Racism in White Lutheran Church and other faithful white supremacy pundits.

The rejection of the Movement in Omaha for Racial Equity (MORE) by North Omaha Mount Olive’s Church (Parish Planning Council) collaboration because of the MORE web page attacking white supremacy and racism in various institutions.

Some months ago, the chair of MORE attended an excellent discussion by a white historical pundit about an overview of schools, churches, and how North Omaha communities evolved over the decades. Adam Fletcher Sasse is known for promoting information for those with artificial intelligence and speaking to groups about such topics. His social media depicts stories that have impacted Omaha’s history since the late 1800s and are the best narrative of North Omaha in the state. Although his specialty is North Omaha, some racial issues are part of his expertise. Adam is invited to share his latest research with this church four times yearly. After his presentation and talking to a few church leaders, the executive director and the secretary seemed excited about continuing interracial discussions about racial healing and reconciliation with a community-based MORE and anti-racist organization.

The church’s representative said they would get back to me after Easter. About a month passed, and I received a voicemail and email sharing that they could not work with Movement in Omaha for Racial Equity because of our webpage verbiage. The Parish Council reviewed our webpage and found it objectionable.

When we hear great speakers in Omaha, too often, organizers will not implement their teachings, as indicated by being stuck on maintaining the plantation education and school-to-prison pipeline for African Americans with the assistance of their Negro sidekicks and so-called Diversity Equity and Inclusive staff (DEI).

Lutheran Churches are one of the whitish churches in the United States. After reading a series of books by Dietrick Bonhoeffer, who was murdered for fighting against the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews, one would think white Lutherans would be open to racial and anti-discrimination justice. Ironically, this is similar to Jewish folks in the United States who refused to accept this country and committed the same genocidal acts against the Native Americans and Africans during the enslavement.

The recent law passed by Congress and the proposed State law of L.B 679 introduced by Senator Day of Nebraska to exclude teaching about other racial groups illustrate this smug mentality toward history and their provincial understanding of faith. The bill in Congress is H.R. 6090, passed and is moving into uncharted waters. In Nebraska, a Holocaust education bill for schools was introduced by Senator Jen Day in 2023. It was indefinitely postponed in 2024. However, it treats the concept of Antisemitism as sacrosanct, contrasted to antiracism. Robert Wolfson, a retired ADL director and leader in Omaha and the national office of ADL, told me he was one of the minority Jewish people fighting against this proposed state law last year. As we embrace our differences, build upon reducing problems in our communities, and bring our worlds together, how can we make significant racial social capital amongst certain faith groups without reciprocity in our engagement?

White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. Robert P. Jones, a white theologian, speaks about racism and religion in this book. Moreover, his visit to Omaha to speak at the Tri-Faith Race and Face Conference illustrates problems in this community and nationally. These apartheid white supremacy faith institutions will not understand the salient aspects of their supremacy because of their inability to deal with the content. Omaha has a video made in 1966 which was called A Time for Burning, which repeats historical behaviors or predicts these racists in white churches. The essence of the video is a young African American barber named Ernie Chambers (who later became a Nebraska state senator for over 46 years and had lifelong influence over the unicameral) who had a robust discussion with a white minister about improving integration and race relations in 1966 Omaha. The film was nominated for an academic award but did not win. It became one of the best secrets in racist Omaha, Nebraska, and rarely was shared in educational institutions.

Many have come to the sad realization that white supremacy personalities should have places where they can worship with their kind. Yet, why must People of Color pay taxes that support Fire, police support, and other public utilities for places that refuse seats on the main floor instead of the balcony in these worship centers? How can African Americans get justice or a sense of fair play when inbreed racists refuse to deal with the reality of our conditions or the numbers and data that depict disparities and racism? Again, considering the climate and lack of engagement of community members, are we to blame for over 400 years of enslavement and Jim Crow treatment at the hands of those unknown? Are only white speakers allowed to talk at that church about racial issues? This illustrates that many of their members should read Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” It’s ironic how much history repeats itself. If we are serious about racist behaviors, we must invite “Victims of America’s Nightmare,” as Malcolm X used to call American Democracy for Blacks, to the boards and leadership tables.

When I raised these comments to Bob, a retired Jewish leader, his statement was: -Ironically, the Jewish folks in the United States refused to accept this country committed the same acts against the Native Americans and Africans during the enslavement. He went on to say:

My only disagreement is the disregard for how marginalized people, to have economic participation, had to ignore parts of society that were historically unjust publicly.

In effect, Bob painted the picture that the safest African Americans, those who accept the status quo of racial oppression, have to downgrade their group identity or focus on racial issues.

However, when engaging in another conversation with another white pundit, Andrew did not like the word racism. He said, in many ways, that it causes a shutdown, and what we are talking about are other isms, and talking about it leads to racism. Andrew retorts: This should cause you to reflect on how anti-racism ends up leading to racism.

Bob said, Of course, our community is complex (like all communities who live with “other status”), and there are and have been people who fully embrace inherited narratives from the dominant culture. However, in raw terms of alignment of historical struggles toward ending slavery and disparate economics based on immutable characteristics, the Jewish tradition focuses on freedom, liberation, and rejection of human superiority.

Some would argue that Jews could care less about others but merely how they focus on their needs and justice by operating in self-interest. As one Jewish person said, the (holocaust) experience taught us that we must care for ourselves and excel at making ourselves useful.

White God can’t bless me when my people are suffering. As Ernie Chambers said in the Time for Burning: Take your white corrupt god with your white friends. Moreover, Mr. Chambers predicted that the racist Lutheran church would fire the white do-gooder minister for seeking integration in an apartheid society.

As Jimmy Cliff’s song refrain goes, too many people are suffering. Malcolm X said when they are lynching Black people, and the Black man cries for that god to save him, and he does not, maybe the victims of the lynching are worshiping the wrong god.

