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CRITERIONFEB 25, 2016VOLUME 87 ISSUE 7

IN THIS ISSUENEWS- P 2

OPINION/FEATURE- P 3

OPINION- P 4 & 5

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT- P 6

FACULTY INTERVIEW - P 7

JIM CROW ALIVE AND WELL IN AMERICA

As Michelle Alexander has con-vincingly argued in her book, The New Jim Crow, the America crim-inal justice industrial complex is our new Jim Crow. Mass arrest, prosecution, felony conviction, and incarceration have created a permanent cast system. Convict-ed felons are deemed second-rate citizens, whose basic civil rights can be taken away. Though crime is present across all ethnicities, black and brown people are dis-proportionally affected by felony convictions.

Through the duration of Ameri-can history, African-Americans as a people have been treated as an inferior class. During the ante-bellum period, when blacks were enslaved across America, Amer-ican law did not reckon them as fully human. The Three-Fifths law placed the entire race into a sub-human category in which each person counted as only a three-fifths of a person. After Emanci-pation, which freed the blacks from slavery, states across the country instituted Jim Crow laws that forced blacks to stay separat-ed from white not using the same stores, restaurants, or bathrooms. Although Jim Crow laws have been mostly overturned, segrega-tion in America continues today, through mass incarceration and

felony disenfranchisement. There-fore, it is an illusion to think that the injustice present throughout black history has been resolved. As W.E.B. Du Bois said, “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in

the sun; then moved back again to-wards slavery.”

Disproportionately large convic-tions of African-Americans on non-violent drug offenses has tar-geted black communities. A 2000 study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that white stu-dents are seven times more likely to use cocaine and heroin than black teens. Additionally, the study found that white students are one-third more likely to deal drugs than black students. However, Human Rights Watch reported that blacks commit 80 to 90 percent of the jailed drug of-fenses. This is a major discrepancy between the statistics on those who commit drug offenses and those ac-

tually convicted for drug offenses.

Mass incarceration has been a grow-ing problem since the start of the War on Drugs, whose roots can be traced to the actions of the Nixon

administration beginning in 1971. According to Bureau of Justice Sta-tistics, in September 2009, only 7.9 percent of federal criminals were convicted of violent crimes. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reports that in Dec. 2015, there are 86,080 people in federal prison for drug offenses. This number does not ac-count for those in state prisons or on parole for drug offenses.

This inflation in the amount of peo-ple jailed for drug offenses is large-ly the result a series of of policy changes. The War on Drugs start-ed in 1971 when President Richard M. Nixon declared that drugs were “public enemy number one,” and that we needed to take initiative to

prevent the spread and minimize its use in the United States. This was to be done via tougher laws on drug used and stiffer penalties for breaking these laws. In 1986, the House passed legislation that gave $2 billion to the increased initia-tives against drugs. With these laws, incarceration for drug crimes sky-rocketed. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1973 there were 328,670 drug related arrests this has grown drastically to a stag-gering 1,561,231 drug related arrests in 2014. However, the crime rate has not fallen as expected with this spike in arrests. According to the FBI UCS Annual Crime Reports, the crime rates have not dropped dramatically with the additional focus on crime brought by the War on Drugs.

CONTINUED ON P 3

Kirsten Rasmussen Associate Editor

“Disproportionately large con-victions of African-Americans on non-violent drug offenses has targeted black communities."

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NEWSCRITERION STAFFEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Daniel PeveriniMANAGING EDITOR

Caitlyn BarczykowskiASSOCIATE EDITOR

Kirsten Rasmussen NEWS EDITOR

Max GutierrezA & E EDITOR

Daniel LariosDESIGN EDITOR

Javia Headley FEATURE EDITOR

Kelly Larios ADVERTISING MANAGER

Nancy HernandezFACULTY SPONSOR

T. Lynn Caldwell

The Criterion is a bi-weekly newspaper published by the Student Association of La Sierra University (SALSU) for the students, faculty, staff, and alumni of La Sierra University. As a service for the La Sierra community, the Criterion seeks to empower community members to be more informed and engaged citizens by reporting campus news, featuring campus life, and opening ongoing campus discussion.

Because the Criterion promotes active citizenship, the editors welcome the sharing of campus news for potential reporting and the submission of letters, articles, and artwork from members of the La Sierra community, but reserve the right to publish and edit submissions at their discretion. All communication may be directed to criterion@lasierra.edu. The views and opinions expressed in the Criterion are those of individual writers, and do not represent La Sierra University, its faculty, staff, administration, or students.

SUPER BOWL PARTY HELD AT SIERRA TOWERSLonnie Foote IIIStaff Writer

On Feb. 7, a world record of 167 million people watched the same television program at the same time. In the lobby of Sierra Tow-ers, the men’s dormitory at La Sierra University (La Sierra), stu-dents and faculty gathered to-gether at 3:30 p.m. to take part in that historical moment by watch-ing Super Bowl L. The event was open for all members of La Sierra to join in. Andrew Dormus, as-sociate dean of men, and Obed Olivarria, associate dean of men, were in charge of planning the af-ternoon filled with food, prizes, and football. The party took place

over three hours, the duration of the matchup between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers.

Snacks, fruits, and beverages were all served throughout the game. Pizza was provided by Pizza Hut which arrived during the halftime show. Several prizes were award-ed to students as raffle ticket num-bers were drawn and announced by Dormus. The gifts ranged from laundry essentials to Valentine’s Day bundles.

