The next three weeks, we will focus on three individuals who
emerged out of three distinct contexts to impact how we understand social
justice in the religious context. Two came from fairly wealthy families. One
came from a very modest upbringing. Two were North Americans. One was German.
Two were killed for their conviction and courage. One lived a good long life, a
popular and respected figure.
All of them provide a clue as to what it means to live a life of
power and integrity. All of them provide a clue as to what it means to confront
power that is oppressive and dominating. We will draw our attention to these
themes in the next three weeks. First, this week we'll focus on Martin Luther
King, Jr. Next week, we will turn our attention to Carl Sandburg, the poor one
of the lot as it turns out, and the one who lived the longest. And in three
weeks, we'll move to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran theologian who
started his ministry as a pacifist and moved to a place of active resistance to
Hitler's racist and genocidal National Socialist movement.
Here is how black theologian, James Cone, put it in a paper he
delivered to a conference of Unitarian Universalist theologians and racial
justice activists a few years back. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King,
Jr. were two of the most outspoken Christian theologians against injustice and
suffering in the 20th century. Bonhoeffer was hanged in a Nazi prison at
Flessenburg in Bavaria, April 9, 1945. King, an African American Baptist, was
assassinated while fighting for garbage workers in Memphis Tennessee, April 4,
1968. Both were 39 years old at the time of their deaths. What distinguished
Bonhoeffer and King from most theologians was their refusal to keep silent about
the great moral issues of their time and situation and their ability to use
these injustices in their societies to challenge religious meaning. They
opposed Nazi and American racism fiercely--knowing that it would probably lead
to their death.
So that is our agenda for the next little bit. This week we
start off with Martin Luther King.
Bearing witness--seeing and speaking, or keeping silence--is the
theme of this series.
A time comes, Martin King said, when silence is betrayal.
When I lived in Washington, my early years there were spent
living and working on Capitol Hill. Capitol Hill is a village of about 40,000
people, covering many, many blocks. Some people lived there for decades and
decades. Others of us, spent time there, based on who had come to power, who
had been elected and when our time was up, we moved to another part of the
city. I lived in a comfortable block, with a neighbor who retired from the
Government Printing Office and who translated old Latin poetry. Tree-lined and
pretty, various colored row houses, an old farmer's market, pre-Civil War,
where everyone would walk on Saturday morning, for pancakes from the old ladies
at the grill, and to shop for the week. One Summer I decided that I would look
into the demographics of the neighborhood.
What you have to know about the Hill is that one boundary is an
elevated interstate, I-395, which connects the beltway to the central city. On
one side is the edge of Capitol Hill, on the other is Southeast. The Hill was
no picnic, there were crimes, and occasionally a shooting that came to close to
home. But for the most part it was insulated, and safe. Southeast was a
gangster's paradise. Drugs, especially crack, were prevalent. There was not one
but two very large housing projects. Nearly all the residents of this part of
Southeast were on government support of one kind or another. Beyond the housing
developments, were a series of industrial sites, in various stages of
productivity, along the waterfront. Some of the sites had been converted into
mega nightclubs.
The demographic figures are no longer with me. They have passed
into that large body of evidence that is lost over time, save for what comes
through the workings of memory. South of that I-395 bridge were scores of
housing with inadequate indoor plumbing. South of that bridge were incomes that
were at least $30,000 per annum lower than the poorest of the neighborhoods
north of the bridge. A lack of plumbing, way below poverty level families
clustered in block after block. It resembled the kinds of living conditions I
traveled in eastern North Carolina from the work I was doing on the Hill with a
Democratic Senator from that state. Even more semblance, when you considered
that one bridge separated blocks that were full of power and privilege from the
poorest of the city.
I mention this, because I must admit that I spent no time in
Southeast D.C., except to go to Arena Stage to see plays, and that was in one
of the nicer neighborhoods in that district. I mention this, because I must
admit that I spent no time working on subcommittees or task forces, working on
the issue of what kind of city we wanted, if such disparity in our town was
possible. I was blind to the whole thing, save that research on a summer's day.
I was silent about the whole thing.
Now I did have a church, All Souls Unitarian, that attempted to
work on such issues from the pulpit. I heard an associate minister, this must
have been the late 80s, say from the pulpit: Southeast D.C., Northeast D.C. is
full of black on black shootings and killings. This will not come to be worked
on by the powers that be until the violence spreads to Northwest D.C., to
Georgetown, to American University Park, to Adams Morgan. I pray, he says, for
the violence to spread to those places, so that we might have a response to
this senseless loss of life. As long as it remains-hidden-in those places, you
will never see what we are doing to one another. The language of urban riots,
Martin King said, is an unheard language. He also said this:
We will have to repent not merely for the vitriolic words and
actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Recently, a consultant came to Davenport to look at the Hilltop
neighborhood of Davenport. This is the area south of Locust Street, on Harrison,
close to the heart of downtown. There are abandoned buildings. There is clutter
and a total lack of energy, a total lack of vision about what is possible. The
consultant said, "I know blight when I see it. You've got blight."
