The terrible events in
Charlottesville Virginia last week prompt me to depart a bit from the “rules” I
made for myself for this blog and reprint the most thoughtful pieces I have
found trying to make sense – or at least, speak truth – about the hateful act
and American society.
As a writer and pastor, my job is
to weave together words so that those words will hopefully reach people in
their deepest places; to frame the experience of this life in a way that is
somehow compelling or creative or interesting, causing them to engage with the
world differently than before.
But there are times when to do
this would be actually be a disservice to reality, when any clever wordplay
would only soften the jagged, sickening truth; when clever turns of phrase
might succeed in obscuring the horrid ugliness in front of us.
Sometimes we just need to say it
without adornment or finessing.
What we’ve watched unfolding in
Charlottesville, with hundreds of white people bearing torches and chanting
about the value of white lives and shouting slurs, is not a “far Right”
protest. When you move that far right, past humanity, past decency, past
goodness—you’re something else.
You’re not a supremacist, you’re
not a nationalist, and you’re not alt-Right.
This is racism.
This is domestic terrorism.
This is religious extremism.
This is bigotry.
It is blind hatred of the most vile kind.
It doesn’t represent America.
It doesn’t represent Jesus.
It doesn’t speak for the majority of white Americans.
It’s a cancerous, terrible, putrid sickness that represents the absolute worst
of who we are.
No, naming it won’t change it, but
naming it is necessary nonetheless. It’s necessary for us to say it—especially
when the media won’t, when our elected leaders won’t, when our President won’t.
It’s necessary to condemn it so that we do not become complicit in it.
This is our national History being
forged in real-time, and to use words lacking clarity now would be to risk
allowing the ugliness off the hook or to create ambiguity that excuses it.
And
yes, there are all sorts of other ways that racism and privilege live and
thrive; ways that are far less obvious or brazen than tiki-torch wielding
marches. There are systemic illnesses and structural defects and national blind
spots that we need to speak to and keeping pushing back against, and we will.
But in moments that are this clear, when the malignancy is so fully on
display—we’d better have the guts to say it.
White people especially need to
name racism in this hour, because somewhere in that crowd of sweaty, dead-eyed,
raw throated white men—are our brothers and cousins and husbands and fathers
and children; those we go to church with and see at Little League and in our
neighborhoods. They need to be made accountable by those they deem their “own
kind.” They need to know that this is not who we are, that we don’t bless or
support or respect this. They need white faces speaking directly into their
white faces, loudly on behalf of love.
Though all of us can eventually
trace our lineage back to oneness, all carrying a varied blood in our veins—the
surface level differences matter to these torch-bearers. They value white lives
and white voices above anything else, and so we whose pigmentation matches
theirs need to speak with unflinching clarity about this or we simply amen it.
So I’m saying it.
We are not with you, torch-bearers,
in Charlottesville or anywhere.
We do no consent to this.
In fact we stand against you, alongside
the very beautiful diversity that you fear.
We stand with people of every color and of all faiths, people of every
orientation, nationality, and native tongue.
We are not going to have this.
This is not the country we’ve built together and it will not become what you
intend it to become.
So you can kiss our diverse,
unified, multi-colored behinds because your racism and your terrorism will not
win the day.
Believe it.
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