There Have Been Tears of Joy and Tears of Sorrow in 2008

Many of us have cried many tears this year.  They were tears of both, sorrow and joy, but we think that the words that one of our readers shared with us explains the nature of our tears the best.

Enjoy! and NEVER, NEVER, NEVER cease to release those tears, no matter the occasion!

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Why We Cry?

Well let me help you with that question — history records that Blacks vote 9
out of 10 for the democratic candidate over the republican candidate. The
reasons are very obvious and include:

(1) Electibility (only 98% of Republican delegates are white as you probably
saw in the GOP convention. Republicans will not support a minority candidate for
national office and (currently none in the Senate or House of Representatives).

(2) Their policies of trinkle down economics does not work.

(3) White racist groups seem to always migrate to the Republican Party and
drive those political machines in the deep south.

(4) Democrats not only embrace all minorities AND actively pursue the concept
of a political party that looks like America in it’s make-up of gender,
race, religion, culture, etc….

Blacks did NOT vote for Obama because he was black (history records that they
were already voting in overwhelming numbers for Obama). Obama did register more
blacks (especially disenfranchised blacks would heretofore had not voted) and he
carried more White votes than Kerry or Gore.

Blacks are extremely proud that we had a black candidate that we could support.
It is interesting that most White people who think we voted for Obama for
President forget that he is the SEVENTH (7th) Black to run for President and
NONE of the other six simply got the Black vote because they were Black…. so
that kills the simplistic argument that Blacks voted for Obama simply because he
was Black! Those others were:

(1) Julian Bond (Declined the nomination for VP) – 1968
(2) House Representative Shirley Chisolm - 1972
(3) Rev. Jesse Jackson - 1984
(4) Dr. Lenora Fulani - 1988 & 1992 (Independent who was the first Black
listed on the ballot in all 50 states)
(5) Alan Keys – 2004
(6) Rev. Al Sharpton - 2004
(7) Barrack Obama -2008 (1st To Win)

Whites have supported white candidates all their life and no one ever
questioned race as a reason for their support — I wonder why. It remains my joy
and pride that Obama did not make this campaign one of race but simply we needed
a change from the bad economic and military policies of the MOST incompetent
President of the past 100 years.

We cried because we NEVER expected this to happen in our day.

We cried because his election makes us hope and believe that people may be
fulfilling Rev. Martin Luther King’s dream of a day when people would view
character over skin color.

We cried because this was the most historical day for Blacks since we were
brought over in slave ships.

We cried because his election was not of Blacks electing him President, but a
NATION voted in mass numbers to make him every person’s President –
regardless of race, greed or religion.

We cried because he has helped some bigots to see that there are a number of
Black men who are married, love their wives and adore their children.

We cried because we saw in the faces of Blacks and Whites and Hispanics on that
night the great joy of overcoming.

We cried because of the past pains of discrimination that made us sit at
counters in NC, strike on the streets of Memphis , face the dogs in Birmingham ,
attend the funerals of children who died at the hands of white people who bombed
churches.

We cried because we had some many reasons to cry and believe that our country
has made some incredible progress over the years.

We cried watching people on continents across the planet cry as they celebrated
our evolving as a nation and selecting the first Black as President of the USA
…

And I suspect we will continue to cry in happiness with the masses who also cry
or with those who refuse to cry and think nothing significant has happened.

As an African American who grew up in predominantly white  environments, I know
what it is like to ask for nothing, be at the top of the academic scale and
still have people believe you can’t achieve…. I now cry out of the joy I
have of sharing with you why I cried that night.

My dream is that one day we will all cry the same tears of joy together as a
nation.

PS - In this case the best man, by far, did win

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KEEP UP THE NERVE!

Henrico County Public Schools Needs A Superintendent That Fights Racism, Not Promotes It

This school board acknowledged that they were not only “institutionally racist,” but went a step further to admit that their support of “racially oppressive systems” was directly impacting the academic achievement of students of color within the district.

WOW!  Can they come to Henrico County and replace this school board?

Henrico’s school board and superintendent won’t even develop a team to open discuss, honestly assess, or boldly confront racism within the district against students, parents, and employees at the hand of individuals like themselves!

