Please click the link to watch Rev. Cynthia Snavely’s video recording of this sermon.
I grew up in the 1960s and ’70s, an era that was marked by turmoil. Robert F. Kennedy in a 1966 speech used the apocryphal Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times” to describe the era as he spoke of the struggles for equality and justice.
I was a child and a teenager then. I was mostly oblivious to it all. What I knew I knew mostly subliminally as it played out on the television or in the newspaper, but it did not seem to have much influence on my daily life.
It was a time of police violence. People demonstrating for the right to vote were attacked by police with dogs and water hoses and batons. The first person killed at Selma was Jimmie Lee Jackson who was beaten by troopers and fatally shot by an Alabama state trooper. He took eight days to die. That was 1965 (from Murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson – Wikipedia).
In 1970 on the Kent State college campus, “twenty-eight National Guard soldiers fired about 67 rounds over 13 seconds into a group of students protesting the American involvement in the war in Vietnam. Four students were killed and nine were wounded, including one who was permanently paralyzed,” (from Kent State shootings – Wikipedia).
As well as the police, there were also White Citizens’ Councils. Of these groups, the Wikipedia article on them notes that “Although the White Citizens Councils publicly eschewed the use of violence, they condoned the harsh economic and political tactics which were used against registered voters and activists. The members of the White Citizens Councils collaborated in order to threaten jobs, causing people to be fired or evicted from rental homes; they boycotted businesses, ensured that activists could not get loans, among other tactics. As historian Charles Payne notes, ‘Despite the official disclaimers, violence often followed in the wake of Council intimidation campaigns.’ Occasionally some Councils directly incited violence, such as lynchings, shootings, rapes and arson….” (from Citizens’ Councils – Wikipedia).
It was a violent time, and it makes sense that some suggested that the proper response to such violence was defensive violence.
But some looked to the east for a different way. In the 1940s Mahatma Gandhi had led a fight for Indian independence from the British rooted in the Hindu spiritual principle of ahimsa or nonviolence.
“In Gandhi’s thought,” says the Wikipedia article on ahimsa, “ahimsa precludes not only the act of inflicting a physical injury but also mental states like evil thoughts and hatred, and unkind behavior such as harsh words, dishonesty, and lying, all of which (Gandhi) saw as manifestations of violence incompatible with ahimsa,” (from Ahimsa – Wikipedia).
A prominent civil rights leader In America who looked to Gandhi for this different way was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As he said in our opening words, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
And what did that light and love need to drive out? In a 1967 speech, King named three evils of society: racism, materialism, and militarism. All three of those are in ascendance today. Our time is not so different from the 1960s and ‘70s.
Racist views are coming from the national leadership, and others are following their lead. Our president blames a plane crash on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be Ant-Racist are just two in a total of 400 such books removed from the Naval Academy library.
References to slavery and to the internment of Japanese during World War II have been removed from signs in our National Parks by order of the President. Derogatory remarks are made about the places immigrants come from, such as “Why are we having all these people from s…hole countries come here?”
Materialism is the apparent number one goal in life for many of our leaders. The White House is decked out in gold. A national resource of another country, oil from Venezuela, is claimed as ours. Our leaders want to own Greenland. Tax cuts for the wealthy and the buying of political favors are de rigeur.
Militarism is apparent at home and at sea. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) officers are everywhere, just this week shooting at three civilians, killing one. National Guard troops are sent to American cities. The military is blowing up boats at sea.
Our own era is as fraught as the ‘60s and ‘70s, but now I am an adult. This time I can’t just let the news play out around me with little to no effect on my own life. I feel a need to respond as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) forcibly grabs people off the street, as my country bombs alleged drug boats killing those on board, as somewhere between 56 and 75 people are killed by our military as we strike a foreign country, Venezuela. I am not, however, going to take up arms. I am not going to attack the Capitol or the White House. That is not how I wish to respond.
In his 1967 speech laying out the three evils of society, Dr. King spoke of a different way. He said, “A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, this way of settling differences is not just.
“This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloodied battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love,” (from SPEECH: The Three Evils of Society, Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967 | Black Agenda Report).
Our Unitarian Universalist statement of our shared values and covenants says, “We draw from our heritages of freedom, reason, hope, and courage, building on the foundation of love. Love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values. We are accountable to one another for doing the work of living our shared values through the spiritual discipline of Love.”
