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opinions
HATEFUL FAITH, A ROTTEN PRESIDENCY, AND A DYSFUNCTIONAL DEMOCRACY
by Wendell Griffen
June 27, 2025
The signs that democracy in the United States is dysfunctional are no longer doubtful.
Last week, a federal judge in California issued a temporary restraining order against President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth after Trump federalized 2000 members of the California National Guard and ordered them to protect federal immigration agents. The federal judge ruled that Trump's action was illegal. The Trump administrations has appealed the order.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, California from Camp Pendleton, and the Marines engaged in a tactical military offensive against civilians engaged in peaceful protest against oppressive actions by the Trump administration against immigrant workers in Los Angeles.
Last week, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla of California was physically assaulted by armed security agents when he tried to pose a question to Secretary Kristi Noem of the Department of Homeland Security at a press briefing held in a federal office building
Last week, the Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives and her husband were shot and killed at their home. It appears that their assailant also shot and seriously wounded another Minnesota state legislator and her spouse in their home. The assailant appears to have been determined to attack other Democratic politicians in Minnesota.
Since the shootings, U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah has joked about the murderous attacks in Minnesota.
President Trump has demeaned Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are seizing and detaining people they claim to be undocumented immigrants across the United States without judicial arrest warrants.
Last weekend, Trump gloated as U.S. soldiers marched and military equipment was rolled into Washington, D.C. to observe the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army. Coincidentally, the parade happened on Trump’s 79th birthday.
So, U.S. Marines were physically active against civilians in California last weekend. U.S. Army soldiers and equipment rolled into Washington last weekend.
Never mind due process of law.
Never mind federalism and respect for state sovereignty enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Never mind the Tenth Amendment.
The Trump administration is seizing and deporting people who protest Trump's unlawful practices. The Trump administration is threatening international academic programs at U.S. universities that allow peaceful protests against Israeli apartheid, genocide, land theft, and other oppression against Palestinians. It is blocking law firms that represent clients who protest Trump policies from entering federal buildings. It is firing federal employees who work in agencies that enforce federal laws and policies concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion. Never mind the First Amendment.
Never mind the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. A Wisconsin state court judge who did not detain an immigrant in her courtroom was arrested by federal agents and is now facing federal charges.
Trump, his wife, and his children are profiting financially from crypto currency trading. Trump granted presidential pardons to people after he received financial donations. Never mind the constitutional prohibition against U.S. Presidents receiving gifts or using their office for personal gain.
Trump's diplomatic efforts are also producing harm. Palestinians in Gaza are dying every day from starvation and Israeli military actions against their population. Israeli military forces and vigilante settlers are attacking Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank Territories.
Donald Trump supports Israel's aggression against Palestinians.
Trump wants to depopulate Gaza and turn it into a Mediterranean version of the French Riviera.
Never mind that Palestinians are being starved, poisoned, shot, and bombed to death in Gaza.
Never mind that Palestinians will again lose their ancestral homeland.
Never mind that genocide is an international war crime.
Trump has imposed a travel ban against people from twelve nations that have non-white or Muslim majority populations. The administration has admitted dozens of white Afrikaners from South Africa and falsely claims that white Afrikaners are targeted for murder by indigenous South Africans.
Never mind the divine imperative against bearing false witness.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed and the U.S. Senate is now deliberating whether to pass a Trump administration bill for the national budget that will cut funding for providing medical care to people who are impoverished. The bill will cut funding for nutrition to families who are impoverished. The bill will will give a tax break to billionaires. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the effect of the bill will increase the national debt by trillions.
Never mind that Jesus insisted on caring for people who were frail, sick, and impaired. Never mind that Jesus fed hungry people. Never mind that Jesus socialized with marginalized people and treated them like family.
Remember that white so-called "evangelical Christians" were Trump's most loyal voting constituency when he was elected in 2016 and 2024.
This group, part of what I call "the Hateful Faithful," praise Trump's bigotry towards immigrants who are not white. They have not criticized Trump's obscene greed, lust for violence, and his pathological narcissistic behavior.
They have not condemned Trump's bigotry towards people who are LGBTQIA.
In direct violation of the teachings and life of Jesus, the Hateful Faithful are cheering a vicious politician and regime.
People see the rotten presidency and dysfunctional democracy. They know that Hateful Faithful religionists are blessing it. They know how badly the divine imperatives of love and justice are being violated by agents of U.S. imperialism.
They see how the religion of Jesus has been corrupted, perverted, and turned into a weapon against vulnerable impoverished, sick, frail, marginalized, and mistreated people.
The U.S. empire is sinking deeper into the grip of fascism - cheered, counseled, and coached by Hateful Faithful religionists - day by day.
What is your pastor, priest, or other religious leader saying about it?
What is your congregation doing about it?
What are you doing about it?
Jesus called on his followers to be salt of the earth and light in the world.
What are you salting?
How are you shining light?
Hmmm.
Wendell Griffen is the author of Parables, Politics, and Prophetic Faith published by (Nurturing Faith, (2023) and
The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope (Judson Press, (2017). He is also an ordained minister and former elected judge.
www.fierceprophetichope.blogspot.com
www.wendellgriffen.blogspot.com
Pastor, New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Arkansas
pastorgriffen@newmillenniumchurch.us
CEO, Griffen Strategic Consulting, PLLC
www.griffenstrategicconsulting.com
griffenstrategicconsulting@gmail.com
Co-Chair, Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference
opinions
Freedom versus Independence
by Deborah Springer Suttlar
June 27, 2025
Juneteenth was celebrated on June 19, 2025. This was the day of celebration for the formerly enslaved to celebrate their freedom from bondage. On July 4, 2025, there will be a celebration for the enslaver’s Independence from Britain. As with the enslaved, the enslavers fought a war, but it was to become financially independent from Britain. I should also mention that the enslaved helped their enslavers fight for their independence in the Revolutionary War. As we know, with the Civil War, the Southern States were fighting against the Northern States to keep slavery for profit. While both holidays celebrate people being released, there is a difference in freedom from enslavement and Independence from “taxation without representation.” What a familiar position.
Although celebrating the 4th of July has been tradition for Black Americans, I have spoken out in recent years in respect to why we celebrate this holiday with such fervor when we had no association with it? However, I must reflect on the former reasoning that we did so because at one time we “had too.” We were following the habits and customs of our enslavers. The other reason is, it has become tradition for us as Black Americans to go along with societal traditions and celebrations because we just like to have fun.
Today, I have a different opinion on the celebration of the 4th of July. I cannot truly celebrate their independence when I know that my ancestors were suffering from brutal enslavement. In fact, it was 89 years later that our ancestors were freed from enslavement while years earlier the enslavers fought over being taxed unfairly. How hypocritical. What is even more hypocritical is that the first person to die in the fight for the enslavers Independence was Crispus Attucks, a Black man of African and Indigenous descent. It is reported that he died in the Boston Massacre as a casualty of the Revolutionary War. Ironically, he is remembered as a symbol of resistance against British rule. Ain’t that something! A Black man becomes the martyr for the enslavers/colonizers.
I would never tell any Black American not to celebrate the 4th of July. I do want us to be aware of what and why we are celebrating. It is good to celebrate any holiday in your country. However, I must remind all Americans that Juneteenth, like Independence Day, is a significant event in American history and deserves equal reverence, recognition and respect. We are God’s children too.
In 1852 Frederick Douglas delivered his famous speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? It was written 13 years prior to the Emancipation Proclamation while people of color were enslaved. He urged them to reflect on the continuous oppression of the enslaved people during the celebration of a holiday, acknowledging their freedom/independence. Today, it seems highly hypocritical that in this country, Black people along with Indigenous, Hispanics and Immigrants are being treated with such disrespect and inhumanity while once again White Americans celebrate freedom and independence. Then, at the same time removing all the previous laws and policies to correct past evils. Make America Great Again? Or is it, “Make Segregation Great Again?”
Celebrate the 4th of July if you think it is appropriate for you. Remember this country continues to revere the dead losers of the Civil War. As for me and my house, I’m still celebrating Juneteenth.
Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred. African Proverb
Deborah Springer Suttlar is a community activist and longtime supporter of public schools.
opinions
Juneteenth
by Deborah Suttlar
June 13, 2025
It was originally called, A Day of Jubilee, also known as Freedom Day, Black Independence Day and more popular name, Juneteenth. It is a celebration which marked the end of slavery in the United States after the Civil War. According to Wikipedia, the words “June” and “nineteenth,” is referring to June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the Civil War. However, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. In the United States, Slavery ended at various times in different states, and the state of Texas was the last state in which the slaves were notified of their freedom. It was in January 1865; Congress proposed the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery in the United States.
The Juneteenth National Independence Day was recognized as a federal holiday in 2021, when the 117th Congress enacted, and President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law on June 7, 2021. This action brought about the validation by the government for this holiday to be celebrated by all Americans. This celebration now includes numerous events across the United States in which African Americans celebrate their culture and freedom. As they say,” Ain’t nobody free until all are free.”