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Racism tough to tackle — or even talk about — for Seattle School Board

By Alex Fryer

Seattle Times staff reporter

Midway through a January meeting about choosing a new superintendent, Seattle School Board member Darlene Flynn suggested candidates have a “clear understanding of institutionalized oppression” when it comes to improving grades of African-American students.

Her phrase prompted discussion among board members who wondered how the ideal applicant should answer their questions about racism in education. Board President Cheryl Chow asked: “What would be the correct answer? A correct answer in whose definition? I don’t know if there is a 100 percent right answer.”

In the end, the board agreed to a compromise in the job description that referred to “institutional factors contributing to the achievement gap,” but the anecdote reveals how school leaders often grapple with how to talk about race.

The district has created a consciousness of race issues through policy statements and board priorities, but often without clear direction or explanation. This tense atmosphere will confront superintendent candidates, likely to face questions about race during the first round of interviews with board members this week.

Compared to many other districts around the country, Seattle has staked out strong positions — its strategic plan, for instance, promises to dismantle institutional racism in the city’s public schools. A district administrator is paid $102,086 to accomplish that task, though there are disagreements on the board about whether widespread discrimination exists in the classrooms and administrative offices.

Navigating the sensitive waters of race has proven a tough go. Despite the district’s bold goals, actions such as last year’s debate over closing schools easily turn into crises fueled by charges that the board is insensitive to people of color.

Trying to close the gap

White enrollment in Seattle’s public schools has dropped precipitously since the 1970s, and ethnic minorities are now a majority of the 46,000 students.

Since 1986, the district has launched at least three plans to close the achievement gap between African-American students and other groups. An effort in 2002 pledged to erase racial disparities in three years. But last year, 73 percent of white 10th-graders passed all three parts of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, compared with 23.8 percent of black students.

The district has sought to determine how discrimination affects student learning, and its mission statement, adopted in 2004, reads: “We must recognize the impacts of institutional racism on student success and question any excuses for not making necessary changes.”

Institutional racism, as defined by the district, is “an indirect and largely invisible process that operates automatically and results in less access to services and opportunities of a society based on race.”

To combat bias, Superintendent Raj Manhas in 2004 created the Office of Equity and Race Relations and appointed its first director, Caprice Hollins, a licensed psychologist, charged with examining curriculum, textbooks and other policies.

She also runs workshops on cultural diversity for administrative staff and oversees teams of teachers, principals and parents who monitor race relations in schools.

In a recent interview, Hollins said she found no specific district program that was institutionally racist, but she pointed to summer break as an example of systemic problems. Initially devised to allow school-age children to help with farm labor, summer break serves no educational purpose, Hollins said, and the disruption puts struggling students further behind.

“It’s a system that’s in place that’s not questioning itself,” she said.

Hollins said people of color are constantly judged by the dominant white culture, and, unlike other ethnic minorities, there is nothing they can do about it.

“Jewish folks hid their cultural identity. Irish changed their name. Some groups can assimilate and others can’t. There’s one thing that will never change — and that’s the way I look,” said Hollins, an African American. “When people target you [a white person] for being racist because you’re white, people associate you with their collective experience. It’s about the power dynamic, understanding how your whiteness impacts people of color.”

Last year, Hollins’ Equity and Race Relations Web site attracted national attention when she defined “individualism” and a “future time orientation” as “those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and whiteness and devalue, stereotype and label people of color … “

After an outcry, she removed the statement, and has yet to finalize a new one. Her interim message reads: “Our intention is not to put up additional barriers or develop an ‘us against them’ mindset; nor is it to continue to hold onto unsuccessful concepts such as a melting pot or colorblind mentality.”

Can only do so much?

Michael DeBell, the School Board’s only white male, said he was “uncomfortable [with the assumption] that we are institutionally racist or an institutionally oppressive institution.”

Elected in November 2005, DeBell notes that he was not part of the board that wrote the mission statement. Discussions about race can be valuable for teachers and administrators, he said, but in the big picture, the Seattle School District has limited ability to change perceptions or history.

