I do not know if Donald Trump watched the George Floyd funeral. After all, that was a very long service, even by black-church standards.
But if the president did watch this event — which unfolded on several cable channels — I am sure his take on the rite’s contents would have been remarkably similar to that of the elite journalists who attended.
I am sure that Trump watched the funeral and said to himself: “That was all about politics.”
After reading several of the national-media reports, I think it’s clear that the principalities and powers of the establishment press watched the funeral and said to themselves: “That was all about politics.”
Was there a hefty dose of politics during the funeral? Of course there was.
Did this political content deserve news coverage? Of course it did.
But if you read the mainstream coverage of the service, you would never know that Christian faith played a key role in the trouble life of George Floyd and of the mother who fought so hard to raise him right.
You would never know that references to Jesus and “the Lord” were heard during this service just as much, or more, than the names of major political figures or even Floyd himself. You wouldn’t know that Floyd — during some crucial years when he fought to pull his life together — was a major player in urban ministry projects in Houston’s Third Ward. He wasn’t just a “mentor” in sports programs.
Of course, we all know that African-American churches only deserve news coverage to the degree that their activities impact local and national politics. Right?
To get a taste of what I am talking about, check out this large chunk of reporting at the top of the USAToday coverage:
About 500 friends, family, politicians and entertainers streamed into The Fountain of Praise church in Houston for what co-pastor Mia Wright called, “a home-going celebration of brother George Floyd’s life.”
The emotional service, which rang with gospel music and calls to ensure that Floyd did not die in vain, was widely broadcast and streamed online.
“I want justice for my brother, for my big brother, that’s Big Floyd,” Rodney Floyd said. “Everyone is going to remember him around the world. He’s going to change the world.”
Those words were echoed throughout the service in remarks by several of the invited guests, a list that included Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and Rep. Al Green. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, met Floyd’s family privately Monday and referenced Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter Gianna in a video presentation.
That’s a highly symbolic list of names. What about the clergy and urban-ministry leaders who actually knew Floyd and his family?
However, the reference to gospel music is certainly important. Did anyone note the Gospel lyrics of any of those songs? Were any of the songs and hymns — the backbone of the service — selected by the Floyd family because they had special meaning to them and to their lost loved one?
Just asking.
Coastal elite CNN viewers: “That’s a whole lot of Jesus.”
Older rural Fox New viewers: “That’s a whole lot of black people.”
Who changes the channel first??
— Phil Vischer (@philvischer) June 9, 2020
How about The Washington Post? I was hoping that a member of that newsroom’s veteran religion-desk team would be involved in covering this worship service but, alas, that was not the case.
This report did include one brief reference to remarks made by clergy during the service:
The Rev. William A. Lawson, pastor emeritus of Houston’s Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, drew parallels between the story of Jesus and Floyd, both of whom, he said, came from humble beginnings and whose slayings changed the world.
“Can any good thing come out of a tragedy like this?” Lawson said. “His death did not simply start a bunch of good speeches, a bunch of tributes. Out of his death has come a movement, a worldwide movement.”
The Los Angeles Times — in a faith-content-free report — had its own list of VIPS:
Among the crowd were relatives of other Black victims in high-profile cases in which extreme use of force by police or others was alleged, including family members of Ahmaud Arbery, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Botham Jean and Trayvon Martin.
Also in the sanctuary were actors Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, a Texas native; pro football player J.J. Watt; Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Police Chief Art Acevedo; and various members of Congress and of Floyd’s family, including his five children. His youngest, 6-year-old Gianna Floyd, brought a pink plush unicorn.
The New York Times? This report’s clip from the eulogy by the Rev. Al Sharpton avoided his many images and themes linking the Bible and contemporary politics.
In Houston, speaker after speaker invoked the political moment born out of what happened in Minneapolis.
“This was not just a tragedy. It was a crime,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader who delivered the eulogy.
“We must commit to this family — all of these families, all of his children, grandchildren and all — that until these people pay for what they did, that we’re going to be there with them,” Mr. Sharpton said. “Because lives like George’s will not matter until somebody pays the cost for taking their lives.”
Well, to be honest, most of the speakers — including some of the politicians — included faith-based content, as well.
I thought this Times sentence was especially symbolic:
Inside the Fountain of Praise church, Mr. Floyd, 46, the emblem of an international movement whose name has been chanted by thousands of people since his death, was remembered as the son, brother, uncle and father that he was in life.
Something is missing from that list. In the service that I watched, many — maybe even most — of the speakers also mourned the loss of a fellow Christian believer, who served his church and his community in the midst of his own struggles with sin and the broken culture around him.
So what about the main story at the local newspaper, The Houston Chronicle? Once again, most of the content was political. But this story offered this appropriate frame around the event:
The private ceremony livestreamed to the public was a full-throttle four-hour service filled with huge-voiced gospel and a succession of pastors and politicians exhorting the congregation. It was a moment of shared grief and shared resolve, of hope and remembrance; a chance to honor a Houston son.
But also a moment of witness, and an indictment.
At the very end of the main story there was one moment that grabbed me, a voice of someone watching this drama and applying it to her own life and her own family.
This is the voice of the people who went to church for this funeral:
Delayne Green had been upset about high-profile instances of police brutality against black men in the past, but something in her changed after watching the video of Floyd struggling on the pavement. The time that ticked by without mercy, she said, flicked a switch in her mind.
“There was no mercy. There was just no mercy,” Green said. “No human deserves to die that way; I don’t care what color your skin is.”
Green’s 2-year-old son, Kristian, bounced around on her lap, wriggling to reach another binky to pop into his mouth. She said she followed all the rules people tell you to when having a kid — she waited until her finances were in order and until she was confident she could raise a thoughtful young man. But now she worries for him, and her husband, too.
“No matter how much we raise him in the church, or how kind we teach him to be, he’s still going to be seen in some people’s eyes as a threat,” Green said.
In conclusion let me state the obvious, once again.
Politics? Yes. There was a lot of politics in this funeral.
Gospel? Yes, that was lots of there, as well, and I mean “Gospel” with a large-G.
Maybe the mainstream coverage needed to include a few snippets of the religious content, if the journalism goal was to cover the funeral of the actual man named George Floyd?
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