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture has the theme this year, “Power in the Past, Strength in the Future.” There are many opportunities for African Americans to celebrate by attending church services, local events in which we support Black owned business, opportunities to gain information about the holiday, our history, and participate in community service by volunteering.
Our Emancipation was fought for, and a heavy price was paid for the enslaved to obtain their freedom. A Civil War was fought for four years. This war officially began on April 12, 1861, and ended on April 9, 1865. Although some like to say, it was for “states’ rights,” it was the issue of slave ownership and greed. According to an article in American Battlefield entitled Civil War Casualties. The Civil War was America’s bloodies conflict in American History. It is estimated that 620,000 men lost their lives in the line of duty and more from disease.
In honor of this holiday, in 1997 Activist Ben Haith, the founder of the National Juneteenth Celebration Foundation (NJCF) collaborated with Verlene Hines, Azim, and Eliot Des and created the Juneteenth flag. According to the article in Good Housekeeping on June 18, 2024, the flag is an undying symbol of liberty and freedom for African Americans. The flag colors are red, white, and blue, signifying that throughout enslavement African Americans were always American. It was noted the red represents the blood shed on the journey to freedom. The curved surface represents the horizon and the possibility for African Americans. The flag is emblazoned with a star, a callback to the U.S. flag and demonstrating that Black people are free in all 50 states and a nod to the “Lone Star State.” The star is surrounded by a burst which represents new opportunities for African Americans. It is also stated that it is common to see the red, black, and green Pan-African flag at Juneteenth celebrations. This flag represents the blood, soil and prosperity of Africa and its people.
On June 21, 2025, The Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, a Museum within the Division of the Arkansas Heritage, will host the 16thannual Juneteenth in Da Rock festival to commemorate freedom and community in the heart of Arkansas. This celebration will begin with the fourth annual event on Juneteenth in Da Rock 5K walk/run. It will be held from 7:00a.m. until 9:00a.m., participants will run through historic sites such as: Arkansas Baptist College, Philander Smith College, and Central High School. A street festival will take place all day on historic West 9th Street in Downtown Little Rock. This festival will feature live music from grammy winners Elle Varner and October London. Local musical artists include Akeem Kemp, Afrodesia, Big John Miller Band Bijoux, G-Pace, King Honey, Malik Oliver, and Nicky Parrish.
There will also be local vendors, food trucks, and activities designed to highlight the rich history and culture off African Americans. There will also be a Kid Zone which will feature fun-filled activities for children of all ages, including bounce and play inflatables, arts and crafts face painting and magical photo opportunities. The Mosaic Templar Cultural Center has included a Health and Wellness Village in the museum ballroom featuring local health and wellness vendors, mental health professionals, and other organizations offering health resources who will provide information about nutrition, preventative care, and overall wellness. This event has been planned to correspond with the celebration of Black Freedom but also to connect with the community and offer culture activities and address the needs of all the community.
Dr. Barbara Krauthamer Dean of College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, explains, “Juneteenth gives people an opportunity to reflect on what it means to live in a country and in communities that say we value individual rights, we value freedom, we value freedom of the press and freedom of speech. And if we value that, we need to value that for everybody.”
Let us celebrate Juneteenth, Freedom Day, Black Independence Day, or A Day of Jubilee in a way that reflects the celebration of being freed. Happy Juneteenth Everybody, and God is the great Emancipator!
Deborah Springer Suttlar is a community activist and longtime supporter of public schools.
opinions
The Golden Rule
by Deborah Springer Suttlar
May 30, 2025
This current social atmosphere has set the tone in which we do not express or respond with unity and love toward one another. This lack of unity made me realize that we no longer practice the “Golden Rule.” A command which Jesus taught during his earthly ministry.
The Golden rule as stated in Matthew 7:12 So in everything, do unto others what you would have them do to you. For this sums up the Law and the Prophets. This scripture reflects the foundation of our faith in being good and merciful toward one another. Jesus was teaching us how to treat one another with care and concern. He stated that this scripture sums up everything.
In contemplating the meaning of that scripture, it made me think about how I no longer hear anyone mention this scripture as I did as a child. It does require that we make a concerted effort to treat others as we would want them to treat us. The truth is, we do not have a choice, this is a command. We must remember that commands given by Jesus are not suggestions, and commandments are followed because of our obedience to our faith.
My second revelation, we have become focused on our own way of dealing with others and the result is that none of us are being guided by the “Golden Rule.” For example, not responding with kindness because others do not treat us with kindness. However, the truth is, we do want people to be kind and merciful to us and it hurts us and offends us when they are not. As a result, we respond negatively because of hurt feelings.
This Golden Rule issue made me reflect on the hate and disrespect we are experiencing today and how we should respond if we are to follow the Golden Rule. Does it mean that we cannot call them out for how we are being treated? As you will remember, Jesus did correct injustice with words and by example. He demonstrated how to treat those who were disrespectful and cruel by telling them how to treat others. We know that some people resort to violence and use hateful words which do hurt and harm our well-being. I am really meditating on how to respond in those situations.
The truth is, we have managed hate and disrespect for so long that sometimes we do feel that a harsh response is the answer. I thought about my own obedience to the Golden Rule because sometimes I have a very harsh tongue. I am working on it. When the hate and disrespect evolve into genocide, immoral behavior, and the politics of death, how should we respond to reflect the Golden Rule? It is a real test.
I often reflect on a quote from Zora Neale Hurston, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” This is the reason I address issues of injustice in my writing. I am neither a violent nor a mean-spirited woman, but I cannot allow my people or anyone to be mistreated and not respond or do nothing. I do look to the Word of God to guide my tongue, my words, and my steps.
It was years ago I was directed to the prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4:10. Therefore, I prayed asking God to bless me, increase opportunities for me, for his hand on me, and that I do nothing to harm others. We know this is not a perfect world, but it could be much better if we followed the Golden Rule. Let us put it into our minds and remember it is the very foundation of our faith to help us be a positive influence in our society. We will all be better for it. These words were a common saying among Black families, “Do right and right will come to you.”
James Baldwin “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”
Rodney King “Can’t we all just get along?”
Deborah Springer Suttlar is a social and community advocate, and a long-time supporter of public schools.
opinions
MENTAL MAINTAINING
by Dr. C.E. McAdoo
May 25, 2025
I’ve been in ministry some forty-four years, and I always jokingly tell people that when I was in the military, I was a Psychiatric Technician. I have a diploma in psychiatric procedures, and I’ve been able to experience mental disorders and understand the dynamics even as I deal with my own life. The first night I was in my unit, a young man jumped up on the roof and said he was going to kill himself. I was the new person on the block so, they gave me a hypodermic needle and told me to go up and give him a shot. OH WOW! The rest is history, he didn’t jump off the roof and I did not fall either, though I was afraid of heights.
That’s one thing about mental maintaining, no matter where we think we are in life, we can do some things we may or may not think we can do. Some of it is out of fear, anxiety, and some of it’s out of just plain old “if I don’t do this, I’m going to get killed.” I remember when we were little boys, we were at the wrong place at the wrong time and were in this man’s back yard he came out there and I think he shot up in the air the first time. I don’t know how high that fence was, and don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we did anything supernatural, but every one of us got over that fence!
I’ve got three areas I want to point to for this article, and the first one is:
I. Mental Maintaining - Knowing that you are a diamond in the rough, already a perfect fit to me and to you - a precious stone! Part of your mental maintaining is realizing as a perfect stone, that means no one can come in and tell you that you are imperfect! Realize that when you think about living your life as a perfect stone, you are a diamond in the rough, what a beautiful thought!
Part of this I grew up with, as did many of you, people would look at you and say, “I can see something great in you, and “you are going to be somebody!” As you grew up, even in your married life, your working life or your community life people saw in you special ‘something,’ that told them you were that diamond, as you continued trying to get the perfect fit!
Theology in the United Methodist Church, we talk about the different kinds of grace. We talk about “Perfecting Grace,” not “Justifying Grace, or “Sustaining Grace” but Perfecting Grace! We are always trying to perfect ourselves; we have not gotten there yet, and if I’m not mistaken, we won’t get there in this life. We are working our way toward that perfecting place. That’s where we are, a “diamond in the rough.” Always being smoothed out to get that perfect fit! The good part about that, it’s a two-way street. The street you live on, that’s you, you know you’re a diamond in the rough. You don’t have to wear a sign on you stating that fact. You live in such a way that people know you are not simply a rock – you are a diamond in the rough!! Life is not always easy, and a diamond is not just some rock that is used for throwing, diamonds are created through pressure! You know who you are – you are a diamond and other folks can look at how you live and know without being told - you are a diamond in the rough, on your way to perfection! Other people see how you stand out and how your life means something!
