Okay...I understand that Descendants of Mandi is a genealogy website--but I hope that anyone who comes across this post will bear with me. I feel that I MUST comment on the media barrage surrounding Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, which has been much in the news of late in connecion with it's most famous member, Barack Obama. You know things have gotten bad when the mighty TIME Magazine decides to join Fox's negative pile-on, slamming Chicago's Black Community and attempting to denegrade Senator Barrack Obama because of statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his (and Trinity's) former pastor. I've taken special interest in the growing media frenzy...mostly because Obama is my Senator and I have visited his church on many occasions. To call TIME's coverage shallow is an understatement. The article was written by Lori Reese, a reporter who seems to have very limited knowledge of Chicago.
Checkout the original post at this link.
CLICK HERE
The article, which I reproduce here without permission, appeared under photos of Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the headline read
A Visit to Obama's Chicago Church
By LORI REESE/CHICAGO
The Trinity United Church of Christ vibrated with cheers throughout the four-hour Good Friday service. When the last of seven guest preachers, Rev. Rudolph McKissick, Jr. unleashed his anger against the recent media storm that catapulted Trinity to global notoriety, the crowd rose to their feet. McKissick thundered: "Fox News, CNN, ABC ... they're so stupid that they don't even know the word 'damn' is not a profanity but a Hebraic proclivity, meaning God's curse will fall on all those who defy his love. They know not with whom they are messing. Jeremiah Wright might have retired in body, but just like Jesus, he's coming back more powerful than ever! Damn you! Damn anyone who messes with the anointed." At that, a TUCC member leaned over and said to TIME with a sigh, "Well, I guess that one's on the record."
Pastors and congregation members alike had reason to think that. Media outlets had brought cameras, flashbulbs and crass questions to Trinity's doors for days and shocked the congregation with commentary that branded Rev. Wright Jr. a leader of a "black supremacist cult." The day's overwhelming message: This church will continue its ministry work — no matter who's watching or what they say. And it brought shouts and tears from the pews.
Barack Obama's recent perils were featured in sermons, too. Rev. Lester A. McCorn compared the candidate's recent trials to Michael Jordans performance in the 1997 NBA finals, when the basketball superstar seemed debilitated by fever but nevertheless joined the game and, though sluggish, took the ball with 24 seconds left on the clock and scored the winning three-point shot. "Swish, Barack! You are back in the game!" McCorn shouted to great applause.
The sermons focused primarily on healing wounds inflicted during the past few weeks. "It doesn't matter how anyone portrays you, Trinity," Rev. McKissick continued. "You know who you are. No one can take away your power to write your own destiny." Preachers called out numerous institutions — not just TV networks. African-American rappers that glamorize violence and sexist barbs in the name of "keeping it real" were the subject of vitriolic tirades, too. "Why, they're no better than prosperity-pimping preachers!" shouted Father Michael Pfleger, a popular white Catholic priest, whose messages have raised eyebrows among his own Church's leaders.
The bulk of Trinity-goers are among the thousands living on Chicago's South Side, a sprawl of cracked sidewalks and boarded buildings that inspires fear among the city's middle classes, and even its wizened cabbies. "You won't find a ride back," the taxi driver told this reporter upon arriving at the church. For South Side residents, the best jobs are two hours away via public transport: a bus, an el transfer, and then another bus brings you to Hyde Park, the area's lone upscale community. The few city-planning efforts to assist South Siders only worsened the situation. The most notorious were the Robert Taylor Homes, prison-like warrens with barred windows, circling police and neglected facilities that often left residents without electricity, heat and plumbing housed thousands until they finally came down in February 2007. The majority of those who died during the 1994 heat wave that killed more than 700 people were South Side residents. Before Katrina, it was the deadliest natural catastrophe in the U.S. since the 19th century. The morgues ran out of room. Bodies were piled in milk trucks.
With outreach programs and ministries, Trinity succeeds in providing more for the South Side than any other church, government or private institution. Rev. Luke Watson, another Good Friday speaker, credited Wright for guiding him away from life of crime, which started early with an absent father and a mother addicted to crack. "I was like that thug, the criminal next to Jesus," Rev. Watson said. "I thought, what's that guy doing here? He ain't done nothing. I'm the real sinner." Wright had taught him that God loves sinners, too. "I learned that I wasn't born bad," and then he spoke on the passage in Mark, when Jesus turns to the thief next to him on the cross and says, "Verily ... though shalt be with me." Good Friday marks the holiest day of the year for many African-American Christians, according to Dwight Hopkins, a theologian at University of Chicago's Divinity School. The "strange fruit" that swung from Southern trees bears striking resemblance to Roman crucifixion.
Trinity's own Roman-like architecture is unfamiliar for a church, which might explain why some outsiders found it cultish and strange. The congregation meets in a theater-in-the round, designed after secular buildings like the Parthenon and the U.S. Congress. Stained-glass windows flanking the entrance feature images of African-American leaders, not saints: W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. There is also a glass sculpture of a man resembling Obama. Above it, light streams through block-lettered words: "VOTE. We need YOU." For now at least, Trinity may offer the only refuge for South Siders longing to experience the blessing of democracy.
My response to TIME:
I emailed the following letter to the editors at TIME...since they probably won't run it, I decided to reproduce it here.
Leave it to TIME to describe my South Side Chicago neighborhood in such dismal terms that it is absolutely unrecognizable. Simply stated, your article made my blood boil, but believe it or not, it is one of the few I've read lately that made even a feeble attempt at balance. Is it really fair to characterize the South Side with a housing project that has been torn down for more than five years? Or heat wave deaths that are more than 12 years old and killed people all over the city and metropolitan area? Is it balanced to profile former a self-professed "thug" without mentioning the row upon row of college educated congregants who also share Trinity's pews? I'm a graduate of University of Illinois, with a Masters Degree from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. When I visit Trinity, I am surrounded by many people whose educational achievements equal or outstrip my own. The cracked sidewalks we walk upon have more to do with our harsh winters than our "underclass" status. Thanks for following Fox's lead and piling on. Now that your contempt is on the record, maybe someone can follow up with a little balance ...real balance would be nice. I suggest that you send someone who knows a little bit about Chicago next time.
Sorry for the digression, but some things need to be said.
Labels: Barack Obama, black self image, Media Bias, TIME Magazine, Trinity UCC
