Thursday, February 25, 2010

Challenges in Creating a Culture of Gratitude

Most Christians are not thankful. We’re excellent at thanking God for the weather (which happens to both the wicked and the just), and for food (while we’re sitting down before a meal), but we are abso-freaking-lutely terrible at thanking each other.

In fact, there are at least two sources of outright hostility toward the action of thanking people for their ministry, for the good deeds they do, or for just being who they are.

The first source pretends to be concerned about people. “We don’t want to publicly thank people for what they do,” goes the reasoning, “because we might leave someone out, and they would get mad.” There’s a pet phrase these people like to use. “It’s like giving a gift to one person, but giving everyone else a dead fish.”*

This statement assumes that the average congregation member has the emotional maturity of a two year-old. Sure, there are a small minority of emotionally immature people in the congregation. Imagine emotional maturity as a bell curve, and expect that the bottom 5% will get their shorts in a twist about anything. But, as with other issues in the church, are we really going to refrain from thanking people because someone might feel left out? This is just plain sick. It’s projecting - and replicating - the most dysfunctional family dynamic in the congregation: We must tiptoe around emotionally immature people so that they don’t blow up and cause conflict.

The other problem with this way of thinking is that it goes against everything we know about behavior change. If you want to shape the behavior of a group, you use positive reinforcement. My Dad points out that this is one of the best ways for teachers to manage a classroom. Rather than yelling at the class to be quiet or settle down, the teacher finds one person who is behaving appropriately and praises that person. The people surrounding that person will then imitate the behavior to earn the teacher’s praise. People who are skilled in this kind of strategy can manage a class without threatening, yelling, or scolding. Attention changes the behavior of a group. Thanking people for their service shapes the behavior of a community.

The other source of resistance to thanking people is philosophical. It suggest that we shouldn’t thank people for doing what they should do anyway. Like good soldiers, Christians should just naturally want to serve meals at shelters, give their money away, and do other acts of service. Some people carry this to the level of scorn. “You only go on a short-term mission trips to feel good about yourself,” goes the rhetoric, “and then you come back and do nothing.”**

Again, this goes against everything we know about behavior change. We learn best through positive reinforcement, not through stern lectures about what we ought to do, or through being guilt-tripped into action.

Failure to thank people kills communities. In John Gottman’s research on marriage and relationships, he found that couples who did not thank each other for doing chores, taking care of the kids, or basic loving actions did not stay married. It’s not that they thanked each other because cooking dinner or changing the oil in the car were somehow extra or unexpected. They thanked each other for doing their duty because they were grateful. They knew how to appreciate the simple things in life. They cultivated their own culture of gratitude.

And are do-gooders supposed to refrain from feeling good about the work they do? Are they supposed to remind themselves constantly not to be proud of the house they built, the money they raised, the people they comforted? Are those good feelings dangerous, and should we quash them lest we become prideful and think we are God-like in our beneficence? Posh. Posh, I say! Sure, Jesus admonishes his followers to beware practicing their piety in front of others in order to be admired by them (Matt 6:1), but he specifically refers to giving, praying, and fasting - “religious” behaviors to show others how good we are. Altruistic behaviors, in contrast to “religious” ones, release chemicals in our brain that make us feel good. God wants us to feel good about doing good. Actively working to suppress good feelings in ourselves or others is not just counterproductive in changing behavior. It’s sick.

Which brings me to the theological problem with thanklessness in churches. I’m going to be uncharacteristically supernaturalist here: I think the real source of both these attitudes is the devil. Satan. Ol’ Scratch. See, the devil is really good at disguising snarky, self-aggrandizing and selfish attitudes with philosophical and benevolent language: “We’re going to be thankless so we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings. We’re going to be thankless because thanking people is morally questionable.” The evil powers of this world do not want people to change their behavior, and so they have infiltrated the church and infected all our efforts at service and good deeds with theological suspicion, poisoning the pleasure of making human contact and doing human ministry, de-carnating our acts of pleasurable service into Platonic, abstract shoulds and oughts. This is the same attitude of ascetic Christians in times past toward sex: “just close your eyes and think of England.” So now, instead of just overcoming middle-class classism, racism, and fear to go downtown and work in a homeless shelter, you have to do so without feeling good about yourself. Yeah, good luck with that.

