I missed the royal wedding as I was away watching my nephew compete in an athletics tournament. Even if I had been in town, I wouldn't have followed it on TV. I would be more interested in what people were saying about it. After getting back last night, I checked out the press coverage of the wedding. Apparently, a black pastor was a part of the proceedings and had given what Reuters described as a barnstorming sermon in the tradition of black American preachers, complete with screaming, hand-waving and masterful voice modulation. He became a hit in the press and the social media for a sermon on love that was sprinkled with references to slaves and Martin Luther King. I quite liked it because it was a good sermon and also because he had chosen to make it in the lily-white stiff-lipped environs of a British Royal wedding.
I then went on Twitter to check out the opposing point of view. One of the academics I follow called his sermon "placatory", with "obligatory, sanitized MLK references" and not in the tradition of radical American preachers.
To be clear, I don't think this will improve race relations materially just like Obama's presidency did little to improve the lot of America's black population. But, by some accounts, Obama's presidency did change how black people saw themselves and their aspirations. And, did we really expect a black preacher to demand reparations in a wedding sermon, and that too a royal wedding? It felt like the critics on the left were going out of their way to be dismissive of it even though they were surprised by it. Maybe the critics fear that people like Meghan Markle make the monarchy more acceptable--she is black enough but not too black, she is famous, successful and has great media presence. That is a valid fear, but the monarchy isn't going anywhere. Most Britons are indifferent to it rather than actively opposed to it, and I think it is bit of a stretch to suggest that support for monarchy is cloaked in nostalgia for empire in all cases. I think such a view comes from the Left's tendency to define their opponents ideologically. So Union-jack waving white men are likely to be anti-labour, Islamophobic white supremacists. But most people don't yearn for ideologically consistency even if they are aware of political ideologies, which is why you get a lot of seemingly "confused" people. I fully agree with the critics that having a half-black princess doesn't make Britain less racist. But no one is a blanket racist or a blanket non-racist. Racism lives in us, and is coloured by many other '-isms', so it natural that no one is consistently racist or anti-racist.
The criticism also caricatured the preacher as a folksy preacher acceptable to the dominant classes, who preached of love rather than the struggle for liberation. I don't think that's true because I did some background reading on him and turns out he has taken progressive positions--supporting Black Lives Matter, gay marriage and immigration reform. But, why is talking of love a distraction from the struggle?What comes after the revolution? When everyone is "free" and equal, how will women and men find purpose in their lives?
I then went on Twitter to check out the opposing point of view. One of the academics I follow called his sermon "placatory", with "obligatory, sanitized MLK references" and not in the tradition of radical American preachers.
To be clear, I don't think this will improve race relations materially just like Obama's presidency did little to improve the lot of America's black population. But, by some accounts, Obama's presidency did change how black people saw themselves and their aspirations. And, did we really expect a black preacher to demand reparations in a wedding sermon, and that too a royal wedding? It felt like the critics on the left were going out of their way to be dismissive of it even though they were surprised by it. Maybe the critics fear that people like Meghan Markle make the monarchy more acceptable--she is black enough but not too black, she is famous, successful and has great media presence. That is a valid fear, but the monarchy isn't going anywhere. Most Britons are indifferent to it rather than actively opposed to it, and I think it is bit of a stretch to suggest that support for monarchy is cloaked in nostalgia for empire in all cases. I think such a view comes from the Left's tendency to define their opponents ideologically. So Union-jack waving white men are likely to be anti-labour, Islamophobic white supremacists. But most people don't yearn for ideologically consistency even if they are aware of political ideologies, which is why you get a lot of seemingly "confused" people. I fully agree with the critics that having a half-black princess doesn't make Britain less racist. But no one is a blanket racist or a blanket non-racist. Racism lives in us, and is coloured by many other '-isms', so it natural that no one is consistently racist or anti-racist.
The criticism also caricatured the preacher as a folksy preacher acceptable to the dominant classes, who preached of love rather than the struggle for liberation. I don't think that's true because I did some background reading on him and turns out he has taken progressive positions--supporting Black Lives Matter, gay marriage and immigration reform. But, why is talking of love a distraction from the struggle?What comes after the revolution? When everyone is "free" and equal, how will women and men find purpose in their lives?
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