RACE WARS

Baha'is have always had a bent for making hothouse roses out of their nonwhite minorities. The process is so relentless and intense a passer-by might conclude that the Faith was founded by Abraham Lincoln. To a minority member the Baha'i Faith appears as a fast track to high society and the price is no secret: obey the administrator sitting over you, and withold any knowledge of pre-existence prior to enrollment (unless you were buds with another "Prime Enrolee"). The further the minority can advance depends on how much of his life he is willing to throw out. Now there is nothing new about this procedure; it is active in any social organization. But this social organization claims to be a religious one, and the one we are most familiar with. "Write about what you know," said the teacher.

Today the Baha'i administration is grooming a young Black fellow, initialed PC, for institutional stardom. They have given him a website and things to say on it. Another blogger, whose race is unknown and immaterial, has a similar site, "Baha'i Views." BV dispenses Baha'i propaganda at an astounding rate for an individual, but we believe there are several if not many contributors waiting close by in the wings, to hand its editor a new post most every day. Our blog, Baha'i Fantasy News Service, has several contributors, but they are all the same person.

PC's blog is titled "Baha'i Thought and Black America." We expected to see the two combined and saw only the left side of the blog unearthing the usual Black things and the narrow right column plugging Baha'i things. The usual disclaimer was posted, and it would seem that Mr.C's masters in Wilmette have decreed that Baha'i bloggers put it there or risk being shredded by BCCA. Baha'i administration shows less and less trust for the Baha'i and confidence in his ability and willingness to carry the Faith forward. There must be always disclaimers. "I'm not g_ddam authorized!" screams the blogger - as if we really couldn't tell. Anyway.

The post we saw was about the trial of a black man's alleged injustice to a white woman. We could not find anything there about Baha'i thought, other than the whole thing was a mess and should never have happened, but that is history and we know that only the Central Figures and their descendants and institutions changed history.

We wanted very much to see in Mr.C's blog a new path, a fresh thought for Making Things Different Today. Perhaps Mr.C. is young and has yet to realize that dredging up the past can keep one afloat for only so long. Then one sinks. We see no point in Mr.C. re-arousing the anger and fear of the past when he has nothing to put out the fire with. The School of Dredging serves sophomoric exercises in ethics and morality. There is something else that actually does the work. We think it is called marriage. Merely telling people the Baha'i Faith Works makes them look around and see that it really doesn't.

The true war in America is not between the races but between the classes. Blacks of Mr. C's socioeconomic class will latch on to the Baha'i Faith because they are socioeconomically like him. The Blacks who aren't, well, won't God take care of them while the qualified Negroes* rise to the top where the decisions are made and the instructions come from, well, God? And if spirituality is infinitely more powerful and desirable than material reality, then where are the spiritual African-American souls in the Baha'i Administration? There should be tens of thousands of Blacks there! But there aren't! And the only reason is: the organization prizes materiality over spirituality. Greatly.

What future awaits this man? Will he advance straight to the Auxiliary Board, or go to work soon at the world center? He is surely too valuable to elect to the National Spiritual Assembly, which already has two Negroes. We have to wonder why the Powers that Be do not draw from the vast well of African-Americans in South Carolina, which once was the greatest (and perhaps only) sizable population of Black Baha'is in the U.S., to input this particular Baha'i website, or create another one, less scholarly, perhaps, where the Baha'i Faith could showcase the changed lives of its dusky** lower- and middle-class members. The question stares at us: is "BTBA" about race, or about class? Is it about swelling the ranks of the American Baha'is with African-American believers, or is it about bringing Mr.C out to show America that there really are Black Baha'is who aren't in jail? What Mr.C must consider is that America needs to be shown why there are so many White Baha'is who are not in jail. Now that answer is in the Baha'i Faith. It is a tough job for one man but maybe Mr.C. can do it. It is right in front of his face.

*Shoghi Effendi used the term "Negro." We think it is dignified and American and we will use it too.

**We have always loved the term "dusky," and being White Yankee and never seeing a Negro until we were thirty-eight, we had no reason to think it was derrogatory. We shall continue to love it, and hope that the culture embraces it as a term of aesthetic appreciation. We do feel that Negroes are not really that "dusky," anyway, and the beautiful people of the Indian subcontinent are more true to the term. To be described for a most lovely time of day! What a blessing.