Many do not know that over 5,000 Africans were lynched in the United States for three centuries, and the unofficial count is 10,000 that were not counted. If students of history and Christians read the book By the Hands Unknown and the picture book, this is shared in each class I teach, and it should shape their realities of the real history of white racism. In that picture book of the many lynchings, whites collected pictures and body parts of the murdered Black folks. Include the Black woman who cut they cut the baby out of her belly during the lynching. Now you know why they won’t real Africans and African Americans teach at the University of No Opportunity.

We hope others, including Jewish folks and Christians, can see the similarities. Is it ironic that Jews can tell their stories about how they were murdered in other countries, and we can’t tell our stories in the Americas? In the Chicano movement, we can learn that racist Gingos on the Omaha city council are not your friends when they vote for a white supremacy person to be on the Omaha City Council in a predominantly Latino district. Many do not know all of the stuff Mexican Americans experience. Sometimes, the truth is too much for folks who are merely drinking out of the white teaspoon of racial knowledge. Many Americans are not aware that Mexican Americans were routinely lynched and murdered by the Gingos in the Southwest during the expansion into that region.

Many people seek local Chicano allies who can help with this uniform education. They must use history or unifying effort to defeat the British as Shaka Zula did when he destroyed them. The British, invaders in Southern Africa, returned with reinforcement and more powerful guns and defeated the Africans because we failed to stay united. The exact sequence happened at Little Big Horn when the Lakotas, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, under the leadership, got rid of that racist George A. Custer. That should be what we teach in Latino, Black, Native American, and Asia Studies at UNO and other places of higher education. Oppressed people in their lands lost the war because they prepared for a single battle. There is not one person of color teaching real diversity or liberatory education in Omaha or Nebraska; we have the imposters who are mere imports. Many of these agents or so-called colonists have mental health conditions that are not in concert with their respective communities, and they are not moving the social justice needle forward. It appears that many of them are given suck-up pills before they enter the classroom and perform their rotating acts.

Life is too short to hear the same old stories of folks who will not work to make the organizations stronger to fight the enemy. One cannot worship two white masters’ on the city council who are white supremacy personalities. People of Color should not use public holidays to raise funds for organizations whose members refuse to work for the liberation of those respective groups. Juneteenth and Cinco de Mayo come to mind. Capitalist vultures’ goal is to pimp the poor, which causes too many to focus on trivial events without any changes in the current oppressive conditions.

Beware of the comrades. That is a byline of one of the commentaries in South Africa about the so-called revolutionary who is now sleeping with the enemy. Citizen Concerned., She has over 31.5 thousand subscribers. Her name is Katlego Moagi. The commentary critiques the meltdown, load shedding, and problems in South Africa, mirroring what African Americans experienced in present-day apartheid-USA.

The other program that was enlightening was Penuel The Black Pen. He did a show with a Black woman called Mandisa Mashego, a Black Feminism, Back Woman Part 1 and Part Two illustrate the internal conflict that men and women have when discussing violence against women. In one of the shows, she deballed him. Penuel is a Black commentary expert with thousands of followers and five children from five different women, and he calls himself a feminist or supporter of women. It was a powerful interview where Mandisa controlled the narrative. Her calling out are those so-called allies who are men who oppressed and raped and committed violence against Black women as Black men in South Africa is a classic.

South Africa has one of the worst crime rates, murder rates, like Black Americans.

Yet, in the USA, we have many anti-gang programs, mentor programs, and other youth programs that refuse to go upstream and help hold parents responsible for their children. Professionals who sit behind plexiglass offices are not the solution to violence in the homes or communities. There are more racists and Uncle Toms making banks off our problems. It was reported that if they gave us all the funding for the social programs directly to the families, we could solve challenges in our community. The head of NorthStar, a youth program for boys and youth in North Omaha, has an Executive Director whose annual income is over $230,00 a year, and he has raised over 20 million dollars to build a new building over the past ten years. Yet, there is no longitudinal data to demonstrate a decrease in crime and improvement in the long-term incomes of the participants or their families.

What would happen if such funds were invested in families, and what could those families do to generate long-term family income over generations? We need to take some chapters about Jewish efforts to get worldwide support against racism practiced against People of Color. We are not talking about the genocide dance. The late Matthew Stelly, born in Hasting, Nebraska, said he does not go to public or community meetings because no one is learning if he is not teaching the dumbasK* (who can’t ask simple questions). If we try to gain knowledge or change the systems, we don’t work with folks with few or no outcomes. I am constantly reminded of Billy Preston’s song about nothing “nothing leaves nothing. If you to be with me, you got to be about something”.

It is hard to fight battles when one does not travel to those trenches. One of the critical lines that Mandisa Mashego said to the Panuel when he kept talking over her was why don’t you have this conversation by yourself as white supremacists do in their brainwashing educational system? You can’t have a dialogue if one side talks and says nothing but the same old dementia stories. Yes, we attempt to write in a language and speak in a voice that is not ours to earn a living in the apartheid system. Yet, such voices will not give the breadcrumbs to future generations or those born to climb off the Hamster wheel of racism.

We are still listening to what Malcolm X said over 60 years ago to understand the riddles of that time. Only this generation is getting a bust placed in the statehouse after 30 years of work because more believe his birth impacted Nebraska and the world. Tell that to the Old School Drill Team leader, the head or UNO Black Studies Department chair who refuses to advocate efforts to make a Malcolm X course mandatory because of the racism at that institution. The chair wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on hair texture and skin color in African American and what she has done since that to advance the theories of these Negroes. We have more opportunists teaching so-called diversity classes in Nebraska than anti-racist scholars. Need I say more?

A’Jamal-Rashad Byndon