., to be a rapper who challenges the status quo through his art. Specifically, he challenges the status quo by giving voice to those who are at best ignored and at worst silenced in American public discourse. He makes people who wouldn’t normally hear such voices (especially suburban youth) listen to, and take seriously, the stories of those trapped in a cycle of poverty, drugs, violence, prison, and death. And he speaks to those still trapped in such a cycle as to give them hope and perseverance. At least, this is what he claims.

“I’m like Che Guevara with bling on, I’m complex…”

Of course, not everyone agrees with him. He is not Public Enemy, dead prez, or KRS-One. His music is often commercial and materialistic. For instance, one of the biggest hits of his career is a song titled “Big Pimpin’“. And he has been called out on this seeming contradiction in his music and message (you must read the whole thing, with an excerpt from Decoded).

Of course, Che Guevara is one of the most well-known Communist revolutionaries in history. Marxist social theory does not exactly extol the virtues of owning lots of extravagant luxury items, to say the least. So, to have a platinum necklace encrusted with diamonds in the shape of Jesus’s face (it’s own contradiction) bouncing off of Che Guevara’s commodified face is a glaring contradiction. Jay-Z’s response?

But to have contradictions–especially when you’re fighting for your life–is human, and to wear the Che shirt and platinum and diamonds together is honest. In the end I wore it because I meant it. – Jay-Z, Decoded, 27.

“I consider myself a revolutionary because I’m a [black man and a] self-made millionaire in a racist society.”

Since Decoded was released Jay-Z released an album with another artist whose career has been full of contradictions. Watch the Throne addresses these contradictions – between revolutionary politics, capitalist success, surviving and transcending the life of the street, and material indulgence – head on. It is, in part, Jay-Z and Kanye West’s defense of their luxurious lives. The most explicit defense is found in two songs: “Murder to Excellence” and “Made in America.” (Please listen closely to both songs.)

“Murder to Excellence” begins by recounting the, not so nice, state of black life in America. Specifically, it documents the high rates of violence that plague primarily black inner-city neighborhoods. This fact is most poignantly summed up in Kanye West’s line, “It’s a war going on outside we aint safe from…314 soldiers died in Iraq, 509 died in Chicago.” The song then moves, with an abrupt change in beat, to an account of America’s black elite and the possibilities of success for black people in America. However, the song also laments the very few members of that “black elite.” Jay and ‘Ye call throughout the song for black solidarity to move from “murder” to “excellence.” This is most poignantly stated in Jay-Z’s line from the very first verse, “N****s watching the throne, very happy to be you/Power to the people, when you see me, see you.”

“Made in America” recounts both Kanye West and Jay-Z’s rise to success. Kanye rose from being an obscure independent music producer in Chicago to an international superstar, and Jay-Z rose from selling crack cocaine to being one of America’s richest people. The interesting thing here, however, is that they recount these stories in light of a chorus that places them in the trajectory of Martin, Malcolm, and Jesus as black people who have “made it in America.” In addition, their primary music video and performances in promotion of the album have included over-the-top American flags. Jay and ‘Ye intend to make it clear that they are doing nothing else than living the American dream.

A common theme in black American political life has been the choice, for simplicity’s sake, between “integration” and “separation,” “revolution” and “reformation.” This has historically been symbolized by the historical “choosing sides” between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois in the early twentieth century, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X in the second half of the twentieth century. In hip hop, perhaps this dichotomy is most clearly demonstrated in the constant debates about “conscious” hip hop and “commercial” rap. The key figures, for many, in this debate might be Chuck D or KRS-One and Jay-Z.

However, Jay-Z refuses to accept this dichotomy. Rather, he insists that he can integrate into the system and still be a revolutionary. More accurately, he insists that no matter how much success he achieves in the American economic and political system he can never fully be integrated. Therefore, his success is a revolutionary act because he is successful in spite of a system that intends to keep him from being successful. This doesn’t shield him from any critiques of materialist excess, hedonism, and the like, but it does nuance how one understands what he’s doing in his music.