I preached a sermon recently about “The Unnamed They.” They are those we don’t know, that have complimented us, and have said good things about us in private conversations that we will never know about. That’s the other part of the two-way street, you know who you are and other people see how you carry yourself. To summarize, Number 1 is to know you are a diamond in the rough.
II. Keep a ‘Green Mindset,’ what is a ‘Green Mindset’? That is living a life like a beautiful lawn that is in need of care. That means it needs fertilizer, and what that means for our mental maintenance is, we need those things in our life that will help us to grow!
I prayerfully hope that I learn something new every day. Some days I don’t, but I want to fertilize my mind to help it be maintained more. I think I have talked about this before, how my exercise instructor has us doing different things each day, so our minds will be switching back and forth and she also wants us to push ourselves. Those things help to fertilize our brains.
Like that beautiful lawn, we also need some weed killer, otherwise there are some destructive weeds that can creep in without our noticing, such as Crabgrass, Nut grass, Poison Ivy, and Bitter-weeds. The same thing that happens to your lawn, can happen to your brain!
Some of those weeds that can get into your brain are just bad thoughts. I use to tell my kids and myself, when I get somebody on TV that’s talking bad, I just change to another channel. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big TV-changer. I remember once we were talking to someone, and at that time we had HBO on our tv, and they said, “don’t you have young children?” I said yes, and they said, “don’t you know they have some X-rated pictures on HBO?” And I said yes. They responded, well aren’t you afraid your children will be watching?” And I said no, I told them not to.
See what I’m saying, I’m telling my brain not to, I won’t look at them, I’m making that choice and it’s the same thing with our brain. Then, like that lawn, we have to make sure we don’t let those weeds get up there, we just have to say, I’m not going to fool with them.
Then, the other thing about mental maintaining is the whole idea of good maintenance. I know younger people who read this article won’t appreciate this (and I’m not trying to debate my Virtual Assistant) but, the old lawnmower had those curved blades, and the curved blades cut the grass to grow! The lawn mowers we have now are circular and they cut the grass flat. Even though the lawn mowers today allow the grass to grow, the old push mower cut the grass in such a direction that it grew better than it grows now!
You’ve got to maintain that mower, you’ve got to cut the grass timely, you’ve got to cut it precisely. Timely and precisely means you can cut it at the wrong time, and you can cut it too low. You can also cut it so high that it’s already up so much, that it won’t get much more growth to it. The Lord has blessed me in the last four or five years, that I have been able to have my neighbor cut our grass. I ask him to cut our grass so that is stays beautiful all of Holy Week. My Brother-in-law’s lawn stays beautiful all year long, he just knows how to do that.
Lastly, what I want to say about the whole idea of maintaining our lawn, is that we have to trim our grass! Even the best maintained mental stability can have some little places that need to be trimmed…..no matter how good we think we are. I’ll go back once again to some articles I used at St. Paul’s School of Theology that helped me believe that the human condition starts at 0% up to 100% and not from 100% down to 0 %.
We do have some people, …..God bless you, but I’m just not one of those who say, “O My! Mr. so & so, or Mrs. so & so, I just could not believe they did this or that.” ALL of us have the capacity to do something that is wrong! When I look at life from a 0% up, that means we all start as a “Sinner saved from Grace!” So, if I understand that dynamic, we are all subject to do something wrong at sometimes in our lives so, that means we need some trimming! Just like a beautiful lawn, it can be green and it can be cut well, however, if it’s not trimmed, if we do not use the weed-eater properly, it still will not be where it needs to be. Our lives are the same way, if we have all this going for us, but leave some stuff that needs to be trimmed, then we are not where we need to be.
So, when we think about “Mental Maintaining,” remember: Number I. You need to know you are a Diamond in the rough, Number II. You need to have a Green Mind-set to grow, and now I want to talk about:
Number III. Have Open Ears, Open Eyes and, an Open Heart! AMEN!! Open your ears to hear, open your eyes to see and open your heart to take in. One thing that helps me, and I would say theologically, the illustration that comes to mind is of the closed fist. Remember with the closed fist, you’ve got the thumb pointing at someone, but there are four fingers pointing right back at you! So, always remember that openness goes both ways when it comes to mental maintaining.
In my forty-four years of ministry and the ten years I dealt with the government, I’ve dealt with some people in which we have had some “knock-down, drag-out conversations.” I’ve appreciated those, because I wanted to be open enough to hear where they came from, and I wanted to also have the heart to know I was not going to change them on the spot and may not change them even in a lifetime.
I’ve had church members who, when I went in, I may not have been who they thought they wanted to be their pastor, and when I left, I may not have been who they thought they wanted to be their pastor.
All I’m trying to say as I end my article is, there is a certain mental maintenance that can only be cultivated by openness. I say that in two typical words, we’ve got to cultivate openness. I’m not ready for some stuff people throw at me, I just have to say, hey, I don’t know if I’m in for that! We’ve got so many issues out here, I don’t want to get too political, but some folks say, “I don’t want to deal with that.” Well, try to cultivate yourself to get some openness to it. Even at the end of the openness, you don’t have to agree, you just have to be able to say, I’ve let you say your thoughts and you’ve let me say my thoughts.
Once again, let me repeat, to have “Mental Maintenance” is, to know you are a diamond in the rough, keep a green mind-set and have openness.
Love,
I Am
Charlie Edward McAdoo
Rev. Dr. C.E. McAdoo is a retired District Superintendent with the United Methodist Church.
opinions
A CULTURAL AND COMMUNITY MISNOMER “OUR CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE”
By Rev. Dr. C.E. McAdoo
May 17, 2025
The above statement is part of and will be a giant set-back for the vitality of the life of our country. We say it and don’t realize what we are saying when we say, “Our children are our future.” Mentally, we don’t know what we are saying when we say that. Let me break this down theologically. When Jesus came into the world as a child, he came as a present to us; that’s what we celebrate at Christmas!
When we think about every child being born into the world, that’s a present to the world. I don’t want this to be an article that has a lot of strong theological emphasis on it, but when you think about it, the whole growth pattern and theologically what the Bible says, that when a child is born, we need to cry. When we pass, we need to celebrate, because when the children are born, they will come into a world where they need to be prepared, even as young folks, for all they will have to deal with. I don’t try to correct folks, but when people say the children are our future, I say, “O, but I believe that’s a mis-statement, they are our present.” What that means to me is that the word children can be interchanged with the word youth or young people.
This old adage is focusing our children and young folks in a negative way, because we forget how much they have to offer us now. When I thought about that, I have about five or six things I want to talk about: how our young people, how our children, and how our young couples can add to the life of who we are!
I worked with a Bishop once who said she always tried not to put older adults and younger adults together in a discussion group. The younger adults would always defer to the older folks. Maybe the older people were not thinking in the way the younger folks felt was correct, but the young folks would not correct them at all. Unfortunately, that cut off some vitality the young people may have had to offer! What do our Young Folks offer us? Our young people are our community builders. Praise the Lord, in many of our communities, we may or may not think our young people are doing this or that.
Even the colleges now are looking at the students who are coming in to become college students. They are asking them, “How much community service have you done?” I was blessed to be at a church when I pastored St. Andrew United Methodist Church, where we had young people that would come out to serve food to people for the evening meal. Then, they would receive a letter from us telling them how many community hours they had served. That builds community! In the church where we went, not only did the young people serve, but we also encouraged them to also eat with the community. I want to insert a part of the story here: There was a large church here in Little Rock that wanted to feed the homeless. They had everything set up and had all this food ready, and--nobody came! So, they partnered with our church to have an evening meal for the community. It was a whole different concept, we not only encouraged the young people to serve the people who came to the meal, we also encouraged them to eat with those being served. We asked them to sit at different tables, at one table they may have been sitting with someone that was homeless. Then, at another table they may be sitting with a working family that was dealing with a lot of heavy stuff. I’m just saying, our young people can be community builders. As they are serving in this environment, that gives them an understanding of what community is all about! So, to build our community we really need our young people to get involved and be in touch with what goes on in our communities.
The second way our young people can be involved is in a “clean air concept.” A lot of our young people understand and want our grounds to be clean, they believe in green spaces! The third thing I briefly touched on that has to do with community building is, our young people are able to volunteer for community issues, such as homelessness, and literacy. Some of our young people have volunteered one-on-one to teach folks how to read. Those of us who can read may not appreciate the value of knowing how to read. I always tell the story of my daddy, who could not read. I mention to my wife even now that my father would not be able to function in our society today. He would have to have a lot of help, because you have to be able to read to do almost anything. I used to say, how could my daddy go anywhere, because you have to be able to read the road signs. You wouldn’t know the difference between north, west, east or south. Think of something that simple. For someone who could not read it’s almost like being isolated on an island with all the water around you and not knowing which way to go! They would not know the difference between north, south, east or west. However, they would know on what side the sun came up and on what side the sun went down.
