Play That Funky Music, White Boy

While making cupcakes and washing dishes, I have listened to my little kitchen radio chase down stories like this (on the factory collapse in Bangladesh), and, today, more of the same – this time from Cambodia.

Think global, and act local?  The local and the global are all intertwined, as proven by Art Pope’s little empire.  Sell products outsourced to poor, unregulated countries to poor people in your own state, then use the money to push through more policies that weaken the rights of workers in the remaining industries and services.

And, if you are really smart, you also pool big money to fund “ethics” or “spirituality” initiatives that remain safely vague, ahistorical and apolitical.  You fund scholars who are either afraid or ambitious, or both, to pretend that the Gospel does not call for this sort of work, right now, right here.

So, I am going to continue asking my beloved students, former and present, as we keep working here in the beautiful state of North Carolina, how our baptism allows us to crisscross racially, toward really, really real reconciliation and lovely, lovely loving leadership.  This goes more radical, more deep even than buying fair trade coffee and planting community gardens.

Truly play that funky music, white boy.  Be brave.