Extremism in Defense of Liberty...and Oppression

Lately, I've been reading Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion by Herbert Aptheker (1937/2006).  It's the first serious (second generally) history of the rebellion Nat Turner led in 1831.  It's an incredibly easy read, and I highly recommend it.

Needless to say, many things stick out to me from the book.  More posts may come...

For now, Aptheker's writing about "the effects" (i.e. social and legal reactions) of Turner's rebellion captures my mind.  Our best guess is that 60-80 black people joined the rebellion, yet at the time whites estimated as many as 800 armed revolutionaries actively participated and nearly every southern state legislature convened to deal with whites' mass hysteria following the revolt.  After his capture, Turner pleaded not guilty (because he had done nothing wrong) and never said he was mistaken in believing God led him to revolt.  Those facts lead me to my two initial thoughts:

1. Oppressors Live in Constant Fear

We, the people willing to act for social justice, severely underestimate our influence.  One of the false lessons of the Civil Rights Era is that "a movement" requires mass numbers.  I am convinced that movement requires little more than a few people willing to move.  People imposing injustice tend to freak out when directly confronted with resistance.  I am reminded of three biblical stories.  One where Elisha showed his chief disciple the invisible chariots and horsemen of Israel.  The second, when Gideon took a very small army (~300 men) and defeated a much larger army when the enemy soldiers turned on themselves.  And a third, when three lepers marched into the enemy camp only to find it deserted because the enemy soldiers mistook their footsteps for the sound of a large army.  My point, God seems to be suggesting the power of small numbers often in the Bible.

My larger point from Nat Turner is that all oppressors live in constant fear of resistance, even resistance from groups that cannot possibly overthrow systems by force alone.  Men live in constant fear that they will be exposed as vulnerable and not masculine.  Whites live in constant fear that the logic of white supremacy (i.e. justified domination because of superior intellect/morality/numerical majority/etc) will be exposed as a lie [thus The Bell Curve, the Minute Men, the Tea Party, etc].  The rich are petrified of labor coalitions.  The Christian Right is obsessed with "creeping Sharia law." Bush began a war against terror itself.  

We don't often pay enough attention to the fact that emotion is an integral part of every social structure.  Specifically, fear is an inevitable part of every oppressive structure.  That means that one of the contradictions inherent to any system of organization is the emotional vulnerability of the dominant group.  Oppressed people thus always have a structural avenue of resistance, even in the most oppressive and closed systems.

Nat Turner demonstrated that.  For months and even years after his rebellion, whites openly claimed that they could not sleep, were filled with anxiety, and were in failing health due to fear of slave rebellions inspired by Turner.  In fact, several southern governors explicitly stated mass anxiety among whites as the reason for calling emergency legislative sessions in fall of 1831.  This mass anxiety despite there being no clear evidence that a single subsequent rebellion was directly connected to Turner or his co-conspirators.  That oppressors were convicted by their own guilt is proven by two facts: 1) Turner "passed-over" the houses of whites who "did not think themselves better than blacks."  His army only targeted open bigots and slaveowners; and 2) there is some evidence that many poor whites supported the rebellion.  Whites were not afraid they would be targeted for being white; they were afraid because they knew they were targeted for being active oppressors.


2.  Retrenchment Is Not Evidence of Failure

After the Turner Rebellion, whites reacted extremely harshly.  They not only assassinated Turner and his fellow rebels, they also mutilated and murdered innumerable black people (slave and free) with and without trials.  Whites killed at least as many innocent black people as the total number of rebells in Turner's army.  In some cases, white militias lynched black people on the mere accusation of white overseers.  Whites tortured, lynched, and murdered black people without any evidence or even reason for suspicion in states as far from Turner's rebellion (in Virginia) as Louisiana and Kentucky.  Whites tortured innocent black people to the point that whites themselves began criticizing the brutality and fearing they would lose the moral ground in the slaveholding South!  [I cannot imagine the savagery that would move slaveholders even that small step toward compassion.  Our black ancestors are beyond heroic!]  Bunches of municipalities and southern states passed a host of laws tightening restrictions on free blacks and making life even more difficult for slaves.  ... None of this is a surprise, but it leads me to my next point...