“We are an institution in a nation that has many historical legacies, and we as an institution are not going to be able to transform those legacies in some kind of bubble we create in the Seattle School District,” he said.

While districts across the nation struggle with raising test scores of minority students, it’s difficult to find language similar to what’s in Seattle’s official statements.

The Portland School District doesn’t use the word “racism” in its strategic plan; neither does Los Angeles or Boston.

For James Kelly, president of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, ending racism is a noble goal, but difficult to measure.

Kelly said that eight years ago, when he assumed leadership of the Urban League, he requested the phrase “eliminate racism and poverty” be left out of the group’s mission statement. There was no way to truly gauge success, he said, and the same could be said for the Seattle School District.

“You can’t monitor what you can’t measure,” Kelly said. “I beg the question: How will you measure that what you’re doing is making a difference in the lives of 46,000 kids?”

Profile for candidates

On Tuesday, the board selected six superintendent candidates to interview, and it hopes to announce finalists next week.

To find the ideal person, the board adopted a nine-point profile, which calls for educators who have led a diverse urban district and demonstrated an ability to improve grades, among other criteria.

Flynn, one of the board’s two African Americans, said hopefuls should be able to provide specific answers on how racism affects student learning. “If a candidate can’t answer that question, I would have a really hard time with that candidate,” she said during the January meeting.

That statement was met with caution from DeBell, who suggested the district not be bound by a specific philosophical test: “It’s good to be fairly broad on something like this.”

THIS School Board Took Immediate Action To Protect Its Students and Employees From A Racist Superintendent

Why won’t the school board members of Henrico County Public Schools do the same?

Because they suffer from the mental illness of racism as well, but refuse to admit it or confront it.

Just like the employees in Santa Clara, the employees of Henrico County Public Schools are terrified of retaliation from Mediocre Morton, that is way they suffer in silence under his dictatorship.

Read more about the school board that not only “talked the talk, but walked the walk”:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_7211140?nclick_check=1

Report: Wilcox humiliated and berated her minority employees
By Sharon Noguchi and Dana Hull
Mercury News
Article Launched: 10/18/2007 01:36:00 AM PDT

An investigator concluded that Santa Clara County schools chief Colleen
Wilcox has a “heightened focus” on race, national origin and appearance and
so terrorized her employees with comments on those subjects and others that
many were “visibly afraid” or even tearful when discussing her behavior.

Wednesday’s release of the investigator’s report, delivered personally by
Wilcox to the Mercury News newsroom, ended weeks of speculation about its
contents and its role in Wilcox’s forced resignation after 14 years as
Silicon Valley’s top educator. Wilcox blasted its conclusions.

The report, which drew upon interviews with 17 current and former Santa
Clara County Office of Education employees, was heavily edited to protect
employee privacy. But throughout its 46 pages, investigator Patricia Elliot
painted a portrait of a superintendent who often berated and humiliated her
staff – asking Latino employees how they got to the United States,
criticizing employees’ accents, and interrupting their public presentations
to complain about them.

Elliot, of Los Gatos, cited a series of often bizarre incidents of
inappropriate treatment – most of which Wilcox denied, though Elliot
concluded that many of her denials were not credible.

“None of these allegations on their own would be sufficient to conclude that
Dr. Wilcox makes judgments or takes actions based on an individual’s race or
national origin,” Elliot wrote. “However, taken together, along with the
evidence of Dr. Wilcox’s treatment” of a high-level Latina employee, “these
facts could support a finding that Dr. Wilcox treats individuals differently
and with less respect and support because they are Hispanic.”

Among the incidents:

. Wilcox made derogatory comments about obese staff members, saying “those
obese Head Start people are driving our health care costs higher” at an
August 2006 meeting. Most of the Head Start personnel are Latino. She also
reportedly told Latino food service workers in the cafeteria, “You guys love
eating that food; that’s why we have such an obesity problem.”

. Wilcox required board members to be fingerprinted after Anthony Muoz was
elected to the county board of education in 2003. She reportedly told an
employee that she suspected Muoz had a criminal record.