There was also a large female demographic that attended the event. Awe-filled gasps inundated the lobby when Panthers quarter-back Cam Newton slid gracefully

under a defender. This excitement only wavered during the commer-cials. “A few of them were funny, like the Doritios ones. Most were not as exciting as last year’s com-mercials,” said Jennifer Cardy.

Another Super Bowl party was happening right below the main one. The Sierra Towers base-ment was set up with a pool table, weights, air hockey, and a televi-sion set showing the game. More than nine students enjoyed them-selves in a more intimate setting.

SOUL CHURCH TO BE HELD IN LSUC

Soul Church will be taking place on Feb. 27, 2016 at 5 p.m. in La Sierra University (La Sierra) Church, lo-cated in 4937 Sierra Vista Avenue, Riverside, CA 92505. The event will be hosted by the Black Student Union (BSU), a student organiza-tion of La Sierra. Everyone is invit-ed to attend this yearly event and join in the celebration for Black History Month.

Soul Church has traditionally been hosted by the Black Student Asso-ciation (now known as the Black Student Union). The event was previously held in Hole Memorial Auditorium until 2009. During the class of 1984’s 25th anniversary,

Soul Church entered the church setting for the first time.

“Soul Church was a big deal. I went when I was in high school,” said Tanya Fulton, alumni of La Sierra. According to Fulton, the La Sierra Church did not allow Soul Church to take place in the sanctuary. Due to its gospel music instrumenta-tion, the church feared it would damage the piano. At the time, Soul Church was only allowed in Hole Memorial Auditorium and in Sierra Towers, La Sierra men’s dormitory. Students attending Soul Church were not given worship credit for attending, a policy that was re-versed in 1982.

“Soul Church grew very organical-ly,” Fulton stated. “We started out

just singing together in the quad. Then, people started to bring in-struments. Soon, we wanted to use a piano. That’s how we ended up in Hole Memorial.” The BSA also made many trips off-campus, even going as far as Northern Califor-nia, to bring the experience of Soul Church to other communities.

In 2009, the President of La Sierra University, Randall Wisbey, apol-ogized on behalf of the church for the way the BSA was turned away in their endeavor to worship. Soul Church brought people together, from off-campus students to local community members. Interest-ed members of the unviersity and community are invited to attend.

Abel MedelStaff Writer

CLAREMONT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY PRESIDENT TO LECTURE AT LA SIERRA UNIVERSITY

Max GutierrezNews Editor

An annual lecture honoring the leg-acy of a former La Sierra University professor and visionary leader will this year feature a talk by a scholar of ancient Israelite and Near Eastern history.

The Rev. Dr. Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan, president of the Claremont School of Theology, will give this year’s Paul J. Landa Memorial Lecture at La Si-erra University.

The Rev. Dr. Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan, president of the Claremont School of Theology, will give this year’s Paul J. Landa Memorial Lecture on Sat., Feb. 27 at 4 p.m. The title of his pre-sentation is “Asian American Bibli-cal Interpretation: Asian and Asian American Hermeneutics, and Ap-proaches to Biblical Instruction for the Churches.”

Kuan became the seventh president of Claremont School of Theology on July 1, 2013. His current research consists of Asian and Asian Ameri-can Hermeneutics, as well as bibli-

cal instruction for the churches. He also currently serves on the Univer-sity Senate of The United Methodist Church.

He began his career as an associ-ate pastor in Malaysia. In 2002, he became an ordained elder and full member of the California-Nevada Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. He is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Theological Education in Southeast Asia. He has also served as Old Testament Editor for the multi-volume New Interpret-er’s Dictionary of the Bible.

Paul J. Landa taught at both Loma Linda University and La Sierra for 26 years. He is remembered as a profes-sor of the history of Christianity and was also a futurist of great vision. He developed expertise in strategic planning for churches and educa-tional institutions. Landa devoted his career to fostering a healthy con-versation among church, campus, and community in which each in-formed and inspired the other.

La Sierra’s H.M.S. Richards Divinity

School has held the Paul J. Landa Memorial Lecture in honor of Lan-da's work since 1999. There have been 16 lectures including speakers such as Philip Yancey and Robert Jewett. This year, the event will be held in the Troesh Conference Cen-ter in the Zapara School of Business. Admission is free. For further infor-mation call 951-785-2041.

Rev. Dr. Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan,

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OPINION/FEATURE

BLACK STUDENT UNION EXPERIENCES REBIRTHKelly Larios Feature Editor

The year: 1978. President Jimmy Carter was in office; the Supreme Court had just decided on the Bakke case, which determined the legiti-macy of racial quotas at universities; and Tanya Fulton was an incoming freshman to La Sierra. “The world was a different place,” she tells me about the era. She’s right. In 1978, the percentage of black students entering college was a scant 10 per-cent. In the Adventist community, the majority of black college stu-dents headed to Oakwood College, a historically black college located in Birmingham, Ala. But by the 1970s, having gone through the roughest part of the Civil Rights Movement, new opportunities began to arise for students who wanted to stay local.

