In the current troubled climate of race relations in our country, you would think that Hollywood would be careful to avoid anything that would be construed as racist, but instead, they often seem to join the mainstream media in stirring up racial divisions. Oprah’s show Greenleaf demonstrated just that on its Wednesday, August 23, episode, “Changing Season.”
Greenleaf is a drama on Oprah’s OWN network that centers around megachurch Calvary World Ministries and the family who runs it (the Greenleafs). Lady Mae (Lynn Whitfield), who is the matriarch of the family, confronts Tasha Skanks (Asia’h Epperson), wife of the Greenleafs' rival pastor, Basie Skanks (Jason Dirden), accusing her of deleting her granddaughters’ applications for an upcoming cotillion.
As it turns out, Mae emailed the applications to an incorrect address, leading Tasha to put Mae in her place for wrongfully accusing her. But what comes out of Tasha’s mouth in defense of herself is extremely racist and offensive:
Tasha: Whoa, whoa. Wait. Wait a hot minute now.
Mae: What, more lies?
Tasha: No. You sent it to the wrong e-mail address. What? You don't have anything sharp to say? Take a look. It's supposed to be .org, not com.
Mae: Oh. But I sent it ahead of the deadline.
Tasha: Yeah. Well, you sent it to somebody, not me.
Mae: I'll just call Jacinta.
Tasha: You know Dr. Butler is a lot more peeved at you right now than I am, right? I told her what you did, coming in here, posing all over my shag rug like some entitled white woman. And she apologized to me.
We all know that uttering the phrase “angry black woman” is viewed as a racist stereotype.
But apparently, using the phrase “entitled white woman” is perfectly acceptable, even when it’s used as an insult against someone who’s not even white.
Hollywood and the left can’t have it both ways. If one is racist, so is the other. And don’t even get me started on “reverse racism.” That would mean there is no racism, as the opposite of racism is non-racism.
No, this is just plain racist, pure and simple. It’s wrong no matter which race it comes from. If we follow the lessons the great Martin Luther King, Jr. taught about judging people based on the content of their character and not the color of their skin, then simply saying, “an entitled woman,” in either situation - whether the subject is white or black - would be the proper phrase to use.
Bringing race into the picture when it had nothing to do with what happened and using it as an insult, is the epitome of racism and the exact opposite of what Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed for our country.
It’s this type of race-baiting that is contributing to the current climate of hate in our country right now. Unless and until we truly love and accept each other for who we are regardless of race, there is no hope for healing. We’ll just end up with more of what we’ve gotten - fighting, deadly confrontations, racism and hate.
Greenleaf also continued their storyline on homosexuality and the Christian church in Wednesday’s episode. Gay character Kevin Saterlee (Tye White), freshly divorced from Charity Greenleaf (Deborah Joy Winans) and last seen shouting disparaging remarks at Calvary’s Fortitude Families program, a Christian gay conversion therapy group he had been in, is still missing after leaving a note for Charity that we were unable to see that clearly upset her.
In addition, the Greenleafs attend a monthly meeting among the Metro Memphis Council of Churches. During the meeting, a priest brings up a recent tragedy of a young, gay man attempting suicide because he thought God didn’t love him:
Father Alvarado: So, when they finally found the boy, he was in a garage, engine running, nearly dead. All this, all this because he thought that God couldn't love him if he was gay.
Grace: If I may, how's the boy doing?
Pastor: Well, he's brain damaged from the asphyxiation, and the doctors are not sure how much of his capacity he'll ever regain, so prayers are welcome.
Basie Skanks: Father. Brothers and sisters, we gotta do something about this. Now I'm not just speaking officially now. I'm speaking as a human being. We got to do something. I look around this room, and I know we all come from a different place when we talk about this issue here, but we all serve the same God. Amen?
All: Amen.
Basie: And that God is a God of love. Let me tell you. Just to think of a 16-year-old soul doing harm to himself like this, hearing Satan's voice in his head, and he thinks it's Jesus talking. Oh, how the very walls of God's heavenly city must shake with rage, blessed rage, at the misperception. We gotta get out ahead of this thing. We gotta take a stand.
All: Amen
So far, so fair. God loves all of us and wants the best for us no matter what our circumstances. Showing that church leaders are not hateful towards gays or anyone else is a breath of fresh air. But it’s not before long liberal bias creeps in.
Jacob (Lamman Rucker), son of Bishop Greenleaf (Keith David), appears to not care much as he says, “Sad story.” His sister Grace (Merle Dandridge) asks, “Jacob, that’s it?” He replies, “Well, I'm definitely going to put that boy up in prayer this evening, but yes.”
Grace then asks her father what he thinks. “Well, my heart definitely goes out to that boy and his family,” he replies, “but I'm not sure it serves the church to sound off too loudly about anything other than the Cross. Some folk thrive on controversy, though. It seems to suit their purposes.”