For black people, the most obvious immediate result of Turner's Rebellion was increased white oppression.  In other words, black people's lives got worse; in some cases much worse.  Turner, his fellow warriors, and potentially hundreds of uninvolved black people were tortured and killed by whites.  In addition to the rampant mass murder, black people lost [i.e. whites took] the few civil rights they had.  Black people couldn't even legally have church without whites present.  Again, biblical parallels come to mind.  The Egyptians made crazy laws against enslaved Israelites (e.g. making bricks without straw) out of fear of growing Israelite numbers and fear of slave revolt.  Moses left Egypt after reacting to Egyptian cruelty, and the Egyptians reacted harshly to subsequent Israelite resistance once the Exodus began.  ... I bring up the Bible to show that the patterns are old and unchanging.  Oppressors oppress, get scared, generate resistance, clamp down, and ultimately lose.

And here, I think, is another false lesson we have drawn from the Civil Rights Movement.  Activists hesitate too often for fear that their efforts will make life harder for the very people they are fighting for.  This fear among activists is one of the main causes of "analysis until paralysis" and splits among coalitions.  We should understand that activism never causes oppression.  Oppressors do that.  We should not assume that harsh retrenchment is a sign that we did the wrong thing.  Often retrenchment is a sign that mobilization meaningfully challenged oppressors.

Again, the immediate aftermath of Turner's rebellion was death and increased white-on-black terrorism throughout the South.  Not only so, but nearly all the southern abolitionist organizations disappeared following the rebellion.  They reformed in the North, but that meant the thousands of free blacks in the South and millions of enslaved blacks had much less local white support after 1831.  But nearly 200 years later, we see that Turner's Rebellion was a positive and critically important part of the liberation struggle.  If we judged him by the lives of black people in October and November of 1831, we would conclude his efforts a failure on every level.  Now we praise Turner and name city parks after him (e.g. in Newark, NJ).  We recognize Nat Turner, John Brown, and other antislavery rebells as national heroes--certainly heroes among people of color.

Selah.

A Blessed Circle, A Blessed Evening (Part I)

Yesterday was my friend, Rose Pulliam's birthday.  [Happy Birthday, again, Rose!]  If you don't know Rose, she is a beautiful woman, in every sense imaginable.  Hers is a gathering and nurturing soul; the kind that keeps communities together.  She totally dispels the notion that activists, of which she is one of the finest, only throw bricks and don't build anything.  Rose can throw a brick, but through her stories, comedy, outreach, and just force of personality, she constantly edifies individuals and communities in the deepest, most profound and elemental ways.  

So, we gathered to celebrate her birthday.  Overtime, as the crowd ebbed and flowed, about of dozen of us--all queer people of color, mostly activists, many with Bible-based religious backgrounds of various denominations--formed a large circle and began to talk about religion and faith.  In the circle were 4 men and 8 or so women, people in their 20s through 50s, including African Americans, Latin@s, and women from the Caribbean.  We covered a lot of ground as the conversation flowed from an academic look at religion and politics to how religion played in people's coming out stories and a host of other angles.  Eventually, one of the sisters in the group asked the pivotal question that launched us into the meat of the night.  She asked, "what happens to the soul when we die?  Where does the soul go?"   

I cannot do justice to the following events, nor can I completely recount every word (or even highlight) of the blessed conversation that followed.  There was too much wisdom in the group to even imagine capturing it in words.  We simply vibed together.  As the Bible says, "deep calls to deep," and that's where and how we met each other.  The energy in the space was so holy (for lack of a less loaded word), built on the trust and safety we recognized and built in each other.  And it was as much recognized as created.  The secret price of entry to the circle, demanded by the Spirit that brought us, was years of deep and intense personal reflection on who we are in the world and how our religious histories had both revealed and hidden aspects of the spiritual realities we are called to share.  It was the evidence of that pursuit of truth beyond dogma--an uncommon spiritual maturation--that we silently recognized in one another.  Everyone brought some truly spiritual gift to the collective, and we recognized that gifting in each other as well.  Upon those spiritual recognitions and connections, we experienced our circle.  