The year: 2016. President Barack Obama, the first African-American president, is in office; the Supreme Court has agreed to hear out Abigail Fisher, who is suing the University of Texas for alleged reverse racism; and Felycie Bertresse is preparing to graduate from La Sierra Univer-sity. She agrees that the world is a different place: social media has changed the game. “The race is-sue is so overt… it’s so open, that it seems as if there’s a larger area that needs improvement.” With instanc-es of blackface, racial slurs, and rude comments being flung about online, she worries about the racial situa-tion in America.

Bertresse is right to worry. 38 years after Tanya Fulton entered college, the statistics for African-Americans attending college haven’t improved much. In fact, they’re at about 15 percent, which is pretty concerning

when compared to the progress oth-er minorities have had.

So how do they fare on La Sierra’s campus? On La Sierra’s widely di-verse campus, African-Americans make up about seven percent of the population. Not too shabby, but it’s still a minority, in every sense of the word.

Fortunately, La Sierra University has no outstanding history of racism or discrimination. “We felt welcome,” Fulton states emphatically. “Those were the best years of our lives. We wouldn’t trade them for the world.” But she equally emphasizes the cen-trality that the Black Student Asso-ciation (BSA) had in her college ex-perience. She reminisces about the family atmosphere that she shared with her fellow BSA students. “Most of us met at orientation, and we stuck together. We sat together in the cafeteria, or hanging out in the Student Center.” They went through homesickness together, she men-tions, and figuring the whole college thing out. The BSA grew organical-ly, and became a core community within a community. Yes, other stu-dents and staff welcomed them, but the BSA made it clear that they had a home. “We belonged there, a little bit more than we otherwise would have.”

By the 1990s, La Sierra had expanded a little bit more, and put a big focus on integration and making all stu-dents feel included. The BSA has ac-tually been inactive for the past five years. But with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, the con-flict and heartbreak in Ferguson, the Eric Garner case, the Sandra Bland case, and the high-profile shooting of multiple innocent African-Amer-

icans, it seemed like now was a good time to reestablish the club. That’s the conclusion Felycie Bertresse ar-rived at this summer, watching her social media accounts blow up with updates and opinions about the current situation. She filled out the application to put the club through this summer, which was renamed the Black Student Union. Their sign-up sheet got about 80 signatures at the HUB fair. The meetings so far have averaged about 25 to 30 stu-dents per session, and their “Night at the Apollo” themed open-mic night was well attended.

On-campus, things are politically calm. Students mingle and inter-act without much, if any, regard to race. Even in the 1970s, friendships bridged race. To the layperson, the rebirth of the BSU may seem contra-dictory. Why start a club to distin-guish people who already belong?

The motive lays in the unfortunate circumstances of society. 62 years after Brown v. Board of Education, 61 years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, 53 years since the University of Alabama was forced to desegregate, 48 years after the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave up his life for a movement, African-Amer-icans are still heavily profiled and discriminated. They don’t show up on TV nearly as much as they should, their incarceration rates are higher than they should be, they don’t have access to the edu-cation they deserve, and they are still asked to restrict their culture. There is enormous inequality in our country that is directly correlated to skin color, and it’s visible to every-one whose makeup shade is dark enough that it isn’t carried at MAC.

The goal of the BSU is to promote and encourage black culture. They want to be informative about it and diminish the harmful stereotypes people might have about them. As Bertresse says, “I wanted to really be informative, to let people know that we’re not scary. We can talk about things; you can approach us and ask questions. I would rather have someone ask me a question than as-sume something about me.”

The BSU’s mission is one of both in-reach and outreach. In addition to educating others about their cul-ture, they also strive to support fel-low black students. Bertresse feels that this is extremely important. “You see it every day: black people putting each other down.” That’s partially why Bertresse chose to rename the club, changing it from “Black Student Association” to “Black Student Union.” Bertresse re-ally wants the black students to feel united and be one.

And slowly, the culture is making a comeback. Celebrities are stand-ing up, getting in formation and proclaiming that they are proud to be black. Demands for equality are getting louder. Here at La Sierra, the BSU is helping restart Soul Church, a long-held tradition with a unique history on campus. Society seems ripe for change.

Even though there is room for im-provement, it is still important to recognize the steps we’ve made as a society and within our universi-ty. “When we came,” Fulton says, “there was not a diverse group of office workers or RAs. But when we left, there were.”

Policing in America is much less about law enforcement than it is about social control. The higher the rate of arrests, the more funding is given to the district. This is done partially as an incentive to keep the number high. Currently the gov-ernment is spending a staggering $51 billion per year on these initia-tives. These incentives and rewards leads to unequal policing of poor minority communities (Black and Hispanic), which are often patrolled far more than white neighborhoods. The poor are inordinately affected because they cannot afford good representation and thus stay behind bars boosting numbers. Biased po-licing also reinforces the stereotype that blacks more often break the law, especially with drug-related of-fences.

According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, in 2014, 83.1 percent of drug arrests were for possession of a controlled substance ,while only 16.9 were for sale or manufactur-ing of drugs. It might be argued that the penalty is commensurate to the crime, however, if taken in to ac-count, the major discrepancies in

the statistics of those who use vers-es those who are arrested, one is lead to believe that this is a form of social control of minorities. Once they are arrested, offenders enter an entire system organized to de-humanize and caste them into sub-

human existence. According to Beth Schwartzapfel, in her article “Mod-ern-Day Slavery in America’s Prison Workforce,” nearly half of the peo-

ple serving sentences work full time jobs in prison, however they work for nearly nothing. The hourly wag-es ranging from 20 to 31 cents and hour in state and federal prisons. Even when released from prison, felons are in an inferior class unable

to vote or obtain basic help like food stamps and public housing. Being branded a felon makes finding em-ployment difficult and sometimes

near impossible. Even if one is lucky enough to overcome the stigma and find a job, wages can be garnished up to 100% to pay trial fees, fines, and child support.

