The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2022   The death of Queen Elizabeth requires deep reflection. She was matriarch to her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and other family members. She was monarch of Britain for seventy years. Most people in Britain, across the British Commonwealth, and across the rest of the world have never known a time without her being the head of her nation. Morally sensitive people should express condolences to her family and nation. Their loss warrants that respect and sympathy. At the same time, morally sensitive people should express concern about people across the world who have suffered harm due to British colonialism, imperialism, and military incursions. Indigenous people in Africa, Australia, India, Palestine, Cyprus, New Zealand, the Caribbean, North America, and across the Asian Pacific region were colonized by the British Empire. Queen Elizabeth inherited the legacy and consequences of that centuries-long behavior and oversaw those con...

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2022   Donald Trump’s legal team has argued to a federal judge that the US Justice Department’s arguments surrounding Trump’s removal of government records and classified files from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago resort residence in Palm Beach, Florida, and continued possession of those items after he left the White House January 20, 2021, amount to complaining about “an overdue library book.”  Here is what is wrong with Trump’s assertion. Before a library book patron can have an “overdue” book, the patron must first get permission from the library to take the item from the library and agree to return it to the library by a given date. Library material cannot be taken at whim. It must be “checked out.” Trump had no authority, let alone permission, to remove property of the United States from the White House to anywhere else after noon on January 20, 2021, when his presidency ended. He had no authority or permission to remove artifacts from...

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2022   Mississippi is “the Magnolia State” where Emmett Louis Till, a  14-year-old African American boy, was abducted, tortured, and lynched in August 1955. Mississippi is where Medgar Evers was murdered June 12, 1963. Mississippi is where three civil-rights activists— James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner  — were abducted and murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, in June 1964. In September 2022, there is no clean running water for humans or animals in Jackson, the state capitol. Think about what that means. There is no clean running water for residents. There is no clean running water for tourists. There is no clean running water for hotels. There is no clean running water for schools. There is no clean running water for hospitals (delivery rooms, surgery suites, intensive care units, cafeterias, restrooms, or morgues), nursing homes, or other care facilities. There is no clean running water for restaurants,...