In fifth grade, each person in my class had to do a report on a state. I chose Tennessee. Much of my father’s family comes from The Smoky Mountains region southeast of Knoxville. My ancestors who fought in the Civil War fought for the Confederacy, and when it came time for the class to make our presentations, I was dressed in a grey wool jacket and a belt with a buckle that read CSA in block letters. I was quick to point out that Tennessee was the last state to secede and the first to rejoin the union, but there I was dressed like the ghost of racial oppressions past, in the middle of my elementary school, and no one blinked. Sunday morning, as we knelt and recited the confession, my mind flashed on that memory, as I said the words “things done, and left undone.”
Fascism and white supremacy are cancers that eat at the soul, not only of individuals, but of our society. They have metastasized out of the centuries of subjugation and genocide visited on those not of Western European ethnicity. That subjugation built many parts of our country and society and American churches were either complicit with, or actively participated in it. The church continues to suffer from that sin of our history, and we must not shy away from the truths of our many failings. It will not make them go away, but rather fester until we are infected with the same hate as we saw last weekend.
Last weekend’s events in Charlottesville, VA should remind us of things done and things left undone. The hate and pain that were so evident on our screens Friday and Saturday call us to account. We have pledged in our baptism to strive for justice and peace, to respect the dignity of every human being. The gathering of white supremacists and fascists that descended on Charlottesville is an indication of how much work there is still to do in our own communities, and in our own hearts. We must start by acknowledging our own privilege: economic, cultural, religious, etc., and how we have benefited from the subjugation and genocide that are hallmarks of American history. Only when we have confronted that, can we take those advantages and turn them to reconciliation – to the restoration of dignity of those people at whose expense our advantage was wrought.
And when I say reconciliation, what I mean is supporting those whom society mistreated for the last 400 years. I mean people of color, religious minorities, and those trapped in the cycle of inter-generational poverty. There have been calls in the aftermath of this past weekend for us to “consider both sides,” as if white supremacy and fascism should be giving equal intellectual footing with human dignity. Beyond the absurdity of that thought, the Gospel requires us, not to consider all the sides, but to choose the side of the oppressed and those who have no power – the side where we stand with Jesus.
What we saw at Charlottesville may seem like an insurmountable problem. It is not. It begins with us. We must confess the things done and left undone by us and on our behalf. Only then can we go about the work of reconciliation in our communities and country.
