A fisher of men

God must be beaming. I know I am. And not just because someone technically is offering me money for sitting in a pew.\nA black Baptist minister wanting to diversify his congregation is offering to pay white folk to attend his services.\nThe going price for a honky is $5 an hour on Sundays and $10 an hour on Thursdays. I've never been paid $10 an hour for anything in my life, much less for attending a predominantly black church.\nAnd you know what? I applaud him. And not just because I would take him up on his offer if I were ever near Greenwood Acres Full Gospel Baptist Church in Shreveport, La., and needed gas money.\nI applaud him because personal racial segregation has a firm grip on America's culture and does nothing but deepen mistrust and cause fights about issues such as affirmative action and Kobe Bryant. Look around the IU campus. Whites hang out with other whites. Blacks hang out with other blacks. Chipmunks hang out with other chipmunks. C'mon little guys, squirrels aren't that different from you.\nI, like every other white guy I know, can claim, "Yeah sure, I have black friends." But this isn't saying much. I might as well say, "Yeah sure, I like grape jelly." But the truth is, I use strawberry jelly 90 percent of the time.\nI'm not saying you should go up to groups of other races and tell them you want to hang out because you don't spend enough time with grape jelly. I really don't have a clue as to the best way to socially integrate the races. But I think Rev. Caldwell has the right idea. The more time we all spend together, the better it will be for everyone.\nCaldwell told Reuters his church has been almost exclusively black since its founding in 1958, which he thinks was not the way Jesus wanted it.\nThis is the same Jesus that chilled with the Samaritans, a people Jews thought rated a little bit below a steaming plate of stacked ham. I should hope Caldwell would have Jesus' vote of confidence on this one.\n"Jesus said that we're to fish for men," he said. "I'm just using money to fish with." \nSo far, Caldwell has had about 100 white brethren call in interested in the deal, with some of them offering to forego the monetary bait. A hundred in a church of 5,000 isn't all that much, but it's a start. Maybe they should start offering to pay non-black students to join the Black Student Union.\nBut what about preserving black culture and white culture and all that muck? The fact that culture in America can be divided along the color lines only further proves how separate a society we really are. They say we're a melting pot, but America is nothing more than one of those plates with dividers on it to keep the mashed potatoes from mixing with the Salisbury steak.\nAnd once again, I applaud Rev. Caldwell for inviting the mashed potatoes over.\nMoney only goes so far, though, and a lack of it is already causing Caldwell to limit his offer a bit. For now, the offer will go only to whites. Chicanos, Chinese, Indians and others will have to wait their turn. \n"I'm only paying for white folks in August," Caldwell said. "We'll probably move on to other ethnic groups from there."\nMoney can't buy love, but maybe ... just maybe, it can buy some grape jelly.