Basie soon approaches and thanks Grace for asking about the boy’s welfare, adding that the “silence in the room was shameful.” But while Basie appears to be grandstanding, Bishop Greenleaf dismisses himself to ask Father Alvarado if there is anything he can do to help the young man.
Grace later meets in private with Basie to discuss what they can do to fight “homophobia.” She is painted as the “woke” member of the Greenleaf family while the others are painted as…well, homophobic, to use the left’s word that isn’t really a word or a true psychological disorder.
Later at a Greenleaf family dinner, Bishop Greenleaf brings up his opinion that Grace fell under Basie’s “enchantment” during the church meeting:
Rochelle: But every church I tried, and I'm not judging, I mean, believe you me, I could never get up in front of people the way these pastors do, but none of these pastors really move me, I guess.
Mae: Bishop is definitely one of a kind.
Rochelle: The only one that came close was Pastor Skanks over at Triumph. But you know, something about him strikes me as off.
Bishop: I couldn't agree more.
Grace: Well, what makes you say that? I'm just curious.
Bishop: We were over at Triumph today for a meeting and I think my daughter here fell under an enchantment.
Mae: What kind of enchantment?
Grace: Nothing. It wasn't... Pastor Skanks just spoke very compellingly, I thought, about the need for the church to take a firm stand against homophobia.
Mae: So that's the donkey he's going to ride into Jerusalem now?
Bishop: Bingo.
Karissa: What did he say?
Jacob: Just, uh, love.
Grace: Exactly.
Mae: He's such a shameless hypocrite.
Karissa: You don't know the half of it.
Jacob: Kerissa...
Karissa: Well, what I meant was that Jesus did preach love, but he also preached sin.
Mae: Amen.
Bishop: Basie's just grandstanding.
Grace: Daddy, I'm not sure it's grandstanding.
Mae: So, what is it? Why does anyone need to have a conversation about these things? Calvary does not discriminate against homosexuals.
Grace: [ Scoffs ]
Mae: What?
Karissa: No one asked Kevin to leave. He left of his own free will.
Rochelle: Who's Kevin?
Mae: Our ex-son-in-law.
Karissa: And if he felt judged, that was from the well of his soul and a natural source.
Jacob: You know, I don't think we need to be talking about any of this in front of company.
Rochelle: Oh, no, I'm fine. I miss family.
Grace: All he wants to do is take a stand and say out loud that God loves everybody, straight or gay.
Rochelle: Yes, yes, yes, but God does not love sin. And to leave that out, that's irresponsible.
Mae: Amen.
Grace: And what if it wasn't Basie, huh? What if Jacob had said that today? Would you hear it then?
Karissa: Oh, Gigi, considering the toll your righteous passion for justice has taken on this family, even today...
Jacob: Kerissa, not right now.
Grace (Gigi): What happened today?
Karissa: Zora, Sophia. The cotillion.
Grace: I'm sorry.
Rochelle: Oh, please don't apologize.
Grace: No. I need to. Jacob's right. This isn't the right time to be arguing. Mama, I'm sorry.
Mae: That's all right, baby.
Grace: Daddy.
Bishop: Mm-hmm.
At first glance, it appears that this is unbiased writing, giving a respectful voice to all sides on the issue from a Christian perspective. Though, I think there was room for someone speaking with both love and truth.
As my pastor once said, too many Christians are leading with the message of truth without grace or love. He said that we need to lead with love first, then truth. Love was Jesus’s overall message and God’s greatest commandment. But it doesn’t nullify truth or sin.
When Jesus commanded those who were about to throw stones at a prostitute to put down their stones unless they themselves were without sin, there was no one left holding any stones. But Jesus also said something very important following that encounter. He didn’t say, “Now go and keep sinning because it’s all about love.” He said, “Go and sin no more.” He led with love, but followed it with truth.
In addition to love, Christians are to be humble, putting others above ourselves, according to the Bible, and not judging those outside of the church (within the church is a different story, however).
Additionally, the writers assigned the voice of the Biblical truth about homosexuality to the characters who are lacking the most grace and love on the show. The most self-righteous characters who aren’t usually practicing humility or putting others above themselves.
Those who want to do away with traditional church teaching are painted as the most virtuous and compassionate on the show (save for Basie…he has a lot of skeletons in his closet.)
It will be interesting to see where Greenleaf goes with this issue, as we have yet to find out what happened to Kevin. It's already concerning to see them preach love, while displaying racism towards white women in the same episode. Hypocritical much?
I’m not naive enough to think the Hollywood left might handle these issue correctly, but there’s still a small part of me that hopes. Because hope isn’t too far behind love, grace and truth.