. Wilcox embarrassed and humiliated a new employee by asking him to perform
an ethnic dance from his native African country in front of other managers.

. Several years ago she pinched an employee on the buttocks and later
apologized by offering to allow him to pinch her buttocks.

The report also said that nearly all of the employees interviewed said they
were afraid of retaliation by Wilcox.

‘Visibly afraid’

“Those who work in Dr. Wilcox’s office and report directly to Dr. Wilcox
were visibly afraid when they were asked to participate in the
investigation,” she said. “Several employees, both male and female, had
tears in their eyes when they spoke about Dr. Wilcox’s treatments of
employees.”

Earlier this month, the board effectively banned Wilcox from the county
office except for on certain days, and limited her contact to nine people
who directly report to her.

Wilcox will step down as superintendent Nov. 1, but her final days have been
marred by controversy over the report and the prolonged wrangling to get it
released. Even a farewell cake that had been ordered as a way of saying
goodbye to Wilcox was canceled by the board, which was incensed over
Wilcox’s efforts to insert herself into the distribution of the report.

Wednesday evening’s board meeting was Wilcox’s last as superintendent. Two
members of the public and three board members thanked her for her service
and praised accomplishments during her tenure, from the new community
partnerships to the very county board offices they were sitting in. “You
leave a very large and significant legacy,” said trustee Leon F. Beauchman.

The investigation against Wilcox was launched after a high-level Latina
employee complained in February that Wilcox had harassed her for five years.
Investigator Elliot handed her report to the board’s attorney, who briefed
the seven trustees on its contents in June. But until Oct. 3, the board
steadfastly refused to formally receive the report, thus blocking public
access to it. Wilcox, through her attorney, has maintained that the report
should be confidential, but ultimately agreed to redact the report and
release it.

Wilcox responds

Wilcox took issue with the report Wednesday, issuing a two-page statement
that questioned the investigator and her methods.

“I am also dismayed by the quality of the report itself,” Wilcox wrote. “It
was ultimately my responsibility to ensure that an impartial, professional
report was obtained. That was not done.

“Any suggestion that I engaged in any act of discrimination on the basis of
ethnicity or sexual preference, or any other basis, is entirely and
demonstrably false,” Wilcox wrote.

Before releasing the report, Wilcox assigned two of her deputies to read a
version that includes names of witnesses and complainants – and to write a
rebuttal. The two, Porter Sexton and Gina Liebig, issued a critique that
took issue with both findings and methodology. They said there were 16
misstatements of fact, 11 insertions of opinion, 26 misrepresentations of
others’ opinions and six instances of faulty methodology.

In her response, Wilcox harshly criticized the county office’s human
resources department, which she said improperly became a partisan in the
investigation and widened the probe beyond its original scope.

But Gary Rummelhoff, president of the Santa Clara County School Board,
forcefully defended the handling of the investigation, which was launched by
Assistant Superintendent Laura Kidwiler.

“Laura has been absolutely perfect through this whole thing,” Rummelhoff
said.

During the spring, Wilcox attempted through her attorney to contain the
investigation to the original employee complaint. However, when it became
clear that problems extended beyond Wilcox’s treatment of one manager, the
board insisted that Elliot look into other allegations, according to
Rummelhoff.

Experts say disclosing contents of a sensitive personnel matter to people
outside the investigation, as Wilcox did in letting Sexton and Liebig read
the unredacted report, is highly unusual. And so is writing a line-by-line
response.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Michael Robbins, a
Southern California attorney who has conducted more than 200 workplace
investigations. He also said it is common for investigators to broaden their
focus as their research evolves.

“If allegations being raised are substantially similar to what you are
investigating, you go investigate them,” he said.

One of the more bizarre allegations in the report said that after the
election of Anthony Muoz to the county board of education in 2003, Wilcox
wanted all board members to be fingerprinted because she suspected Muoz had
been in trouble with the law.

Since 2003, all newly elected board members have been asked to provide
fingerprints, but Wilcox has only asked to see the fingerprint report on
Muoz. The Mercury News was unable to reach Muoz for comment

Parents and NAACP Demand That Racist Superintendent Be Fired!

