The Charismatic Pastor is the Subtle Enemy
by Sabrina Dawkins
Has the black church become
the mockery in the intro for True Blood?
Is it a mere spectacle
where black pastors jump up, turn around,
lay hands on members
and shake the Devil out?
God told me the preacher is the subtle enemy.
And in a dream
I saw a familiar obese pastor
marching with the football team
that he coached in North Carolina.
He wore a headband made of kente cloth
around his Cam Newton Afro.
His team had just won wearing white and blue,
which surprised me
because we’d been friends a while after attended the same high school.
He’d gone into the ministry
as just a profession.
I actually saw his acting skills during his first official sermon.
And I remember looking at my dad afterwards,
saying, “What did you think?”
My dad looked back at me, smiling, saying,
“I think he likes to eat.”
I was horrified many years later
to learn he’d gotten his own church.
He had grown even fatter
and his interpretation of scripture was wrong.
The black boys he coached looked high school age,
and they marched in a straight line.
If only winning football games
meant black liberation,
then mental and physical slavery
would’ve been removed
after watching Black Panther.
I haven’t watched the film
and have no desire to
because I know it’s a dream, a fiction,
but blacks say it was powerful.
They say T’Challa was like a Martin Luther King character.
Chadwick Boseman died
the date of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech
during the March on Washington.
Malcolm X said MLK with the Big Six
were installed by white men
to weaken the black coffee
as clowns during the event.
He said they were part of the integrated cream
to dilute uncompromising militancy.
Black Panther moviegoers should ask for a refund
because it was an integrated romantic fantasy.
Look at what actually happened to Gaddafi.
And Malcolm said Martin
and the other five Negro leaders
should get an Academy Award.
Beyonce showed in Carolina Panthers’ Super Bowl
black militancy has become a performance
taken over by frauds.
“Message to the Grass Roots” by Malcolm X on November 10, 1963 http://xroads.virginia.edu/~public/civilrights/a0147.html