Once again, as the young folks in communities volunteer to teach the illiterate how to read, they would now know what the words, north, south, east and west mean, as well as other words that would give them dignity and a more independent and productive life! Even as bad as people say our communities are, our young people are trying to make an impact on the gangs and those kinds of things that are going on. The other thing I believe our young people can help us with is early investment models. I am blessed to work with the students at Southwest High School here in Little Rock. At one time it was McClellan High School, and they partnered with a bank and had their young people open their own bank accounts and learn about the stock market. I’m not sure of the proper word, but I think it is the “Historical Stock Chart” that has charted the stock market since 1926. It shows how your money grows. You put your money in the stock market with all its ups and downs, but it does grow. These young people find out early how all of that works. Financial literacy and financial pass on; so if you find out how it works, you ‘pass it on.’ You pass it on to your friends, or your family and that’s another way the young people can help us!
Lastly, the young people can pass on to us their international understanding. I will lift up, I believe, the primary school in the state of Arkansas that has this international understanding. There may be other schools, specifically in the north west that have something similar. I was blessed to have a “Civil Rights Pilgrimage Group” in Little Rock. Part of their pilgrimage was to visit Central High School. (I am very familiar with Central High. Two of my children graduated from there, and I consider the principal, Nancy Rousseau to be a friend.) There are 42 different languages being spoken at Central High School, but English is the principal language of instruction. Just think on that for a moment: 42 different languages.
These are young folks, high school students, all living together and working with one another. Isn’t that beautiful? Then this whole age of trying to get rid of “DEI”, and realizing that diversity is going to be everywhere. And the earlier that diversity starts, the more people will understand. Once again, I say theologically, Genesis 1:27, we all are made in the image of God, and so that’s the other piece of why I bring in the international piece, to say, because of Genesis 1:27, and because we are all made in the image of God, that means we are headed toward a reality where we will all know one another better.
I will conclude this article with that - who can do that better than the young people in our different communities?
Love,
I Am
Charlie Edward McAdoo
Dr. McAdoo is a retired district superintendent in the United Methodist Church
opinions
by Rev. Dr. C.E. McAdoo
May 10, 2025
How do we find our best in today’s world, where we have the internet and AI and numerous other sources? What happens when it’s not about you, but about something else?
This week’s article is inner-speculatively and I think so much of this was auto-speculatively. That may be a good dictionary word, and it may not be, but daddy said I need to make one up. So, outer-speculatively we are always looking for something about something else or somebody. I hope today’s article will help us all in Finding your Best, as we become more inner-speculatively! I know the title says finding your best, but I am including myself in this also. In my pastoral work, when I preach a sermon, I am also preaching it to myself, because I’m trying to find my best.
So, how do we find our best? I’ve got a couple of questions here and of course I will also be asking them of myself.
What do we like to do that we would call a skill?
I guess part of this question is a two-way street. Remember, it could be what we feel is what we do best, and also it could be what others have observed us doing well. I won’t get into anything physical because some of us were inherently born with good athletic skills, such as good eye and hand coordination, and were able to catch the ball to throw the ball. We’ve been blessed with bodies that could run a 100-yard dash between 10 -15 seconds. We’ve been blessed with lungs to run a mile between 4 – 4 ½ minutes, so I won’t get into the athletic part of the best that we could be. I want to talk about those skills we have demonstrated, and preferably this article will be intergenerational for young folks that may read this article.
You are developing skills that others have already noticed about you. For many of us like myself, I’m over 50. I’ll just say, those of us who are over 50, we’ve been observed and also noted what skills we have. So, what is it that you ask yourself? What is it that people say your best might be? This article is going to a general audience and it may touch all kind of things.
When I was growing up, I guess what I saw was what I wanted to be. I used to see Louis Armstrong, and I would say I wanted to be a trumpet player! So, I joined a band and did play lots of music, and ended up being 2nd trumpet. The funny thing is, I did not play a trumpet, I played a cornet. I don’t know the difference between the two, but there is a difference in the sound between a trumpet and a cornet. You have to “buzz” your lips into the trumpet mouthpiece, I got tired of all that “buzzing,” so, the trumpet didn’t work!
O man, I loved all those old blues singers, like John Lee Hopkins and Albert King! So, I wanted to be a guitar player when I got older. Praise the Lord, my daughter and I went to the guitar shop and the man played the guitar and had me to “finger” a little bit and I bought a guitar for my daughter and myself. My wife said, “I don’t know why you bought a dust-keeper,” and I said “what is a dust-keeper?” She said, “go ahead, y’all aren’t going to play that thing!” I think my daughter put it down after about a week, and I still tried. I wish I had it today. It still has a lot of dust on it, and it’s still in the closet today. However, I found out one of my skills was talking, so I made a living down through the years,… talking!
I have a friend at home who was a Tool-and-Dye person, and I remember when we were growing up, he was very athletic. So some of us are really good with our hands. I’ve decided that after I finish my article today, I am going to finish digging up a spot in our yard where my wife wants to plant some tomatoes, so we’re going to work on that. Some people have the skill of a “green thumb,” and are able to plant flowers and other plants.
I just went through a little scenario/self-inventory of sorts. I went through and found out what my skills are. So just ask yourself, what do I really like to do, and what other people may call your “skill.”
The next question is:
What is this skill compared to?”
That’s an easy one, you can look at my example of the trumpet and guitar, and once I compared myself to those who really did it, I found out a couple of things: First, You’ve got to practice, and Second, there was a lot more to “fingering” the guitar that I realized!
When I was blessed to go to Hot Spring Village, one of my members played the guitar. We had to do some fingering, and I’ll tell you what! When you see those people playing the guitar, it takes strength to put that left hand up there and hit those notes! It’s a blessing when I see people who have those skills. I complement them because I can compare that to someone who really does not understand the whole dynamic of practicing. What’s the other thing you can compare it to - how much it takes to get those skills together and like I said, not mathematically, but I have to go back to the hand and eye coordination.
You may recall I wrote an article about our getting older and our hands don’t have the reflex-ability they had when we were younger. While I am sitting here, I don’t know what it’s called, but I have a little ball with a smiley face on it, and I squeeze it to stretch my hand. I have to stretch my hands to keep my writing skills together, and it also has something to do with keeping your brain together in order to have proper coordination. So, that’s the comparison level.
The third thing:
Deep down, why do you lack what you call your skill?
I guess I couldn’t help it, I think I was born talking! For those of you with all kind of skills that you developed down through the years, maybe you just saw the grass and you liked to cut it or you sold the flowers? It was just part of what you liked, and you wanted to make sure it happened. There are some with arithmetic skills and others who have algebraic skills. I grew up with “arithmetic mentality” and I was pretty good on the basics which are, addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. When you have algebraic skills, that is finding the unknown. Then you move up to geometry and that’s another kind of skill, then you go to physics, and I don’t know if that’s the top of the lot or not! However, when you leave arithmetic the other skill for me is finding the unknown. In arithmetic, I can add it up and it’s going to be the same, or I can subtract, multiply or divide, so there are persons who grew up that are just good with numbers. So that’s how you find your best.
The last Question is:
How can you improve your skills?
My son is a registered speaker, and he listens to other motivational speakers and watches them on YouTube. Knowing that my skill is in speaking, I try to listen to some of the best speakers per se. I’m trying to say this is the most positive way I can, sometimes when I hear other people speaking in public, I try to use the skills I have developed to avoid making the mistakes I see others making. Anytime I get up to speak, unless something has just happened, I never have anything in my pocket. There are certain people that get up to speak and they are rattling their change. I was so glad in the Probationary process in the United Methodist Church, they required us to have a video of our sermons. I did not know that I was a “glasses-taker-offer,” but when I looked at my video, I think I took my glasses off 7 or 8 times! Then, in voice notation speaking directly into the mic, articulating well, I don’t know what some of the technical stuff should be for great speakers. However I recommend speaking directly to the audience and don’t have your back to folks. There are a lot of ways for someone with other skills in other areas, and for me, to look at what the best are doing. Even at our age, and even though you may be retired or you don’t consider that you need any additional skills, it’s always good to look at who was the best in your field and when you do that you are able to find your best!
Love,
I Am
Charlie Edward McAdoo
I Am
Charlie Edward McAdoo
Rev. Dr. C.E. McAdoo is a retired District Superintendent with the United Methodist Church
opinions
Coming out of the Shadows
by Rev. Dr. C.E. McAdoo
May 2, 2025
I live in a community where, when I get to the end of my street and look to the right, I have clear visibility. However, when I look to the left because of the trees, I’ve had to catch myself to be aware of cars coming out of the shadows. This can happen at various times throughout the day and I thought about that, and how it affects our lives so many times when things come out of the shadows.
