Race

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The Washington Post's long quest to explain Buttigieg's race problem while ignoring religion

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The Washington Post had a front-page story this week on Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s “long quest to bridge racial gap,” as the print headline put it.

The online title: “Inside Pete Buttigieg’s years-long, and often clumsy, quest to understand the black experience.”

You get the idea.

According to the Post article, the surprise 2020 contender’s struggle to connect with African Americans goes back to his college days.

Even though the piece tops 3,000 words — a novel in the world of newspapers — one crucial factor is hardly mentioned. Given that this is GetReligion, it probably won’t take you long to guess what.

If you’ll forgive me for sounding like a broken record, I’ll refer back to a post I wrote earlier this month asking, “Serious question: Is Buttigieg being gay a reason for his low support among black voters in the South?”

In that post, I noted:

The stories get into poverty and other crucial issues, but I’m going to focus on a specific point raised in all three articles: the connection, if any, between Buttigieg’s sexual orientation and his low support among black voters in the Bible Belt.

I keep waiting for a major newspaper reporter (perhaps a Godbeat pro is available?) to explore that question. So far, it hasn’t happened. Or if it has, I missed it (in which case I’d welcome a link).

As for the Post story, it offers some interesting anecdotes on Buttigieg’s life experiences with African Americans, opening with his time as an intern for a black reporter in Chicago:


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If the byline says Sarah Pulliam Bailey, go ahead and count on an interesting, enlightening religion story

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Since I started writing for GetReligion nearly 10 years ago, I’ve cranked out probably 1,500 posts for this journalism-focused website.

Now, I have about 10 or 11 posts left before I transition to a new role with Religion Unplugged starting Jan. 1. If GR’s downsizing is news to you, be sure to check out tmatt’s post from Wednesday on his appointment as a senior fellow at Ole Miss’ Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics and the plans for GR moving forward.

The impending changes have made me a bit nostalgic. When I started at GR, my fellow contributors included Mollie Hemingway, now a conservative media star frequently retweeted by the president of the United States, and Sarah Pulliam Bailey, now an award-winning religion writer for the Washington Post. (Both are incredible human beings, by the way, just like all the contributors I’ve had an opportunity to know at GR.)

At GR, my role has been to analyze mainstream news coverage of religion and offer constructive tips for improvement. That has been tricky to do where Bailey is concerned because (1) she is a friend and former colleague and (2) she is a pro’s pro who doesn’t leave much room for criticism.

I’ve always wished we had a better way here at GR to just say: Hey, here is this really cool piece of religion journalism, and you ought to take the time to read it.

Actually, that’s what I’m about to say about Bailey’s piece this week on a Washington, D.C.-area pastor who confessed he’s tired and plans to take a sabbatical.

Yes, I could have said that way up top, but it wouldn’t have filled an entire post. And for a little bit longer, I have a quota to reach. (Thank you, by the way, to tmatt for putting up with me and my weird sense of humor all these years!)

Bailey’s story opens with this compelling scene:


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Thinking along with Stephen L. Carter: What's at stake in Salvation Army culture wars?

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We live in an age, alas, of predictable reporting and predictable opinions coming from the keyboards of predictable writers.

However, Yale University law professor Stephen L. Carter has, for a couple of decades, been one of the pundits who — in his essays, columns and books — very, very rarely fit into the predictable molds seen in the chattering classes.

This weekend’s think piece is a perfect example of Carter doing that thing that he does, in a Bloomberg column that ran under this double-decker headline: “The Salvation Army's Actions Speak Louder Than Its Theology — Judge volunteers on their actions, not their religious beliefs.”

The hook for the piece is, logically enough, the Thanksgiving weekend and the appearance — from coast to coast — of the familiar Salvation Army red kettles and the bell ringers asking shoppers to make donations to help the poor and needy.

This image of American life and community has, of course, become controversial in recent years for a simple reason — the Salvation Army is a church that clings (hello President Barack Obama) to traditional Christian teachings on the Bible, marriage and sex. Toss in the decision by Chick fil-A leaders to add some waffling to their chicken and you have a mess in the public square.

So what does Carter have to add to this discussion?

… (In) keeping with the season of giving thanks, I want to focus on a different problem: the effects on the volunteer sector of any boycott based on the teachings of a religion. 

Religious groups, regardless of their theology, provide assistance to millions who are unable to help themselves. Without religiously motivated volunteers, we would have scarcely any volunteer sector at all.