In America, these drug policies and mass incarceration to back these policies has not lead to the decrease of drug offenses, but rather to a sit-uation of mass incarceration that disproportionately targets people of color. Whole segments of the popu-lation are reduced to second-class citizens in a perfectly legal manner. In a way, this really is a “new Jim Crow” in America. So as we cele-brate black history month, we can-not forget this important part of the black experience in America.

Bibligraphical note: This article draws heavily from Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow and and her TED Talk "The Future of Race in Amer-ica." The statistics are drawn largely from the FBI Uniform Crime Report and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Also referenced is Beth Schwartzapfel's article, "Modern-Day Slavery in Amer-ica's Prison Workforce."

“Whole segments of the pop-ulation are reduced to sec-ond-class citizens in a per-fectly legal manner. In a way, this really is a “new Jim Crow” in America.."

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OPINION "IN AMERICA, CHRIST IS BLACK"For American Christians, the chal-lenge of black history is a matter of faithfulness to the gospel. Or so says noted black liberation theologian James Cone. This challenge is qual-itatively more urgent than the sorts of challenges that so often tie up our attention as a community: challeng-es to sort out our “personal” spiritu-alities or experience “relevant” reli-gious programming or incorporate “best practices” into our ministries and leadership.

Because we live our lives by the sto-ries we tell each other, history mat-ters. By telling stories about where we came from and where we are going, we come to say who we are as individuals and as a community. For example, the story of America have too often been the story of kill-ing, enslaving, and conquering other people and even people of our own nation for the economic benefit and personal well being of a select few. To justify the unremitting use of vio-lence to secure the blessings of free-dom— “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for themselves, those who founded this nation had to de-fine “humanity” so that people on the wrong side of American guns, bombs, SWAT teams, and drones became somehow less than human. To tell our national story, we appeal to phrases like “personal property” or “collateral damage” or “criminal” or “clear and present danger” to convince ourselves that using de-humanizing violence is “worth it” or “has to be done” or is “a matter of national security.”

This is perhaps paradigmatically il-lustrated by the moment in our story when the founding fathers defined persons of African-American de-scent as three-fifths human to pro-tect the “property rights” of slave-holders. Recent revelations on social media of police brutality against young black men or even the expos-ing of the American criminal-justice industrial complex as a system of social control that conspires for the neo-slavery of millions of black and brown Americans (1) are just detail-ing more of the same.

This is why many theorists argue that be “black” in America is there-fore not primarily a matter of bio-logical ancestry, but a matter of his-tory. As Ta-Nehisi Coates clarifies in “Between the World and Me,” race is “the child of racism, not the father” because “the process of naming ‘the people’ has never been a matter of genealogy and physiognomy so much as one of hierarchy” (2) To be black in America is to be, historically, on the wrong side of the instruments that America uses to violently pur-sue its self-realization. Doubtless, over time, certain biological traits have become associated with being dehumanized by violence. But make no mistake about it: just as it is pos-

sible to be biologically white and still be victims of American violence, it is also possible to be biologically black and nevertheless become “white-washed” and participate in the “free-dom” gained by American violence.

Despite the perfunctory showcas-ing of individual black persons (3) and ritualistic reports of “progress” towards “diversity” that legitimate a typical university celebration of “Black History Month,” the proceed-ings of the month as it stands are hardly about black history. For be-cause people live by the stories they tell each other, and people are not themselves without a story, the task of black history in America is first and foremost the task of saying that a people who have constantly been told they are less than human are nevertheless human. (4)

Since the task of black history in America is telling a story that recog-nizes the humanity of black people, black history in America necessarily requires a rejection of the Ameri-can story and its particular notion of freedom in the name of all those who have suffered dehumanizing vi-olence at the hands of America. This is why in his famous 1967 speech,

“Beyond Vietnam,” Dr. Martin Lu-ther King, Jr. had to reject the use of violence—by black radicals them-selves!—in order to reject the Amer-

Undated Roman Church Art. Public Domain

ican project. Rejecting violence also led King to take a stance against the Vietnam war, for as he confessed, “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.”

As a people who worship a crucified God, Christians must take the task of black history in America seriously. Jesus ended up on the wrong side of a lynch mob because of his relent-less efforts to subvert the violence of Jewish religious and Roman im-perial projects that conspired to de-humanize his fellows. If Christ is to be found among the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and imprisoned of the world (5), then we may agree with James Cone that in America, Christ is black. (6) As Cone explains, in Amer-ica, “Christ is black…not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor, the despised, and the black are, disclos-ing that he is with them, enduring their humiliation and pain…” (7) Out of faithfulness to the gospel, we may finally reject aspects of the American project to affirm black history.

Like King, Jesus took a willful stance against the violent dehumanization of his fellows; like King, Jesus was ultimately killed for so doing. The difference between King and Jesus is that Christians confess God raised Jesus from the dead. In other words, by raising Jesus from the dead, God broke his silence and revealed him-self as the God of the oppressed. We must therefore affirm that Jesus is not merely another advocate for the oppressed, but the God of the op-pressed and the one who will liber-ate them.

