Rhetoric Race and Religion
After the terrorist act committed by Confederate sympathizer Dylann Roof at Emanuel AME Church and the pressure to remove the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina Statehouse, in recent days, several black churches in the South burned. Here at R3, we thought we would collect some of the raw emotions from people who are placing this within a larger context.
Kimberly Peeler-Ringer (R3 Contributor)
Nine Black life forces extinguished. In a church. By a self-confessed white supremacist. That is a terrorist attack. Some entity has decided this tragedy was their cue to continue terror attacks through fire…a method of terror used against Blacks by fire-branding slave catchers, pattyrollers, the Klan…burning crosses…dynamite sticks…burning churches. But there is nothing to see here folks. Just a small case of prolonged PTSD-triggering domestic terrorism in a so-called Christian nation. Move along.
Racism, classism/severe income inequality, sexism, and violence is making me ill. Like I seriously feel sick right now. A church in my home county has burned, a dear friend has been targeted by the far right like I was at the start of 2015, and folks I know are struggling to pay bills and rent although they work hard. I need a break from all of the tragedy and pain. I’m going to feed my soul after I write today. If you’re in pain, I hope you will too.
I have some questions:
How many of those church arsonists are in church themselves? How many of their pastors are helping them deal with their white rage & fear?
White pastors, how many of you are dealing explicitly with white rage and fear from your pulpit? Yes, especially your progressive pulpit.
White churches, what are you doing to counter the radicalization of young and quite frankly old women and men in your churches?
White churches, what ministries do you have to help white people identify and work through their own racism?
When a Black church burns in 2015, and people worry that it might be the result of a hate crime, we should be at a point where we can reject that scenario as very unimaginable and very unlikely. Instead, we are at a point where no informed and rationale onlooker can reject that possibility. Instead, those who value Black life must consider it and investigate it as a wholly plausible possibility with tremendous historical precedent that leads right up until today. That is outrageous.
My God! I’m watching “What Happened, Miss Simone” here in France while contemplating my Blackness and womanhood as a mother and teacher living in Charleston as Black churches burn across the southeast, after our friends and loved ones have been buried… and we stifle our anger and embrace forgiveness…yet our full humanity is forsaken for the sake of us being the moral conscience of the world. We know this pain. We live it. We must voice it. Otherwise we suffer.
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