NOTE: I'm not sure I still agree with my own post here. - Greg, 9/14/17
Earlier this year I penned some reflections on the National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist memoir by Ta-Nehisi Coates entitled Between the World and Me. With issues of race constantly providing the subtext behind headlines throughout the past several years, my choice to carefully consider the arguments and thoughts of the eloquent and now famous Mr. Coates was my own pitiful yet deliberate attempt to better understand what life in these United States must be like inside a black body.
Yet much of what I uncovered deeply troubled me as a Christian committed to the narrative of God's redemptive work in the world as revealed through the person of Jesus Christ. Though Coates' book provides a much needed glimpse into the nature of life within black skin, it offers a profoundly anti-Christian solution to the problem of race in America: violent resistance and endless struggle. Critiquing the pacifist Christian thought of Martin Luther King Jr., Coates believes that blacks will never gain equality with whites by playing nice. Sit-ins and acts of nonviolent resistance may make a certain amount of progress, but for complete equality violent overthrow of the systemic status quo can be the only solution.
Though the author does not state his aims quite as starkly as this, his solution to the inequality between races in America reveals itself in his mockery of Dr. King. The arc of the universe, Coates retorts, doesn't bend toward justice! No, the universe that we encounter is purely "physical, and its moral arc [is] bent toward chaos then concluded in a box" (28). In contrast to Dr. King, Ta-Nehisi praises the violence and militant rhetoric of Malcolm X, writing, "If he hated, he hated because it was human for the enslaved to hate the enslaver, natural as Prometheus hating the birds. He would not turn the other cheek for you. He would not be a better man for you. He would not be your morality" (36). This is the activism of a man committed to a materialist understanding of the cosmos: There is no "God" and he will not "make right" all of the wrongs of our world. If there is to be justice, it must be seized, not prayed for. The oppressed cannot overcome violent oppressors while maintaining some semblance of a moral high ground since morality itself is a fiction created by the oppressors to maintain their power.
In short, Coates advises his son to abandon all hope of reconciliation. The world has only ever known the law of the jungle: either eat or be eaten. In his most honest reflection on his nihilistic beliefs, the concerned father writes, "Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about this world is meant to be... These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope" (71). Coates believes solely in struggle and the eternal recurrence of the same. Black power vs. white power -- these two can no more be reconciled than can a lion and a lamb.
Interestingly, this is precisely the worldview and ethical reasoning embraced by white supremacists. Since the election of Donald Trump, the hate-mongerers seem to be emerging from their caves. The so-called "Alt-Right," a euphemism for white supremacists, are no longer consigned to obscure corners of the internet; rather, now they are giving interviews on NPR and other national news outlets. Indeed, the new chief strategist and Senior Counselor to President-elect Donald Trump, Stave Bannon, has acted as one of the spearheads of this movement for years, according to many watchdog groups.
Perhaps the most vocal and prominent white supremacist today, Jared Taylor, openly posits that peaceful co-existence (let alone reconciliation!) between peoples of different races has proven itself throughout human history to be an impossibility. Political power, according to Taylor, is a zero-sum game. That is, if blacks or latinos or any other non-white group gain a certain amount of political power, they attain it only by forcibly removing it from whites. Taylor's solution, therefore, is to create a completely white nation that excludes all other peoples from entry. His message is simple: "Unless whites are prepared to exclude people [of color], then they will be shoved aside. ...I will fight [for segregation] until my last breath" (Quote is from an interview with Jorge Ramos in his documentary Hate Rising, which can be viewed here).
For Taylor, as with Ta-Nehisi Coates, beings exist by nature human in a state of struggle, competition, and violence. If power and influence is to be gained or maintained, then it must come at the expense of "the other." Put simply, Coates and Taylor agree on this: racial reconciliation is a pipe dream, a utopian fantasy that will never and can never be achieved. The strong eat the weak. And it is always, obviously, better to be among the strong.
Christians stand opposed to both Coates' violence and Taylor's violence. We who follow the Crucified God, who place our trust in the One who is making all things right, and who believe that one day the kingdom of God will descend upon this earth, bringing about the miracle of reconciliation between black and white, lion and lamb -- we of all people must devote our lives, our reputations, and our resources solely to the cause of reconciliation. Though undoubtedly Christians are taught to stand in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed, meaning that the cause of Ta-Nehisi Coates may be embraced at least in part (and Taylor's completely rejected), the identity politics and inherent violence of both must be rejected. Christians live according to a new pattern, a pattern that foreshadows the shalom of God's perfect reign which was revealed momentarily in the person of Christ and will be revealed eternally in us all at the eschaton.