For Christians, freedom is nothing less than embracing life through death by following Christ. There-fore, Christians in America are free to admit their historical complicity

with the violence of the American project against the black and brown peoples of the world. We are free to radically disown the privileges that come from assuming the position of historical “whiteness” because we know that our freedom does not consist in using violence to climb the to the top, as it does in the Amer-ican story. We are free from trying to shoulder “the white man’s burden,” free from all our condescending and paternalistic attempts to “improve” the situation of blacks in America because God alone is the liberator of all people.

If in America Christ is black, we must be open to questioning our life together as a university and as a church. If Christ is black, how should we teach or serve or lead or minister? If Christ is black, how do we do the-ology? If Christ is black, what does our Christology look like? What do our ethics and politics and econom-ics look like? Whatever else we do, we may structure our life together by the freedom of those who are called by a risen Lord and so may turn from the fear and insecurity of those who live together only by dehumanizing violence. By doing so, we may take black history seriously and therefore also take the gospel seriously.

Notes:

(1). As excellently summarized in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow.

(2). Between the World and Me, 7.

(3). As if for black people to achieve something is somehow exceptional.

(4). To pursue this line of thought further, those interested might find among other required reading The Souls of Black Folks (W.E.B. Du-Bois), The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin) and Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates).

(5). Cf. Matthew 25.31-46.

(6). On this, Langston Hughes, “Christ in Alabama.”

(7). Cone, God of the Oppressed, 125. For more, see Cone, Black The-ology and Black Power.

Daniel Peverini Editor-in-Chief

"As a people who worship a crucified God, Christians must take the task of black history in America seriously."

"If in America Christ is black, we must be open to questioning our life together as a university and as a church."

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MY PROBLEM WITH BLACK HISTORY MONTHBlack History Month is a distorted projection taught and celebrated to the detriment of those it was meant to serve. The “popular” history of black people that is celebrated in this country is a history filtered through the scope of a reality that has always questioned and limited the param-eters of black people’s lives and self-understandings. It has become a litany of paternalistic ideas, oft-quot-ed passages from Martin Luther King Jr., and a running list of “firsts” that, when taken seriously, point to the most pressing problem confronting black people today: the lack of a po-litical lexicon to articulate our present struggles against the system of Amer-ican violence and white supremacy.

No interpretation of what constitutes black history can be valid if it ignores or distorts the political environment that created the demand for the rec-ognition of black people’s contribu-tions in making this country. The advent of Black History Month in the 1960s represented the conscious effort to understand that the then present black experience in America was part of a long history of servitude and of resistance; of social and phys-ical death and, to a greater extent, of black people claiming the freedom to reaffirm and (re)define their hu-manity against a system that spelled out in brutal clarity the limitations of their personhood. And this is crucial: Black History Month was not as an end in itself, but part of a larger so-cial movement that demanded equal protection and rights under the law for black citizens.

With the “success” of the Civil Rights Movement and the presidency of Barack Obama, the need to think of black history as a legitimating force for certain rights as citizens seems unnecessary, especially in a gener-ation that has defined itself through valuing “multiculturalism” and “in-tersectionality”—vacuous terms that more and more reflect the belief that having a black friend is enough to designate one as not being as racist as people in the past. Accordingly, Black History Month is treated as what it has become: irrelevant. It has been

treated as such for some time now—at least as long as I can remember. Black History Month continues to be irrelevant because it reflects the belief that the conditions of the past have been overcome through nonviolence and patience on the part of black Americans. It has failed to address the particular struggles of black peo-ple today. Instead, it is used to sub-stantiate arguments for American ex-ceptionalism and moral superiority. America looks at the rest of the world to say, “Look how far we’ve come!” The celebrated “firsts” of exception-al black men and women who have

contributed to this country serve as “proper” representative models of political dissent.

The greatest disservice that the public celebration of Black History Month has done has been the limiting of black political imagination and cre-ativity in addressing the issues of race, class, and gender discrimination to-day. Those publicly celebrated and praised during Black History Month are so because they are not problem-atic—or, at least, have been made to not be. Their lives and their work are not meant to challenge the existing social order, let alone to demand its toppling. Too much is predicated on the belief that racism was an artificial construct that has disappeared. Yet, as Michelle Alexander argues in The New Jim Crow, racism didn’t disap-pear, it merely changed.

Malcom X, Photo by Marion S. Trikosko

Public domain

Sojourner Truth, Photo by Randall Studio. Public Domain W. E. B. Du Bois, Photo by C. M. Battey

Public domain

Jordan Alexander Ward Contributing Writer

“No interpretation of what constitutes black history can be valid if it ignores or distorts the political environment that created the demand for the rec-ognition of black people’s contribu-tions in making this country."

In rejecting this bastardized articu-lation of our history known as Black History Month, the question is: how do we use our history to most clearly describe the conditions facing black people then, now, and in the future? Asked differently, how do we deter-mine the content of the story that will explain the present and lay the foun-dations for a different vision of the future through our own understand-ing of our history? Even among the most well-meaning millennials, it is apparent that discussions about race simply become discussions on how to best “integrate” black people into

the larger social milieu of American life; how to make them feel more comfortable with us. But questions surrounding black people in Amer-ica have never been about “feelings” or even about integration. They have been about unapologetically reserving the right to define and de-termine what constitutes one’s hu-manity, and the freedom to do so as a black man, woman, or child.

