In the wake of a hateful lunatic’s horrific attack on innocent, loving
people practicing and studying their faith during a midweek Bible study in
Columbia, South Carolina, a great deal of attention has turned to the symbolism
of the Confederate battle flag that still flies over the Palmetto State.
There is something to the question of what message is conveyed by
flying a banner that many associate with the South’s long and violent history
of slavery, segregation and racial bigotry. It’s easy to sit here from my home
in New England and look with condescending judgment below the Mason-Dixon Line
and congratulate myself for having been born on the right side of that cultural
boundary. But if we are to give credence to the idea that such symbols play a
role in sustaining animosity in the hearts and minds of cretins who remain
convinced the color of their skin imbues them with any measure of value beyond the
content of their character, should we not look for and root out all such
symbols not just from above Columbia, but from our national landscape?
America is in its fifteenth year of war and armed conflict in the
Middle East. However that period of conflict began, the lust with which we have
continued the armed campaign and justified broadening the scope of violent
intervention from its start in Afghanistan into Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan,
Syria and Somalia—and threatening military action against Iran—sends a message
to the world that our differences are best resolved at the end of a gun.
The United States currently has 2.2 million people behind bars. Our
prison population is the highest of any country in the world and accounts for
nearly ¼ of all the world’s prisoners. Our per capita rate of incarceration is second
only to tiny Seychelles. The rapid growth of our prison population is not
because of an increase in violent crime, but because of an increase of drug
offences, the defunding of mental illness treatment programs and the closing of
mental hospitals, and our politically-fueled desire to “get tough” on crime by
passing mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenders. Our criminal
code sends the message that our differences are best resolved behind high
walls.
The United States and Belarus are the only remaining countries in Europe
and the Americas that exercise the death penalty. Thirty five people in 2014
and thus far in 2015 (as of June 18) seventeen have been put to death here. In
Asia the death penalty is still law in 38 nations (most of which are either
Islamic or autocratic) and actively used in 15. Only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia,
Iraq and North Korea killed more prisoners than the U.S. In Africa the death
penalty is legal in 35 countries but last year only four used it. The death
penalty sends a message that our differences are best resolved at the end of a
needle.
The ubiquity of video on social media has resulted in a steady stream
disturbing images that seem to show police resorting to the use of force—sometimes
deadly—as their first resort, even under questionable circumstances. Recent high
profile cases such as the deaths of Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio and Walter
Scott in Charleston, South Carolina, as well as the overreaction of an officer
responding to a pool party in McKinney, Texas have added to the growing
perception of institutional racism within the ranks of law enforcement. The
message seems to be that, when differences arise, violence is the first, best
response.
Divisive political brinksmanship, played out each day on our
televisions, newspapers and web sites, suggests that there is no more appetite
in this country for civil dialog or respectful cooperation among people with
differences of opinion. Instead we have mean-spirited, all-or-nothing
negotiations stoked with heated rhetoric by politicians who seek to gain
political leverage by fomenting an “us-versus-them” mentality among those who
identify closely with one partisan ideology over another. The message is clear:
when it comes to ideology, winning—at whatever cost—is how we determine right
from wrong.
War, prison, execution, institutional brutality and the practice of
partisan politics are indelible symbols that pervade our culture today. For
those with weak, desperate and malleable minds who feel they are out of options
for resolving their differences with others, what have they seen from
Washington, D.C. or any of fifty state capitals that would cause them to temper
their baser impulses? Why are we surprised to learn of more deaths?
Even if the Stars and Bars come down in South Carolina, what will we
have accomplished if we fail to address these larger symbols of the way we do
things around here? And if there are symbols that can encourage violence, what
about those that do the opposite?
Even as one hurtful symbol yet flies above the city of Charleston, another
is emerging from the sorrow of a congregation in mourning. I wept when I heard daughters
and mothers and family members of the nine victims repeating the phrase “I
forgive you” to the individual responsible for their grief.
"I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you.”
“You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people but God forgives you, and I
forgive you."
“I forgive you and my family forgives you.”
Reverend Clementa Pinckney, murdered by a man he and his flock had
welcomed into their spiritual home, had so clearly taught his congregation the
message of the power of love and forgiveness that it would be a national
embarrassment if the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, its nine
martyrs and their strong, magnificent families did not become the enduring
symbol that shows us the way forward. They, against all human instinct and impulse,
have chosen a better way. Let us all determine to choose that way as well.
“Greater love hath no man…”
Reverend Clementa Pinckney
Reverend Sharonda Coleman-Singleton
Cynthia Hurd
Susie Jackson
Ethel Lee Lance
Reverend DePayne Middleton-Doctor
Tywanza Sanders
Reverend Daniel Simmons
Myra Thompson