In one sense, we walk this earth in a very normal way but in all our lives there are some things that come at us out of the shadows. So, I just want to talk about three or four things I think will help us when things do come out of the shadows. This may not be happening in your neighborhood, but I think this has a generalness to it, that no matter where you are, hopefully this article will help us to be aware of things coming out of the shadows.
The Lord has blessed me with being in a lot of cities, but to drive in them, sometimes things come out of the shadows because we really don’t look close enough to where we are. I’ve driven in some cities where I thought I was going a certain way, only to discover I was on a one-way street, going the wrong way! You automatically go on your way and there are no cars coming, and then the next thing you know you are on a one-way street and not know it! That’s like coming out of the shadows sometimes. One of the things that helps us to maintain our life-ability, is that we can keep ourselves from getting injured.
I had a neighbor, bless his soul, who had a bad accident. It was similar to coming out of the shadows, but the concept we have to be aware of is when we are driving east or west. If we are going east, it’s possible the sunlight can affect us in such a way that we could miss a vehicle coming out of the shadows so I do know that’s another way we can protect ourselves from injury.
I’m not big on wearing sunglasses, but I do keep some with me. I keep those you get when you go to the eye doctor and they dilate your eyes, those are easy to keep in your vehicle. So, coming out of the shadows it’s important to be mindful and aware, that will help you in keeping yourself safe.
Another thing about coming out of the shadows is to help us have a safety attitude. I’m not the most expert driver, but the Lord blessed me to have gone through certified Police training. I was deputized as a policeman in Lenoir City, Tennessee many years ago. One thing they always taught us was safe driving. One thing I tried to teach my kids was to have a “360 attitude” when it comes to driving. You’ve got to be able to look all the way around in every direction. You have to look at all three mirrors. There’s a center mirror and a mirror on both sides. They’ve also got the fancy little mirrors that fit in the bigger one, that also helps.
When we think about step-toeing out of the shadows, that should give us a safety attitude about how we are driving. It also enables us to have a conversation when we are riding with someone, and if they are doing something that’s a little unsafe, we can bring up a conversation and say, “you know it’s like coming out of the shadows, maybe you should not be doing this or that” (I won’t say what this or that is!).
Thirdly, another thing about coming out of the shadows, it may let us know we need our eyes checked. I’m over 70 years old and I’m glad to be here, but sometimes I think we take our eyesight for granted. We can go a year or two and not get our eyes checked. I think it’s very important that we do go in for those eye exams. If we need an upgrade in our lens, it will make a difference! Sometimes I’ve forgotten my glasses, and even though it’s a short trip, I go back home and get them, because it’s on my license that I am supposed to be wearing glasses.
The last thing I want to ask about is the family history, in terms of people with certain eye conditions, such as glaucoma. The best way to accomplish this, is to just ask your family members about their history with eye health.
I was doing a study with our skin, and my daughter-in-law said, maybe you need to get DNA on that to see if it is going to affect the grandkids. So, it’s good to have a family history! The way the insurance companies are today, they like to dig deep into our lives. They want to know every little bit about us, but you don’t want to tell them everything.
Basically, this is not a long article this week, it’s about coming out of the shadows, and when we think about it that gives us a more precise perspective of how we look, not at life, but at how we look at the things around us.
I won’t get into the personal part, but there are all kinds of stuff that come at us out of the shadows, but that’s an article for another day. I did today’s article more on a physical piece. However, for now let’s just drive safely, and when we are in those driving situations where something may be coming out of the shadows, we will be able to deal with it properly!
Love,
I Am
Charlie Edward McAdoo
Love,
I Am
Charlie Edward McAdoo
Dr. C.E. McAdoo is a retired district Superintendent in the United Methodist Church.
opinions
THE UNHEEDED, TRAGIC, AND INESCAPABLE TRUTH ABOUT THE USA
by Wendell Griffen
April 11, 2025
We are witnessing a political march and mass suicide of our society into the graveyard of history.
I was a state court trial judge in Arkansas from January 2011 until I retired at the end of December 2022. During the last years of my tenure, I began court sessions by reading about racial injustice from a calendar published by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. If I were still on the bench, this is what I would be reading this month.
April 1, 1807 – Ohio enacts a law banning Black witnesses from testifying in court against white people.
April 2, 1802 – State of Georgia cedes land to create Alabama and Mississippi, adding two states where slavery is legal in order to ensure that “slave states” outnumber free states in the U.S. Senate.
April 3, 1911 – President William Howard Taft expels an all-Black calvary unit from San Antonio for protesting racial segregation.
April 4, 1968 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
April 5, 1880 – Johnson Whittaker, one of West Point’s first Black cadets, is brutally beaten by his white classmates; he is later accused of faking the attack and expelled.
April 6, 1892 – A mob of 80 white men seize Issac Brandon from a Virginia jail and lynches him on the courthouse lawn while his young son pleads for his life.
April 7, 1927 – The Ku Klux Klan kicks off a 10-day series of revival events at a white Presbyterian church in Evergreen, Alabama, and recruits 600 new members.
April 8, 1911 – Banner Mine near Birmingham, Alabama, explodes, killing 128 people, nearly all of whom were Black men leased to the Pratt Consolidated Coal Company as convict laborers.
April 9, 1939 – Banned from every indoor venue in Washington, D.C. due to her race, Black opera singer Marian Anderson performs for 75,000 people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
April 10, 1956 – Four white men attack Black singer Nat King Cole while he is performing for an all-white audience in Birmingham, Alabama.
April 11, 1913 – President Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet implements a government-wide segregation policy in workplaces, restrooms, and lunchrooms.
April 12, 1963 – Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor orders violent arrests of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and dozens of civil rights activists in Birmingham, Alabama.
April 13, 1873 – An armed white mob kills 150 Black people following a contested election in Colfax, Louisiana.
April 14, 1906 – On the town square in Springfield, Missouri, a white lynch mob hangs and shoots to death Fred Coker and Horace Duncan, two Black men, before thousands of spectators.
April 15, 1903 – Several thousand white people in Joplin, Missouri, lynch a Black man named Thomas Gilyard and attack Black neighborhoods, burning homes, shooting Black people, and forcing every Black resident to flee the city.
April 16, 1945 – At a tryout for Black ballplayers from the Negro Leagues, Boston Red Cox fans taunt and abuse Black players, including Jackie Robinson, and Red Sox managers send them home without a contract.
April 17, 1915 – A white Georgia mob lynches Caesar Sheffield, a Black man, after he is accused of stealing meat.
April 18, 1846 – New Jersey enacts a law to bind enslaved Black people to indefinite servitude as “apprentices for life” who cannot leave the state or their jobs without written permission from their “masters or mistresses.”
April 19, 1989 – Five Black and Latino teenagers are arrested for raping a jogger in New York City’s Central Park and are incarcerated for years before being exonerated.
April 20, 1965 – Georgia business owner Lester Maddox threatens three Black seminary students at gunpoint for trying to eat in his segregated restaurant; he is acquitted of all charges and later elected governor.
April 21, 2007 – White parents in Turner County, Georgia protest a high school’s decision to hold its first racially integrated prom; previously, parents had organized private, racially segregated proms for students.
April 22, 1987 – The Supreme Court upholds the death penalty in McCleskey v. Kemp despite proof that it is racially biased, reasoning that racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is “inevitable.”
April 23, 1963 – During a one-man civil rights march to Jackson, Mississippi, a white activist named William L. Moore is found dead from a gunshot to the head on U.S. Highway 11 near Attalia, Alabama.
April 24, 1877 – Federal troops withdraw from Louisiana, marking the end of Reconstruction.
April 25, 1959 – A white mob beats, shoots, and throws the chained body of Mack Charles Parker, a Black man, into the Pearl River after he is accused of raping a white woman in Poplarville, Mississippi.
April 26, 1862 – California lawmakers ratify new law “To Protect Free White Labor Against Competition with Chinese Coolie Labor, and to Discourage the Immigration of Chinese into the State of California.
April 27, 1899 – Black community leader Michael Daniel is lynched in Georgia for “talking too much” about the recent lynching of another Black man, Sam Hose.
April 28, 1936 – A mob of white men in Colbert, Georgia, seizes Lint Shaw, a Black farmer, from police custody and shoots him to death hours before his trial on allegations of attempting to assault two white women.
April 29, 1992 – An all-white jury acquits the officers who violently beat Rodney King, a young Black man in Los Angeles, sparking an uprising in which more than 50 people die and over 2,000 are injured.
April 30, 1866 – White police in Memphis attack Black soldiers, triggering a wave of violence by white police and mobs who kill nearly 50 Black people, rape at least five Black women, and burn 100 Black homes and businesses.[1]
I would be reading these entries this month, as I did at the beginning of most court sessions during the first Trump presidency and the first half of the Biden presidency. Now, as I did then, I would confront lawyers, clients, and the visiting public with the unheeded, tragic, and inescapable truth about how racialized injustice, violence, and bigotry has been committed, excused, licensed, sacralized, commercialized, capitalized, commodified, merchandized, glorified, and embraced throughout U.S. history.
