thoughts after Charlottesville

In the past days we have been exposed to images of hate.  Pictures of James Alex Fields Jr., charged with second degree murder, [1]  Cole White, Peter Cvjetanovic, James Allsup and others have spread across the USA and, in this global era, the world after they were seen in various roles participating in the alt-right, or apparently “paleoconservative” march at Charlottesville. 

So too have pictures of Heather Heyer, who was brutally killed in the violence that ensued,  a picture of bravery, of love in action, of martyrdom. Her mother, Susan Bro, has spoken out bravely through her grief: “Heather was not about hate, Heather was about stopping hatred. Heather was about bringing an end to injustice.”

Photos of the “Unite the Right” marchers do not show love. Since the event many have (including President Trump) used slippery words to justify their now well-exposed participation in a hate  event that day. Peter Cvjetanovic has told the world ‘he “cares for all people”.’ Images show him chanting at the march, wearing a polo-shirt emblazoned with the Identity Evropa symbol. Identity Evropa are identified as a white supremacist group, suggesting that Cvjetanovic’s care for all people contains the rider ‘some are more people than others.’ 

Cole White, outed by Twitter User “Yes You’re Racist”, has lost his job at Top Dog Berkeley. Top Dog Berkeley released a statement disassociating themselves from their former employee: “The actions of those in Charlottesville are not supported by Top Dog. We believe in individual freedom and voluntary association for everyone.” [2] As it happens even the manufacturers of the tiki torches carried by the alt-right marchers have also disassociated themselves from the vile use of their product. At the very least the politics of hate is not good for business, but I suspect Tiki recognize that hate is not good for humanity, either: “Our products are designed to enhance backyard gatherings and to help family and friends connect with each other at home in their yard.”[3]

James Allsup, president of Washington State University’s chapter of the College Republicans, has claimed that his outing is a smear, announcing “They have no proof that I’m a racist. They are slandering me and that I’m racist without evidence because I talk about history and I talk about American politics.”[4] We might guess he doesn’t speak much of the history of the Civil Rights movement. 

Nevertheless, these three and many others captured on camera, many of whom have been named by Yes You’re Racist and #GoodNightAltRight, were attending a rally the  intention of which was not to make daisy chains, sing “Kumbayah” and strive for universal love and racial equality. Their participation in a march featuring swastikas (as armband on a featured speaker and as a flag), T-shirts quoting Hitler, and more insignia of  Nazism suggest that racial hatred is a fundamental part of their creed. This is so no matter how they re-clothe their hate as “talk[ing] about history and I talk about American politics” (Allsup) or ensuring “that white European culture has a right to be here just like every other culture” (Cvjetanovic). 

The maxim “a photo never lies” is an over-simplification: the camera may not lie about the miniscule slice of time it captures, but judicious selection of photos is certainly a process of spin. Nevertheless the contrast between the photo chosen, presumably, by Heather Heyer’s family, and the photos of Allsop, Fields, Cvjetanovic, White and others portray a yawning chasm. They display the vast gulf between hate and love, that is as far, as the psalmist put it, as east is from west. No doubt there are photos of Allsop, Fields, Cvjetanovic, White looking tender, loving, and sweet, and perhaps even of Heather Heyer looking grumpy, but one senses that the current flood of images are conveying an indelible truth. 

One senses too that it will be Heyer’s photo that ultimately captures the spirit of these dark days, for the politics of hate will become – are becoming – a house divided, as Jesus described the entourage of evil.

For as long as Trump, Pence and others fail to disavow the politics of hate these days of tragedy will go on. I don’t want to make excuses for Allsop, Fields, Cvjetanovic, White and their pals-in-hatred, nor trivialize the immeasurable sacrifice of love made by Heather Heyer: greater love has no one than to lay down their life in a cause of justice.  But in the realm of conflict resolution, in which I am dipping my toes, note ‘conflict lies not in objective reality, but in people’s heads.”[5]

 

What is in the heads of Allsop, Fields, Cvjetanovic, White and their pals-in-hatred? Why do they feel so threatened by a changing world that, in the first place they champion the election of a pussy-grabbing thug as leader of their nation, and then, in the case of Fields, feel motivated to take action that leads to the charge that he has committed, inter alia, second degree murder? Is it possible at all to gain access to the patterns of these hate-filled minds? 

Certainly, though I like many of us would love to spew the same venom that they have spewed, retaliation and mockery will achieve nothing. Far more likely to achieve some solution is the undoubtedly grief-filled response of Susan Bro, Heather Heyer’s mother. After speaking of Heather’s love of justice, she goes on to speak of her daughter’s alleged killer: “I don’t want her death to be a focus for more hatred. I want her death to be a rallying cry for justice and equality and fairness and compassion. I’m very sorry that [Fields] chose that path because he has now ruined his life as well as robbed a great many of us of someone we love very much.” As if that were not awe-inspiring, peace-inspiring enough, she also said “I think he’s still very young, and I’m sorry he believed that hate could fix problems. Hate only brings more hate.” 

