killing in the name.

from our central american idyll we have watched the news pouring from the united states and are increasingly disturbed. more state violence, more unnecessary death. and now every scroll through social media has the potential to bring me to tears. tears of frustration, rage, hopelessness, weariness. there are so many amazing thoughts and heartbreaking stories being shared. i’ve started listening to christmas music again, which is a sign i’m emotionally overwhelmed.

yet this mix of emotions is not my own, but touches on the realities of entire communities across the states and beyond for many, many years. we again see more layers of injustice and discontent exposed, another opportunity for drastically expanded learning. we have another chance, tragic as the circumstances are, to reexamine the country on a number of levels and to hope that the future can be better. thus i have been pondering much lately the nature of our home country.

this process has been augmented by the reading of the charles dickens novel martin chuzzlewit. by sending his main character to the young american states, dickens was able to share with his readers his impressions of that country based on his own travels there. and what he said over a century and a half ago rings depressingly true today. dickens paints a dreary picture of people blind to the humanity in others, an entire society based on the accumulation of wealth, where property holds more value than human life. and: ‘Thus the stars wink upon the bloody stripes; and Liberty pulls down her cap upon her eyes, and owns Oppression in its vilest aspect, for her sister.’

as the characters mark and martin finally leave america to return to england (the critique of which i will reserve for another day), mark wonders how, if he were a painter, he might paint the ‘American Eagle’. he says:

“I should want to draw it [the symbol of America] like a Bat, for its short-sightedness; like a Bantam, for its bragging; like a Magpie, for its honesty; like a Peacock, for its vanity; like an Ostrich, for its putting its head in the mud, and thinking nobody sees it–‘

to which his friend adds:

‘And like a Phoenix, for its power of springing from the ashes of its faults and vices, and soaring up anew into the sky!’ said Martin. ‘Well, Mark. Let us hope so!'”

and yet, i do not feel inclined to agree with martin’s hopeful assessment.

maybe it is my own version of some lingering white saviorism (which i am actively trying to unlearn) that i feel able to insert myself into the social issues of other countries while i throw up my hands at such issues in my own country. but nothing makes me feel more exasperated or hopeless as thinking about trying to help america live up to the ideology that ‘all [humans] are created equal’ and that governments have an imperative to uphold systems that treat its citizens in such a way as to reflect that stated equality.

let’s remember that the unites states was born of violent revolution. and land theft. and slavery (which is a theft on many levels). ingrained in the formation of the country was widespread dehumanization. this dehumanization has been present throughout u.s. history, an initial characteristic, perhaps, due to its growth out of the devastating ages of exploration and colonization, and the bigotries of europe. but this justifies nothing, for the dehumanization has continued to today.

and do we think the people protesting in the city streets, after centuries of exploitation and legislated discrimination, have any less reason to be angry about their situations than a handful of landowners 250 years ago who were angry about taxes and not being allowed to steal more land? if you know your history, none of what is happening now should surprise you. not the brutality, not the murders, not the reactions. these struggles are in the very blood of the country.

and so in my despair i have no expectation that america will ever be any better than it has ever been. namely, a discriminatory, greedy, violent mockery of all the ideals it claims to uphold.

and yet.

and yet. i know my hope is not in a system of government or a delineated geographical space, but rather in Jesus Christ. and thus i feel the need to act. though i hardly know what this action should be, not actually being in the country in question, beyond sharing, learning, pointing to other speakers, etc. i know that we are called to love without exception, to look out for the forgotten and dehumanized, following Christ’s example in seeing the image of God in all. such actions are hardly simple or easy, and certainly protracted. yet what i glean from Jesus’ teachings is not that everything needs to drastically change on our watch, but rather that we are to remain faithful to the work no matter what. i have had a lot of hopeless seasons in a lot of different ministries and every new day i needed to choose faithfulness to His example over the expectation of change.

while discussing these things, steph encouraged me to pray actively for opportunities to truly act on this faithfulness, whatever that may look like from day to day, in this new context. and i ask you to join me in this prayer. i suppose we should also pray that we are ready when we have the chance to live out what we believe.

and so, in hope that my pessimistic assessment is not ultimately true, that real change can indeed happen, and that education is one step in this process, i offer you all a reading list. because one of the encouraging things in this time are the many voices sharing resources for learning and advocacy. as one who has been stewing on these sweeping issues in america for the last decade, i am glad that so many are showing so much interest. though i am also still learning continually.

i hope and pray that we can all be more present in acknowledging and dismantling injustice. and let us not simply rest passively on the accepted way of things, but rather seek to be actively thoughtful people. let us radically humanize those around us and those far from us, those of every skin color and background, those who break things wantonly during peaceful protests, those who chose to remain silent, and yes, even those who use or advocate violence against brothers and sisters, even the corrupt and openly discriminatory, and those who have corrupted justice. in our rage against oppression, let us not become oppressors. and let us remember that those doing the oppressing are operating from a dehumanized space as they dehumanize others, and thus need love as well.

such work will certainly not be comfortable, but i believe Jesus desires nothing less.

stamped from the beginning by ibram x. kendi
the condemnation of blackness by khalil gibran muhammad
darkwater by w.e.b. du bois
the history of white people by nell irvin painter
the fire next time by james bladwin
between the world and me by ta-nehisi coates
freedom is a constant struggle by angela y. davis
Jesus and the disinherited by howard thurman
slavery’s capitalism edited by sven beckert and seth rockman
the half has never been told by edward e. baptist
coming of age in mississippi by anne moody
the autobiography of malcolm x as told to alex haley
the accident of color by daniel brook
black against empire by joshua bloom
race, religion, and resilience in the neoliberal age by cedric c. johnson

and of course there is a wealth of other writers i would suggest, such as zora neale hurston, maya angelou, toni morrison, bell hooks, ralph ellison, langston hughes, sojourner truth, frederick douglass, colson whitehead, lisa s. harper, and gosh gee there are just a ton of others. now let us all learn and listen and grow. let us become martin’s vision of the phoenix.