The ‘Lost Cause’ Isn’t Lost and It’s Still a Cause….

 

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

 

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Strength to Love (1963)

At the heart of our tacit agreement to avoid the subject, we routinely engage in a significant amount of euphemism to avoid calling things what they are and thereby having to deal with uncomfortable (and often tragic) realities and their consequences. I’m reminded of this yet again because, while reflecting on the tragedy in Kenosha, Wisconsin, earlier this week, it struck me – wounded me, really – that there are many of our fellow citizens who invariably consider themselves ‘good Christians’ who’ve not only celebrated the young man’s commission of cold-blooded murder but are now rallying around him to support and fund his defense (and, they hope, his liberation).

I was moved to reflect on this even more deeply than usual because I’m reading a powerful, compelling and incisive book, Robert P. Jones’ White Too Long, about how White Supremacy has been woven into the fabric of (white) American Christianity over the centuries to become, for too many, inextricably intertwined. This history is at once profoundly dismaying and yet imperative to navigate, because it tells the truth about a lie that we’ve perpetuated to our collective detriment for far too long: White Christianity has sponsored White Supremacy, harbored and protected the racists who’ve created a system of both overt and systemic racism that excludes an ever higher proportion of our fellow citizens and is very much at work to this day perpetuating this inhumanity.

It ‘legitimated’ the settlers of our country in bringing enslaved Africans with them to the New World; as it did our Founding Fathers when they discounted our lives in the very documents that proclaimed Bowers to be a free country; as it did during the Civil War when it gave righteous cover and a supposedly divine sanction to an horrific conflict waged to protect the institution of slavery; as it did during the nearly nine-decade period of legal apartheid that was Jim Crow; as it did to the Christian Right that became so influential in our politics and policies after the Civil Rights Movement (especially within the Republican Party); and as it does now to lunatic fringe elements on the Alt-Right that seek, among other supposedly sanctified actions, a race war to result in the establishment of a new whites-only nation.

Which brings me back to the alleged murderer in Kenosha who, under the guise of joining a group of vigilantes in a self-appointed defense of (other people’s) property against peaceful protesters advocating for a just response to yet another unnecessary shooting of an innocent Black man by the local police, armed himself illegally with an automatic weapon, joked amicably with members of that very same police force who offered him refreshment, went out into the crowd and shot three people and then walked back by those very same officers who allowed him to escape and return to his home where he got a good night’s rest after his craven carnage. Apparently, some of you white folks like your property– or, actually, other people’s property – so much that you’re willing to kill innocents who pose it no threat.

And then it hit me: Just like the millions of southern white men a century and a half ago, this teenage killer had chosen to value other people’s property that was in no meaningful danger more than human life and to risk his own life in ‘defending’ it. What is he, really, but a 21st century version of a Confederate? Just like they sacrificed themselves to protect a system in which other whites could enslave Africans in ways that actually depressed the economic well-being of these misguided volunteers, members of today’s Alt Right are claiming commitment to protecting others’ property rights so that African-Americans remain disenfranchised, if now only meaningfully but not totally.

The ‘Lost Cause’ isn’t lost and it’s still very much a cause.…

No, it’s not news to anyone that racism is alive and well – thriving, actually – in our country today. We need only to look at our president to see that such inhumanity has its most proactive sponsor in the modern era in the Oval Office at present. Not surprisingly, then, we’ve seen a proliferation of racist incidents and unprecedented growth among hate groups intent upon bringing their darkness into our light.

But it is still shocking that such darkness can overtake someone so young, that a police chief under siege could make multiple statements that, in effect, blame the murdered and wounded victims for their fate and that it can all be caught on videotape as if it’s just another nightmare in our continuing national repose of unrest.

Seriously, America, who are we and what have we become?

As far as I can tell, for too many of our fellow citizens, the American Dream that they seek would still presume to dispossess others meaningfully or fully. Their vision of our collective future is one that doesn’t include me or you if you’re not a “White Christian,” a designation that I feel compelled to put in quotes because it appears, definitionally, to be the complete and utter antithesis of the example of its claimed Patron.

