Category: Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

Behold the Crime of silence

In 1970, James Baldwin was interviewed by David Frost and was asked if he was a Christian or a Muslim, and he said, laughing, “I was born a Baptist.”

Baldwin laughed, hard, prompting Frost to say, “It’s not that funny.”

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Baldwin responded, “It is to me…and he proceeded to answer Frost’s next question, “And what are you now? Do you feel as black (sic) now as when you were born?”

Baldwin responded, “I think you should ask that question of our president…Richard Nixon or the Attorney General. Ask the president how black I feel.” Frost asked, “Do you think the Civil Rights movement is dead?”

Baldwin replied that the Civil Rights movement had resulted in some changes, yes, but it had always been a “self-contained” endeavor and carried within it “something self-defeating.” He added, “Martin knew this, too.”

“In the beginning, we thought that there was a way of reaching the conscience of the people in this country. We hoped there was, and I must say that we did reach several blacks and several whites. We did everything in our power to make the American people realize that the myths they were living with were not so much destroying black people as whites.”

He described who he was and how he felt as a Black person in a country that worshipped whiteness. It had taken its toll, and he said, “I am not a young man, but I am a Black American and I know something about the crime of silence. I know what happens in San Francisco and in Chicago, and in New York when one of our representatives wants to protect the morale of the police. I know what a no-knock, stop-and-frisk law means. It means search and destroy. I know something about the history black people have endured and are still enduring in this place.” He concluded this part of the interview by saying, “We’re not on the edge of a racial war. We’re on the edge of a civil war.”

Still.

Baldwin could just as easily have been sharing those thoughts today.

We are seeing what the crime of silence produces: Chaos. Complacency. Fear. Spiritual and societal blindness, caused by our refusal to challenge injustice and those who support it. The silence helps many rest in a false sense of security; “this is America,” they think. “Nothing as heinous as what happened in Germany will ever happen here.” The belief that America is truly exceptional and immune to abject suffering and destruction by any other country or from within has warped the minds and the capacity of people to understand that evil has no boundaries. It has made Americans boast of being “the greatest country in the world,” even as it descends into the abyss of tyranny. And it has made people think that if anyone suffers, ‘it won’t be them; it will be those who “deserve” to suffer.

Only some people who have a platform speak out and speak up. Unfortunately, too many others are caught in a mythic belief that even if things are bad, the great America will be able to rebound, and, many think, America will do so with the people whom they believed were never worthy of American rights and citizenship eliminated. They believe that if there is a breakdown of America, it will be for the good of a country that had for too long been sullied by the presence of people who should never have been here. (They forget that it was their ancestors who brought the “undesirables” to this country and that it was the unpaid labor of those people that resulted in the economic growth and domination of this country.)

Silence in the face of evil and injustice makes some people or groups of people think they are or will be immune to the dark days ahead, but it always results in excruciating suffering for the masses. American political and law enforcement leaders have been silent from this nation’s inception, and many have been complicit. This country has operated with the understanding that some people have the right to perpetuate injustice because of their race and wealth. They have operated with a “wink and a nod” mindset, akin to that portrayed in the movie, “Gentleman’s Agreement.” 

It was the silence (and fear of the president) by lawmakers in the halls of the United States Congress and Senate recently that resulted in the passage of a cruel budget that will hurt millions. Belief in the superiority of a rogue president has resulted in the US Supreme Court choosing to be silent at times when it should have been the leader of the “rule of law” and the pursuit of justice for everyone. Fear of so many, afraid of being punished by the powers that be, has resulted in silence about the complicity with and partnership of America with Zionists, as troops have ravaged the West Bank and specifically, Gaza using weapons that were supplied by the United States, and silence is the accepted way of ignoring the suffering that is going on in the Sudan.

The prayer is that none of us remain silent but take the risk of speaking out and acting to stop the march to the shores of 18th century injustice, echoing the voice of the God of the Christian Bible who desires mercy and not sacrifice and justice for all human beings, the God whose teachings clearly illustrate that He/She cannot be named as the commander-in-chief of those who are running over and destroying the lives of too many of the human beings She created.

If any of us are being silent, we need to think about why and decide if we are going to serve God or serve human beings and honor our desire to flourish in a capitalistic society. There indeed may not be a way to reach the consciences of those who practice injustice against others, but injustice will surely flourish if those who are writhing as they watch the destruction of liberty and justice for all God’s people remain silent.

That silence is perhaps the greatest crime that we are facing today.

A candid observation…

Maya, Vincent …Gone too Soon

Sometimes, when someone dies, you want to wake them up.

I have felt that when loved ones have died, or when certain public figures have passed on.

I felt it this week with the death of Maya Angelou and last week when I learned Vincent Harding had died.

Wake up, please?

I met Maya Angelou years ago, when I was in college. She had come to Occidental College for some special event, (I don’t remember which) and I sat, spellbound. I think it was her voice; it reminded me of what brown velvet looks like, or like molasses being spread over a piece of bread. The words she had written were powerful, true enough, but it was her voice that caught me. After the event, I talked with her and showed her some of my poetry. I remember she told me, “My dear child, you are a writer …and you must always  write. Every day…you must write…”

Her spirit was cemented in mine from that moment on,

Her life story, her poetry fascinated me, but her spirit captivated me.

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may tread me in the very dirt,

But still, like dust, I’ll rise …

She had risen, surely. I carried that poem in my heart, as sure as I carried the spirit of my own mother in my heart.

And so when she died, something jostled loose within me…and I wanted to ask her, whisper to her, “Wake up. Please, wake up!”

Vincent Harding I only met recently. I had read only one of his books, There is a River, and had only recently learned that he had written Rev. Martin Luther King’s famous sermon, “A Time to Break Silence.” He wrote that most piercing observation in that speech: “There is a time when to be silent is betrayal…”  What struck me upon meeting Vincent was his gentleness. He had a quiet voice; it didn’t remind me one bit of velvet or molasses, but his spirit was palpably gentle. He said that he had been loved into living; his spirit supported that claim.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast…it is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs….

I want to ask him, politely, to please wake up. People were not ready for him or Maya  to leave, not yet.

These two veteran Civil Rights icons have contributed breath to the lives of so many people. They lived through some of the ugliest episodes of racial cruelty this country has ever experienced, and came through it not only standing, but helping others to get through it and understand it by the words they wrote. They believed in the “beloved community” and worked to spread that good news. As Ruby Sales said, who knew Harding intimately and whom he called “daughter,” Harding and those who worked in the movement brought down an entire (racist system) without ever having fired a single weapon.

They did it with love and with their faithfulness to the gift they both had, that of writing.

It is sad that, now, two of our Civil Rights heroes have “gone home to be with the Lord.” It seems like we who are alive need to talk to those who are yet alive, cherish them, tell their stories, give them homage for what they did for all of us. It seems like we need to at least gather the children, and get those who faced dogs and fire hoses …to come talk…to the children…and tell them the stories before they, too, lay down to rest, their voices never to be heard again.

Do you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops

Weakened by my soulful cries?

You may shoot me with your words

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Maya, Vincent …may you please wake up?

You left us far too soon…

A candid observation …