The concrete oppressed humanity of black people in America and abroad must be the immediate point of de-parture in revitalizing a history that has been repurposed against us. We must not struggle in the name of ide-als that we have never seen nor expe-rienced. We must not struggle in the hope of a heaven that doesn’t speak to the hell that we catch daily. We must not struggle to be “better liked”

or “more acceptable” by the stan-dards of people that do not share our reality and/or have profited and as-sumed the normalcy of our destruc-tion and imposed destitution.

This is why black history must take precedence over the hollow cele-bration of Black History Month, be-cause to celebrate of black history is to participate in the emancipatory struggle of a people capable of rec-ognizing the past as a resource in redefining and reshaping their con-ditions of survival today.

Which is to say that an understanding of black history is about ending hous-ing segregation and ensuring equal access to social services as American citizens; it is about bringing down a prison industrial complex and crim-

inal justice system that dispropor-tionately targets young black men; it is about redefining our sense of com-munity and calling into question our own presupposed positions of au-thority that allow us to look down on each other and think ourselves bet-ter than each other. The point is not to create a history for ourselves free from conflict and the contradictions that arise within the past. The point is to use the past as a tool to speak to the present and lend hope to the future.

To trade this sense of purpose and understanding for one month of na-tional recognition is a terrible disser-vice to the lives of those before us. And to allow for it, the greatest disser-vice we could do for ourselves. In the end, we are only as free as our vision allows us to say that we are not simply cogs in a machine but flesh and blood human beings placed on this earth for something more than our even-tual destruction and ruin. To believe otherwise is tantamount to having al-ready died to the possibilities of being something more.

Jordan Ward, a student researcher at the University of Redlands, is finishing a major in English and writing his se-nior thesis on an interstice between Af-ricana studies and Early Modern Phi-losophy. In his free time, Jordan works in the REACH program, tutoring youth in juvenile detention facilities.

OPINION

6

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: QUENTIN O’BRYANT

Nico A. GonzalezStaff Writer

Jan. 1, 2016 – Riverside, Calif – Every artist dreams of a pivotal moment when their work can be recognized and flourishes into a creation that is much bigger. One such moment had transpired with Quentin O’Bryant, a sophomore, music technology ma-jor at La Sierra University.

During black Friday, spending time at Guitar Center is a ritual for O’Bry-ant and his family. Last year, when O’Bryant went to the store, he found a keyboard and began to play mu-sic as if it was instinct. It was at this fateful moment that O’Bryant came across a person that would advance him in his music.

“As I was playing, this lady walked in and sat on the keyboard right beside me and simultaneously we started jamming together for about an hour - people were sitting there watching us. Afterwards, she talked to me and told me that she has her own record label, studio, equipment, and she does shows in different places. She invited me to her studio that very same day and when I came by, she asked me if I was serious about a ca-reer in music – when I replied yes, we started recording instantly,” he

said. Now O’Bryant is an artist at T Mikal Records Label & Studio out in Los Angeles and plans the release of his first album in April.

O’Bryant found his passion for mu-sic while taking piano lessons in the third grade. His grandfather is his source of inspiration. “He was a piano player in a church in LA; he played piano, organ, and harmoni-ca, he was my only inspiration,” he said.

It was in high school that he began to take music seriously when he re-corded his first track “I Wish” in his friend’s studio during his freshman year at Los Angeles Adventist Acad-emy. He can play a variety of instru-ments such as keyboards, drums, and guitar. When he plays music, O’Bryant’s style is gospel, jazz, soul, and R&B. On occasion, O’Bryant would provide his talent on stage. He performed for a banquet in L.A. with his band on New Years Eve – it was a long evening but it opened up new opportunities for him.

La Sierra University has opened up O’Bryant to new possibilities as well, “When I got to college in my first year, I was able to get studio ac-cess and that’s how I able to work on different covers and things like that,”

he said. On campus, he sings for the student gospel group “Voices of Praise,” and plays guitar for a band called “150.” He doesn’t gain musi-cal influence from big-name artists, but from artists that are similar to him, looking to get bigger and make amazing music. “For me, its been meeting a lot of people and getting connections to music. There are so many people who do music here and a lot of people who are “under-cover”, so for me being in the music program, it’s opening up a lot of op-portunities”, he said. One student that helps O’Bryant progress is Xavi-er Watson, a senior and business management major at La Sierra. Watson sings, plays keyboard, and guitar; he has helped O’Bryant with his music by giving him advice and helping him improve.

O’Bryant describes his creative process when writing a new song. “I can’t just say lets, ‘sit down and write’. I have to get inspiration from something or it just clicks in my

head and when that happens I just need to write,” he said.

As a final comment, O’Bryant gives advice to those who would like to gain studio experience like he has, “Open yourself up to people and make wise connections and once you do, stay dedicated. What a lot of people do is they try to make con-nections with people and get the opportunities but they don’t take advantage of them. Sometimes you have to start at a smaller studio, you might have to start with just a laptop and a microphone but as you con-tinue to progress, eventually an op-portunity is going to show up if it’s meant for you,” he said.

O’Bryant’s music can be followed on his Instagram account @theycall-meqb. He plans to create a YouTube channel, and will release further details on his Instagram when the channel is ready to launch.