One of those shared values is interdependence. We are all connected. Violence is a force that splits us apart. Love is a force that can bind us together. From our bylaws: “Interdependence. We honor the interdependent web of all existence. With reverence for the great web of life and with humility, we acknowledge our place in it. We covenant to protect Earth and all beings from exploitation. We will create and nurture sustainable relationships of care and respect, mutuality and justice. We will work to repair harm and damaged relationships,” (from article_2_final.pdf).
When asked to define love, I used to say that it was care and respect. I like our values statement addition of mutuality and justice to that duo. Our UU statement says, “We will create and nurture sustainable relationships of care and respect, mutuality and justice. We will work to repair harm and damaged relationships.”
I am going to do what I can to make sure that that we includes me: “I will create and nurture sustainable relationships of care and respect, mutuality and justice. I will work to repair harm and damaged relationships.”
I see the ascendance of racism, materialism, and militarism at this moment. I need to respond, but I want my response to be from wisdom, justice and love. I admit I have an advantage. I have not been told that I am less than human. I have white privilege. That gives me more of a responsibility to make sure that those who do not have that privilege have opportunities to unlearn the negatives about themselves that society teaches. That gives me more of a responsibility to look carefully at my own words and actions and see if they are in ways upholding society’s racism.
Last month, a friend posted on his Facebook page a link to a short YouTube biography of someone I had never heard of before; psychiatrist, philosopher, and author Frantz Fanon.
The video began with these words: “Frantz Fanon wrote a book so dangerous that France banned it the same day it was published. While dying of leukemia in 1961, this Black psychiatrist created something that turned college students into revolutionaries, got smuggled across borders and in hollowed out Bibles and made the CIA put him on a watch list. He raced against death to finish one final message to the colonized world: ‘Your chains are in your mind. Violence will set you free. and your oppressors are more terrified of you than you’ve ever been of them….’ Fanon told colonized people worldwide that their mental enslavement mattered more than their physical chains and that force against oppressors wasn’t just justified, it was psychologically necessary for liberation,” (from The Most Dangerous Black Philosopher Who Ever Lived).
Fanon grew up on the island of Martinique, going to an elite French school where he was punished for speaking Creole, and he learned of the glories of France and nothing of his own ancestors. He was fifteen when France fell to Hitler and Vichy Fascists seized control of Martinique.
The video says, “Suddenly, French racism wasn’t polite anymore. It became official policy.”
Fanon fought for the French in World War II. Again, from the video: “At 17, Frantz Fanon joined the free French army in 1943. Believing he was fighting for liberty and human dignity, he fought in the forest of Alsace, took shrapnel near Montbéliard, earned the Croix de Guerre for courage under fire. French officers pinned medals on his chest, then barred him from their mess halls because of his skin color.
“When Germany finally surrendered, Charles de Gaulle ordered every Black soldier removed from formations entering German territory. France’s victory parade couldn’t have Black faces visible in the photographs. The men who bled for France had to watch from the sidelines as white soldiers took credit for their sacrifice. Fanon wrote his brother Joby from Europe, ‘I’ve been deceived and I am paying for my mistakes. I’m sick of it all,’” (from The Most Dangerous Black Philosopher Who Ever Lived).
Continuing from the video, “Fanon entered medical school at the University of Lyon to study psychiatry. In Lyon’s hospitals, he treated North African immigrant workers, Algerian men suffering psychological breakdowns that French doctors diagnosed as proof of racial inferiority. Colonial psychiatrist Antoine Perault published papers claiming Algerians had underdeveloped frontal lobes and were mentally primitive, medical degrees used to justify oppression.
“Fanon recognized what others refused to see. These men suffered from the trauma of racism itself. Society was sick, but doctors blamed the victims. He wrote his doctoral thesis laying out exactly how colonialism manufactured mental illness, how white supremacy functioned as psychological warfare. His committee rejected it as too radical. So in 1952, Fanon published “Black Skin, White Masks” himself.
“The book exposed colonialism’s deepest weapon, forcing black people to see themselves through white eyes, split between two identities, never fully either one. Fanon watched it happen every day in his clinic. Black men staring in mirrors and seeing monsters. Algerian women scrubbing their skin raw, trying to lighten it, patients who’d abandoned their birth names, their mother tongues, their entire identities, all for a chance at being treated as human.