So thank people all the time because it changes their behavior. Thank them all the time because they are gifts from God, put here to do Kingdom work. Thank them and thank God for them.

“Y’all are the light of the world… let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matt 5:14, 16)

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*Dead fish? Where the heck did a dead fish come from? I’ve heard this particular expression countless times, but I don’t even know where the metaphor began. Has it come detached from a story somewhere?

**I’m still looking for reliable empirical data on the effectiveness of missions projects or trips at changing behavior. Anecdotally, at least half of the people I travel with on mission trips or participate in projects with say things like, “I should have done this years ago. I should do this more often. I’m going to resolve to do this once a week.” They talk about the relationships they build and the humility that comes with being served by the poor. I cannot measure follow-through, but I do know that praise and giving thanks for those activities will increase the odds that the behavior will increase. That’s basic behavioral science.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Advice for Preachers

I can no longer remember who said this to me, but it went something like this: “Julia Childs said never apologize for the food you’ve prepared. In the same way, preachers should never apologize for the sermons they’ve prepared, nor for sharing their jokes or repeating their stories.”

Thursday, February 18, 2010

10 Reasons Ash Wednesday is Better than Christmas

10. No braving the malls looking for Lent gifts
9. No pressure to send “Merry Ash Wednesday” cards
8. No explaining why using chi-rho isn’t “X-ing Jesus out” of Lent
7. No dominionist fundagelicals trying to fight culture wars by putting “Jesus resisting temptation in the wilderness” displays on public property
6. No celebrity holiday albums
5. No Ash Wednesday sitcom specials
4. No saccharine email forwards about “the true meaning” of Ash Wednesday
3. No tacky Ash Wednesday sweaters
2. “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return” extremely difficult to use in consumer marketing strategies
1. Nobody ever says, “Ash Wednesday is really all about the children.”

Monday, February 15, 2010

Cartoon of NT Origins

Here is a cartoon I made for my Bible Stuff class on NT origins. There was a lecture that went along with it, but I think it pretty well speaks for itself. Click the thumbnail for the full size version.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Of Making Many Books There is No End

Leaving Church. Quitting Church. UnChristian. They Like Jesus But Not the Church. Jesus Wants to Save Christians.

All of these are titles of books that have been published in the last few years. And as much as I agree with the theological and political views of their authors, the incessant harping on the spiritual death of the institutional church bores me. I pick up a book and hold it in my hands. I read the front and back cover. I browse the table of contents, and scan for familiar scriptures.

There they are. All my old friends. Matthew 25, the sheep and the goats. Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount (which I can recite). The letter of James. The invective of Amos. It’s nice to hear so many voices agreeing with me as I flip the pages of one book after another.

Each one I put back on the shelf. I don’t want to read them. I could lip-sync to them.

What we need, these books will say, is to get off our butts and get out of the pews and into the world. I can hear Bishop Willimon responding, “as if worship were distracting us from the more important work of relief and social justice!”

What we need, they will say, is more Jesus. Not that old blonde-haired blue-eyed Jesus, but the post-colonial Semitic, Jewish Jesus.

What we need, they will say, is more faith. More gumption. Less consumerism. More love. Less Apathy. More oomph and less ahh. More relationship and less regulation. Less talk and more action.

So I put each book back with a sense of disappointment. What am I looking for? Something I don’t already know. I already know there’s not a magic formula to bring renewal to the church. I already know there’s not a manual. I already know the church needs an infusion of the Holy Spirit, to die and be resurrected, to be the incarnate Body of Christ. I don’t need any more books to tell me that.

Monday, February 08, 2010

Dawkins, Literalists, and the 10 Scientific Commandments

Here is an excerpt of Salon’s interview with Richard Dawkins back in the fall:

You say in the beginning of the book that you would like to convince people that creationism is not a feasible or a viable belief system, but you also make it clear that you’re not a big fan of creationists.

That’s putting it mildly, yes.

Doesn’t that make it difficult for a creationist to read this book without feeling insulted? Won’t that hurt your goal?

No, I’m not really aiming it at creationists. I don’t think they read books anyway, except for one book. It’s aimed at the intelligent layperson who does read books and who vaguely knows a little bit about evolution and who vaguely knows that there are creationists and maybe even vaguely thinks that he’s a creationist himself, but who is curious and wants to know the evidence.

