Lesson from Charlottesville

There is
growing awareness, if not consensus, that the United States is a race-based
nation, and that racism is a white problem. Therefore, the attitudes and
actions of white people will, to a large extent, determine how we answer the above
question posed by Dr. King. But, as President Barack Obama noted in an acclaimed speech on race
which he delivered in 2008, we are “stuck in a racial stalemate.” Obama’s
speech was necessitated by a fiery sermon on race delivered by his pastor, the
Reverend Jeremiah Wright, which had so enflamed white people that it threatened
to derail Obama’s run for the presidency.



Reviving the
spirit of the Golden Rule is essential both for the survival of the human
project and for our integrity as people of faith. Without such a revival we
cannot be true to ourselves or our witness to the Christian gospel. Our faith
will become inauthentic. James Baldwin examines the lack of authenticity among
people of faith in his classic book, The
Fire Next Time (Dell, 1964). Here he writes that white Americans find it
difficult “to divest themselves of the notion that they are in possession of
something of intrinsic value that black people need and want.” He continues, “A
vast amount of energy that goes into what we call the Negro problem is produced
by the white man’s profound desire not to be judged by those who are not white
. . . . It is for this reason that love is so desperately sought and so
cunningly avoided” (127,128). Baldwin alleges that white people do not wish to
know the truth about themselves, or take responsibility for their own lives and
what goes on in our country. The combination of white power and white denial leaves
white people trapped in “burning house” (127) of “moral contradiction” and
“spiritual aridity” (130). People of color do not want to be assimilated into
this burning house, and white people refuse to leave it. Thus our stalemate.
Baldwin calls upon white people to examine and re-examine everything we believe
about ourselves and about this country.
Viewed from
another perspective, the social model of racism is that of a zero-sum society.
More for “them,” (people of color) means less for “us,” (white people). This
rigid model devalues cooperation resulting in an uncompromising structure that
is violence prone when besieged by real or imaginary threats. White
supremacists, in the binary, zero-sum, society, are worried about survival, while
multiculturalist live in the illusion that people of color want to be and can
be assimilated into a society that has systemically rejected them for 500
years. Both groups operate out of an inauthentic narrative. The former deny
white privilege; the latter acknowledge white privilege and affirm the need to
treat all people with equal dignity and respect, but often find themselves feeling
alienated from white-dominated institutions and networks of power. Both groups
feel trapped in a world that is either beyond their control or out of control
and, therefore, become ensnared in webs of inauthenticity when what they truly
want is to live authentic lives.
The Golden
Rule is rooted in a social model that is truer to our actual lived experience
than the zero-sum model, and it’s more conducive to a society in which the
ethic of deep solidarity can be put into practice. The practical cost of refusing
to incorporate this ethic into our daily lives is twofold. First, we will see
replications of events in Charlottesville in other communities and an
escalation of violence. Second, we will experience a hollowing out of the
Christian faith as the fundamental norm of the Golden Rule and the actual
social practices of the church grow further and further apart.
The
alternative to this vortex of violence is to engage in the difficult and
sometimes dangerous but always rewarding work of creating genuine relationships
for the sake of building communities in which everyone can flourish and in
which Christian communities can give an authentic witness to the faith they
profess. What is at stake for the church is whether Christianity becomes an
increasingly narrow and privatized personal faith, or a constructive presence
that is able to deal with the life and death issues of our time?
Lastly, we,
as Christians, must come to a clearer understanding of power in our political
economy. Is power best placed in the hands of the elite, or does it need to be
built from the bottom up? Answering this question entails examination of
existing power structures and networks, identifying winners and losers in
today’s political economy, and forging what I call “Golden Rule alliances” of
deep solidarity.

Rev. David P. Hansen PhD
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