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?????

Georgia Schools Superintendent Makes Racist Comments

J. Alvin Wilbanks, superintendent of the Gwinnett County (GA) schools, has really ticked off parents with comments some think racist and are calling for his removal.

It seems there was a presentation about the disproportionate discipline of minority students in Gwinnett, at which James Taylor, a school district administrator, reported that according to a study, discipline of minority students is a problem for school districts nationwide except in Idaho.

Superintendent Wilbanks then quipped, “Do they have any blacks in Idaho? They don’t have many.”

As to be expected, Wilbanks’ comments angered black and white parents. His supporters say that he’s an education leader that cares about all students but his others want him fired. The Gwinnett Chapter of the NAACP wants an apology but is that enough?

Wilbanks is the longest-sitting superintendent in the nation having been appointed in 1996; most superintendents tenure is about four years.

A quick perusal of Gwinnett County showed no blacks in top leadership positions. As far as the school district, all of the school board members are white. The ethnicity of all of the school district’s top staff couldn’t be determined definitely, but from the photos posted, none were black. County government showed more of the same. That can’t be good for black people who represent about 20% of the population.

Because of the lack of diversity in key County positions; it’s highly unlikely that schools chief Wilbanks will be fired or even reprimanded. However, Wilbanks should be disciplined just like the students he commented about. Ten-day suspension? Corporal punishment? What say you?

Retrieved from: http://www.blackhandside.net/2008/08/georgia-schools.html

RACISM IN AMERICA IZ ALIVE AND WELL!

Yes, it is…….

Now, if President Obama is subject to being labeled as a “magic negro” then the other African-Americans within the nation can be sure that their names are “mud.”

So sad, but it is the state of our society where WHITE PRIVILEGE throughout the nation, including Henrico County, dehumanizes anyone that does not look like them, talk like them, or think like them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvXz2xaLNMQ

 

That is how an African-American knows that they are a threat to the white establishment of WHITE PRIVILEGE…….

They stoop real low, trying to make you stoop real low, to come after you.

Don’t believe us, as Mediocre Morton and the Sorry School board about how they stooped REAL low to remove any and all competent educators and administrators of color out of the district so that they could not impact the next generation.

Their actions were systematically racist, with the hopes of ensuring the genocide of children of color.

KEEP UP THE NERVE!

Who Will Bring ETHICS Back To Henrico Schools?

That explains the chaos that is going on in Henrico County Public Schools under the leadership of Mediocre Morton!

“The School Administrator” states what we, here at UGOTNERVE, and thousands of others within Henrico County Public Schools have proclaimed for years…..

ETHICS VIOLATION IS A MAJOR ISSUE FOR SUPERINTENDENTS, ESPECIALLY HENRICO’S PRESENT SUPERINTENDENT!

The article calls the lack of ethics by superintendents, such as Henrico’s superintendent, to be a “SAD STATE”.

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A Sad State

Research on the subject, some of which stretches back 36 years, suggests school superintendents confronted with ethical dilemmas can be expected to make decisions consistent with the AASA Code of Ethics less than 50 percent of the time. The first such study was conducted in 1968 by C. Roy Dexheimer, at the time superintendent of the Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES in Ithaca, N.Y. William C. Fenstermaker, an elementary school principal in Pennsylvania, replicated the study in 1994.

Both Dexheimer and Fenstermaker asked superintendents to choose one of several suggested responses to what they called “borderline ethical dilemmas” similar to those they might encounter on the job and then compared their answers to current AASA ethics codes. A total of 47.3 percent of those polled in 1968 and 48.1 percent in 1994 chose the responses considered “ethical.”

“Sadly for the state of the profession,” wrote Fenstermaker in 1996 for The School Administrator, “my findings, with few exceptions, nearly duplicated those obtained a quarter century earlier.”

Joseph Murphy

Both studies, the most significant conducted on the issue involving top school leaders, found less experienced superintendents and those working in larger school districts most likely to make decisions in line with the code adopted by association members in 1962. (A streamlined version of the AASA code was adopted in 1981.) Both researchers also found a correlation between ethics and salaries, with those paid the most generally scoring higher.