“So I got rich and gave back, to me that’s the win-win”

How [do] you rate music/That thugs with nothin’ relate to it?”

In Decoded Jay-Z makes it clear that his life trajectory – from experiencing the effects of crack cocaine in American urban ghettos in the 1980s to becoming a global business – mirrors the trajectory of hip hop music. His story is, in many ways, the story of hip hop music. His ethics are, in many ways, the ethics of hip hop. Hip hop music is full of revolutionary politics, misogynistic patriarchy, material excess, religious devotion, sex, drugs, and violence, and the hopes and dreams of multiple generations. It is, in this way, a quintessentially American form of music. However, these Americans are those that have historically been excluded from being part of the American story. Jay-Z claims that he can be a revolutionary millionaire because he has now made their story part of the American story.

Whether this is true or not is up for debate. Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) has recently challenged whether this can be true or not in his new remix of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s extravagant celebration of extravagance, “N****s in Paris,” in his song and video “N****s in Poorest.” In this song, in an explicit reference to the Jay and ‘Ye album Watch the Throne, Yasiin calls people to “don’t get caught up in no throne…[because] They silver and they gold, aint never saved a soul.” Clearly, there are still many people who feel you have to choose, in the end, one or the other.

Jay-Z has tried to maintain a moral stance in the midst of selling crack and becoming a multi-millionaire. In both arenas he appeals to his context and dares people to judge his actions as immoral. Many are willing to judge them positively or negatively, but he refuses to choose, for himself, one or the other. He believes he can retain his moral integrity while living in the messy middle. He believes he can be a revolutionary millionaire. A moral drug dealer and a moral pop musician selling, at the same time, sex and hope because, as he (and others) reminds us, he is simply living the American dream. His implicit stance is that, whether selling drugs or music, one can be a moral capitalist and, therefore, attempts to redefine the definition of “revolution” in black political thought. He is not Marcus Garvey or Fred Hampton (even if he was born on the day Hampton died) nor is he Booker T. or Martin. Rather, he is paving his own way of living a morally coherent life in America.

Jay-Z, and hip hop music, can be judged, as all people can, regarding his morality. However, he insists that if you’re going to do so you must do so by taking seriously the contexts of his life – America’s urban ghettoes, America’s racist history, and America’s capitalist economy. Must one choose the purity of revolutionary separation or total inclusion if one is black and poor in America? Jay-Z not only answers with an emphatic, “NO!”, but insists that neither is actually possible. Morals in rap is not an oxymoron, then, but is something completely different.

Further Resources

To explore this topic further I recommend reading Arther Kleinman’s book What Really Matters to understand his argument about how morality actually functions in the world, and Jay-Z’s stunning book Decoded. Also, a few weeks back a friend asked me to put together an 80 minute Jay-Z playlist to introduce someone to his music. I think that playlist works especially well to understand the dynamics I’ve talked about in this post. The playlist is below:

1. Can’t Knock the Hustle feat. Mary J. Blige [Reasonable Doubt]
2. D’Evils [Reasonable Doubt]
3. Regrets [Reasonable Doubt]
4. Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) [Vol. 2...Hard Knock Life]
5. This Can’t Be Life feat. Beanie Sigel and Scarface [The Dynasty: Roc La Familia]
6. U Don’t Know [The Blueprint]
7. Heart of the City (Aint No Love) [The Blueprint]
8. Song Cry [The Blueprint]
9. Renegade feat. Eminem [The Blueprint]
10. Meet the Parents [The Blueprint 2]
11. Public Service Announcement [The Black Album]
12. Empire State of Mind feat. Alicia Keys [The Blueprint 3]
13. Murder to Excellence (with Kanye West) [Watch the Throne]
14. Made in America (with Kanye West) [Watch the Throne]
15. Glory feat. B.I.C. (aka his daughter, Blue Ivy Carter) [No Album]