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Kanye West visits Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church for all-day media extravaganza

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There was some good theater in the world of religion this weekend, starting with the David Daleiden/Planned Parenthood verdict in San Francisco on Friday and ending with the Kanye West evening extravaganza at Houston’s Lakewood Church.

The Houston Chronicle set the stage, leading with West’s most inflammable quote during an appearance earlier that day at Lakewood’s main Sunday morning service.

Since his conversion, it was West’s first appearance before a crowd that wasn’t necessarily fans of his music. But there was that spiritual connection.

Kanye West may have found God. But he’s still brandishing his trademark cockiness.

“Jesus has won the victory because now the greatest artist that God has ever created is now working for Him,” West said onstage Sunday at Lakewood Church.

The rapper spoke onstage with Joel Osteen for about 20 minutes, his first of two appearances at the megachurch. …

During the brief, sometimes rambling conversation, West, 42, talked about his battle with the Devil, mental breakdown and subliminal messages in the media. He prayed with Osteen and praised the televangelist’s “anointed words.”

The Chronicle also said the two men were actually friends, which seems like an odd mix, as they run in completely separate circles. I’d like to know what moved Osteen to invite West.

Whatever happened, it turned out to be a brilliant idea, in terms of publicity.

Other than the Chronicle, the major media covering this event were the local networks and TMZ, the Hollywood news-gossip site. The spectacle of the famous rapper joining forces with the leader of America’s largest church was sheer catnip for TMZ, which broke the story of West coming to Lakewood.

(In the years I worked for the Houston Chronicle, Lakewood’s building was known as The Summit, a 16,800-seat concert venue and home of the NBA’s Houston Rockets. Then evangelistic wunderkind Rev. Joel Osteen bought the place in 2010.)

It proved to be a perfect setting for a Kanye concert.


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The Washington Post's 'race whisperer' account: more complicated than you might expect

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The story of preacher and activist James Stern, as told by Katie Mettler for The Washington Post, initially resembles that of Ron Stallworth (author of Black Klansman) or musician Daryl Davis (featured in the documentary Accidental Courtesy).

That isn’t a bad thing. There is an immediate appeal to stories of people who outwit their would-be oppressors.

Stern’s method differed significantly because, as Mettler writes, his “do-gooder credentials were accompanied by a history of criminal opportunism.”

The story of Stern engaging with Jeff Schoep, former leader of the National Socialist Movement, remains fascinating, but there is a bittersweet quality to its resolution, at least for readers who care more about redemption than vengeance.

Mettler’s feature of nearly 4,800 words is part of a Post series on “those who commit acts of hatred, those who are targets of attacks, and those who investigate and prosecute them.”

The story is, sadly, hampered by its scant attention the role of faith in Stern’s life.

A photograph by Philip Cheung shows him preaching at Quinn African Methodist Episcopal Church in Moreno Valley, Calif., but the story makes no reference to what was said in that sermon. Another photo shows Stern praying with three board members he appointed to oversee the National Socialist Movement after he convinced Schoep to sign over the control of that group. What was said? The story says nothing more about it.

This is the one segment in which Mettler touches on how Stern’s faith prompted him to show compassion toward an elderly Edgar Ray Killen, when they both were serving time at the Mississippi State Penitentiary:


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After haunted obit, AP produces solid piece on black church's role in Rep. Elijah Cummings' life

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I wrote last week that The Associated Press’ obituary on Congressman Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland was haunted by religion ghosts.

I pointed to the strong role of faith in Cummings’ life and noted that publications such as the Washington Post and Cummings’ hometown Baltimore Sun reflected it.

I voiced hope that AP would recognize that angle in its later coverage.

As the Rolling Stones put it, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

But hey, sometimes you can.

AP produced a solid piece out of Detroit this week on how the “Black Baptist church shaped Cummings’ commitment”:

DETROIT (AP) — To many black clergy, Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings was more than a formidable orator, civil rights champion and passionate public servant, he was also one of them — in practice, if not profession.

His upbringing, as “a preacher’s kid” gave him a comfort level with ministers and clergy to the point they “almost regarded him as a preacher,” said the Rev. Charles Williams II, senior pastor of Detroit’s Historic King Solomon Missionary Baptist Church.

Cummings, the son of a sharecropper and pastors who died last Thursday at 68, was among a generation of lawmakers, civil rights leaders and social justice advocates who grew up under the influence of the African American church. From Martin Luther King Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church to Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, the black church is intertwined in African American history and the struggle for equality. It was the primary institution for organizing demonstrations, providing training and selecting leaders. Part of the role was instilling in those leaders a commitment to speaking for those who could not speak for themselves, giving one’s life in service to the community and standing against injustice.