Like I said, there was far too much wisdom in the circle for me to recount it here.  Truthfully, so much happened beyond the aural that even a perfect transcription of the night would give but a fraction of the experience.  So let me touch on just a few things to give a sense of the conversation.  In the next post, I want to talk about my experience in the circle.  

So, the pivotal question was, "Where does the soul go when we die?" People offered a range of answers, generally speaking of our souls and essences as collections of energy that may or may not (or may also) remain as a self-identified unit after bodily death (as opposed to breaking up into fragments, given away in life and/or recycled in death back in to the whole).  We related stories of speaking to people who had passed, whether directly or through mediums.  [[I'll note here that even the Bible says this is possible; remember Saul speaking to Samuel through the Witch of Endor and Abraham's acknowledgement that it is possible for the dead rich man go back and talk to his brothers though it would be useless.]]  We spoke of dreaming other people's dreams and receiving and conveying supernatural messages...and the awesome responsibility that entails.  We spoke of visions; some viewed alone, others shared.  We wondered how all this is possible.  What truths about now and the next epoch do our experiences reveal?  Conversely, we did not try to fit our experiences into the orthodoxy boxes of our various traditions.  Nor did we doubt one another.  We did not all have identical experiences, but we've all had experiences that were similar enough and far enough beyond the fringes of orthodoxy to know that everyone was speaking of "reality."  Every story was more than sincere; it was accurate.  

We wondered.  We spoke of the power of this wonder and of faith and doubt and fear.  One sister shared a valuable lesson.  She said, "fear haunts.  Truth does not haunt.  Truth always manifests itself."  And she is right, truth comes to pass.  Fear dogs people, but the fearful possibilities cannot and do not all come into being.  In another exchange, a brother spoke of doubt and faith.  Relating his coming out story, he said he learned to have as much faith that God created him as gay as others have that being gay is sin.  We spoke of how doubt creates much opportunity--to expand beyond dogma, to receive others, to experience spirit.  

We spoke of how death is a simultaneously individual and collective experience.  Even birth is a collective experience (just ask your mother), as is every subsequent experience until death.  No one experiences death per se with you; we all face it individually.  Yet, we can experience it collectively.  Several sisters recalled being together when a loved one passed, in the very house where we were talking.  Everyone recounted the different experiences, in at least three locations, that marked the instant of the person's passing.  A sleeping baby sat up to witness the moment, people pulled close in immediate anticipation, one woman spoke in words and a voice unrecognizable to herself.  

We spoke of shared energies.  How we miss the experience of collective worship, especially the songs.  We hummed the Old 100; that classic set of moans and ancestral hymns that welcome the Spirit and make the Black church so powerful and comforting.  We spoke of how the songs put us on the same wave length and how our bodies and essences feel that.  How that collective energy is so strong it can become visible.  

We laughed.  Uninhibited, joyful laughs.  We truly enjoyed each other and all the people, present and past, whose spirits and other remnants, were in the place.  It was a blessing.  It was healing.  We all held hands, felt a powerful warmth, and gave thanks.  

Gay Men and Blood Donation

So, you may not know (as I didn't until a few years ago), but the government forbids accepting blood donations from gay men.  See a background story here.  Actually, if you've ever read the questions before giving blood, you know that the restriction is on any man who has had sex with another man at any point in life.  Compare that restriction to the fact that heterosexuals who are knowingly having sex with HIV/AIDS positive people are allowed donate a year after their last sexual intercourse with the HIV positive partner.

This blood donation restriction makes no sense!  It's just a way to stigmatize the gay community.  It's biggotry, plain and simple.  Obviously, if preventing HIV/AIDS contamination in the blood supply was the issue, heterosexuals would also face lifetime bans if they slept with an HIV positive person at any point in their lives.