That is why I was saddened, but not surprised, when the right-wing Heritage Foundation issued its Project 2025 manifesto.
That is why I was saddened, but not surprised, when the Hateful Faithful clan of Southern (Slaveholder) Baptists, gangster capitalists, neofascists, imperialists, pro-zionist colonizers, kleptocrats, misogynists, war mongers, folks who despise LGBTQ people, and anti-Black and Brown immigrant haters bet the future of the United Staes on a vicious sociopath, Donald Trump, in 2024.
I was saddened, but not surprised, when other pro-zionist colonizers, gangster capitalists, and political speculators who have used Indigenous people, Blacks, Latinos, women, LGBTQ people, workers who are and are not immigrants, teachers, people with physical and/or mental differences, and senior citizens for photo ops and talking points while disregarding the truths we spoke and lived bet the future of the United States on Joe Biden, and then on Kamala Harris, knowing that Biden and Harris enabled, financed, counseled, and outfitted the racist, land stealing, genocidal Israeli apartheid regime of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Because I grew up with, experienced, and vividly recall the inequities of Jim Crow education, I was saddened, but not surprised, when voters elected politicians who openly called for banning books, prosecuting librarians, firing teachers, and taking tax dollars from public education.
I opposed Clarence Thomas’ confirmation when George H. Bush nominated him to succeed Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. I opposed John Roberts when George W. Bush nominated him to succeed William Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. So, I was saddened, but not surprised, when Roberts led the Supreme Court to gut the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Thomas voted with him.
Roberts led the Supreme Court to invalidate admission policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina that included consideration of racial diversity. Thomas voted with him.
Roberts, Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2023.
Roberts led the Court to declare Donald Trump and any other president absolutely immune from prosecution for criminal conduct last July. Thomas voted with him.
Now, rather than upholding due process of law as a fundamental right guaranteed to all people, the Roberts Court – with Thomas as its senior member – has reduced due process of law to whatever falsehood or fiction government agents and officers spin to kidnap, detain, and violently remove international students who protest genocide by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza from the United States.
And now, instead of using their law licenses, wealth, and prestige to protect and preserve due process, democracy, public health and safety, and fight bigotry, corruption, and governmental hatefulness, some of the nation’s biggest law firms and richest lawyers are cutting deals with a neofascist regime headed by a vicious sociopath (Donald Trump), the world’s richest gangster capitalist (Elon Musk), and people Kurt Vonnegut accurately termed “not-so-closeted white supremacists” in his final book, A Man Without A Country.
The unheeded, tragic, and inescapable truth is that politicians and voters have supported racist, sexist, anti-worker, anti-immigrant, authoritarian, deadly military adventures since the founding of the United States.
The unheeded, tragic, and inescapable truth is that politicians and voters who know better continue to support racist, sexist, anti-worker, anti-immigrant, authoritarian gangster capitalism and imperialism.
The unheeded, tragic, and inescapable truth is that millions of people in this society believe the lie that doing this is right, and that doing it more forcefully and violently to other people will make their lives better.
And the unheeded, tragic, and inescapable truth is that every society of people across history who thought that way – and the graveyard of history is full of examples – was damnably wrong.
Historians will write, philosophers will ponder, and prophets will preach about how our generation whistled, disregarded truth, dismantled democracy, rejected liberty, and profaned justice as we marched into that graveyard. And our descendants will curse, lament, and struggle with the consequences of our political suicide, for countless generations.
[1] Equal Justice Initiative, A History of Racial Injustice 2025 Calendar, © 2024 Equal Justice Initiative.
Wendell Griffen is the author of Parables, Politics, and Prophetic Faith published by (Nurturing Faith, (2023) and
The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope (Judson Press, (2017). He is also an ordained minister and former elected judge.
www.fierceprophetichope.blogspot.com
www.wendellgriffen.blogspot.com
Pastor, New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Arkansas
pastorgriffen@newmillenniumchurch.us
CEO, Griffen Strategic Consulting, PLLC
www.griffenstrategicconsulting.com
griffenstrategicconsulting@gmail.com
Co-Chair, Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference
opinions
EDUCATIONAL EMERGENCY: 13th Week- 95th General Assembly
by Joy C. Springer
April 11, 2025
EDUCATIONAL EMERGENCY CONTINUES …… April 11, 2025
Today marks the end of Week 13 of the 2025 Regular Session of the Arkansas House of
Representatives. A group of us remain focused on passing legislation that will have a lasting impact on the lives of Arkansans. It is anticipated that the session will adjourn on April 16, 2025.
This week, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed FB1685, a bill designed to
eliminate the state’s 0.125% sales tax on groceries, effective January 1, 2026. This
effort continues our work to reduce the tax burden on Arkansas families. In addition,
HB1312, amending public school funding to provide an increase of 5% in per pupil
funding, raising the per pupil amount being paid to $8162.00 for the 2025-26 school
year. This amount includes the cost of health insurance. For the 2026-27 school
year, the per pupil amount is set at $8,037, with the $333.00 for insurance costs
being paid directly for the Employee Benefits Division. The House also adopted
House Joint Resolution 1018 (HJR 1018), a proposed constitutional amendment entitled “The Citizens Only Voting Amendment.” This proposed amendment, if adopted by the Senate, will appear on the November 2026 ballot. It proposes that
only United States citizens who meet voter qualifications may vote in state and local elections. I have repeatedly asked the question why do we need to pass such a Resolution when it is already a part of the state’s law, i.e., the Arkansas Constitution. The Arkansas Constitution states the following:
Qualifications for electors:
(a) except as otherwise provided by this Constitution, any
person may vote in an election in the state who is
1) a citizen of the United States
2) a resident of the state of Arkansas
3) at least eighteen (18) years of age; and
4) lawfully registered to vote in the election.
(b) Valid identification
No data presented that there were citizens in the state of Arkansas who did not meet these qualifications.
A number of additional bills also passed the House including House Bill 1732
(HB1732) that increases the income tax deduction for teachers purchasing
classroom supplies from $500 to $1000. House Bill 1485 creates a new sales
and use tax exemption for organizations supporting veterans’ facilities. House
Bill 1922(HB1922) establishes an income tax credit for companies that relocate
their corporate headquarters to Arkansas, a further step to enhance our state’s
economic competitiveness. Finally, the proposed Revenue Stabilization Act (RSA)
for the 2025-2026 Fiscal Year was distributed to members on Friday. This document
outlines our state’s spending priorities. You may view the document using the link below:
https://arkansashouse.org/assets/uploads/2025/04/20250411093155-fy2026-rsa-sb637-hb2003pdf.pdf
Public School Funding remains at the top of the list as it should be with an allocation of approximately 2.5 billion dollars (2,484,597,398). In addition, the General Education Fund is approximately 76 million dollars (75,752,342). Further review indicates that
the Division of Corrections, including the medical contract and the Division of Community Corrections funding totals approximately $562,000,000. I now ask you to contrast these figures. Our budget Chair communicated that the average annual pay for an inmate in Arkansas is $44,659 per year while we only propose to pay $8162 per year for each public-school student. You tell me!!
The Educational Emergency continues…
State Representative Joy C. Springer represents District 76 in the Arkansas House of Representatives. Representative Springer previously served on the Little Rock School Board and is a long-time civil rights activist and supporter of equity in public education. She currently serves on the House Judiciary Committee and House Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs committees. Additionally, she serves on the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) and the JBC Employee Benefits Division Oversight committee and as a 1st Alternate on the Legislative Joint Auditing committee.
opinions
TRUMP FASCISM IS THE HATEFUL FAITHFUL CURSE ON THE UNITED STATES
by Wendell Griffen
March 29, 2025
Hateful Faithful theology and politics are the software of Republican Party fascism since 1968, but began a generation earlier with gangster capitalist support for Billy Graham.
In chapter 2 of his 2021 book, Decolonizing Christianity: Becoming Badass Believers, Miguel De La Torre, professor of ethics and Latinix Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, traced the recent history behind the threat to democracy and justice in the United States. De La Torre observed that proponents of the Social Gospel told the nation and business leaders that the 1929 economic collapse that produced the Great Depression was caused by capitalist greed. President Franklin Roosevelt used “religious jargon to sell his New Deal, which was picked up by liberal ministers throughout the nation and preached from their pulpits.”
But business leaders were inspired by Rev. James W. Fifield during the 1940 National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Fifield preached against the sins of the New Deal and countered that salvation from the collapse could be found through free enterprise and deregulation.
According to Fifield, business leaders were not responsible for the Great Depression, but were the nation’s saviors.
Miguel De La Torre then added the following historical perspective.
