Racism and violence - random thoughts from afar

Being confined to the village of Plan Grande where I live, I find myself doing a lot of reading and thinking – and spending too much time on the internet.

Reading and seeing what is happening in the US is deeply troubling. I’m writing this to unburden my mind and my heart.

RACISM

The level of violence and discrimination against people of color is alarming. The killing of George Floyd is just the latest case of blatant violence. Reading Facebook posts of some friends, concerned for their children of color, makes me wonder where and how the US has come to be a place where people fear to let their children go out alone, if they are adolescents of color.

I know a little of the history and sources of the racism and its effects. But I’ll dare to say that racism is only part of the equation. I think the problem is more complicated and we need to face the racism, materialism, and militarism that have pervaded the culture for centuries. I was going to write “decades,” but it’s almost a perennial triplet of social sin. Racism has been a major cause of the impoverishment of people of color in the US – and the world. The materialism of those in power is threatened by the poor, especially when they rise up or even raise the questions of injustice. And so those in power resort to the use of violence to sustain their control and domination.

Racism is only one part of the problem – though it is one of the most insidious aspects of many nations, movements, and persons in the world today. But I believe we need to think more broadly and act more deliberately, keeping our eyes on the vision of a world of justice and solidarity.

As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, a year before he was killed, in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech,

“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when ‘every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.’”

Racism is major factor in poverty. Also, when those oppressed by poverty or racism begin to organize and demonstrate, the powers-that-be (political and economic) often use violence and the military or militarized police to try to keep them down.

VIOLENCE

There has been a lot of ink spilled and indignation spent in response to the killing of George Floyd – and rightly so. His killing is but the visible tip of the iceberg of racism and violence in many parts of the US culture. The violence of his death had revealed (literally, torn back the veil) and unmasked the institutional injustice of racism and domination by violence.

Some call this institutional violence. I am reluctant to call it violence because I see violence as largely instrumental, a means used for some other purpose. (Read Hannah Arendt’s On Violence for more about this.)

But this institutional injustice, this structure of social sin, is often hidden and not identified or condemned.

Witness the indignation that some have expressed over the riots that have at times accompanied the peaceful demonstrations. “We think that the killing of George Floyd as terrible, but rioting is terrible too.”

As a pacifist (for more than fifty years), I don’t condone any kind of violence, though it’s important to try to understand it in order to work for a world of nonviolent solidarity.

But there are a few things to consider.

First of all, who is fomenting the violence?

In the mid- and late-1970s, I was involved in nonviolence training, often preparing people to accompany demonstrations. We were aware that there were times when government provocateurs or agents of powerful institutions would try to infiltrate the demonstrators and try to provoke violence. Part of the training was preparing ourselves to respond to these provocateurs (as well as to persons who were becoming violent because of their indignation.) It was important to try to isolate them as well as to find ways to defuse any rush toward violence of any type.

I was not surprised when I read reports of persons trying to provoke violence in demonstrations and the influx of white nationalists into communities where there have been demonstrations.

Training for Change has some materials to help in this.

Secondly, the violence of the oppressed is often a desperate call for justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr., mentioned several times that “a riot is the language of the unheard.”

Less than a month before he was killed, on March 16, 1968 in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, he stated:

“And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non­-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. (Emphasis mine.)

All too long we have not heard the cry of the oppressed or seen the violence and the poverty inflicted on those at the margins of our world.

Thirdly, the violence of the oppressed must be understood as part of a spiral of violence.

Dom Helder Câmara, the saintly and prophetic Brazilian bishop, who was a voice for justice and nonviolence in the world, even when the dictatorship forbade the Brazilian press to even mention his name, wrote a small book on The Spiral of Violence.

We must first recognize the violence (I would say the violent injustice) of the system that impoverished people, tries to kill their dreams, and makes it nearly impossible for them to live. Sometimes, in response, people will rise up and revolt, sometimes violently. This violence does not come out of thin air. It has its roots in the frustration of the lives and dreams of so many, especially the young. But, facing these calls for change, those in power often use the violence of repression, not only shooting at the demonstrators but sometimes engaging in strategies and tactics of imprisonment and tortures of dissidents.

This spiral can be seen most clearly in the history of many Latin American countries where the dictatorships or pseudo-democracies used torture, disappearances, and more to put down their people, most often with military aid and diplomatic support from the United States government.

Six weeks before his martyrdom Archbishop Oscar Romero, in an open letter to the US president Jimmy Carter, begged him to withhold military aid:

“I am very concerned by the news that the government of the United States is planning to further El Salvador’s arms race by sending military equipment and advisors… If this information from the papers is correct, instead of favoring greater justice and peace in El Salvador, your government’s contribution will undoubtedly sharpen the injustice and the repression inflicted on the organized people, whose struggle has often been for respect for their most basic human rights.”

Finally, it is important to remember that a major purveyor of violence in the world has been the US government.

In his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, Martin Luther King Jr said:

“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”

My situation in Honduras

“And what are you doing about this?” some may rightly ask.

I remember a grad school friend who challenged me on my pacifism. I don’t remember his exact words, but I do recall my reaction. And, in many ways, what I am doing now is a response to his challenge.

It is so easy for me to adapt an arm-chair pacifism, condemning violence from the safety of my white skin, my comfortable life style, my safe and secure home.

Soon after my friend challenged me, I heard that the Fellowship of Reconciliation was forming a group to go to Wounded Knee I expressed my interest in joining them. Nothing came of that.

