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Donald
Trump, Republican Party nominee for U.S. President, was
“getting his shout on” (well, sort of) last week at Great
Faith Ministries on Detroit’s west side. He was seen giving
thumbs up to worshipers and swerving in counter-rhythm to
the beats of the praise and worship musical selections. The
candidate even presented a short homily infused with not
only scripture, but also rhetoric such as “a civil rights
agenda for our time” and “the African-American
community has suffered from discrimination.”
Is “The Donald” getting
churchy on us?
The truth is, Trump seemed to
be a bit uneasy in news coverage videos of the event,
suggesting a cultural, if not spiritual, disconnect with
this, for him, new black neo-Pentecostal experience.
Many see the visit, Trump’s
first campaign stop in an African-American community, as an
absurd and comical sideshow, others view his presence as
hypocrisy and an affront to people of color.
Clearly, images of violence
and meanness heaped on blacks at Trump’s campaign rallies
combined with hateful rhetoric fueling his campaign and
alt-Right connections of staff remain at the forefront of
black concern.
Speaking In Tongues?
Black folks also liken
Trump’s alternating rhetoric of open bigotry and love or
hard line and softening approaches to “giving a black eye
and then sending roses and a box of chocolates.” Rev. Otis
Moss III tweeted on social media, “In a white crowd you
sound like George Wallace but in a black church outside the
black prophetic tradition, you try to sound like Dr. Martin
Luther King,”
“That he (Trump) is in a
black church, having just presented himself as the white
savior of black folks when he said I alone, can fix the
sorry state of your community, is some arrogant ish,” said a
young black street organizer critical of Trump’s
“signifying.”
Other skeptics also point to
the candidate’s “practice of making stereotypical comments”
about blacks to others by emphasizing group deficits (which
in reality can be attributed to racial discrimination)
rather than group strengths.
Rev. William Barber, NAACP
president of the North Carolina chapter, in response to
Trump’s outreach slogan “What the hell do black people have
to lose? Trust Me,” highlights even more Trump consistently
inconsistent double speak and hypocrisy.
“He is the embodiment of the
Birther Movement, that insists that President Obama was born
outside the United States and is thus an ‘illegitimate’
President. But Trump has not said a thing about voting
rights that have been stripped away, but says that blacks
are naïve. That’s racist!’” says Barber.
Although Trump ascribes
social and economic problems endemic to the black community
to the “bigotry of Hillary Clinton” and the Democratic
party, he neglects to mention that the Republican Party and
the Southern Dixiecrats that emigrated to them, have stood
against voting rights, the civil rights act, immigrant
rights, public education, a livable wage for all workers and
remain staunch opponents of practically all safety net
policies for society’s most vulnerable.
It was also the failed
economic policies of the Republican Party, notes Barber,
that piloted in the “worst recession since the great
depression,” and “under whose watch the U.S. experienced the
worst terror attack on American soil in history. And, in
addition are continuing to make it difficult for the poor
and people of color to get to the polls and cast their
votes.”
A Different Gospel?
The black church religious
experience is very diverse, however, Trump’s choice of Great
Faith Ministries to worship is significant.
Great Faith promotes a
relatively new prosperity theology aimed for middle and
upper middle class blacks that critics characterize as
“middle-class consumerism” rather than a developed sense of
biblical justice irrespective of class, education or socio
economic status prevalent in the gospel promoted by older
stable denominations such as the Progressive National
Baptist Convention (PNBC) or the African Methodist Episcopal
Church (AME).
Prosperity proponents respond
that traditional theologies are outdated and have, in the
words of Renita Weems, PhD, “made black people think of
themselves as victimized so much that there is nothing that
they can do except wait on God and white people to deliver
them.”
Yet, clearly, Trump’s new
love for religion and the prosperity branch of the black
religious experience is likely just a prop to gain suburban
white voters rather than a genuine attempt to understand the
widely diverse African-American community.
In order for Trump’s new
religion and outreach to be taken seriously, both he and the
Republican party, must expand their narrow views of the
black community, come to grips with their own biases and
abandon their opposition to the progress of people of color
as a diverse group rather than promotion of an exploitative
association with a relatively few wealthy blacks.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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