During his talk, Fifield – nicknamed “The Apostle to Millionaires” – suggested clergy would be the key to regaining the upper hand in the capitalist struggle against Roosevelt’s liberal policies and dictatorial tendencies. This watershed moment made Christianity and capitalism soulmates in white America’s imagination under the phrase “under God,” which they then set out to popularize. Moving forward, the United States would henceforth be known as a Christian nation.
“J. Howard Pew, president of Sun Oil, along with his brother Joseph N., despised Roosevelt and their former business competitor John D. Rockefeller, whose brand of ecumenism, interdenominationalism, and internationalist Protestantism that prioritized science and reform, was leading the nation, they believed, toward secularism. Committed to Fitfield’s work by the mid-1940’s, outsourcing the task of persuading citizens to embrace capitalist ideology to the church. Later, they would back an obscure tent-revivalist preacher and fiercely pro-capitalist named Billy Graham. Called by Pew, not God, Graham railed against all liberal social programs – the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society – during his crusades. Social ills such as racism would not be remedied by government, Graham preached. Their solution could be manifested only with the second coming of Christ.”[1]
De La Torre writes that Graham and other white Christian nationalist “visionaries” “cemented a nationalist Christianity that merged the state with the growing power of a group of wealthy white male capitalists who were steadfastly opposed to the Social Gospel” and whose goal “was the Christianization of government, business, education, media, family, entertainment, and religion through the creation of a quasi-democratic theocracy.”[2]
The result of their efforts to achieve that goal is shown by the events of the final decades of the 20th Century.
“The 1950s until the start of the new millennium was the golden age of white Christianity within the United States. The tentacles of nationalist Christianity spread and flourished under the tutelage of Billy Graham, Abraham Vereide, and Doug Coe – avatars for white capitalist men. These early religious superstars were called to strengthen a quasi-religious ideology that ensured the profit, power, and privilege of the few. With the Nixon administration of the early 1970s, a move away from Eisenhower’s civil religion was in full force. Nixon, with Billy Graham’s support, used Christian nationalism to divide rather than unite people by branding antagonists to his war in Vietnam or his administration as foes to Christian values. The cultural wars that would consume the 1980s, bringing about national discord still being felt today, found their footing when Nixon and Graham separated the faithful (those committed to their cause) from the ungodly, secular unfaithful. Basically, white conservative Christians began to flex their political muscles to ensure the phrase “under God” referred only to them.”[3]
The present state of the United States and the world is the result of the unholy union between the free-market fundamentalism and Christian nationalism mentioned by Miguel De LaTorre and the “giant triplets” of racism, materialism, and militarism that Martin Luther King Jr. denounced as heresies to divine imperatives of love and justice. That unholy union has driven U.S. politics and policies for the past three generations. For example, the twenty-year U.S. military misadventure in Afghanistan – the longest war in U.S. history – resulted from bloodlust, Western hubris, white supremacy and racism, conservative pseudo-Christian nationalist imperialism, and capitalist greed.
Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, Phyllis Schlafly, Richard Land, Paige Patterson, Robert Jeffress, Albert Mohler, James Dobson, Franklin Graham, and Mike Huckabee have been the leaders of what I term the Hateful Faithful. They did not challenge the war in Afghanistan, but cheered and counseled politicians to support it. Instead of denouncing capitalist greed, they courted its perpetrators and held them up as examples of piety and virtue.
And as the world watches an ongoing genocide by Israel of Palestinians in Gaza, Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism, violence, and land theft in the Occupied West Bank, and Israeli military aggression against Lebanon and Syria, the Hateful Faithful are cheering fascist actions to stifle protests by students, academicians, and other people. “Good evangelical Christians” who support and are complicit in zionist racism and support the Israeli regime are part of a long and bitter history of white evangelical devotion to injustice.
Hateful Faithful theology is the moral and political software for the Republican Party. Hateful Faithful pietists provided the votes that elected Ronald Reagan (twice), George H. Bush, George W. Bush (twice), and Donald Trump (twice in separate decades). Hateful Faithful capitalists sacralized Donald Trump’s sociopathy, greed, racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, commercial fraud, Islamophobia, and bigotry against immigrants. Hateful Faithful pietists worship in the virtual temple of Rubert Murdoch’s Fox News enterprise.
Hateful Faithful people who crow about “family values” are the biggest political supporters of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They opposed vaccination mandates that saved the lives of millions in the United States during the worst period of the Covid pandemic. The Hateful Faithful disparage critical thinking and support suppressing dissent. They unfailingly endorse gangster capitalism, militarism, imperialism, glorification of technocentrism (and the uber-wealthy capitalists who finance it), fear-mongering, bigotry, the politics of bullying women and girls, indigenous, Black, Asian, and Latino people, and injustice against workers.
Hateful Faithful hypocrisy is exceeded only by Hateful Faithful ruthlessness. So, people who claim to follow the Biblical obligation to love God with all their minds, souls, bodies, and strength have no qualms about stifling critical thinking about history, law, economics, and sociology.
They have no qualms about closing the federal Department of Education, and no qualms about defunding public education.
They supported installing a vaccine denier (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
They backed installing someone with no formal education, professional experience, or demonstrated competence in educational pedagogy, administration, or policy (Linda McMahon) as Secretary of Education.
People who profess to follow the Palestinian Jewish rabbi named Jesus - who taught that knowing the truth makes one free - support bombing Palestinian schools, culture centers, mosques, and health services buildings.
And people who claim to believe that justice involves caring for vulnerable people, as Jesus did, blatantly support defunding domestic and global governmental efforts to fight hunger, eliminate diseases, and protect the climate.
Hateful Faithful fascism curses the United States economy, disrespects the rule of law domestically and globally, terrorizes people who want peace, and now poisons the entire world. If anyone thinks this will make the United States more powerful, let alone peaceful, that person is probably part of the Hateful Faithful.
They are Hateful, Faithful, proud, ruthless, committed to overthrowing democracy, and will succeed in doing so, unless we stop them.
[1] De La Torre, supra, pp. 28-29.
[2] De La Torre, p. 30.
[3] De La Torre, pp. 31-32.I
www.fierceprophetichope.blogspot.com
www.wendellgriffen.blogspot.com
Pastor, New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Arkansas
pastorgriffen@newmillenniumchurch.us
CEO, Griffen Strategic Consulting, PLLC
www.griffenstrategicconsulting.com
griffenstrategicconsulting@gmail.com
Co-Chair, Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference
Hope fiercely. Love boldly.
Love one another. Jesus of Galilee, Palestine
We will find a way or make one. Hannibal of Carthage
Writing is how I fight. James H. Cone.
The time for pious words is over. Allan Aubrey Boesak
Justice is a verb!
https://fierceprohetichope.blogspot.com/2024/01/this-is-why-donald-trump-is-barred-from.html
opinions
EDUCATIONAL EMERGENCY: 10th Week- 95thGeneral Assembly
By Joy C. Springer
March 22, 2025
As the 2025 Regular Session of the Arkansas General Assembly ends its 10th week, the House has been advancing legislation designed to address infrastructure, election processes, and public health. One of the bills to pass this week was HB1681, which establishes the Water and Sewer Treatment Facilities Grant Program. This initiative creates a $50 million matching grant system aimed at improving water and sewer infrastructure across the state. With 80% of the funding allocated to "shovel-ready" projects, and the remaining 20% directed towards small towns and rural systems serving fewer than 1,200 customers, the program seeks to ensure that communities have the resources needed to address critical water and sewer needs.
The grants will be funded by interest earnings from state funds. Another piece of legislation approved was SB307. It is entitled as an Act to amend the law concerning public utilities designed to generate jobs for Arkansans thus increasing economic development. In my opinion, it is needed to replace the loss of power supply in Arkansas as two major power plants are closing in Pine Bluff and Newark, Arkansas. We learned during committee meetings that several companies have opted not to relocate in Arkansas due to the lack of power supply. Passing this bill will not cause your utility rates to go up, they were going to go up anyway due to the closing of the plants previously mentioned.
This bill allows utility companies to implement incremental rate adjustments as they begin construction on investments aimed at increasing the state’s generation capacity. The House also passed several bills regarding the state's election processes. Among them was HB1574, which requires paid canvassers for statewide initiative or referendum petitions to be residents of Arkansas.
Another bill, in my opinion, designed to limit voting in our communities. In addition, HB1693 directs the State Board of Election Commissioners to establish rules for duplicating damaged or defective ballots. Additionally, SB304 passed, allowing voters to cast a ballot after changing their county of residence—provided their updated registration is received by the county clerk before polls close on election day. SB304, on its face, appears to be a reasonable piece of legislation.
HB1713 mandates that the Attorney General cannot certify a proposed ballot title if its reading level exceeds eighth grade, according to the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formula.
