Reforged

I just published an article over at Forth District. Take a look at it over there, I love what those guys are doing with their conversations on arts and culture. Post visible at:

http://forthdistrict.com/pride-and-prejudice-a-lamentation-blackhistorymonth/

A Christian friend of mine recently posted this article by a black minister, Rev. Dr. Eric Wallace, critiquing the organized portion of the Black Lives Matter movement. (I’d encourage you to read the article first to understand the full context of this post.) He asked for thoughts from his black friends. So I sat with it, read it, and came up with several thoughts that started as a Facebook comment but that I thought might better be served as a blog response. I had several issues with the article, which I outline below.

• The author uses several words and phrases to inflame the conversation and discredit the beliefs of the BLM leadership. He brings up the Marxism of some of the black liberation movements to tie that to BLM when there is no explicitly Marxist or atheist platform espoused. He also quietly mentions that one of the founders is the child of illegal immigrants, when illegal immigration is neither part of the platform nor part of the counterargument. The worst, in my opinion, is when he says: “According to BLM, “black liberation” can be achieved only by reversing the roles of master and slave.” This plays on longstanding white fears that what protesting black people really want is to make them hurt the way that white people hurt their ancestors not so long ago. I know the author is black, but he’s bought in to the belief in zero-sum protest: that black people can only demand gains in this way at the expense of someone else’s freedom and liberty. I reject this belief, and believe instead in one of BLM’s strongest platform points: “When Black people get free, we all get free.” When we liberate the most oppressed people in our society (probably poor black trans women at this point), we’ve undone the chains that bind every part of that equation, and in the process have undone the chains that many of us wear as oppressors as well.
• I think the author overplays his hand regarding Planned Parenthood. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t buy the “PP is secretly out to eliminate black folks, just like Sanger wanted” angle that people keep pushing. How many poor (and in a country with no public health care, not so poor) black women have benefited from the women’s health and birth control services PP has provided? We can’t have a conversation about PP without looking at both sides of the scale. That doesn’t negate the problematic nature of abortion, but abortion deserves its own discussion platform rather being used as a argumentative daisy cutter that just wipes out all validity of the opposition.
• As to liberal versus conservative views on the role of racial discrimination versus government intervention in progress, we simply disagree. I think there has been some cynicism in liberal policy, and I think one of the best things about BLM is that it isn’t beholden to either political axis, so they are just as willing to challenge liberals as conservatives. However, I think it’s unfair and also concerning to say that government largesse is why black people aren’t moving ahead at the rate we all think should be happening. It implies in particular that there’s substantial government aid being given to black people that is making them lazy. At least one article recently written in the Washington Post looks at the condition of things in places in the South where aid programs have been severely cut. This article describes a situation where people are diligently seeking work and cannot find it right here in Atlanta, and where less than 1% of income-eligible citizens are receiving full welfare benefits. With all the hand-wringing among conservatives about how much we spend on the undeserving, you’d think half the city was cashing government checks on the first of the month.
  I’m not saying that we shouldn’t look at programs and measure them to see if they’re working. We should. I’m also not saying that race is the only piece of the puzzle. But with a refusal to consider race as a meaningful part, some things in the puzzle don’t make sense.
• It is fair to note that BLM is not a biblical or Christian movement. As such, why are we concerned about them affirming the right of LGBTQ+ people to exist free from harm? That affirmation is by definition earthly, and concerned with justice, not asking you to believe they will enter the kingdom of Heaven. On the spiritual side of sexual/gender identity issues, a conservative Christian has no more dispute with BLM than they do with any fully affirming sect of Christianity. Bringing a spiritual discussion about the fate of souls who live that out to the table is a distraction from the question of whether the movement should be concerned with earthly justice for them.
• The BlackLivesMatter/AllLivesMatter false dichotomy is a copout. Again, it returns to this zero-sum thinking, where either BlackLivesMatter or AllLivesMatter, but not both. As I said before, if you want to be critical of where the movement isn’t doing enough in your opinion, that’s fine, but don’t use the movement’s weaknesses to negate their valid points.
• Lastly, as I’ve probably said before as well, I’m sick of “black-on-black crime” being brought up as a thing. Black on black crime is not a special kind of crime, due to a special kind of pathology in a special kind of people. It’s what crime looks like in the black part of a segregated society that has historically explicitly impoverished black people. You fight with, steal from, and kill your neighbor generally, and you do more of that when you’re broke. Now, we can and should address violent crime in poor black neighborhoods, and contrary to many conservative pundits’ beliefs, there are people and organizations doing that every day. But when we relegate it to black-on-black crime, we do two things. First, we add to this notion of a special black pathology. Second, for those of us that consciously or subconsciously view blackness as “other”, when we call it “black-on-black crime” and not just “crime”, we make it someone else’s problem.

