Righteous Indignation

It is not easy to dismiss the disquietude that sets in watching the events unfolding in the United States. The range of emotional response to the challenges of the day vary. There is anger and tears, there is resistance and hope, and with it wondering and uncertainty about the future relative to experiences of the past. What is clear is the change evident in the political arena is permeated with a distinct sense that the checks and balances provided for protecting the human and civil rights of “we the people” are no longer guard rails, instead, they are like lines drawn in the sand, disappearing with the winds of time.

“We the people” are a diverse lot living in the United States. Unlike the ecumenical witness that lauds unity in diversity, the unity of these ‘united states’ continues to be at odds with those who have arrived by various means to live on this land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, land colonized by settlers, land stolen from indigenous people. Instead, a supremacist narrative grounded in settler colonialism continues to provide an oppressive voice and abhorrent behavior in response to that which does not conform to and assimilate to the predominant narratives of the day. These narratives are grounded in misguided notions of race, power, wealth and greed.

African descendant people are not animals. We are not apes, chimpanzees, orangutans or any other primate for that matter. Instead, we too are created in the image of the Divine. Our parents, grandparents, and ancestors to the nth generation were contributors to the building of the world. The encounter between Europeans and Indigenous people on every continent resulted in communities being treated as anathema by settlers. The commodification of Black lives bought and sold at slave blocks was an atrocity and continues to be unacknowledged. The consumption of unpaid labor for raising children, tilling soil, making beds and harvesting crops ensured that the profit margin grew for owners of enslaved people while ensuring people were treated like chattel.

The recent posting by the current President of the United States depicting President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as apes was reprehensible. That it was created is problematic and for it to be posted to social media by the current President is racist. The defense being made for the actions of the President points to the pervasiveness of racism and the existence of the scourge of racism in the United States. Racist behavior should be decried; its normalization should be denied and rendered unacceptable. Instead, there is doubling down, denial, excuses, and once again, white male privilege – unchecked – attempts to deny the humanity of the other.

Anger is an appropriate response. In a system that continues to perpetuate violence against people because of how they look and where they come from, racial discrimination and the otherizing of people is the current fuel for immigration policies, citing funding for social programs, depicting leaders of other countries as ignorant, erasing programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion, and erasing the history of people of color from curriculum and public spaces. If ever there was a time for truth it is now: racism and lies do not change the facts – you cannot will greatness into being. And one cannot make great what never was. History is replete with the stories of those who were lynched, their humanity denied, their bodies left swinging from southern trees.

Racism is not new. This modern-day recycling of old tropes are meant to hurt. They are meant to damage people. They are meant to appeal to those who deem themselves to be more than, better than, and greater than. The image of the Divine prevails. We are the imago dei!

Black History Month is for storytelling and tears, for our witness and our faith. Faith that moves us to action beyond the anger from encounters with the ignorant who seek to deny the beauty of those the Divine created. February is a time for celebration and recommitment to the fight for civil rights and human rights in these United States. “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.”

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