California superintendents surveyed in 1999 by Karen Sue Walker, at the time a doctoral candidate at the University of La Verne in California, scored somewhat higher. Walker concluded in her dissertation, “Decision Making and Ethics: A Study of California Superintendents,” that the superintendents made ethical choices consistent with the statement of ethics adopted by the Association of California School Administrators the vast majority of the time. According to Walker’s research, “most school superintendents make decisions that he or she believes to be right even when it is difficult.”

Anecdotal evidence tells its own story. Two high-profile cases surfaced recently. In Roslyn, N.Y., former superintendent Frank Tassone and Pamela Gluckin, the district’s former assistant superintendent for business and finance, were charged in early summer with felonies for allegedly embezzling more than $1 million each in school district money. The superintendent of nearby William Floyd school district, also on Long Island, asked the district attorney to open investigations of its two business officials. One was subsequently arrested.

Superintendents across the state “reacted with outrage,” according to Tom Rogers, executive director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents. “Stealing from a school system steals from children. That’s despicable.” Revelations of such alleged gross misconduct, he adds, threaten to unjustly undermine the public’s trust in all schools and fuel the ire of public education opponents. “Fairly or not, the actions of a few will reflect on all,” Rogers says.

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One thing is for certain, when Mediocre Morton arrived in Henrico five years ago, any sense of ETHICS left, and now, the way back to ETHICSLAND is a long, hard road.

Will the new superintendent bring ETHICS back or will he/she be dragged down by the unethical words, thoughts, and actions of the present school board?

KEEP UP THE NERVE!

When Will Henrico County Public Schools Admit Its Racism And Deal With It?

Angela from the East End says:

Never!  That is unless they are forced to leave their river of de’ niel and start to be honest with themselves!

New Year’s Resolution for Mediocre Morton and the Sorry School Board:

GET ON THE PATH TO RACISM RECOVERY!

We love our readers and their words of wisdom!

KEEP UP THE NERVE!

Has Mediocre Morton Gotten The Boot?

Sources within Henrico County Public Schools report that Mediocre Fred Morton is no longer running the “day to day” operations of the district.  Instead, it is said that Dr. Jean Murray, Superintendent of Instruction, has assumed Mediocre’s role within the district as everyone tries to move him out as soon as is possible.

Hmmmm………this is a very interesting change of events, assuming that the reports are in fact true.  Wasn’t Dr. Murray the same person that our central office sources stated had been verbally disrespected by Mediocre Morton during several staff meetings?

What can we say?

 

 

Special thanks to our central office informants on the update that everyone is trying to keep under wraps!

KEEP UP THE NERVE!

Henrico’s Teachers Going To Area Job Fairs In Packs!

Well, it is official!

There will be another “mass exodus” of educators from Henrico County Public Schools this year.

As you may recall, the Times-Dispatch reported that Henrico County Public Schools had the highest vacancy rate of any school district within the area, at 500 vacancies as of September 2008.  That is even higher than Richmond City!

The word has spread like wild fire to stay away from Henrico County Public Schools because of its poor leadership, abusive practices, discriminatory mindsets, and rampant incompetence; all under the leadership of Mediocre Morton and The Sorry School Board.

UGOTNERVE is proud to be a part of this exposure as other employment and recruitment websites refer potential jobseekers to us so that they may read about the REAL DEAL with Henrico, and run like Forrest Gump for the hills in order to get away.

We also wish those educators that are seeking employment else where, far away from Henrico, our blessings. 

We all need to pray for Henrico’s children that cannot go anywhere else and are forced to put up with the horrible incompetence of Mediocre Morton, his cronies, and the Sorry School Board.

We will still fight for you!

Great job, UGOTNERVE team!

KEEP UP THE NERVE!

Not Just Baby Jesus, But Jesus The Social Rebel

During this CHRISTmas season, it is important to realize who Jesus, The Christ, really was and is as we continue to fight, confront, and expose social injustice within our society, especially as it relates children and people of color.