Black pastors and historians alike remember Cummings, who will be buried in Baltimore Friday, as a man who absorbed the lessons of the church and exemplified its teachings in serving his constituents.


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Obituary of powerful Congressman Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland haunted by religion ghosts

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There’s sad, sad news today in the world of politics: the death of powerful Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland.

The Associated Press obituary — which will be the one many thousands of Americans read — captures key highlights of Cummings’ prominent life.

Yes, those highlights include clashing with President Donald Trump:

BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a sharecropper’s son who rose to become a civil rights champion and the chairman of one of the U.S. House committees leading an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, died Thursday of complications from longstanding health problems. He was 68.

Cummings was a formidable orator who advocated for the poor in his black-majority district , which encompasses a large portion of Baltimore and more well-to-do suburbs.

As chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings led investigations of the president’s government dealings, including probes in 2019 relating to Trump’s family members serving in the White House.

But read the full AP report, and it’s clear that something is missing.

Holy ghosts, anyone?

AP offers hints of a potential religious influence in Cummings’ life, including here:

It steeled Cummings to prove that counselor wrong. He became not only a lawyer, but one of the most powerful orators in the statehouse, where he entered office in 1983. He rose to become the first black House speaker pro tem. He would begin his comments slowly, developing his theme and raising the emotional heat until it became like a sermon from the pulpit.

Hmmmmm. Why might Cummings’ oratory have resembled a sermon?


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Grand unified theory in Acela zone: Selfish Jesusland yokels just don't know what's good for them

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In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, a few newsroom managers sent reporters into the backward lands between America’s coastal super-cities in an attempt to understand what was bugging the yokels in flyover country.

Every now and then one of the big newspapers runs another National Geographic-style feature of this kind — since the odds are good that Jesusland voters will reject the 2020 candidate chosen by the Democratic National Committee and the Acela Zone chattering classes. It’s important to know what the great unwashed multitudes are thinking, since that’s an important source of material for late-night comics.

From a GetReligion point of view, these pieces almost always yield edgy examples of how many journalists see little or no difference between “political” beliefs and convictions that are rooted in ancient or modern forms of religious faith. Repeat after me: All things “political” are real. “Religion” is sort of real, or it is real to the degree that it affects “real” life, as in politics or economics.

This brings me a perfect example of this equation, a New York Times opinion essay by Monica Potts, who is currently doing research for a book about low-income women in Arkansas. This piece zoomed into the weekend must-read lists in many progressive corners of cyberspace. Here’s the double-decker headline:

In the Land of Self-Defeat

What a fight over the local library in my hometown in rural Arkansas taught me about my neighbors’ go-it-alone mythology — and Donald Trump’s unbeatable appeal.

As a rule, your GetReligionistas do not critique opinion pieces of this kind. So why mention this one?

To make a long story short, I could not resist noting a specific passage in this essay that serves as a kind of grand unified theory of how many journalists view the American heartland and the truly despicable — or at the very least lost and sad — people who live out there.

This long essay includes next to nothing, when it comes to reporting and writing about religion.


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Wink and nod: What was a black girl doing at Karen Pence's 'Christian' school anyway?

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Wink and nod: What was a black girl doing at Karen Pence's 'Christian' school anyway?

In many ways, it was the perfect “white evangelical” horror story.

So you had an African-American sixth-grader who reported that she was bullied by three boys who taunted her with racial insults and cut off some of her dreadlocks. This took place at a “Christian” school where Karen Pence, as in the wife of Donald Trump’s loyal vice president, has taught off and on for more than a decade.

It’s a story that, in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), host Todd Wilken and I explored on three levels, as in the three parts of a click-bait equation.

First, there is the story of the accusations of an alleged assault, which turned out not to be true, according to the girl’s family.

That was a tragic local story. What made it a national story?

That’s the second level of this story — the key click-bait link to Trump World. That was especially true in a rather snarky NBC News online report (which even worked in an LGBTQ angle, due to the school’s doctrinal statement on marriage and sex).

But that wasn’t the angle that interested me the most. No, I was interested in the school itself. I imagine that lots of readers much have thought to themselves (I will paraphrase): What in the world is a black girl doing enrolled at the kind of white evangelical Trump-loving alleged Christian school that would Mrs. Mike Pence would be teach at for a dozen years or so?

Thus, I was interested in the following paragraph of factual material that was included in two Washington Post stories about this case:


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