I have been reading a book titled Time On Two Crosses: The collected writings of Bayard Rustin, much of which covers events of which I was aware at the time, including the August 28, 1963 March for Jobs and Justice in Washington DC, which I attended as a 17 year old just graduated from high school.
But what really struck me is the descriptions by Rustin of the tactics used to attempt to suppress, even crush, the Civil Rights movement. Those tactics included arrests, intimidation by violence, threats of violence, using the power of dominant economic actors to maintain their power, and so on.
That least me to the title of this post. Because what I was reading resonated strongly with what I am seeing today, even down to the overt and not particularly subtle racism we can see in the bringing of South African whites to the US at our taxpayer expense as “refugees” while denying almost all of color the same status, and with an expedited path to American citizenship because in the words of one government official how easily they will fit in to America.
There were Whites in the South who wanted to cooperate with civil rights, but they were ostracized and in many cases threatened and worse. There were Blacks who had businesses but if they were considered to be supportive of the NAACP or of registering to vote they would find their contracts canceled, or find they could not get financing, or the businesses would be boycotted.
I might be tempted to lay out the exact parallels, which are far too many to enumerate. But consider just a few items:
- going after law firms which have provided legal assistance to those Trump views as enemies
- threats against judges who rule against Trump and MAGA
- trying to bring Universities to heel by (probably illegally) trying to punish them for not following/supporting the political and personal and economic objectives of Trump and Musk
There is so much more.
I would think anyone of my generation (born 79 years ago in 10 days) would at least have memories of what things were like — after all, our TV sets often broadcast the horrors, including Bloody Sunday in Selma at the Edmund Pettis Bridge or the dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham. Our news coverage included the massacres that led to the film Mississippi Burning. When we were young we might have seen the Army-McCarthy hearings.
There is much in our history that should remind us that America has a very flawed past, yet this administration wants to erase as much of that history as it can.
Why?
Why the destruction of so much of the checks and balances between the branches?
Why the undermining of public education?
Why the attempts to dictate what can be expressed, what can be taught?
I can only interpret it as a clear attempt to IMPOSE a structure of our society that reserves power and control and wealth to the few, that legitimizes only one point of view, one that is among other things a distortion of Christianity and one that is inherently sexist, racist, filled by religious prejudice, and homophobic. That there is a real intent to revert a time where that was at least acceptable to many of American people. That like the White Citizens Councils could run rampant over the rights of Blacks (and usually Jews and Catholics) in the South during the 50s and 60s with acquiescence of goval and state governments and often using their power, so the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and 7 Mountains Christian Supremacists want to use force and control to suppress by any means anyone who would attempt to stop their imposition of their “vision” which is a society that privileges White, Male, Evangelical “Christians” at the expense of everyone else, which despises labor unions and regards wealth however achieved as the sole indication of worth.
I will not claim this post as necessarily coherent, and I fully acknowledge that most who encounter it will not find it persuasive.
Yet I felt obligated to write it.
Attempting to “rule” by “executive order” is also to attempt to “dictate” on all matters of government, and if you oppose those now in the administration want you to have no protection against their wrath.
That is a dictatorship, pure and simple.
I am a Quaker, at least for now. That means I will not turn to violence in response.
And I have never been a real fan of Patrick Henry, for lots of reasons. But here I think tghe words he spoke in St. John’s Church n Richmond VA on March 23, 1775, are appropriate:
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Perhaps because I have now lived most of 8 decades I fear less. Perhaps it is because having lived through a time of real progress in our society and our government, I am saddened as well as angered by what I now see happening. Or perhaps this is also a product of several other things — I life-long pattern of standing up for others dating back to my childhood, combined with a decades-long search for ultimate meaning that has caused me to wander through multiple religious traditions. underlain by fundamental Jewish passion for justice, but justice tempered by mercy.
I do not have a significant voice or following, even here, where once upon a time when I posted more frequently I was one of the most respected and recommended writers. But at least some people will pay attention to what I post. So I feel I have an obligation to speak out on those things I see as wrong.
I realize that there will be those who may feel I am attacking THEM. I am not, I am not even attacking Donald Trump or Stephen Miller or anyone else. I am CHALLENGING their actions and their words.
Perhaps it is the Quaker in me, who believes in ANSWERING that of God in each person.
Perhaps it is because whether or not they will even hear me, others will note how I act, and if I demean or dehumanize (as so many of them are doing to those they view as opposing them) it becomes too easy for those observing to say “a pox on both of you”, or for it to be turned into a “both sides” framing that neither challenges nor invites people to move to what I deem to be a better and more loving place.
So these are my words and reflection on this May 13.
I am saddened and angered by what I see happening, and thus I cannot remain silent.
And I claim no great wisdom of how to solve the issues that confront us. I only know I can point out what I see, and what I think it means, and ask others to reflect for themselves.
I will not revert to violence, even to oppose the violence being imposed against us. I may well interpose myself. For those who cannot defend themselves, I may be required to use sufficient DEFENSIVE force to protect them, which as a teacher I committed to do to protect the students entrusted to my care.
So I find I have to say along with Patrick Henry:
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Peace.