The obvious, and utterly ridiculous, basis for this anti-gay restriction is the outrageous and totally outdated idea that all gay people have AIDS.  I'm old enough to remember when people thought AIDS was exclusively a gay disease.  (Actually, my evangelical friends, we're all old enough as the Rev. Jerry Faldwell and his bretheren continued to espouse that view until his death, if memory serves.)  But that thinking has been completely disproved in every way imaginable!  At this point, believing gays are diseased--with HIV/AIDS or  homosexuality itself--is silly, and more indicative of personal prejudice than anything else.

Like all forms of bigotry, this ban injures the people who support it.  Just as whites are damaged by racism (via limited social relationships, deep seated fears, subjugation to laws designed primarily to control people of color, etc), so anti-gay heterosexuals are willing to risk their own lives by decreasing the emergency blood supply just to stigmatize gays.

I used to donate blood regularly on campus during college.  But it's been more than 4 years since I last did that.  I am unwilling to participate in the national lie that 1) gays don't exist -- thus all male donors certifying they haven't had gay sex, and 2) gays are universally HIV/AIDS carriers.  Recently, I wanted to donate bone marrow.  If you don't know, there is a desperate need for African Americans to donate bone marrow.  I don't know the science, but for some reason, having racially similar donors reduces rejection rates in marrow transfusions.  Again, I volunteered to help meet the desperate need, but the center rejected me because of the anti-gay ban.  I seriously doubt the potential beneficiary of my marrow donation would have made the same decision.  

These Wounds I Suffer in the House of My Friends: Church as Site of White Racism

Continuing the previous post, this week researchers at Baylor University published a study finding that people who were primed with Christian words (e.g. Jesus, Bible, faith, Christ) demonstrated more covert and overt racism against African Americans than people who were not primed with Christian words.  In other words, people who are thinking about American Christianity (or thinking through a Christian frame, the study speculates) feel and express more anti-Black racism than people who are not thinking about Christianity.  The ABP news service, with a quotation by one of the study's authors, sums up the point nicely:

The study, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, found that people subliminally "primed" with Christian words reported more negative attitudes about African-Americans than those primed with neutral words.

"What's interesting about this study is that it shows some component of religion does lead to some negative evaluations of people based on race," said Wade Rowatt, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor, who led the study. 

 According to Rowatt, there is something about American Christianity that leads to whites' anti-black racism.  Rather than preventing white on black racism, white Christianity actually leads to (i.e. activates, maybe even produces) racism.

The study only subliminally primed people with Christian words and measured the effect of that incredibly minuscule stimulus.  That they found any effect at all is remarkable!  In reality, people are not subliminally primed with singular Christian words; they are overwhelmed with Christian words and symbols.  Extrapolating from the study, each Christian stimulus primes people for anti-Black sentiment.  If people in short laboratory studies in which they "heard" only one Christian word exhibit increased anti-Black racism, how much greater is the effect when people have been in church!!!  Given the flood of Christian symbols around us--crosses, t-shirts with verses, people praying over their food, "blessings" when we sneeze--it is no wonder people of color face white racism everywhere, all the time.

Of course, the Church is not the only central purveyor of white racism.  But the study is important because it indicates two critical things: 1) in the United States, Christianity and white racism reinforce one another; and 2) churches are sites where whites do racial harm and amplify racism.  White churches are not sites of racial harmony; they are places where people of color are wounded in the houses of their white friends (see Zechariah 13:6, from which I drew this post's title).     


I have many thoughts on this subject, but I will save most of them for another time.  Suffice it to say here, the white Church has a lot of work to do if it hopes to succeed at the "racial reconciliation" project many churches have taken up over the last half century.  Having worshiped and served in predominantly white churches, I can give innumerable first hand accounts of the covert and overt racism the researchers found.  In one instance, a white evangelical with whom I was living actually said to me "if you were my slave, it would be fine." My experiences are not unique.  People of color who have taken the leap of faith to join white churches usually find those churches to be houses of racialized pain, and suffer many wounds as a result.  The book, Reconciliation Blues, has many accounts documenting that fact.