St. Ambrose University is to the north. Palmer College is close by. Scott
Community College is down at the base of the hill. Young School and Central
High School are right there. In a neighborhood that could easily be a
laboratory for what is possible around school-slash-public and private
partnerships, it appears that nothing imaginative is happening.
Do you know what Hilltop looks like? Have you been there lately?
If you are like me, even if you drive by it, the image maybe doesn't even stick
with you. Those of us who lived north of that bridge on Capitol Hill did all
kinds of things to ignore the plight and the blight on the southside of that
bridge. Maybe we do the same here in our area. Will it take that blight moving
north of Locust for us to notice? Will it take that blight moving toward
Bettendorf for those of who are not immediately impacted to start a sustained
response? What will it take in Rock Island, for all of the Quad Cities to start
noticing.
The knock comes at midnight. Our brother, our sister is
traveling down the road and has stopped at my home to rest. Have you three
loaves of bread to share?
King says that the traveler in our age of anxiety wants 3 loaves
of bread: the loaf of faith, the loaf of hope, the loaf of love.
King wrote, in another sermon, that somebody must have religion
enough and morality enough to cut hate off and inject within the very structure
of the universe that strong and powerful element of love-----because he found
that when the knock came at the door of the church, the church responded with apathy,
with derision, with contempt. With silence.
Someone must have religion enough, morality enough, integrity
enough to say, I see, and to do something about it.
It is said that the great Catholic rabble-rouser, Daniel
Berrigan was asked to do a commencement at a prestigious university and when
the time came for his address, he marched to the microphone and said,
"Here is what I think is important: Know where you stand and stand
there." (the flip side of this, we covered in last year's sermon on King,
when I spoke of theologian Henry Nouwen's courage in leaving his studies to go
down to Selma to stand in solidarity with Dr. King. Along the way, he met a
young black man who told him stories of living in the south, and it opened him
up to a completely different reality. In that context, we said this about
standing. And what we see depends a lot upon where we stand. If Nouwen had not
decided to get in that car and drive down to Selma, he never hears Charles
story. His life is never touched by this completely different person than he,
the very definition of the other. If he hadn't decided to take a stand and
stand in a new place, his life may have turned out very differently. Where we
stand depends on what we'll see and who we'll hear, on our road to peace.
Where we stand is determined by any number of factors--the color
of our skin, the degree of our financial security. It has a lot to do with
class. Middle class white people in America are desperate to believe that all
is well, and we do what we can to reinforce that belief. SINCE WE WON'T EASILY
CHANGE THE PLACE WHERE WE ARE STANDING, WE WILL AT LEAST HAVE TO START BY
LISTENING TO PEOPLE WHO ARE STANDING SOMEWHERE ELSE AND ASK THEM WHAT THEY SEE.
Why then is it so difficult? We know, intellectually, what has
become of our colonial impulses. We know what has become of our system that
flourished under the slavery of our fellow human beings. We know what has
become of our system that allowed Jim Crow to live among us for so long. But
why is it still so hard to stand--with those in Southeast Washington, with
those on Hilltop?
(((((Just a quick word about colonialism, and I believe that
colonialism fits here because we are talking about speaking out against white
supremacy. I am just picking up King Leopold's Ghost about the cost of white
supremacy in the Congo at the turn of the 20th century. During the reign of
terror of King Leopold II, 23 years, scholars estimate that as many as 10
million Congolese met unnatural deaths. In his day, he had convinced folks that
he was a great humanitarian, because the bleak humanity of the Congolese was in
need of the grand humanity of the European.))))
At any rate, why is it that white folks find discussions about
race uncomfortable, fatigue-inducing. If you agree with the premise: That is,
Racism is particularly alive and well in America. It is America's original sin
and as it is institutionalized at all levels of society, it is its most
persistent and intractable evil. It is midnight, still, around issues of race.
Why is it that silence is all too often the only response we (white folks) can
muster?
I want to suggest four reasons white people find racism
difficult to discuss. And I of course mean to speak from my particular context,
which is a white, middle-aged, male trying to wrestle with the big issues
confronting society from a religious and moral framework. The four reasons:
1) Whites do not talk about racism because we do not have to
talk about racism. We hold most of the power in the world--economic, political,
social, intellectual and religious. Powerful people do not talk, except on
their own terms. The powerless can disrupt, which is why that Associate
Minister at All Souls said that he prayed the violence would spread, so that
the ruling elites might at least be uncomfortable. The quality of white life is
hardly ever affected by what blacks think or do. The reverse is not the case.
2) Whites avoid racial dialogue because talk about white
supremacy arouses deep feelings of guilt. Confession time: It doesn't take much
for me to feel guilty--because of family dynamics or where I grew up or
Catholic envy--whatever--I can go to guilt pretty quickly. When blacks and
others tell stories of pain, profound guilt can result. Whites generally know
how the wealth of Europe and North America was gained: Whites know that we have
reaped the material harvest of white domination in the modern world. Doing
theology on this stuff can be even more intense: Reinhold Niebuhr said: if the
white man were to expiate his sins committed against the darker races, few
white men would have the right to live."