“JESUS LIVED AGAINST THE SYSTEMATIC INJUSTICE AND STRUCTURAL EVIL OF OPPRESSION IN HIS TIME.”-REV. JOAN GELBEIN, JESUS: SOCIAL REBEL AND ICONOCLAST 

There is no doubt that Jesus is hanging His head in shame and raging with anger as He watches those that claim to be His followers “go along to get along”, permit the suffering of children, and remain silent in the face of injustice and inequality.  

We are certain that He is awaiting the time in which He can place them in hell where they deserve to be!

Jesus not only broke every traditional law of the religious and governmental leaders that was oppressive to all that was just, pure, and equal; but He spoke for those that had no voice; and often did it alone because He feared God more than any man.

If we were to take a true, realistic look at who Jesus really was, most of us would be put to shame at the thought that we call ourselves, Christians, or “followers of Christ”, because the truth is that unless many of us open our mouths and tell someone that we are Christians, they would never know it by our words, actions, or convictions.

 

The “baby Jesus” that many of us celebrate, grew up to be one of the most controversial, threatening, and outspoken rebels of his time.  After all, it was because of his refusal to give in to the corrupt and unjust ways of the Romans (which represent the govermental forces), and the Pharisees, (which represent that corrupt and unjust religious forces), that Jesus was harassed, threatened, and targeted for execution.

The fact that Jesus had the ability to show those that were oppressed that they could be free, and the fact that he had no problem boldly confronting the hypocritical, arrogant, and oppressive leaders of that day that exploited the orphans, poor, elderly, and disenfranchised.  (Sounds just like Henrico School’s leaders, doesn’t it?)

Well, Jesus did not hesitate to go wherever the hypocrites and corrupt leaders congregated, whether it was a Jewish chapel or a school board meeting.  His intent was to fight oppressive ways by forcing the oppressors and their systems to face the TRUTH.  Once they were confronted by the truth, like most hypocrites and oppressive groups, they either run for the hills, lie, or deny the truth.  Regardless of their response, Jesus demonstrated tremendous resolve in holding the “spotlight of TRUTH” directly on them, which eventually lead to their exposure.

Read more about the REAL Jesus and how REAL CHRISTians should be in order to be true followers of him.

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Jesus was a social prophet like the great social prophets of Israel. His authority flowed from the immediacy of his personal mystical experience of the sacred.

He engaged in a radical critique of the domination system of his day, centered in both Jerusalem and the temple as the center of the ruling elites. His prophetic vision was that important to him that his act of overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the temple court was done in spite of his knowing the serious consequence it would have for his own safety. It was, indeed, the trigger for his arrest and eventual execution.

He had a passion for social justice, with an unusual sensitivity to the poor and the marginalized.

He was also an extraordinary and remarkable healer. More healing stories are told about Jesus than about any other figure in the Jewish tradition.

As a sage, he offered, not conventional wisdom, but an alternative wisdom. With his aphorisms and parables he invited hearers into a different way of seeing God, themselves, and life itself. He never said he was God. He sought to lead his hearers out of habituated ways of seeing and experiencing, and to a new ethic, a new social vision. He was boundary-shattering.

He was a charismatic presence and because of that, attracted followers. A small movement came into existence around him during his brief ministry. It was remarkably inclusive and egalitarian and undermined the sharp boundaries between people, typical of his day.

One of its most striking features was Jesus’ inclusive meal practice, an embodiment of his alternative social vision. “Table Fellowship”— sharing a meal with somebody—had a significance in Jesus’ social world that is difficult for us to imagine. It was not a casual act, at that time it had the revolutionary intent of representing mutual acceptance.

Rules surrounding meals were deeply embedded in what is referred to as “the purity system.” Those rules governed not only what might be eaten and how it should be prepared, but also with whom one might eat: No decent person would share a meal with an outcast. The meal, then, was a microcosm of the social system.

Jesus’ inclusive meal practice had sociopolitical significance. He was accused of “eating with tax collectors and sinners,” tax collectors being the worst of the untouchables, and sinners being so-called impure or “dirty” people.