Photo by Quentin O'Bryant

BEYONCE'S BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND Javia Headley Design Editor

After a fairly quiet 2015, Beyoncé (Bey) is back with a new hit song and it is raunchier, angrier, and grit-tier than anything she has ever per-formed before. But this new single is so much more than a night club trap song – this new single comes with a message.

“Formation,” was dropped the day before Bey was scheduled to per-form at the Super Bowl 50 Half Time Show. More importantly, it dropped during Black History Month, on Trayvon Martin’s birthday. The song and the video are both unapologet-ically black, featuring Bey’s com-mentary on issues that plague her and the African American commu-nity.

The video begins with her squatting on top of a cop car that is almost

fully submerged in flood waters. Al-ready, Bey is commenting on one of the greatest devastations to hit America. “What happened at the New Wil’ins?” Messy Mya, a New Orleans comic and rapper, calls out from the grave at the beginning of the song. Bey invites her audience to hear a question about the city and the black folks in the south: “What happened after New Orleans?”

The video unleashes a visual plague of houses and cars submerged in the rainwaters of Hurricane Katrina – one of the five deadliest hurri-canes to ever hit this country. The worst part about Hurricane Katrina was not, however, the lives it took, but the fact that the nation failed to show up to aid those that suffered from the damage it caused. The question asked here is why? Why did America fail to be there for its citizens when they needed it the

most?

Another image that pervades throughout the video is beautiful black women wearing their hair in its natural state. She comments on the natural hair movement using her daughter Blue Ivy. “I like my baby hair with baby hair and afros,” Bey sings. The video even features baby Blue, standing amongst other beautiful young girls, showcasing an impressive natural puff.

As the chorus begins to play and Be-yoncé calls for her ladies to get into formation, each and every one of her dancers wear their hair in pro-tective or natural styles. Here, Bey is endorsing black women accepting their cultures. She says she likes her negro nose with “Jackson five nos-trils,” proclaiming that despite the hate African Americans get, she still loves her culture. To top it off, she

references her background, a mix of Creole and Alabama, and she claims that no matter how rich she gets, she will always be country (she’s got hot sauce in her bag. . . swag).

One final, important theme Bey in-cludes in her video is police brutali-ty. She includes the haunting image of a young boy in front of a line up of cops, their hands up in the tradi-tional “hands up, don’t shoot” pos-ture. As the video rolls to a close, you can see the words “Stop shoot-ing us,” spray-painted onto a wall.

While this song is sure to be a hit with its enthralling chorus and un-deniable rhythm, it is important to realize it’s so much more than a beat; “Formation,” is a visual and lyrical Anthem. Beyoncé is out there standing up for our culture and in-sisting that other black women and men do the same.

Photo by Quentin O'Bryant

7

FACULTY INTERVIEW: MAURY JACKSON

Daniel Peverini Editor-in-Chief

Dr. Maury Jackson is Associate Pro-fessor of Practical Theology at the H.M.S. Richards Divinity School of La Sierra University. He has exten-sive experience as a pastor, as well as degrees from Claremont School of Theology, California State Universi-ty, Los Angeles, Andrews University, and La Sierra University. One of Dr. Jackson’s primary areas of scholarly interest is the intersection between race and practical theology in Amer-ica.

Criterion (CR): In your mind, what characterizes the black experience in America?

Maury Jackson (MJ): That’s a good question. Let me say it this way. I think W.E.B. Du Bois described it not only for himself but for many and that is, the experience is charac-terized as a “double consciousness.” What he means by that is blacks are always thinking not only about themselves, but also about how white people in America view them. And they learn to be these practical sociologists just for survival’s sake.

The series of recent examples that we see on TV is a reflection of a fail-ure of the part of the next generation to have it. I think the string of police shootings seem to, in many ways, be indicative of a generation that is not as sociologically sophisticated in having that double consciousness. They are not thinking about how they are perceived.

My father taught us, when you get pulled over by a police officer, be sure to keep your hands on the steer-

ing wheel. He taught us to be con-scious of what this officer might be thinking and how this officer might be interpreting our behaviors, and how to communicate to the officer in ways that he has already have re-ceived. We became conscious not only of the officer and how he might perceive us, we also became con-scious of the stereotypical percep-tion of us and also of who we really are, and my father taught us to own our identity with pride. He trained us in that double consciousness for survival’s sake.

The younger generation is bolder, they refuse to comply, and maybe they are demanding to be accepted on the same terms as the white teens, and so they won’t conform. But what you find is that you don’t have these shooting incidents happening to black people in middle and upper middle class black culture, where they are sophisticated enough to know that "if you do something for yourself, you do it for your race." But lower class, which is more endan-gered, is in survival mode.

CR: So what do you think of Black Lives Matter (BLM)?

MJ: It is obviously a movement by blacks who are not threatened by the police. They have a consciousness, they lead a movement, but when you get the foot soldiers, they are gener-ally the people who are still trapped at the bottom, and they don’t grasp the depth of the black experience in its historical context, even if they un-derstand it in their local context.

The consciousness of the BLM move-ment is a good consciousness, but unfortunately, it is a false conscious-

ness when put on lower class black kids. The movement doesn’t have a depth of knowledge in the history of black people in America. They don’t know Du Bois. They might know about King and Obama, but they don’t know about Cornel West. In the end, it is a false consciousness and therefore a false pride. And that is dangerous.