How do we climb inside minds of hate? Fields’ mind is the mind, we can safely assume, of someone who feels deeply troubled by the world he is facing. That’s why he (probably) voted for Donald Trump. That’s why he travelled some distance to attend the “Unite the Right” rally of hatred. That’s why, even before that, he subscribed to newsfeeds that told him, and Cvjetanovic, White and Allsop, that Charlottesville’s “Unite the Right” rally of hatred was happening. Fields’ mother, Samantha Bloom, has spoken of her bewilderment, for she had told her son “if they’re going to rally to make sure he’s doing it peacefully.”[6]  

Somewhere he missed part of that message. Peer pressure? Fear? The most visceral cause of action is survival-fear. Did – does – Fields fear that the existence of all that he holds dear is threatened? It has been suggested that even Kim Jong-un’s primary motivation to evil (nuclear empowerment, yes, but also assassination of rivals) [7] is the fear that his survival is threatened. Actually, perhaps that is true of Donald Trump, too.

It certainly is of Allsop, Fields, Cvjetanovic, White and their pals-in-hatred. Their perception, fed to a frenzy by hate-filled media such as the Breitbart News beloved of Trump’s ally Steve Bannon,[8] is that nasties are dismantling their world. Over-empowered blacks, Muslims, gays, Mexicans, nasty journalists,  foreigners: these faceless Others are threatening their world. It has never occurred to them that their world is one of privilege and exceptionalism, nor can it without help: “Unite the Right” is a pun you see. They are right, their privilege is God given, if they believe in God, and many do, or evolutionary if, like Hitler, they do not.  So they become, in photo and we might guess in reality, embodiments of fear-fuelled hatred.

But what of those who love? Of Heather Heyer, and her equally brave mother of course, but myriad others, too? I am reminded of Saffiyah Khan facing down an insignia-clad supremacist in Birmingham in April.[9] I am thinking of the unnamed woman facing down a hooded participant at a KKK rally recently.[10] I am thinking of Nobel prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, who refuses to hate those who shot her. Because I am an aging hippie I think too of the famous Flower Power photograph[11] from the Pentagon in 1967, an anonymous antiwar demonstrator placing a carnation in a Military Police rifle. And because of that photo I am somehow reminded of the recent and vivid Jonathan Bachman photo of Ieshia Evans facing  down riot police at a Black Lives Matter gathering in Baton Rouge.[12] These are the photos that proclaim “love wins.”

For those of us who wish to follow the Jesus way of the cross we have to respond not with hatred but with love. But how? Susan Bro has led the way (and her religious beliefs are immaterial: her amazing compassion is all). We need to climb inside the minds, no matter how putrid, of those who are frightened by justice and love and progress and equality (or race, religion, sexuality, and a myriad more … Trump’s mockery of disability reminds us of the many forms hatred of otherness can take). We need to strive to understand, and then strive ceaselessly for St Paul’s “more excellent way.” 

But as John Lennon accidentally reminded us, “Christ, you know it ain’t easy,” and all the harder when the perpetrators of hate believe they have God on their side. Christians however believe ourselves to be invaded by the Spirit of Christ; he sure understood his enemies, and loved and loves them still.

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[1]https://twitter.com/HenryGraff/status/896541167084548096/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Findepth%2Ffeatures%2F2017%2F08%2Fcharlottesville-james-alex-fields-170813111202708.html]

[2]http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/08/13/popular-berkeley-hot-dog-chain-fires-worker-seen-in-virginia-protest-photos/

[3] http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/tiki-blame-white-supremacist-torch-march/310108/

[4] http://www.theroot.com/washington-state-universitys-college-republicans-presid-1797816820

[5] Fisher, Ury and Patton, Getting to Yes, 24-31.

[6] http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2017/08/13/Mother-of-James-Alex-Fields-accused-of-driving-into-Charlottesville-crowd-shocked

[7] http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/north-korea-nuclear-weapons-donald-trump-1.4244020.

[8] Who is himself making some lifestyle choices, it seems, in the interests of self-preservation, at least if The Daily Mail can be believed; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4720054/Bannon-largely-disappeared-Trump-s-inner-circle.html

[9] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/woman-edl-protesters-defy-birmingham-photograph-hijab-islamophobia-muslim-islam-racism-a7676971.html

[10]https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/photos/a.347907068635687.81180.346937065399354/1652342074858840/?type=3&theatre

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_Power_(photograph)

[12] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36759711