The inclusive vision of Jesus’ table fellowship is reflected in the shape of the Jesus movement itself. While he was alive, and in the years immediately following his death, it was an inclusive movement, negating boundaries of the purity system. It included women, untouchables, the poor, the maimed and the marginalized. It is difficult for us, who live in a world in which we take for granted an attitude, or an ideal, of nondiscrimination, to appreciate the radical character of this inclusiveness in Jesus’ time.

Jesus lived against the systemic injustice and structural evil of oppression in his time. He revealed an alternative available to all who would accept it: a life of open healing and shared eating, of radical itinerancy, programmatic homelessness, and fundamental egalitarianism; of human contact without discrimination, and of divine contact without hierarchy. He also died for that alternative.

Robert Funk, of the Jesus Seminar says “We should not be surprised to learn that the Jesus no one really knows is a subverter of causes. That he tramples with disdain on our saccharine sentiments. That he contradicts the labels we pin on him. That he rejects our honors and adoration. That Jesus, like the real Abraham Lincoln and the real Socrates, floats there in the collective imagination as an elusive but endlessly tantalizing figure who, if liberated, could possibly help us discover who we really are and what life is all about.”

Although this is interesting material, you may be wondering about its relevance to Unitarian Universalists. After all, we have already taken “the road less traveled,” the heretic’s path. We’re already tuned in to alternative wisdom. This material is surely more important to Christians who may want to separate out what is important to them about the historical Jesus and his teachings, in comparison with the complex mythic, symbolic, and institutional teachings of contemporary Christianity. It is they who must ask: How does the Christ of faith merge with the Jesus of history?

I don’t know, myself, what to make of this material yet, although I am drawn and fascinated and sense the significance of this research even for us.

The scholars are saying – Look at this religion that was created with all its symbolism and beauty which rests on an individual person’s teachings, and somewhere along the line forgot the teacher as he lived in history. It is a religion that ran to the prophecies and left the person behind; a religion that hasn’t been able to merge icon and iconoclast; that has embroidered such a web of myth and miracle it can’t quite pick up the faint voice of the rebel killed in its midst.

…and, look at the current literal, fundamentalist conservative Christian interpretations and exhortations that vigorously exclude, and call names in judgment, and bind up something they proclaim as THE TRUTH as told in a book they believe absoutely to be the undeniable word of God. Through the eyes of the Jesus Seminar scholar, this kind of Christianity has moved about as far away from the teachings of the historical Jesus as could possibly be. It is sad and ironic.

Where is he? Where is the historical plaincloth Jesus at the base of this baroque and beautiful embroidery of a religion? Has something virtually earth-shaking been lost – something powerful that needs to be found again – to be heard fresh and with humilty? Can an old religion learn new tricks?

What is the wonderful attraction to this long-ago sage, whose work was so brief that he may very well not have been more fully understood by his own followers? The wonder can’t be found in Christmas creches and Toys R Us. If Jesus were here, he’d certainly be spitting heated aphorisms at us!

A myth that is so far-fetched and crusted over in the eddies of time may have lost touch with the radical and wondrous at its base.

One of the sayings of Jesus, authenticated by the scholarly research of the Jesus Seminar is this:

“What if those who are the salt must themselves be seasoned?”

We Unitarian Universalists whose faith is less drawn to the religious polarities of myth or literalism, and who have certainly been on the “salty” edges of theology, can also be reminded to reawaken with new vigor to our own calling to justice, free thinking, and compassion.

What religion will come when dogma loses its power, and the people, themselves, come to realize it is they who are worthy and the sacred in life is fully available to them, here, and directly?

The picture that emerges of the historical figure of Jesus as teacher, healer, mystic, social activist, rebel, moving speaker and compassionate sage sounds awfully like many of our own heroes. Those are values so many of us espouse today. We may have given up most aspects of icon and divinity myths, but there is evidence of a powerful life back there in time which may have fresh meaning for us, as it is now being scraped free of mythic accretions. A new awareness of Jesus may sharpen our own wits as iconoclasts and social rebels. We Unitarian Universalist may find a new and exciting relationship with the Galilean sage.

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*Retrieved from: http://www.uucava.org/sermons/Jesuseminar2.htm