The real division emerging within our society today is not between the conservatives and liberals, the urban and the rural, the educated and uneducated, the white-collar and blue-collar worker, or the religious and the secular; rather the real division is between those who promote reconciliation and those who, committed to their own identity politics, accept (even promote!) division and animosity as a permanent, immutable state of affairs. Those who claim to follow in the way of Jesus know where they must stand.
Earlier this year I penned some reflections on the National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist memoir by Ta-Nehisi Coates entitled Between the World and Me. With issues of race constantly providing the subtext behind headlines throughout the past several years, my choice to carefully consider the arguments and thoughts of the eloquent and now famous Mr. Coates was my own pitiful yet deliberate attempt to better understand what life in these United States must be like inside a black body.
Yet much of what I uncovered deeply troubled me as a Christian committed to the narrative of God's redemptive work in the world as revealed through the person of Jesus Christ. Though Coates' book provides a much needed glimpse into the nature of life within black skin, it offers a profoundly anti-Christian solution to the problem of race in America: violent resistance and endless struggle. Critiquing the pacifist Christian thought of Martin Luther King Jr., Coates believes that blacks will never gain equality with whites by playing nice. Sit-ins and acts of nonviolent resistance may make a certain amount of progress, but for complete equality violent overthrow of the systemic status quo can be the only solution.
 |
| Ta-Nehisi Coates has become one of the leading voices among black civil rights activists |
Though the author does not state his aims quite as starkly as this, his solution to the inequality between races in America reveals itself in his mockery of Dr. King. The arc of the universe, Coates retorts, doesn't bend toward justice! No, the universe that we encounter is purely "physical, and its moral arc [is] bent toward chaos then concluded in a box" (28). In contrast to Dr. King, Ta-Nehisi praises the violence and militant rhetoric of Malcolm X, writing, "If he hated, he hated because it was human for the enslaved to hate the enslaver, natural as Prometheus hating the birds. He would not turn the other cheek for you. He would not be a better man for you. He would not be your morality" (36). This is the activism of a man committed to a materialist understanding of the cosmos: There is no "God" and he will not "make right" all of the wrongs of our world. If there is to be justice, it must be seized, not prayed for. The oppressed cannot overcome violent oppressors while maintaining some semblance of a moral high ground since morality itself is a fiction created by the oppressors to maintain their power.
In short, Coates advises his son to abandon all hope of reconciliation. The world has only ever known the law of the jungle: either eat or be eaten. In his most honest reflection on his nihilistic beliefs, the concerned father writes, "Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about this world is meant to be... These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope" (71). Coates believes solely in struggle and the eternal recurrence of the same. Black power vs. white power -- these two can no more be reconciled than can a lion and a lamb.
Interestingly, this is precisely the worldview and ethical reasoning embraced by white supremacists. Since the election of Donald Trump, the hate-mongerers seem to be emerging from their caves. The so-called "Alt-Right," a euphemism for white supremacists, are no longer consigned to obscure corners of the internet; rather, now they are giving interviews on NPR and other national news outlets. Indeed, the new chief strategist and Senior Counselor to President-elect Donald Trump, Stave Bannon, has acted as one of the spearheads of this movement for years, according to many watchdog groups.
 |
| Jared Taylor in 2008 |
For Taylor, as with Ta-Nehisi Coates, beings exist by nature human in a state of struggle, competition, and violence. If power and influence is to be gained or maintained, then it must come at the expense of "the other." Put simply, Coates and Taylor agree on this: racial reconciliation is a pipe dream, a utopian fantasy that will never and can never be achieved. The strong eat the weak. And it is always, obviously, better to be among the strong.
Christians stand opposed to both Coates' violence and Taylor's violence. We who follow the Crucified God, who place our trust in the One who is making all things right, and who believe that one day the kingdom of God will descend upon this earth, bringing about the miracle of reconciliation between black and white, lion and lamb -- we of all people must devote our lives, our reputations, and our resources solely to the cause of reconciliation. Though undoubtedly Christians are taught to stand in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed, meaning that the cause of Ta-Nehisi Coates may be embraced at least in part (and Taylor's completely rejected), the identity politics and inherent violence of both must be rejected. Christians live according to a new pattern, a pattern that foreshadows the shalom of God's perfect reign which was revealed momentarily in the person of Christ and will be revealed eternally in us all at the eschaton.
The real division emerging within our society today is not between the conservatives and liberals, the urban and the rural, the educated and uneducated, the white-collar and blue-collar worker, or the religious and the secular; rather the real division is between those who promote reconciliation and those who, committed to their own identity politics, accept (even promote!) division and animosity as a permanent, immutable state of affairs. Those who claim to follow in the way of Jesus know where they must stand.
