The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2023   Maina Mwaura wrote a recent article in Baptist News about Cornel West's campaign to become President of the United States. If you haven't already read it, I invite you to do so. https://baptistnews.com/article/cornel-west-also-is-running-for-president/ After you’ve read the article, will you share it? Will you invite others to think aloud with you about Dr. West, his career, and the values he articulates? Why not? Why shouldn’t you treat Cornel West as a legitimate and sensible alternative to any of the other people who are announced candidates for the highest elective office in the United States, including Joe Biden and Donald Trump? Whether you agree with West or not, why should you refuse to consider his candidacy as a prophetic and politically sensible alternative to any of the other candidates? Why not weigh his values, vision, and commitment to democracy, inclusion, justice, peace, and global well-being alongside what the other ca...

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2023 In 1999, I made the following comments in a paper titled Race, Law, and Culture:   A Call to New Thinking, Leadership, and Action . [1] The great need for our society regarding racial equity in the 21 st Century is new thinking, new leadership, and new action about racism and racial justice.   Without new thinking, new leadership, and new action about racism and its results, we will merely perpetuate past mistakes and re-institutionalize centuries of ingrained racism.   The question is whether we, as a society, have the character to embrace new thinking, accept new leadership, and rise to new action concerning racism, an issue that has been always with us but about which we are virtually phobic. …By racism, I mean the belief system by which persons are subordinated, subjugated, and otherwise accorded inferior status and treatment due to race.   Racism has infected American thinking concerning history, economics, law, culture, an...

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2023   Donald Trump has been indicted, again. His supporters believe that Trump’s latest indictment by a grand jury on federal charges brought by US Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith arising from Trump’s actions to remain in power are baseless attempts to block Trump from being elected President of the United States in 2024. News reporters, legal commentators, and pundits are talking about the latest indictment, whether it will affect the 2024 presidential campaign, and Trump’s mounting legal problems. Trump’s history of antisocial behavior (as shown by his personal and professional dishonesty, cruelty, bigotry, and lack of empathy) was chronicled, reported, and criticized long before he was elected US president in 2016. Given all that has been reported about Trump’s maniacal effort to remain in power, sensible people should not be surprised that he faces criminal charges. His distinction comes from being the most impeached, criminall...

  THE CRUEL DISMANTLING OF DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION (DEI) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS © Wendell Griffen, 2023   In an email message sent on Tuesday, June 13, Dr. Charles Robinson (Chancellor at the University of Arkansas flagship campus in Fayetteville, Arkansas) announced that staff and resources from the campus Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) would be reallocated to other campus offices beginning this fall. I’m posting a link to the message Chancellor Robinson sent the campus so you can read his words. https://chancellor.uark.edu/key-communications/150-forward-update-from-chancellor-robinson.php Robinson sent his message two weeks before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decided, by a 6-3 vote, that the admission policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina (UNC) are racially discriminatory because both schools include racial identity among the factors considered in determining who to admit. The SCO...