We like to think of ourselves as decent and fair. We resent
being called racists. And you have heard it said: I never enslaved anyone and I
treat everyone the same. Fair enough--your individual prejudices are for you
and your conscience to work out. Important, but not the most important thing.
Here I am thinking of the benefits that all whites receive from past and
present injustices committed against black. As members of the institutions that
perpetuate racism, we are all wrapped up in what can either result in guilt or
a strong desire to work to correct and redeem America's past and present
wrongs.
3) A third reason for the silence is the idea that we might bump
up against black rage. The idea seems to be: It is all fine and good to talk
about this stuff if people don't get carried away, overly emotional. My (black)
theology teacher would say, Would you get exercised if you had to talk about
246 years of slavery? One hundred years of lynching? A niece who hated herself
because she didn't have the bluest eyes? If your people represented one half of
the penal population and 12 percent of the general population. Malcolm said
this: When a man is hanging on a tree and he cries out, should he cry out
unemotionally?
4) I think that the last thing I'll mention here is that whites
are not prepared for a radical redistribution of wealth and power. We have so
far to go on this front. I remember the fall of 1990 as if it were yesterday.
Harvey Gantt, the black former Mayor of Charlotte, was running against Jesse
Helms for the US Senate. Helms had made a career out of divisiveness and fear
mongering. Nothing prepared me for the day I saw the commercial in which a
white person's job application was ripped apart because of 'affirmative action'
and all those other social programs that liberals support. The race card was
played that day. Wealth and power were on display and white folks, and not just
southern white folks, said we are not ready to share. Not yet.
We have a long way to go.
White privilege is not easy to talk about. But we who are white
are beneficiaries of a system that is unjust and inequitable and in the long
run unsustainable. "For many of us who are white, even mentioning our skin
color feels like an affront. Part of our privilege is not having to notice our
race, so that when it is called to our attention one reaction is to identify
the discussion as "white-bashing." What is important is to 1) examine
our resistance to seeing ourselves as white, and 2) talk about ways that white
people can move away from feeling our race is being attacked and toward taking
responsibility for using the privilege it affords us to bring about social
change. We must begin where we are.
Last year, I mentioned what I think of as King's enduring
legacy. It is a legacy of hope. Here is what I said last year. The thing that I
want to say about King is that he had hope. He believed in the coming of
justice and peace. He believed that God worked in history--as did our greatest
Unitarian thinkers--Theodore Parker, James Luther Adams, Channing. In his
speech, Facing the Challenge of a New Age, King wrote: "I have talked
about the fact that God is working in history to bring about this new age.
There is the danger that after hearing all of this you will go away with the
impression that we can go home, sit down, and do nothing, waiting for the
coming of the inevitable. You will somehow feel that this new age will roll in
on the wheels of the inevitable, so that there is nothing to do but wait on it.
If you get that impression you are the victims of an illusion wrapped in
superficiality. We must speed up the coming of the inevitable."
To speak of God working in history is to speak of concrete human
experiences, concrete human dilemmas, especially around social and political
power.
Last year, when I spoke those words, I said that to focus on the
concrete political realities that deserve a response may seem overwhelming.
Little has changed.
The response to 9/11 could have been a moment to educate the
soul of the nation, to improve the quality of our suffering, to stand with
those who suffer violence continually. Instead the response was to return mass
murder in kind. We could have said as a nation that we would not ratchet up the
cycle of violence, lest we become what we hate.
We might yet have an America that is proud but not
self-righteous, but I fear that our self-righteousness is fueled by the
rhetoric of division. Our continuing desire to 'rid the world of evil.' Well, I
need not tell you what King, and Ghandi and Jesus would say about attempts to
rid the world of evil via evil.
There are signs of hope. There are signs of bearing witness.
The campaigns going on all around us have begun a serious
conversation about the US and the world community.
World organizations and many nations are beginning to talk about
the high cost of globalization.
Mayors and governors are demanding that the federal government
not simply sit idly by as our cities and states face massive deficits.
People are standing against the decay of our constitutional
freedoms.
And there is evidence that communities of faith are answering
the knock at the door. Clergy are signing on to the Clergy Leadership Network,
in an attempt to pursue justice and seek peace. And to stand with those who are
vulnerable, acknowledging our own privilege and seeking to redeem the past for
the sake of a common future. Clergy are responding--maybe not so many around
here, but around the country--to the view that marriage is a human right, not a
reward for being heterosexual.
The Martin Luther King that I honor on this day asked us to
merely hear the knock at the door and to respond out of the goodness built into
our DNA. To offer what bread we might: loaves of faith and hope and love.
The time to sit by, ignoring the knock at midnight, has passed.
January 18, 2004, Unitarian Church, Davenport, Iowa. Rev.
Roger Butts