Submitted by: Judith Pedersen-Benn, Social Justice Chair
A few of us set up a UUCC Social Justice table on September 21st at the “Paths to Peace” event (which UUCC SJ co-sponsored). While they were celebrating peace, many folks stopped by our table to learn more about UUCC. I was surprised at how many of them mentioned they had noticed our “Black Lives Matter” sign from the interstate. So, in honor of our church’s courageous, yes courageous, decision to put up the BLM sign I would like to devote this newsletter article to Ta-Nehisi Coates, a courageous and articulate black man who continues to write about the experience of being black in America. The following words are from his recent Atlantic article taken from his latest book, “We Were Eight Years in Power.” Parentheses are mine.
The tightly intertwined stories of the white working class and black Americans go back to the prehistory of the United States. The white working class, like blacks originated in bondage. The former to the temporary bondage of indenture, the latter of lifelong bondage. But by the 18th century the white master class had etched race into law while phasing out indentured servitude. From these and other changes of law and economy a bargain emerged: the descendants of indenture would enjoy the full benefits of whiteness, i.e., they would never sink to the level of the slave. They would not be mistaken for “negers!” This constitutes an ancient bargain which says that whiteness transcends class.
It is this underlying “ancient bargain” that we are now confronted with. We have a president that supports (sometimes overtly, always tacitly) white supremacy. Certainly, everyone who voted for president Trump was not a white supremacist but they felt it was acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one. Now, we are faced with the undeniable reality that a large group of Americans endorsed a candidate because of bigotry and that systemic bigotry is central to our politics.
(Blinded by our “whiteness) we resist acknowledging the truth of the incarceration of legions of black men, the destruction of health providers for poor women, the deportation of parents, policing whose sole legitimacy is rooted in brute force, and education program that gives “no excuses” to black and brown children.
A former Russian military officer pointed out that interference in an election could succeed only where “necessary conditions” and an “existing background’ were present. In America that “existing background” was a persistent racism and the “necessary condition” was a black president. It is as if the white tribe united in demonstration to say, “If a black man can be president, then any white man—no matter how fallen—can be president.”
And so it goes……
Judith Pedersen-Benn, Social Justice Chair