And yet I want to be hopeful: after all, if you look back a half-century, it was perfectly acceptable to be a racist in many white circles, which is far less true today (at least overtly so). Organized hate groups are far more on the fringe of white society today than they were then. But, ominously, still they thrive, enabled by technology to connect, coordinate and multiply mostly out of sight of the mainstream of our country (though they have been brought back closer to it thanks to the president and his minions who not only don’t repudiate but actually help spread this movement’s bigotry and hate).

That there are now self-proclaimed White Christian groups that have raised more than $100,000 for the Kenosha murderer’s defense is another indication of the twin realities of the perversity of White Christian Supremacist doctrine and how modern technology can enable its propagation in ways that both legitimate it and give it far greater reach than was possible in the past. It may be fringe still, but it’s getting awfully close to the mainstream.

Which means that it verges on becoming a modern version of the post-Civil War travesty that’s known in apologist circles as “The Redemption”: while the reality is that in the Compromise of 1877 the US Government turned its back on the newly formed and integrated state and local governments within the former Confederacy, which then allowed the resurgence of White Supremacy via a widespread and extended campaign of violence and terror, Lost Cause enthusiasts consider this a development worthy of great celebration because it represents a return to the proper order of things (i.e., Black subjugation).

Relating this to the present incident, as Andy Richter asked poignantly via tweet:

What stake does a white 17 year old from Illinois have in “protecting the streets of Kenosha,” other than the opportunity to fulfill the gun culture fantasy of hunting Black people? Law and order? The protection of property? Bullshit.

That any self-professed people of faith could see this cravenly but casually executed murderous rampage as a righteous cause is an indication of just how divorced from reality – and inextricably tied to White Supremacy – so/too many of our fellow citizens have become … which means that it’s incumbent upon us to address this head-on and draw this supposedly religious inhumanity out into the light and expose it for what it is.

Though this will be painful, we have to contest this ideology directly and listen carefully so that we can discern its root causes and then work to eradicate them … because if we choose to ignore this, not only won’t it go away but, thanks to the Internet, it’ll continue to grow like a cancer within our body politic.

Our choice is clear: either we must do the hard work of seeking to understand and then endeavoring to ameliorate this scourge of White Christian Supremacy, or the Lost Cause will continue to grow in ways that threaten the very communal life of our nation that we all treasure.

(W)hite Christian theology has evolved to play this role powerfully: to render black claims to justice invisible while protecting white economic and social interests, all the while assuring them of their own moral purity. …

This double standard exists despite evidence that white supremacists account for far greater numbers of domestic terrorism than any group and a growing proportion of extremist violence worldwide. 

- Robert P Jones, White Too Long (2020)

The way forward out of our present darkness.…

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

 - The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (1963)

 

My soul is tired. The events of this year have exposed a reality that we African-Americans have long known and lived, but their ‘revelation’ in the mainstream of American media and life has both exposed ugly realities in and to our society as a whole (and especially to its white members) and traumatized us yet again: it’s one thing to live in a racist society, but quite another to live in it and be reminded of just how racist it is damn near every day….

And it’s not just us Black folks: yesterday, I got a plaintive message from a white friend of progressive bent (who also happens to be Jewish) and his laments struck a chord. Simply put, he is overwrought by the evidence of evil in our society so broadly and, now, boldly displayed and worries that his individual contributions simply aren’t enough to help turn the tide.

I thanked him for his positive example and encouraged him to keep leading in his local community … and then I advised him to “kiss it up to God” and let it go. His worrying himself into a (depressed) tizzy isn’t going to help him or anyone else, as understandable a response as it may be to our current travails.

You know it’s bad when the white folks are suffering, too….

Yet, despite this increasing sense of individual and collective enervation, I can’t relent in my personal commitment to the cause of equity and full inclusion in our polity. I’m reminded of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s reference to the “ungrammatical profundity” of Mother Pollard, whose response to his inquiry about her welfare during the waning days of the ultimately triumphant Montgomery Bus Boycott was “My feets is tired but my soul is rested.” As much as I really, really, want to at times of late, I really, really just cannot let my feets be rested ’cause my soul is tired….

And, yet, what to do?

As tired as I am, I believe that there are always three options at our disposal: we can always educate, advocate and celebrate.

The education is the preparatory hard part: we must engage fully in our world and embrace its realities, soul-wrenching as so many of them may be. There simply is no other way: as James Baldwin reminded us, not everything that is faced can be changed, but everything that is changed must be faced.

