Special of the week; Issue 19-69

NDE are the national educational radio network presents special of the week. The topic of racism is to be discussed over the next two weeks on special of the week with such speakers as Father James gloppy of Milwaukee Harvey Cox of Harvard David Lewis of the Canadian parliament Maxwell Cohen of McGill School of Law and Laurie LaPierre also of McGill. All recorded by the international service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation montréal. The two programs will deal mainly with racism in North America but will include examinations of characteristics inherent in racism. The world over and the rule discriminatory tendencies play in the relationships between industrialized and lesser developed nations. To begin the Roman Catholic priest from Milwaukee articulate and militant father James Guppy representing the new politics of confrontation. The title of this talk was supposed be the church the vanguard of society. And I

will start by saying that I have you know forgotten about what. The church's sensitivities are a long time ago if you're talking about the church in the sense of a hierarchy and white Christianity somewhere out there. Even in speaking to you today here I realize that I am going on a rocket ship and landed on another planet because this is a different world and I maintain this. I agree pretty much with rap in this that it's it's almost impossible to come into white America and to try to make white Americans understand exactly what is happening in the black community and exactly why black people do the things that they do in terms of trying to gain social equality and justice. I was in Minneapolis a while back and talking to some of the Black Power people there they said you know rap won't go out of the white audiences any longer he says. They tell me he says that it's impossible they just don't understand C but rap does

go out. Right now we can't. He's a prisoner in Manhattan you know. They will let him out of the town. But he does go out in order to bring back some bread and butter and I don't mind saying that this is one of the reasons why I'm here hope to bring home some bread and butter to fellows in the youth council the people the parish who are living in unbelievable poverty. My attitude towards the church towards white America in general in working in the black community has been this it's to stop looking over my shoulder you see to look at the people with whom I live with whom I work and it is their sensitivities that concern me and it is their sensitivities that determine the actions that I have taken in the market. The youth council has taken you know I came into the black community about five and a half years ago I worked in the black community previous to that as the director of a youth center for three years in the seminary and when I came into the black community it was a very fine friend of mine. Reverend Lou Walker a Baptist minister working for a Methodist organization.

But Lou a very good friend of mine and he said to me when he said Jim is that your acceptance in the community is going to be determined by the measure or the degree to which you commit yourself to the black man's struggle for equality and the eradication of racism and the youth have a nice quote you know in his on the wall in Northcote neighborhood also and that was this that if one was to influence the people who whose struggle you must first join their fight. This whole attitude in the attitude I think that most whites have when they come into the black community today although I've got questions about who comes in but it's all the attitude that you know that someone back there is constantly determining that individual's actions. This may be the sisters that come in you know it says come in a black community and preach some very beautiful things you know love and peace and all that sort of thing. I think it's miseducation because I think revolution has to be taught you know a revolution a correct sense but it's Mother Superior who lives

perhaps on a lakefront in a million dollar convent and we have marquis who determines exactly what SR is going to teach and what Sister Is Going To Do When this is the same thing with the school system and I think that the struggle of black people in New York to gain control of that school system is being determined by this that the white power structure is determining exactly what black children are learning in those schools and black people don't like it because there's two ways that the system can can hold the people down one is to not educate them. And the other is to mis educate them and what we've had in our school system Catholic and public in the black community is a mis educational system. And this this this is the this is what determines again I see the involvement or the extent to which an individual commits himself in the black community even as a priest it's the archbishop it's a minister it's again you know it's either his relatives his family or someone out there in white society that's always always putting up the caution light.

This has been the role of the church traditionally it's to come in and to bring peace where perhaps it's a very dynamic and radical action is necessary. I mentioned that earlier today just a sociologist that came into the black community during the summer of violence and walk you know if you came with a whole flock of sisters who were going to ring doorbells you know and talk to black people you know made the mistake of walking into St. Barnabas first you know and I told them to please get out go home we don't want you here. You know God we finally got a leverage of power we've got the whole darned state scared and you're going to come and take that lever away please go home. We don't want you here we don't need you. And I meant that very seriously even at a time in Dr. King's funeral you know. Walkie we didn't have violence at the time of Dr. King's funeral and this was because we tried to look at the man and what the man would have wanted us to do and it was the youth collets and the commandos Bonifas has become a kind of a

revolutionary center whenever there is something that happens in the black community I'm walking to immediately come to St. Barnabas the doors are open we discuss our problems. King got killed you know we were done and it was initial stunning you know and it just dropped you know and you know great sorrow you know no one really knew what to do. But it was a commanders of the youth council said well the man is nonviolent and we're going to look at the situation now and kind of judge our actions in accordance with His will. So we didn't have violence we had a number of prayer sessions a night in March and one day and then we gathered all the people I wanted we went to Atlanta to his funeral. But you know just to give you an example of this you know the sisters were going to come you know and sisters called Mother and Mother said well your place is there you know you shouldn't go to the funeral it's too far you know. I told her I was going to take our parish and park on her lawn.