“But Fanon went further. He argued that liberation required recognizing this psychological split and refusing to perform for white approval anymore. Political revolution had to begin with mental decolonization, reclaiming the right to define yourself on your own terms,” (from The Most Dangerous Black Philosopher Who Ever Lived).
In 1953 he became head psychiatrist at a mental hospital in Algeria. The video says, “French soldiers who brutalized Algerians during interrogations came to him with nightmares and psychological breakdowns. Algerian victims arrived unable to speak, unable to stop screaming. One French policeman sought treatment because torture had made him violent at home. He was battering his wife and children. The man didn’t want to stop brutalizing Algerians. He wanted relief from the psychological cost so he could continue with a clear conscience.
Fanon stared at an impossible truth. You cannot heal individuals in a society built on violence. Eventually, Fanon joined the resistance movement. He survived several assassination attempts,” (from The Most Dangerous Black Philosopher Who Ever Lived).
In December 1960, he was diagnosed with leukemia. Over the three months of March, April, May 1961, as he was dying, he dictated his book The Wretched of the Earth to his wife and she wrote down his words.
The video, titled “The Most Dangerous Black Philosopher Who Ever Lived,” says, “The book opened with a declaration that made governments ban it immediately. Decolonization is always a violent phenomenon. Fanon explained that colonialism was born through force and maintained through force. Therefore, only force could destroy it. The colonizers spoke only one language: force.
“His most controversial argument came next. Violence had therapeutic value for the colonized. Fighting back didn’t just win political freedom; it restored psychological humanity. Violence is a cleansing force that frees the native from his inferiority complex and restores his self-respect. The oppressed needed to fight not for revenge but for rebirth,” (from The Most Dangerous Black Philosopher Who Ever Lived).
To return to 1960s and 1970s in the United States of America, one last quote from the video: “The Black Panther Party made The Wretched of the Earth required reading for all members. Bobby Seal handed Huie Newton a copy at one of their first meetings… When Panthers organized armed patrols monitoring police in Oakland, they were applying Fanon’s theory that colonized people must meet violence with organized counterviolence,” (from The Most Dangerous Black Philosopher Who Ever Lived).
Listening to Fanon’s history, it is easy to follow his logic, but I titled this sermon “Love as Resistance,” not “Counterviolence as Resistance.” I agree with Fanon that colonizers speak the language of force. I hear that language being spoken loudly today. I agree that one needs to fight back.
I disagree with the statement “Violence is a cleansing force that frees the native from his inferiority complex and restores his self-respect.” I think fighting back nonviolently with love at our center is the way to keep one’s own humanity even as the oppressor loses theirs. As Gandhi is said to have said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
And, as I said before, I am not of an oppressed class. Gandhi and King both were and were killed. Do I have the right to say, “Resist, but resist with love”?
I expect that I do only if I follow the lead of the oppressed and serve as an ally in such resistance.
I know the quote by the indigenous Australian artist and activist Lilla Watson: “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
Until this week and the death of Renee Nicole Good, we may have thought that being white, English-speaking American citizens, we could resist in safety. That was wrong in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Two of our own Unitarian Universalists, Rev. James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo, were killed at Selma. And resisting in safety is wrong today. We will not be free if others are not free. We are called by our Unitarian Universalist values to resist with love at the center of that resistance.
I end with this meditation from Rev. Jules Taylor, a Unitarian Universalist community minister specializing in pastoral and spiritual care, critical incident response, and community ministry.
“Love is patient
Love is kind
It does not envy
It is not proud
Love bears all things
“We know these words, use these words when we refer to one person loving another.
“Love looks different when we relate to systems.
Love looks different in the face of injustice.
“It is then that
Love is resistant
Love is defiant
It is not backing down
It is staying in the streets
“Love is holding each other and ourselves accountable.
Love is challenging—because none of us is free until all of us are free.
“Love is protest
Protest is love
“Love bears all things.”
We should not have to bear deaths. But we will bear them. Even death will not silence us. For Gandhi, for King, for Reeb, for Liuzzo, for Renee Good and for so many others, let us continue the work.
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