On Aug. 12, 2017, racists from across the country gathered in Charlottesville, Va., to joyfully celebrate one of their own in the White House and to protest the removal of segregation-era statues of Confederate leaders.
Anti-American, anti-Semitic racists paraded through Charlottesville brandishing images of bigotry and hate, culminating in a racist white male driving his car into a crowd of people, killing Heather Heyer and wounding dozens.
President Donald Trump repudiated the driver, but went on to defend the neo-Nazis and alt-right. “. . . You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”
Just a reminder: white supremacists of the alt-right, like the Nazis and the Confederates before them, are wrong and their beliefs are bad.
Racists dehumanize and delegitimize the humanity of groups of people.
The United States is built on a promise of equality.
Racists oppose equality.
Racism is immoral and too many people are much too silent.
Silence is consent.
It’s pathetic that something so simple has to be explained again and again and again.
Anti-immigration racists overwhelmingly support Trump. Emboldened by a racist in the White House, hate crimes skyrocketed.
A significant segment of the white population benefits from racist systems and they affirm it daily with silence or ignorance.
This isn’t the first time white moderates have failed to stand up for justice.
In April, 1963, the six-year-old Southern Christian Leadership Conference assisted with organizing protests against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. City officials turned water hoses and police dogs on children and arrested the SCLC’s 34-year-old president.
Eight white clergymen called the demonstrations “unwise and untimely,” urging moderation. As the SCLC President, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. responded with his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
It is filled with familiar quotes.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
“I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”
“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’”
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”
“But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.”
Some ministers who preached about the violence and denounced racism the day after Heather Heyer’s murder reported opposition from their congregations. At least one minister was immediately told to resign or be fired.
Too many moderates, including too many Christians, responded to the traitorous racists in Charlottesville with less than outrage. As a result, racist violence and anti-immigration rhetoric have increased sharply.
Extremists for hate continue to dominate the Republican wing of the political landscape. It’s time for more extremists for justice to step up and be heard in the memory of Heather Heyer and in the name of God.
For other articles, visit:
The Civil Rights Struggle Continues, so Others May be Free
The Clark Doll Study Documenting the Damage of Segregation
Martin Luther King. Jr. and the Original Black Lives Matter Movement
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Pastor Jim Meisner, Jr. is the author of the novel Faith, Hope, and Baseball, available on Amazon, or follow this link to order an autographed copy. He created and manages the Facebook page Faith on the Fringe.
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