She said well you better let him go you know and the sisters came along what I'm saying is that it was out there that eternal exact with the sisters were going to do you know in Selma Alabama that was more or less a religious oriented action led by Dr. King clergyman came all over the country and I thought this was fine you know everybody flooded into the south that's where the problem was it was a Southern problem. And then somebody began to read Melcombe Malcolm said Is everything south of the Canadian border. So we went south of the Canadian border. Apparently Malcolm never crossed the line never came in and maybe they would let him in I don't know. But that problem is a I think goes as far as the North Pole problem of racism. I know it's existence here. But anyway do you know summer was a place where everyone went. That was the thing to do. Sisters went down the clergyman went down there from all over the country. I have questions about Selma Alabama I think there were some tactical errors. I think we made a

certain tactical error in Waukee during our demonstrations if I had to do it again there'd be some differences. But at any rate everybody got beat down there and all the clergy ministers everybody else came down and all they they all want to get beaten to ever determine the tactics of the strategy didn't give him that privilege that honor they should have been very beautiful to see you know. Really you know bishops get their head knocked off this is a bit nice you know to create a bigger impact I think than black people who are living in poverty and are looked at as second rate anyway. And I think the cleaver is correct you know where was the term the tactics they should let them all get beat you know beautiful. Anyway I have met Stokely down there at that time was working for snake he was and he was in Mississippi and I just happen to be sitting in one of the homes in the black community black community was feeding everyone and

he was sitting next to me and said hello to him I asked him where he was coming from and where he was go and who he was I don't remember why but he told me just came out of Mississippi wearing coveralls. Need to come out of Mississippi alone. You know when you said this you know I look at it as I'm not sticking around here he says I'm going down to LA County. I looked at him again. It was gold allows County alone wearing coveralls and some black men thought to myself oh my god what's keeping this man alive. You know really you know talk he was going allowed to know at the time a Selma Louds County it was over 80 percent black. Not one black man was registered to vote. And I bring up this instance because I want you to see the courage of this Mahon coming from Mississippi we're going to Selma looked at the white liberals and the do gooders that come in there you know what he could really stomach this. He was going down to Louds County alone a county that

was now one black man registered to vote before Selma Alabama. And I just couldn't help but look at him and admire the courage and the years later Stalky became famous I'm sure he perhaps doesn't remember the meeting or the encounter with myself at that time but it's always made a great great impression on me and I've always looked at him with great admiration for the work that he has done. But those clergymen you see who went to Selma Alabama came back into their backyard whether it was more Waukesha Wisconsin or Chicago or New York or wherever it might have been. They came back in their own backyards and they did absolutely nothing. I remember coming back from Selma and that time we were protesting the fact that the school board was busing black children out of the black community and sending them to all white schools in segregating black children within those schools segregating them during recreation hours in one lunch hour came black children were placed back on the buses sent

back to the to the sending school where they ate lunch and then after large they were placed back on the buses and sent back to the receiving school. I remember you know calling up clergyman whom we thought were interested because we were going to block the buses and those clergymen that went to Selma Alabama all had excuses. You know I I really can't do that well. I mean that's civil disobedience. And they were concerned about their bishops they were concerned about their families are concerned about their friends. This I think is a good indication of perhaps the distinction between a liberal and a radical liberal as an individual who always pours cold water on militant action or goes out the door when the action begins. But I had to ask myself some questions about their sincerity the fact that they had gone to Selma Afghanistan something there was a problem over there that same problems exist in their own doorsteps and they would not

combat it. But we went to jail you know we blocked school buses went to jail and Walker was there right next to me. I remember him looking because of this. And I said Lou you're going to get in trouble because of this. The Methodist had control of him. He was working with North cut neighborhood hospital was pretty good at it. Then in the know how we felt and we went to jail it was only five clergymen there were three Baptist ministers one of you know one Methodist minister to Baptists one of the priest and myself and then we went to jail over that issue and it caused quite a furor in Milwaukee. The fact that I had gone to jail a Catholic priest you know what's he doing going to jail CNN. One priest came to me and he said this he says I can see everything he said but I can't see teaching disobedience to children you know disobedience of the law. But that same priest you say you criticize my action you know blocking school

buses with a priest to live in a parish for 13 years never once preached a sermon on racial justice an all white congregation in a plant in his parish area that had 5000 employees. Ninety nine and one half percent of the employment force in that plant is white and never said a word. That's why you see when white America tells me that I agree with your ends but you know not your means or I agree with you always always but something it used to be. But the picket line and but the demonstrations and but the commandos and but the violence and I say you take all your buts and put it in your head because I don't give a damn what you think. And I mean that I have no concern whatsoever about the attitudes of white America today it's racist out there that is a premise that is a fact that we begin with when we begin to work in our community and in our school that white America is is racist and that the system is oppressive.