What is the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formula? This method determines the readability of the ballot title text. Once again, another measure designed to limit voting in our communities. In response to growing concerns about the impact of social media on minors, HB1726 created the Arkansas Kids Online Safety Act. This bill requires technology platforms to take reasonable measures to protect minors from harmful content that could contribute to mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and substance abuse. I did agree to sign on as a co-sponsor of this bill. Finally, Senate Bill 246 (SB246), the companion bill to House Bill 1512 (ARKANSAS ACESS) was heard on the floor of the House this past Monday (March 17th). As previously stated, it is legislation, in my opinion, designed to afford more opportunities for those students who already have, thus limiting those students who do not have as much separate educational opportunities between students that in Arkansas.
The Educational Emergency continues
State Representative Joy C. Springer represents District 76 in the Arkansas House of Representatives. Representative Springer previously served on the Little Rock School Board and is a long-time civil rights activist and supporter of equity in public education. She currently serves on the House Judiciary Committee and House Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs committees. Additionally, she serves on the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) and the JBC Employee Benefits Division Oversight committee and as a 1st Alternate on the Legislative Joint Auditing committee.
opinions
EDUCATIONAL EMERGENCY: 9th Week- 95th General Assembly
By Joy C. Springer
March 16, 2025
As the Arkansas House of Representatives entered the 9th week of the 2025 Regular Session, we once again ended the week with not so good news….
House Bill 1512 (HB1512)! Another bill designed, in my opinion, to separate the “haves” from the “have nots.” Two years ago, Arkansas Learns started this trend at the elementary and secondary levels of Arkansas’educational system and now we have Arkansas ACCESS for the state’s higher education levels. ACCESS, claiming to reform Arkansas' higher education system, the House once again overwhelmingly passed HB1512. For the record, I voted NO on HB 1512!
As a reminder, Arkansas ranks 38th in education, 37th in literacy, 41st in high school completion and 39th in college enrollment rates compared to states across the country. Yet, “the powers that be” have ignored our status by the introduction of new legislation that now attempts to censor student voices and eliminate every ounce of representation from our local communities and school districts.
HB1512 is allegedly designed to address critical issues surrounding access to education, affordability, and student success across the state, with its principles summarized in the acronym ACCESS: Acceleration, Common Sense, Cost, Eligibility, Scholarships, and Standardization as the core principles of the alleged higher education reform legislation. A summary of ACCESS as presented by its progenitors follows:
The Acceleration component of the ACCESS focuses on enhancing the readiness of high school students for higher education and future careers.
It aims to broaden accelerated coursework options in Arkansas high schools.
The Common-Sense provisions of the bill seek to foster unbiased learning environments in higher education. The bill also introduces the "Purple Star Campus" designation, recognizing institutions that support service members and military families.
Addressing Cost concerns, the ACCESS proposes reforming the funding model to encourage diverse educational pathways, including non-degree credentials. The bill introduces a new productivity-based funding model that factors in the return on investment for students.
The Eligibility section of the bill works toward creating uniformity and efficiency in college admissions. It expands the types of exams that can be used for college admissions. In terms of Scholarships, the ACCESS Act expands the Workforce Challenge Scholarship and increases the Arkansas Academic Challenge first-year award from $1,000 to $2,000.
However, in my opinion, ACCESS infringes upon students’ First Amendment Rights. It prohibits students from getting excused absences for advocating by appearing at the Legislature, protesting, or conducting walkouts. Students will be penalized for exercising their right to protest harmful bills such as ACCESS. In addition, college students could have
their degrees put on hold if they choose to speak out. Some amendments were made to this provision of the ACCESS; however, they were still met with much opposition, particularly from students, themselves. ACCESS jeopardizes equity programs for ALL students.
ACCESS prohibits nearly all DEI programs. A provision in the legislation that could potentially adversely impact student organizations, scholarships, and support centers for marginalized Arkansans including women, minority students and
international students.
ACCESS is gambling with our students' futures. Based upon the way that the legislation is written, schools would no longer be required to offer Advanced Placement classes—that help students get a head start on college material—most heavily impacting access to opportunity and mobility for our rural communities.
Finally, ACESS eliminates the seventeen member School Leadership Council that previously had representation from stakeholders across the state. ACCESS now proposed a five-member board that includes the Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, Commissioner of the Division of Higher Education, Commissioner of the Division of Career and Technical Education and finally the Chairmen of the House and Senate Education committees.
The Educational Emergency continues….
Rep. Joy C. Springer represents District 76 in the Arkansas House of Representatives. Mrs. Springer previously served on the Little Rock School Board and is a long-time civil rights activist and supporter of equality in public education. She currently serves on the House Public Transportation and House Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs committees. Additionally, she serves on the Performance Review committee, and Joint Budget committee as a 1st alternate including Personnel and Special Language, and as a 2nd alternative on the Legislative Auditing committee.
About Us
Why we must create our own narratives
Perception is reality. How we are viewed and what is said about us matters. It is abundantly clear that here in Arkansas, we as African-Americans don't control many, if any, statewide media groups. On any given day, COUNT the number of positive stories reported by print and television stations KATV, KARK/KLRT-FOX-TV, and KTHV, about African Americans in Arkansas.
In Arkansas, with the exception of KTHV, the media groups and their ownerships are conservative and often often distort people of color and specifically, BLACK families. As black consumers of the news, "that's the part we miss." How on the "regular" we are portrayed by white media groups and their local news stations and print media.
A study from the University of Illinois concluded that at best media outlets (a) promoted racially biased portrayals and myths that pathologize black families and idealize white families with respect to poverty and crime (b) play a dangerous role in spreading debunked stereotypes about black families and (c) at worst, amplify those inaccurate depictions for political and financial gain. We've all seen that type of behavior before.
When media outlets examined in the study reported stories about poor families, they chose to feature black families in their coverage 59 percent of the time, even though only 27 percent of families living below the poverty line are black.
Similarly, in coverage of welfare, 60 percent of families portrayed were black, even though only 42 percent of families receiving welfare are black.
Finally, the article addresses the real-life consequences of the continued distortion of black life by the media. "When the news media constantly associates black people with crime, it increases racial stereotypes among viewers, leading the public including liberal and conservative Arkansan's to disproportionately favor punitive criminal justice policies." As a collateral damage piece, when the poor are depicted as overwhelmingly black, it leads the public to support heavier restrictions on welfare because of a perception that undeserving black people benefit from it. Backers of corporate and right-wing policies gain when the news media blames black families for social conditions, while their own role in destabilizing society remains invisible.
This online publication exists to counter the narrative that constantly depicts African Americans as "less than." It exists to balance the negative view of African American life that is constantly depicted in the local news and information outlets in this state. We are so much more than the lip-service paid to us by those that control the news cycle. It's not about the reporting of the news, it's about the process of manufacturing the news. There is a saying that goes something like this. "If you control the messenger, then you control the message." Let's take some of that control back. As African Americans in Arkansas, let us create our own narratives. Most importantly, let us report and talk about the real issues.................. with our own voices,.... and our own opinions.
meet our contributors
opinion
opinion
opinion
Deborah Suttlar
Deborah is a longtime Community and Civil Rights Activist. Her column appears in the Opinion Section.
Click the link below to read read Deborah Suttlar's column.
https://talkblackarkansas.com/opinion
opinion
opinion
opinion
The Honorable Wendell Griffen
Judge Griffen will comment on the law and its impact on Black Arkansans. He will also discuss and legal and social issues on a state and national level impacting Black Arkansans and Black Americans.
Click the link below to read Judge Griffens column.
Finance
opinion
Religion
Gaining generational wealth is the key to Black economic family wealth and security. We will share strategies from the Association of African American Financial Advisors to help you and your family get there. We will inform you about managing your finances so that you can start your path to financial freedom.
Religion
Religion
Rev. C.E. McAdoo
Rev. McAdoo is a retired District Superintendent with the United Methodist Church. He will provide a weekly column on Religion and Black Arkansas.
Click the link below to read Rev. McAdoo's column.
https://talkblackarkansas.com/opinion .
At the State Capitol
State Representative Joy C. Springer
State Representative Joy Springer is a veteran school an civil rights advocate for African-American children and their families. She will provide a weekly column on state legislative and educational concerns affecting African -Americans .
Click the link below to read Representative Springer's column.
Medicine and health
This weekly column features a listing of top African-American doctors in Arkansas, and their areas of expertise. We will try to connect you with physicians who understand your physical, cultural and mental health needs. One study suggests that African American male patients who meet with black physicians often ask to receive more preventive services than patients who met with nonblack physicians. This study also suggested that black doctors are more likely to provide a comfortable settings to black patients, perhaps because of shared experiences or backgrounds. The study concluded that increasing the amount of black physicians could lead to a 19 percent reduction in the black-white male cardiovascular mortality gap and an 8 percent decline in the black-white male life expectancy gap.
Education
Who to call
Who to call
This weekly column will focus on educational happenings in the state including news from local school districts and the Arkansas Department of Education.
Who to call
Who to call
Who to call
People always have "who to contact questions." Whether it is a local city government office or a state government office, we will try to steer you in the right direction.