So in that sense, its not a good thing that the black in the inner city don’t have that double consciousness, be-cause for them, it is life or death. And generally, the ones who become the advocates are not in a life or death situation.

CR: How does your own teaching and research touch on race and Christianity in America?

MJ: So for me, my research and teaching touches on race in light of the Christian church and theology. It is one thing for Christians to hear sociological data, political scientific theories, and cultural celebrations of diversity. Often times when you do that, the critical voices—the voices that are strident—are not really tak-en seriously. They can either be dis-missed as outliers or else some kind of straw man arguments are put out and then immediately dismissed.

I want my students to listen to criti-cal voices in the Christian communi-ty who have recognized the interre-lationship of race, class, and sex and who have recognized that all three or any one at any given time are po-litical tools for oppression. Race be-comes a reinforcing element in the kind of oppression and evil that you see in social communities. I want to ask how is this lived out and the Christian community can respond.

CR: How can the the Christian community respond to oppres-sion?

MJ: The church can respond in its liturgy and homily. In liturgy, I may have told you this story: there was an immigrant church in a suburban community. Some kids in the com-munity set off cherry bombs and started disturbing the Mass. The priest of this church shared the ex-perience with other clergy and they got together and wrote a “liturgy of a bomb” and they all are doing the same liturgy. Anyway, turns out that members of those other churches found out and their kids were the kids setting off the cherry bombs. So they stopped it. What happened here and what should happen is that the liturgy impacts social reality and action.

In terms of homily, homily is always interrelated to exegesis. I tell the classes this: if you are listening to Jesus give the parable of the day-la-borers but you read it from the per-spective of a suburban upper middle class person, here is you might just think about the story: “well that is an example of the grace of God.” But that same passage, read by those who are at the margins, who know that you need a day’s wage to live for a day, they interpret it as not grace

but as justice. There is no justice in giving people less than a day’s wage to live on. But that kind of exegetical reading of scripture is empowering for marginalized and humbling for communities that are complicit in the marginalization and these are always integrated with questions of race.

CR: Can you suggest any movies, music, or books that you think are particularly important to under-standing the black experience in America?

MJ: Yes, first of all, you must read the Bible. Then there is Du Bois’ The World and Africa, Sertima’s They Came Before Columbus: the African presence in Ancient America, Diop’s The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, Fanon’s The Wretch-ed of the Earth, Bernal’s two-volume Black Athena, Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and James’ Stolen Legacy: The Egyptian Origins of Western Philosophy. Of course, I also highly recommend reading all of the books of Martin King, James Cone, and Cornel West. And that’s for a start!

These books are not all equally strong, some are popular, and some are scholarly. But one has to come to the canon of black literature with openness to being taught. Once we leave with a critical engagement of these works, not for information but for formation, we will now be better critical scholars, even when we are criticizing the canon.

As for music, buy records of the Ne-gro spirituals and listen to the blues and jazz music. When you start there, then you can critique contemporary rap music and measure it against the depths of a soulful experience.

CR: What do you think about “Black History Month?”

MJ: You know black history not be-cause you are black but because you have studied history and there again, we have to avoid the pitfalls of racial reasoning. We go back to those young people who might have black pride but have a false consciousness because you don’t understand any-thing to be proud of without under-standing your history.

Too often, black history month is a time where you don’t even have a discourse about history. Instead, you generally have a celebration of black art and culture. Its like an ex-tension of Martin King’s birthday or some historical anecdotes of black people in America. There is no sense of the continuity of the Pan-African experience.

It seems like the original aim of black history month is ideally to bring about a re-envisioning of history so that there is balance. But we are not recognizing that re-envisioning. We need a reorientation of education, a critical orientation such that it would outgrow the need and desire for black history month—we need a change in historical methodology.

Dr. Maury Jackson. Photo by Natan Vigna

88

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CALENDAR:FEBRUARY/MARCH SATURDAY 5

Pirates of Penzance

7pm - 10pm

@HMA

FRIDAY 4

Baseball vs. Bethesda University

10am - 3pm

@LSU Baseball Field

THURSDAY 3

Pirates of Penzance

7pm-10pm

@HMA

WEDNESDAY 2

SALSU Yoga

7pm - 8:30pm

@Brandstater Gallery

TUESDAY 1

Art of Zen: Stress Man-agement Workshop

12pm - 1pm

@Palmer 210

MONDAY 29

"Women of New Contem-porary Art"

10am - 4pm

@Brandstater Gallery

SUNDAY 28

SALSU

Banquet

6pm - 10pm

@Fox Theatre Redlands

SUNDAY 6

Softball vs. Doane College

12:30pm-5:30pm

@LSU Softball Field

MONDAY 7

Baseball vs. Morning Side College

11am - 3pm

@LSU Baseball Field

TUESDAY 8

REVO Ticket Sales Event

12pm - 1pm

@Founders Green

WEDNESDAY 9

SALSU Yoga

7pm - 8:30pm

@Brandstater Gallery

THURSDAY 10

Martin Chal-ifour Master Class & Recital

7pm - 9pm

@HMA

FRIDAY 11

First Service

8pm - 9pm

@LSUC

SATURDAY 12

Wind Ensem-ble Concert

7pm - 9pm

@HMA