But in 1979 I heard of a play program with both Protestant and Catholic kids in Northern Ireland run by the Irish Fellowship of Reconciliation. I volunteered and spent almost three weeks there, in the midst of the violence of “The Troubles.”

In 1983 I was hired to do campus ministry and justice and peace ministry at ST. Thomas Aquinas Church in Ames, Iowa. There, the parishioners were asking how to respond to the refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador. We discussed various options and did help one Salvadoran on his way to Canada. Later we helped a Guatemalan.

I begin studying the situation and in 1985 went with a group from a Lutheran Church in Ames to visit Mexico, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. The three days in El Salvador were life-changing. I later found a way to do more than a week-long visit. I spent two months in San Salvador in 1987, during the civil war in a poor urban parish. In 1992, I got a sabbatical from my work and spent seven months, mostly in the parish of Suchitoto. I arrived in El Salvador a day after the two parties at war declared that they had a solution.

I kept returning to El Salvador, but in 2007 I came to Honduras, to serve in the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, most probably until my death.

I was here, helping in the diocesan office of Caritas in 2009 when a coup overthrew and exiled the elected president, Manuel Zelaya. It was a time of great unrest and uncertainty. Some US friends asked if I would be leaving. “No. I am here to stay.”

So here I am. In 2016 I was ordained a permanent deacon for the diocese. I work and live in the parish of Dulce Nombre de María.

My concerns about violence and injustice are still strong.

I participated in some of the trainings that Caritas Honduras did on Conflict Transformation, and I helped with a few workshops in the diocese. I have helped a Dubuque Franciscan with some Alternatives to Violence workshops in the Gracias, Lempira, prison. This year, before COVID-19 closed down the world, we were planning on doing some major formation on violence, peacemaking, conflict transformation, and listening. I prepared some material for use in the bi-monthly days of prayer in the sectors of our parish. I’m hoping that we can take up this ministry of reconciliation after the pandemic is under control.

A little over a month ago I came across information on an online diplomado, a certificate program, on interfamilial abuse. It was being offered by a Center for the Prevention of Abuse against children and the vulnerable (CEPROME) of the Mexican Pontifical University. This center has done major work on training people for the prevention of abuse in the church and a good friend participated in their program on prevention of abuse in the church. The director was supposed to come to Honduras in July for the national clergy study week, but COVID-19 has changed everything.

The course has been helpful and I hope we can find ways to deal with the domestic violence and abuse in the parish and elsewhere.

It’s little that I do – but I hope that our parish and maybe even our diocese can become places where people learn how to work for a culture and a society of encounter, as Pope Francis calls it, where nonviolence and respect for all are the norm.

Racism and my family

Reading about the revelations of the long-hidden racism in the US, I began to think about my life. I am not free from prejudice or racism, but I have been blessed in many ways to help overcome this sinfulness.

Most of all I think of my parents.

My mother told a story of the time she visited my Dad in Mississippi during World War II, when he was in training with the Seabees. My dad got to know a friend, Freddy, whose wife, Dot, lived in the Philadelphia area. My mom met up with Dot and they went to Biloxi and spent time with their husbands. But the men had to be away for a few days and so the women decided to go to New Orleans by bus. When they got on the bus, they noted people standing in front but saw some seats in the back of the bus, where they sat down. The heads of many of the people in front turned to them, for they were sitting in the non-white area of the segregated bus.

My mom’s response was simple. “I wasn’t going to stand all the way to New Orleans. Besides, in Philadelphia we sit with all sorts of people in the busses and went to school with them.”

No moralizing – just the common sense of a woman who grew up in a neighborhood which encouraged living together, the Meadows.

This became clear to me the day we buried my father. I had put together photos and was showing them to my Aunt Mary that evening. I asked whether a Jewish man in one of the photos was one of those who lived near my father’s family. He had told me how he would go on Friday nights to turn off the lights in the Jewish family’s home.

My aunt said, “No.” But then she began to talk of the Meadows where she also grew up. She told how the cantor of the synagogue would come each Friday night to lead her there to turn off the lights. She would take the coin he had left there.

But then she began to talk about the neighborhood. Catholics, Jews, Protestants, blacks, and whites lived together. She told about a Pentecostal black church near where she grew up. She was a little taken aback by their style of worship, but there was no prejudice.

Then she talked about how the local parish, Saint Raphael’s, had a gym where blacks and whites, Protestants and Catholics, and Jewish kids, all played basketball together. And this was in the 1930s

I had neighbors where I grew up you had been raised in other parts of Philadelphia and who regularly expressed what we would now call racist remarks. But I didn’t see this in my parents. They were a little perplexed when the local NAACP picketed a local bank, but they gave me, by their example, an openness to all.

I also recall how my mom was a bit upset when a friend of hers was vocal in opposition to the presence of a black sister in a neighboring parish school.

There was probably more – but I am grateful for their example and for the neighborhood of the Meadows in West Philadelphia, that helped them overcome the racism that permeated their society.

As a result of this, I was open to the civil rights movement which has continued to inspire me to be with those disregarded and treated as less than human.

As a result, I was opened to the message of nonviolence which Martin Luther King, Jr., helped me to see the roots of active nonviolence in my faith.

I am now here in Honduras, where racism and classism exist. But by the grace of God, I find myself opened to those impoverished by systems of power and economic control.

Thank you, God. Thank you, Mom and Dad. Thank you, the Meadows and all those who have helped me to be opened to the God who comes among us, amidst the outcast.

My parents and me on the day of my baptism, June 15, 1967