And from that we begin to teach our children how to deal with white America but that's a fact of life. When one of our black children graduates from St. Boniface A goes to it all white institution whether it be a college or a high school or a Catholic college or a Catholic high school or a Protestant college or a pro no matter where that child goes. The answer is always the same. Angel you're going into a racist institution the priest over there does not understand black people. Sister is going to make remarks that are going to anger you. The students there are pretty much racist their parents are racist their cultural The DE PRI they're from a cultural get hold they have had no communication with black people they don't understand black history they don't understand do you. And so when something like that comes up how do

we deal with it. And that young child in order to retain his psychological It was the father was ringing a bell on me. Jesuit tradition you know. Systematic life you know. But this is the. This is the beginning you know from from from premise from which we work. The church is pretty much racist. There's no question about that. We had an instance you know in South Milwaukee where the sisters were going to have B a C S meaning I guess to call young Christian students where they were take some black students in a black community they were going out to the white community they were going to discuss the Gospel social action and the teachings of Jesus Christ all this are they in the pastor stopped it he got a big letter you know. He talked about moral danger lurking in our streets. There's a birch. Dangerous look in our streets.

Printed a bigot letter in The Bulletin. Do you know what kind of children these are these are Negro children are they paying the debt on our church Manpreet is bulleted. We went out to visit him. Christmas season they. Went out to visit him and when they don't walk to his church system keep the door past was gone. I mean that is neat when up to the door he says we want to go to church and pray. The man says Well a pastor is in here he says I don't care was he go get the key. You know and the fellow got very nervous when I got to church and that Sunday we came down with an army of about 200 people in and waited to the mass you know and we we had a very good action there the pastor got very nervous he apologized all over the place is that we don't accept your apology until the invitation is again extended and the invitation came forth in the meetings came forth. But this this was a man a

priest a pastor of a parish. You see in this was his attitude. But another is just a just a few months ago you know where a white teacher on the south side of Milwaukee hung a picture of St. Martin Luther King in her classroom. And we call him Saint Martin Luther King. You know we regard him as a saint I guess or something in a church public acclamation or something. Well publicly in the black community we proclaim Dr. Martin Luther King a saint we call him a saint Dr. Martin Luther King's very beautiful father tells a story about Dr. Martin Luther King today just love to hear him say that you know. But anyway this teacher on the picture of Martin Luther King in a classroom in the Christian mothers came in very holy group of women you know. And they saw the picture of Dr. Martin Luther King in a classroom complained he complained to the pastor they complain to the Sister Superior immediately. None of the pictures taken down by the teacher was fired. Fired from her job and some of the whites and some of the blacks the parish went down to confront the pastor about it I at this point you know I

said well what are we trying to prove you know I mean the man at the church is racist We've already proved that the south side is race as we've already proved that now let's get on the business of getting things done in terms of making living conditions better for ourselves. But you know some of the minimums went on to create an action by the by themselves. I just want to bring this forth that you see our parish is called St. Boniface I think the name ought to be changed because I don't know who's saying Baucus isn't any Some white saint that did something in Germany I don't know. But when black people came into St. Boniface you know they didn't tear down the statues they didn't complain about the name. And this is the white saint is a white saint. But when a picture of Saint Martin Luther King was hung in that classroom in a so-called Christian church. Lady lost her job. She gets fired for these instances occur again and again and again and I think that if we're going to talk about what the church has to do in society you know I really believe this that we've got to get out of the bedroom and stop spending

so much time on sex and talk about the real sins against all religion and the real sins against all religion are. This is pretty much this is it's racism and it's an oppressive system that's oppression and that we start talking in terms of religion in white schools as well as in black schools I think that this is what we have to talk about is our relationship to our brothers because we develop within our Catholic school system and within your particular sect whatever it is it's a Protestant school or Jewish school or whatever it is I think pretty much a ghetto mentality misunderstanding of other people and I think that this is the essential message that has to be taught as brotherhood it's love it's just as if this takes a certain amount of militancy where the deaths in our churches are are not going to be paid so much so that some of those million dollar churches have to be closed I think they should've been opened in the first place and couples rectories on a dollar no rectories this sort of nonsense.