Deferential Diplomacy

In my quotidian survey of popular newspapers and political blogs, I was struck by the headline at politico.com declaring President Obama's strategic "diplomacy of deference" and the subsequent critiques (article and image credits available at above link). At first, I assumed the criticisms were based on tacit white supremacist positions, unspoken and generally buried in the subconsciences of the unwitting. I was right about the cause, but wrong about the manifestation. The racial element remains thinly veiled (and I mean thinly), but the supremacist element is bold indeed. Darth Vader himself, Dick Cheney, exemplifies the phenomenon:

But critics call Obama’s outstretched hand a miscalculation. Former vice president Cheney said: "There is no reason for an American president to bow to anyone. Our friends and allies don't expect it, and our enemies see it as a sign of weakness."

Did I miss something? Does every U.S. president pass into deity immediately following his inauguration? I was in Washington this past January, and I can tell you I saw nothing of the sort. Why then should American presidents not have to show respect to other national leaders (and frankly, every human being, in my view) via the cultural symbols dominant in that society?

You will notice that Emperor Akihito and President Obama are both simultaneously bowing and shaking hands. Indeed, the image appears to me to represent exactly the kind of mutual respect for one another and the larger societies each represents that is appropriate in diplomatic contexts.

Frankly, I believe Obama's status as the first Black president plays into the situation in myriad ways. First off, I believe that as a Black man, Obama has had to use a host of symbolic forms of respect and deference to others his entire life. Whites have undoubtedly demanded all sorts of indications of deference from him, especially in this "colorblind" era. Obama has skillfully learned to turn whites' racist demands into an asset for himself, which wheals now as second nature.

But more to the point, I believe Obama's racial status contributed to the development of his general orientation toward the world--one of respect and a sense of communal membership, rather than global domination. Part of the historical development of whiteness is the idea that whites have a manifest destiny; a destiny which has gone global over the years. Although it is taken for granted now that everyone issues handshakes as the common greeting, the handshake is actually a Eurocentric tradition. Whites made it universal through aggressive imperialism. Forcing others to use Western cultural symbols represented, and continues to represent, acquiescence to said imperialism.

Obama's decision to recognize indigenous symbols is a repudiation of America's history of white imperialism and racism. Critics of the president are manifesting deep emotional attachments to white supremacy. The degree of "controversy" and the characterization of Obama's moves as "deferential" (rather than respectful) and indicative of "weakness" illustrate the depth and ubiquity of white supremacy in the United States, among all social strata. The emotionally charged rhetoric indicates just how entrench white supremacy and its defenders are in this country.

This "controversy" is really just the white supremacist version of territorial animals' displays of aggression; white supremacists are basically flashing their teeth at us, hoping to intimidate us into giving into their racist demands. But like animals, their reaction is actually a revelation that they feel very threatened, even by something as simple as a bow. They hope brief displays will save them from an actual fight.

As anti-racists, we must accurately recognize the meanings in critics' reactions and respond accordingly. Now is the time to resist. As the president has modeled, just purposing to demonstrate respect and equality is an effective means of attacking white supremacy. We can all do that. Let us support our president in his effort to reestablish the United States as one of many global players, rather than a resented global bully. Let us think globally and act locally. We should make a special effort to learn and use non-Western/white symbols to demonstrate respect.

[[This final paragraph is largely my first attempt to address an issue in critical race studies, and sociology generally. We diagnose social ills extremely well, but our prescriptions for resolution are very limited and under theorized. Like Marx, I believe the tools of revolution exist within every social structure. We only need to recognize them and be willing to use them. Consequently, I am putting more effort to suggesting a range of options and actions we can take to combat social injustices wherever we find them. Massive social movements are wonderful and necessary for some tasks, but we have waited for the movement too long. Not all issues are best addressed by immediate mobilizations. Let's keep trying whatever we can until we find what we can do now that works. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts and ideas about resistance.]]