The part that rankled was “except for one book.” What Dawkins doesn’t understand is that most creationists don’t read the Bible. In fact, I’ve found that literalists of any stripe do not read the Bible much because they believe they already know what it says. What they tend to do is read the same collection of inspirational memory verses over and over again.

It used to bother me that so many people show such a stunning lack of curiosity about the Bible. But then I realized that curiosity takes work, and requires a scientific openness to seek answers. If either Biblical literalists or Dawkins took the time to actually read the creation accounts in Genesis:
1. They would notice that the creation orders are different.
2. Their curiosity might lead them to look for other differences (language, style, etc.)
3. They would seek out sources that might be able to explain the differences (pastors, commentaries, scholars)
4. They would look for dissenting opinions
5. They would formulate their own reason for the differences in light of the available evidence (e.g., these stories were written by two different authors for two different audiences).

As I said, curiosity takes work. Literalists dismiss their curiosity by simply saying, “it’s the Word of God, sometimes it’s hard to understand, but I’ll just accept it on faith.” They just don’t think about it.

Dawkins doesn’t have such an excuse. He is supposed to be a scientist, for crying out loud, but he just accepts the literalists’ interpretation of the Bible. He even thinks they read it! If there is anything like a list of scientific sins, I think one of them would be lack of curiosity.

1. Thou shalt not be incurious
2. Thou shalt make thy methods discernible to all
3. Thou shalt not falsify evidence or results
etc.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

All Language is Political: “Negro Dialect” and the Power of Words

One of the neat things about studying social linguistics is the way it makes explicit the things everyone already knows. Harry Reid’s tone-deaf comment about Barack Obama is a great example. He chose an inelegant way of saying something everyone knows is true: “Obama doesn’t talk black.” Others have made similar offensive observations. “He is articulate,” which is a coded way of saying, “he sounds white.” But it isn’t really enough to say that he sounds white. He sounds like a certain kind of white person, one who has been educated and has not grown up in a rural or poor environment; which is, in fact, true about Obama. Which brings up all kinds of questions about what it means for someone to sound “white.” 

If only Harry Reid had spent a couple of semesters studying sociology or linguistics, he could have put it in a much less offensive, more academic-sounding way. Instead of using the phrase “negro dialect,” he could have said: “One of the reasons the president is popular across racial and class lines is because he doesn’t use African-American Vernacular English.” He could have even sounded more legit (isn’t that a “black” word?) by using its acronym, AAVE.

The irony, of course, is that in his comment about Obama’s use of language, he himself made a sociolinguistic blunder. He demonstrated by his failure to use correct language that he is morally and intellectually deficient. He is not one of “us.” These are exactly the kinds of judgments racists make when they hear AAVE, what some call “ebonics.”

What is so delicious about the whole brouhaha is that it demonstrates the way language works. Language is not merely the communication of ideas. It is the communication of social status, power, and group fidelity. When we deploy language, we advertise to which groups we belong, what values we accept, and what kinds of persons we are. If I drop the g’s off of my words: “listenin’ and learnin’,” I can show that I am folksy or populist or one of y’all, the way George W. Bush and Sarah Palin do. If I borrow words from popular black culture, I can demonstrate that I’m hip - unless I deploy them incorrectly or in an incongruous style, in which case I’m revealed to be a poser. These are all “social discourses,” ways we use language to pull off being a certain kind of person. 

White people often misunderstand AAVE as being incorrect or improper English. But even if we look at language as the communication of ideas, vernaculars often use much more elegant and consistent grammars than (implicitly white) Standard Academic English. One common example is the pair of sentences “she late” and “she be late.” The first is a perfectly correct grammatical construction in many languages. The verb “is” is implied. “She late” means she is late. “She be late” is a grammatical construction which implies a continual action. To translate it into SAE, you have to add cumbersome words: “She is habitually late.” You don’t have to do that in AAVE. You just say, “she be late.”

The same thing applies to Southern and Rural English as well. “Y’all” is a perfectly good word that often serves as a class or regional marker in our language. It’s a word shared by southerners, rural whites, and speakers of AAVE. There is no second person plural in Standard Academic English except “you.” “Y’all” makes clear who is being addressed: “all of you.” “Ain’t” is likewise a perfectly good word which has been in use for centuries as a contraction of the words “am” and “not.” The only reason to shun it is for class prejudice: people who say “ain’t” have not had it educated out of them.