A lot of clothes. Let him close. This means that people are not going to come to church or they're going to walk out if they're going to throw bricks at the church. God get out. We don't want you you don't belong in there. Father James grew up a Roman Catholic priest from Milwaukee speaking in Montreal during this teaching on racism. Next Dr. Harvey Cox professor of divinity at Harvard and author of the book The Secular City Dr. Cox speaks on the relationships between racism and imperialism and on what he feels the role of the church ought to be. Someone has asked me coming over the in the car what is the peace movement doing in America nowadays. I had to smile because anyone who's close to it knows that the idea that there is a peace movement in the United States is a fiction. There are a large number of groups looking at this or that some of some of which occasionally get together for various things

for at least long enough to get the argument started among us. It's really too bad I think the division within the peace movement in the United States is one of the things we have to apologize for the particular sector of the peace movement that I've been working with is is the resistance movement. And as we know isn't encouraging people quite openly and quite frankly not to fight in a war which is unjust immoral racist and imperialist. I don't mind encouraging people to do that. I don't insist that they make the decision themselves that they examine their own consciences and make that decision themselves. But I make no secret of my opinion on the subject. It is it's an impossible violation of my conscience to say nothing of my faith. My ordination vows to tell people to violate their conscience I have to encourage them and support them to follow their conscience and not to surrender their conscience to the state

and and to stand by them in whatever way I can. However when you begin to look into the Selective Service Law as it operates in the United States you find that far from being a fair representative and equitable way of inducting people into the armed forces it really represents a way in which the educated and affluent. Induct the poor and the black and the outsiders into the armed services. Now this is beginning to change a little bit in the last year we got sudden news graduate students are going to be drafted and everybody at Harvard was running around screaming. They've gone too far they're going to draft graduates who would have been a natural response but in a way the same response the church has had. About the Jews. It's alright as long as they're doing it to the Jews or the Communists.

This was in the Germany in 1938. The church only really got concerned when the knock came on the door of the church and it was too late then saw that it was about it's a little late to begin raising questions about the justice of the Selective Service process when you've been let go. All of these years while poor people black people and people who are in sections of the country where they don't hear about resistance movements about counts its conscientious objection about ways of avoiding induction and so on have to live. I just came back from a trip to Europe this sitting American deserts in Paris and Stockholm and trying to trying to say to them as with another group of Americans there are those of us who do not think you are Benedict Arnolds who don't think you are traitors to your country we support you and we and we are going to meet. You. The thing I noticed about these young men and believe you me there are lots and lots more

than anybody has yet revealed hundreds. The thing I noticed about them is they are not college students. They're not upper middle class urban background these are the guys from the small towns and in Iowa and Alabama and Colorado and North Dakota. The people who didn't get through high school or who dropped out of high school these are the people who are the desert or suggest that the people from that group in American society are the ones who get drafted whereas the ones I work with mainly are the ones who are still able to resist and not take that fatal step forward. So I wonder whatever the intention may be the Selective Service process in America operates objectively as a racist Selective Service System and we know that we look at the numbers of black black men in the service to casualty rates. Nobody makes a secret of the

casualty rate they're higher. Not only are they higher but they're higher. Nor are the numbers of people in higher but the casualties of in in excuse me not only are there more black people in the in the battalions closer to the firing line but even there the casualties seem to be higher and the Pentagon hasn't hid that fact. It's just explained that that's because black soldiers are more courageous. And want to make one remark about the church. As a vanguard of social change. Now even even the phrase even the type of even that phrase sounds ludicrous and one has to it one has to approach it with a certain comic sensibility I think the church as a vanguard of social change. It's almost like the little jokes

about the thin book joke about Polish war heroes or Italian war heroes. I can suggest another thing Dr. instances in which the church has been the vanguard of social change that's a very thin book indeed. I think we have to start by admitting that far from being a vanguard the church has by and large in most instances in most periods in history and with most of its energy been a rear guard has been concerned to maintain and and sanction the values which have been handed on and which have persisted in the present which have persisted from the past. However you know it's interesting to me that the history of the church and the version of Christianity which is handed on to us by our by the general mechanisms of religious education is really a kind

of idiology. In which we're taught that the good guys are the ones who wear the substantial fathers and and doctors of the church and on the edges they were there were these heretics who really didn't know any better. Stephen St. Francis of Saint Francis was smart enough to con one folk into allowing him to start in order. Yeah that's very interesting that the Saint Francis was able to do that because Peter while that was not in the wild dense eons you know became were called heretical heretics whereas the Franciscans were allowed to create an order that is I'd like to make a case some time tonight is not the night. But there is that there is another tradition in Christianity there's another history which somebody ought to write something that the history of the people who were not who did not envision who did not envision biblical faith that somehow or another mediating values from the past into the present. But as seeing the kingdom of God as something which is breaking into the

present from the future and who are willing to take the risk of foregoing any traditional securities any support from the past and live in the present in a future which one can only hope for. Let's take the risk of living in a future which is not really yet materialized. Dr. Harvey Cox professor of divinity at Harvard and author of the Secular City speaking out a teaching on racism held in montréal and recorded four special of the week by the international service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Part two next week over any are the national educational radio network.