I would like to see conservatives continue to critique and challenge liberal points of view, as that diversity in dialogue is essential to our long-term societal health. However, I think this can be done in a way that validates the truths being spoken instead of just using the weaknesses or holes found to invalidate the truths.

I once held everything in thrall.
They came, and took, and gave to you.
My finest things you don’t deserve —
I knew exactly what to do.

I carefully mixed the poison down,
distilled it, raised its potency.
I placed the poison in your drink
so stealthily, you did not see.

It looked so lovely, boiling there.
Your glass, a fine cauldron it made.
I reveled in the fantasy
of seeing the headstone at your grave.

I poured myself another glass
to reassure naught was amiss.
My toast and smile would dull the blow,
and blunt my poison’s deadly kiss.

And as I drank so deeply from
the glass I’d poured, my bitter wine,
I clutched my chest and realized
the drink that I’d poisoned was mine.

-C. G. Brown

I’ve seen a lot of instances of the past few years of lives being changed by funding sites like KickStarter and GoFundMe. We all know the pattern. A person’s story has some element in it that tugs at the heartstrings, or ignites the imagination. The story goes viral on social media. Donations begin pouring in. Before you know it, a life is changed. It’s like winning the lottery.

As we know, lotteries are often bad for the people that win them. The tidal wave of money crashes against the seawall of old habits, behaviors, and self-imposed limitations.  Newfound gains are spent on expensive trifles to treat ourselves. Relatives and friends we haven’t seen in years (or at all) come pouring in, hoping to gain something for their “unwavering support” through the years. Underneath it all, the winner may feel that they don’t deserve this money, or they are too afraid of what an unknown life of riches looks like when put up against a known life of lack. The money is gone, or the money stays, and no one is happier for long.

There’s another, bigger problem with this lottery mentality when it comes to giving. When we give a few dollars to some needy homeless father or to a man walking for miles every day to work because he can’t afford a car, we are quite pleased with ourselves. We’ve helped someone out. We’ve done some good in the world. And then we forget about the millions of other people with the exact same story, or worse, who weren’t lucky enough to be discovered, or charismatic enough to spin a compelling tale of woe.

When a society pays taxes and votes to allow social services, the goal is to ensure that all citizens in hardship get some support. As more of us clamor for lower taxes and less government intrusion, we focus our giving on individuals and our whims, instead of taking the risk that government might waste some money or give some to someone who didn’t deserve it, such as the infamous welfare and food stamp boogeymen waiting to turn your tax dollars into lap dances, cigarettes, and beer. (Of course, we never talk about the real defense companies that turn many more of your tax dollars into failed weapons projects.) We’re not satisfied with the rain falling on the just and the unjust alike. We want to make sure the undeserving get good and soaked, at least until they pick themselves up and meet our standards.

I believe the free market is best for distributing things that have a tangible, transparent, and immediate value. It doesn’t make sense for government to run retail stores, for instance, when the market is perfectly good at setting prices. However, for intangible value, or value that is a long-term return on investment like the interstate system or public education, the government can make a credible case at being the most efficient provider due to its economies of scale and ability to distribute the load across the entire citizenry instead of a limited consumer base.

By all means, give to the causes that speak to your heart.  Just be mindful of this social media fueled lottery mentality that, when combined with our increasing tightfistedness when it comes to government-allocated resources, is causing us to leave too many to fend for themselves.