Now, I think it’s really important to be careful about what we say and how we say it, especially if your vocation (like mine) is built on words. But the reality of human communication necessitates a measure of grace. You have to give folks the benefit of the doubt. Rather than react to someone’s socio-linguistic failure with glee or schadenfreude, we should ask how it could have been said better, and then ask if it really makes a bit of difference. When Reid said “negro dialect,” you knew what he meant. And chances are, you’ve thought the same thing.

And if you’ve thought the same thing, perhaps that’s where the real discussion on race, language, and how we treat each other could begin. There are no absolute lines around what constitutes AAVE, and no rational reason why Standard Academic English is considered “white,” or why what is “white” is considered more proper than what is not. Yet we make these kinds of judgments all the time at an unconscious level. We even modulate our dialect, sliding into one kind of vernacular or another depending on who is around us.

All language is political, because we are always indicating through it to which groups we belong, what our values are, and where we call home. Had Harry Reid said something like this, I doubt anyone would argue. Obama uses the language of power, and it is in part his artful use of that power that won him the election.

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[edit 1-23-10]: I should have pointed out that President Obama obviously gets some of his excellent speaking skills from black preachers, and I think he demonstrates a skill at “code switching” - the ability to “pull off” multiple social discourses at the same time. For a great movie about code switching (and its perils), I recommend Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Playing Whack-a-Mole

I realized some time ago that if I spent my energy smacking down every instance of bad theology I encountered, I’d be playing Whack-a-Mole the rest of my life. The assertions are too frequent, too outrageous to deal with them seriously on a regular basis. For example, I think it’s pretty clear that Fred Phelps is pretty wrong about who God is. His church’s music video “God Hates the World” is a flat contradiction of one of the most basic tenets of Christian faith, found in John 3:16.

I feel a little awkward even linking to the above video - as though by the very act of posting it I’m raising it in the global consciousness, when that’s actually the last thing I want to do.

It’s much the same with Pat Robertson’s and Rush Limbaugh’s comments. Should I even acknowledge that they exist? Or, like the braying and barking of barnyard animals, should I just consider their words background noise? Their breath vibrates vocal tissue, and the fleshy movements of their tongues give shape to their exhalations. Commenting on the supposed meaning of those noises, I feel a bit like I’ve called attention to the fact that someone farted.

The difference, of course, is that flatulence cannot always be helped.

Still, giving them attention almost lends them credibility in the eyes of their followers. I would prefer to let them talk themselves into irrelevance if it were not for the fact that in recent years they seem to have gained an even larger audience.

The Bible acknowledges this dilemma. The book of Proverbs is ostensibly written to teach “wisdom.” The idea is that by examining its aphorisms, readers can come to a greater sense of who God is and what God’s wisdom looks like. But some of those aphorisms are contradictory because wisdom involves the recognition of paradox. Here is the relevant passage:

Do not answer fools according to their folly,
  or you will be a fool yourself.
Answer fools according to their folly,
  or they will be wise in their own eyes.
Proverbs 26:4-5

So what’s the answer? Do you answer a fool according to their folly? Or do you let them blather on? Do you descend to the level of folly? Or do you upbraid the fool in the hopes that he or his hearers will see wisdom? Does Socrates spend time arguing with idiots? Or does he seek out conversation with peers? The wisdom here may be that dealing with fools is a no-win situation. If you answer them, you become a fool. If you don’t answer them, they think they are wise. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It’s just damned foolishness.

There are a couple of other aphorisms that follow these that may be appropriate:

The legs of a disabled person hang limp;
  so does a proverb in the mouth of a fool. (v. 7)

Like a thornbush brandished by the hand of a drunkard
  is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. (v. 9)

In other words, even these proverbs, aphorisms of the wise, can be misapplied by fools. It is not the sayings themselves that indicate wisdom, but the context in which they are applied.

It is like binding a stone in a sling
  to give honour [or a television or radio program?] to a fool. (v. 8)

My addition may sound cheeky, but the fact is that giving honor to someone in the ancient world often meant giving them time and space for a speech. To give a fool honor, or money, or a forum to spew their vomit, creates a situation in which someone is going to get hurt.

