Racism

O'Halloran, Thomas J., photographer

In this progressive and diverse community there have been incidents of public racism and homophobia. There is neo-Nazi support from people in powerful positions. Once, not long ago, these incidents were met with jaw dropping shock because, well, we knew better didn’t we? But those who are targeted are attacked on a very deep level.

What can we do? We can’t muzzle homophobic white supremacists but we can call out against their rhetoric.  We can examine the source of the phenomenon. 

Racism is not about the colour of your skin; anti-Semitism is not about where you pray;  and homophobia is not about who you love.  All of these are about our fundamental homelessness in a world that measures our worth by the things we own.

If we are valued by our degrees, positions, homes and cars – then the blood running through our veins, the ideas in our minds, or our desire to survive have no worth. There is nothing like marketing to bring home this point, and nothing like consumerism to confirm it. It’s the impenetrable matter of our existence that keeps us falling towards fear and prejudice, and if left unchecked, to violence.

In a rabble column Amy Goodman points out that while (in the US), “law-abiding Muslims are forced to hide in their homes, and animal-rights activists are labelled as terrorists for undercover filming of abusive treatment at factory farms, right-wing hate groups are free to organize, parade, arm themselves to the hilt and murder with chilling regularity”.

Is this our fatal flaw? That we prefer to target those with less power rather than challenge our oppressors?  Even if we manage, through revolution, chaos and bloodshed, to remove them, they are soon replaced with new oppressors.

The cyclical rise and fall of empires is built on the labour of the masses.  First it exalts  then steals it through deceit and propaganda. Bigotry, racism, homophobia – are  the devices that keep us enslaved to systems of oppression because we have lost our capacity to imagine a way out.

In our families, communities, and congregations, we have learned how to care for one another, but there isn’t a military strategy, political party or an economic system that will bring this about globally. Every election, parliamentary act or corporate decision moves us closer to humanity or away from it, and every word and deed sits somewhere on the continuum of revering or exploiting life.

Social justice, that thankless, never finished, housekeeping task whose priorities change from minute to minute, IS the price of our freedom.

When an individual is attacked, ridiculed, bullied or demeaned because of who they are, it’s an attack against the dignity of life, against you and I, our children and grand-children, and we can’t afford to ignore it.