A word to Meeks: Words do matter
A word to Meeks: Words do matter
BY CAROL MARIN
August 2, 2006
COPYRIGHT BY THE SUN-TIMES
James Meeks, the reverend and state senator, has a powerful voice. His reach stretches beyond the confines of his 22,000-member Salem Baptist Church on Chicago's South Side. It's bigger than the political boundaries of the Illinois Legislature where he has served since 2002. His voice is even broadcast in 28 prisons in Illinois and Louisiana thanks to $175,000 in satellite equipment and downlinks Salem Baptist provides for inmates who could not otherwise attend Meeks' two-hour Sunday service.
When the Rev./Sen. Meeks speaks, people listen. That's why his quote from a July 5 sermon has taken on a life of its own. In it he talked about "house niggers."
And yes, I spelled out the n-word. Not because I think it's anything other than a despicable, disgusting word. But because on Tuesday, Meeks and I were able to talk at length about exactly what he said and why he said it. It's a word he does not shrink from.
Meeks' remarks, though they were made three weeks earlier and generated no stir at the time, came into wider public view last week. That's when Meeks led a march downtown to denounce the quality of Chicago public schools under the leadership of Mayor Daley. Some of the protesters carried signs saying "End apartheid in Chicago schools." Chicago public schools are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. Meeks doesn't rule out a 2007 mayoral bid.
That theme of "apartheid" was something Meeks preached about from the pulpit in early July. He compared white elected officials to "slave masters" who "never want the slave to learn how to read and never want the slave to learn how to write. So now we don't have slave masters," he said, "we got governors ... we got mayors." Taking aim at black leaders who support those white politicians, he said, "What makes me so mad is... you got some preachers that are house niggers. You got some elected officials that are house niggers."
He didn't name names but it didn't matter.
It is, to my ears, an awful charge.
Would Meeks talk to me about all of this? "I would be 100 percent glad to talk to you about that," he said. He was on a cell phone in his car just leaving the installation of Bobbie Steele as the first African-American woman head the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Meeks had delivered the invocation there.
I asked if he regretted saying what he said. "The thing I regret," he told me, ". . . is that it's taken the educational argument out of its context and it's diverted attention away at a time when I can least afford to have people focusing on something different than the educational argument."
But, he hastened to add, he spoke to his congregation for the better part of an hour and offered a much larger context for his words. He talked about how state constitutions in the days of slavery had legislated black ignorance and illiteracy. That terms like "slave master" and "house nigger" were an accepted part of the language at that time in history.
I know a little bit about soundbites. And I confess, I didn't hear Meeks' whole sermon. But I would argue this isn't 1865.
It's 2006. And Chicago.
Today we are in desperate need of a better civic discourse than we ever seem to have. And race is always a combustible part of our conversation in this town.
As my Sun-Times colleague, Mary Mitchell, has pointed out in her recent columns on the use of the term "white boy," words can be thrown like rocks.
And while I understand, sort of, how black people can call each other names that white people can't and vice versa, I don't like the double standard, no matter what the race or ethnicity, and never have.
In 1983, I covered Bernard Epton's election campaign against Harold Washington. Epton, a white long-shot candidate, didn't even need epithets against Washington, a black man, to get his racial point across. His campaign message was only five words: "Epton . . . Before It's Too Late."
Meeks and I talked a lot about words. Words we once used thoughtlessly, words we would never use today. As a child growing up, he admits, he and everyone he knew called Maxwell Street "Jewtown," something he would never say today. As a beginning reporter in Chicago, I can remember asking "Who's his Chinaman?" when trying to figure out somebody's political clout. I do not ever say that now.
Words matter.
Meeks has a lot to say about the issues, and I look forward to his message and the debate it provokes. But unless I miss my guess, this could prove to be a brutal, even poisonous political season. He, and we, need to be mindful.
Words matter.
BY CAROL MARIN
August 2, 2006
COPYRIGHT BY THE SUN-TIMES
James Meeks, the reverend and state senator, has a powerful voice. His reach stretches beyond the confines of his 22,000-member Salem Baptist Church on Chicago's South Side. It's bigger than the political boundaries of the Illinois Legislature where he has served since 2002. His voice is even broadcast in 28 prisons in Illinois and Louisiana thanks to $175,000 in satellite equipment and downlinks Salem Baptist provides for inmates who could not otherwise attend Meeks' two-hour Sunday service.
When the Rev./Sen. Meeks speaks, people listen. That's why his quote from a July 5 sermon has taken on a life of its own. In it he talked about "house niggers."
And yes, I spelled out the n-word. Not because I think it's anything other than a despicable, disgusting word. But because on Tuesday, Meeks and I were able to talk at length about exactly what he said and why he said it. It's a word he does not shrink from.
Meeks' remarks, though they were made three weeks earlier and generated no stir at the time, came into wider public view last week. That's when Meeks led a march downtown to denounce the quality of Chicago public schools under the leadership of Mayor Daley. Some of the protesters carried signs saying "End apartheid in Chicago schools." Chicago public schools are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. Meeks doesn't rule out a 2007 mayoral bid.
That theme of "apartheid" was something Meeks preached about from the pulpit in early July. He compared white elected officials to "slave masters" who "never want the slave to learn how to read and never want the slave to learn how to write. So now we don't have slave masters," he said, "we got governors ... we got mayors." Taking aim at black leaders who support those white politicians, he said, "What makes me so mad is... you got some preachers that are house niggers. You got some elected officials that are house niggers."
He didn't name names but it didn't matter.
It is, to my ears, an awful charge.
Would Meeks talk to me about all of this? "I would be 100 percent glad to talk to you about that," he said. He was on a cell phone in his car just leaving the installation of Bobbie Steele as the first African-American woman head the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Meeks had delivered the invocation there.
I asked if he regretted saying what he said. "The thing I regret," he told me, ". . . is that it's taken the educational argument out of its context and it's diverted attention away at a time when I can least afford to have people focusing on something different than the educational argument."
But, he hastened to add, he spoke to his congregation for the better part of an hour and offered a much larger context for his words. He talked about how state constitutions in the days of slavery had legislated black ignorance and illiteracy. That terms like "slave master" and "house nigger" were an accepted part of the language at that time in history.
I know a little bit about soundbites. And I confess, I didn't hear Meeks' whole sermon. But I would argue this isn't 1865.
It's 2006. And Chicago.
Today we are in desperate need of a better civic discourse than we ever seem to have. And race is always a combustible part of our conversation in this town.
As my Sun-Times colleague, Mary Mitchell, has pointed out in her recent columns on the use of the term "white boy," words can be thrown like rocks.
And while I understand, sort of, how black people can call each other names that white people can't and vice versa, I don't like the double standard, no matter what the race or ethnicity, and never have.
In 1983, I covered Bernard Epton's election campaign against Harold Washington. Epton, a white long-shot candidate, didn't even need epithets against Washington, a black man, to get his racial point across. His campaign message was only five words: "Epton . . . Before It's Too Late."
Meeks and I talked a lot about words. Words we once used thoughtlessly, words we would never use today. As a child growing up, he admits, he and everyone he knew called Maxwell Street "Jewtown," something he would never say today. As a beginning reporter in Chicago, I can remember asking "Who's his Chinaman?" when trying to figure out somebody's political clout. I do not ever say that now.
Words matter.
Meeks has a lot to say about the issues, and I look forward to his message and the debate it provokes. But unless I miss my guess, this could prove to be a brutal, even poisonous political season. He, and we, need to be mindful.
Words matter.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 12:09 PM
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