Like a dog that returns to its vomit
  is a fool who reverts to his folly. (v. 11)

Just in case you thought my use of the word “vomit” or “fart” was harsh or un-Biblical.

Do you see persons wise in their own eyes?
  There is more hope for fools than for them. (v. 12)

And that’s really the problem, isn’t it? Because I can recognize fools, does that make me wise? Or does it take one to know one? I also have a forum in which to use my words. I have a pulpit and an audience. I pray that God will help me to use it wisely, that I will not be like a drunkard with a thornbush, or a fool shooting his sling into a crowd, or a dog that returns to its vomit. The desert fathers and mothers used to pray, “Oh Lord, him today, me tomorrow.” I hope that when (not if) I mishandle my words, I only look like an idiot, and that it won’t cause others to get hurt.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

UMCOR Aid for Haiti

You can contribute directly to relief efforts by donating through UMCOR. 100% of donations go directly to relief. I’ve frequently been impressed with the United Methodist Committee on Relief. It’s one thing that our Connection does really well. Charity Navigator also gives them a good rating.

Surely one does not turn against the needy,
when in disaster they cry for help.
Job 30:24

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Faith and Foreskins

Saturday, January 02, 2010

Mr. Not-Nice

The conversation went something like this:
Young woman: I’ve heard that you should always say “see you later” instead of “goodbye” when you part, because if you say goodbye you might never see them again. Do you think that’s true?
Me: I wish that were true. If so, there are a few church people I’d say goodbye to.
Older woman: DA-vid! That was not nice! And you are supposed to be a minister!
Me: What difference does that make?
Older woman: You’re supposed to be like Jesus!
Me: Jesus was loving, but he wasn’t always nice.

I’m surprised at how often I have to say this. People seem to think the most important characteristic of Jesus was that he was nice. Let me make this perfectly clear: Jesus was not nice. He called respected leaders of his day “snakes,” “pagan actors,” and “fools.” On one occasion he even obliquely referred to a woman as a “bitch.”

Yes, he did.

“Oh, no,” you object. “Jesus would never use profanity. He said he wouldn’t take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

See, the problem is that you think of a dog as a cute little puppy. You think of Lassie and Benji and Marley. But in most of the world they are simply large, mangy rats. In today’s America, calling someone “dog” is a term of endearment. But if you if you call someone a “dog” in any other country today, you will start a fight. A hundred years ago, you would get the same response in our own country. “Dog” and “bitch” were equally offensive, since they were two words for two genders of the same animal. But for some reason “bitch” has retained its negative connotation in our culture, while “dog” has lost its offensiveness to our modern ears. So when Jesus uses the word “dog,” we don’t even blink. It doesn’t strike us as offensive. In our culture, if you really want to call a man a “dog,” you use a more elaborate term: “son of a bitch.” And what would the son of a bitch be? A dog.  Ergo, Jesus calls the woman a bitch.

“Fool” has the same problem. Because we do not live in a culture that values wisdom as Jesus’ culture did, when we call someone a “fool” it has very little offensive power. But “fool” was harsh back in the day. We have our own versions: moron, idiot, retard, dumbass. Substitute any of those for Jesus’ words when he addresses the man in the bigger barns parable: “You dumbass! Tonight you will die, and all those things you’ve accumulated - whose will they be?”

“Hypocrites,” again, is just the Greek word for actors. But Jesus uses it describe religious leaders who prided themselves on being distinct from pagan, uncircumcised Greeks. He is saying that they are Greek actors, and you know about actors - those libertine celebrities who get paid to pretend on stage. He is saying to those religious leaders that their religiousness is a sham, their righteousness a fake righteousness, and there is no distinction between themselves and the pagans. So imagine going into any church of fine upstanding fundamentalists and referring to them as actors in a porno movie, willing to sell their virtue to paying audiences… and you’d probably get a similar reaction to the one Jesus got.

And “snake?” Remember, it was a snake that got Adam and Eve into trouble in the first place. People used to die from snakebite a lot more frequently than from automobile accidents. Snakes were unclean, though they were used a symbols of healing in pagan rituals. So to convey the same sense of contempt and outrage, try using the word “rats,” or “parasites,” which we associate with disease, and imagine Jesus applying those words to preachers, pundits, and politicians. Can you see why they killed him?