Among other things, we must peer into the realities of how we’ve structured our society and who wins and loses because of this (followed, of course, by our acting on this expanded knowledge by taking action in advocacy). There is most assuredly some ugly stuff: for example, just thinking about getting a clearer understanding of what drives so many to hate is already depressing me, but if we’re going to address the virulent racism that has always raged beneath the surface of our society – and that has erupted lately because of the immoral and repeated sanction of our political leaders – we’re going to have to get to its root causes, the factors that continue to lead to the embrace of White Supremacy.

Followed closely thereon, of course, by the examination of the root causes of all the other -isms that continue to plague our society (i.e., sexism, heterosexism, religiocentrism, xenophobia, classism etc.). In a word, this is going to suck, but it’s both necessary and required if we’re going to craft effective and sustainable solutions to problems that have both dogged and malevolently influenced our history. We can’t fix what we don’t know, so it’s incumbent upon us to learn all that we can, as painful as this may be.

In this regard, I think it bears noting that we should also fortify ourselves by exploring the good that so many do in our world, not just to heal our souls and steel our sense of commitment, but to identify models for practical change in societal evolution. In fact, I suspect that the only way that we can get through the challenging educational mission before us is to ensure that we balance it appropriately with the knowledge of positive realities that elevate and inspire. Let us champion the good as diligently and resolutely we seek to remediate the bad.

This must be followed, of course, my thoughtful, sustained and courageous advocacy, which is the active hard part of this mission. Simply put, if the world is going to change for the better, as Gandhi reminded us, we’re going to have to be that change. And even the briefest surveys of our broken world tells us that this is going to be one long and costly fight … but fight we must.

Strategically, our goal must be to seek a more equitable and inclusive society and world. Among the many things that this will inevitably entail is addressing yawning and ever widening economic inequality and a myriad of other self-imposed afflictions that bedevil the full flourishing of too many of our fellow citizens and human beings.

Tactically, in America at this moment, it means to continue our protests and especially to have them registered profoundly on November 3^rd. Simply put, all of the courageous marching in the street will come to naught if we don’t march on the polls as powerfully. As is abundantly clear, the very future of our democracy is at stake and the trend toward the dissolution of our society must absolutely be arrested, for, if we think it looks bleak at times now.…

I really don’t feel the need to dwell on the many solutions that we need to implement – from fairer tax policies and wiser government spending to repairing and reestablishing the protection of our right to vote to strengthening our educational system to addressing economic inequality and the fast-approaching retirement crisis to reducing our militarism, etc. – largely because they’re self-evident: it’s not that we don’t know what to do, but that we haven’t summoned the will to do it … and, this, too, is an issue that we must trace to its core and address. In sum, we need to engage in what the Rev. Dr. King described as a “radical revolution in values” that would lead to the establishment of a “Beloved Community.”

And we need to celebrate, a seemingly decidedly happy endeavor in contrast to the previous two … and yet it’s the necessary destination and state of grace that we must attain. By celebration I mean the full acceptance and embrace of our humanity, idiosyncratically expressed in each of us, that, in turn, should be recognized, appreciated and exalted by us all. In truth, this’ll necessitate a major paradigm shift from seeing Difference as something that separates and often repels us to viewing it as an invitation to exploration and mutual benefit and growth. Simply put, when we realize that our differences can provide opportunities for us to grow closer to each other while expanding our appreciation of our world and the beauty of its creation, we’ll truly begin to live into our humanity fully.

I could expand on what the celebration means at greater length – like, say, by relating it to Bishop John Shelby Spong’s encouragement for us to live fully, love wastefully and be all that we can be – but I trust that this, too, is self-evident: it’s not that we don’t know how to live peaceably with and love one another but that we just haven’t summoned the courage and commitment to do it. I genuinely believe that, if we do the admittedly hard work of educating ourselves fully and advocating forcefully, then this step of celebration will flow naturally and abundantly from such an effort.

Yet, truth be told, at this very moment my mind and soul are tired, so I’m going to rest them. And when I arise, I’ll keep going – educating, advocating and celebrating – because, then, my feet may be tired, but my soul will indeed be rested.…

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

 - (Perhaps erroneously) Attributed to Margaret Mead