Abortion / Race.

So the other week I was talking with this scholar associated with the department, and he was saying that he's writing a chapter for a friend's book on denominational schisms and what causes, and then mentioned that abortion, though a controversial issue, has never caused a denominational schism. He said that it's definitely caused people to leave or switch congregations when the issue has been politicized one way or another, but he thinks that it's not as constantly in your face as something like having a gay pastor is; if a pastor had an abortion or had someone have an abortion, who would know, he said.

At the same meal, I was talking with the one black dean who I get along with. At some point I mentioned Angela Davis, and she gave a power fist, only half in jest, and mentioned that her dad who was a black studies professor in the 70s used to get in terrible arguments with her grandparents about how Christianity was the white man's religion.

Later, she said that since her husband and son are so musical, people sometimes call them the Von Trapps, and that once when he was little she took her son to the play and he sat spell-bound through the entire thing, he likes music so much, and that people at intermission complimented her on his behavior, and said that when they had first sat down they dreaded having a kid behind them.

On another note, last week I went to a talk on campus about prisoner's rights, in honor of a black panther assassination that happened almost forty years ago in the city. Since it was a bunch of radicals during the presentation, the talk went long, and though I had sat down on the aisle to make sure I could leave if need be, a bunch of current black radicals came in late and they set out chairs between me and the entrance, so because I had to meet a friend at 8pm, little old white me had to get up with my schoolbags and overcoats and go through a crowd of young black men in leather coats and sunglasses who had been giving the power-fist all night and then during the Q&A part were saying how Obama is part of the capitalist superstructure and stops real change from happening.

It was awful, though I did get two plates of free Thai food out of the night.