I think part of the reason the church has lost the urgency of the message of Jesus is that it has lost touch with his outrage. Jesus is more than a little disturbed by the leaders of his day. He is livid. He expects justice and righteousness from people who claim to represent God. He does not expect business as usual. He expects radical change.

But what we expect in the church is nice.

Don’t get me wrong. People in the church need to be adults. They should treat each other with civility. But they should not tolerate childish behavior on the part of other Christians, and they should not be silent in the face of injustice and religious hypocrisy. When Jesus preaches to those in power, he usually says something like, “hey, you dumbass!”

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Prayer for Christmas Eve

God, we often pray for strength, for comfort, for financial security. Yet on this night you answered our prayers for strength by being born the weakest and most defenseless of all creatures – a human infant. Unable to walk, like other animal babies, and unable to speak like grown humans. The very Word of God, you were wordless. You answered our prayers for comfort by spending your first night in a feeding trough. You answered our prayers for financial security by choosing a poor couple living in occupied territory. We pray for our homes: you were a refugee. We pray for success, popularity, family harmony. You were born to a teenage mother, you were rejected by your family, you were humiliated. How, then, Lord, should we pray? God, we bring to you all the things we think we want for Christmas. The desires of our hearts, our minds, and our flesh, we bring them not to your throne, but to your feeding trough, and we lay them in the hay. Infant king of our world, our words fail before your wordless word, this abstract and omnipotent God wrapped in its tiny package of human flesh.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Shut Up, and Know That I am God

Psalm 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God.”

I’ve always heard those words spoken in a devotional way. I cannot count the number of times I have used them to introduce a time of silence during worship. Stillness seems so peaceful, so contemplative. We read “be still,” and we think of these words as calm and serene.

But “be still” doesn’t mean just quieting the soul. It is a command and a rebuke. In Mark 4:39, when Jesus addresses these words to the storm, the author says it is a rebuke. It’s as if Jesus looked at the sky and said, “shut your mouth!” In Isaiah 23:2, the prophet uses “be still” when he addresses wicked cities in the same way he uses “be ashamed” in the very next sentence. Psalm 31:18 likewise uses it in the context of judgment: “let lying lips be stilled.”

When I transpose these other uses to Psalm 46:10, it gives the Psalm a new meaning: Shut up and remember who is in charge! In fact, this reading fits better with the rest of the Psalm, which is partly about the judgment of nations who war against ancient Israel.  “My voice is louder and more authoritative than these petty princes,” says God. “Shut up.”

There is a more comforting usage of the phrase in Psalm 37: “Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices.” But I do not think the Psalm 46 “be still” is meant to be comforting. I think it’s meant to be intimidating.

It’s also a word I think we need to hear. God says to the principalities and powers: “shut up! I’m bigger than you.” Read it with that attitude, and the psalm makes more sense:

He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
  he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
  he burns the shields with fire.
‘Be still, and know that I am God!
  I am exalted among the nations,
  I am exalted in the earth.’

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Bible Timeline

This is a timeline I made for my Wednesday night Bible study class.

click for full-size version

Friday, September 11, 2009

In Alabama? Seriously?

I was a bit stunned by Nate Silver’s blog post on the data on Obama’s approval rating in Alabama. According to the survey, Obama’s approval has gone up at the end of August among white voters in Alabama. 

You could never tell it from the chatter I hear. Of course, I spend most of my day around white middle-class people. Mostly it’s parenthetical, politically-loaded statements like, “if we still have medicare,” or “if inflation doesn’t get us.” But I can tell that there’s an undercurrent of fear for our country’s future, anxiety about national debt, etc. I would have figured that if anything, overall support for Obama would have gone down, given the tenor of media coverage. I live in Homewood, which in some ways is a model of the dynamic of Whitopia (people here even refer to it occasionally as “Mayberry”). There is plenty of diversity here, but there is also significant class and geographical segregation within the community.

So for you Alabamians and southerners - regardless of your political orientation - I’m curious about why you think this might be. 98% of black men and men voted for Obama back in November, and only 10% of whites. Yet according to the above survey, Obama’s approval rating is at 28% among white voters at the end of August.

Now, I know that approval ratings don’t always carry a lot of long-term significance. I’m just curious why. Thoughts?