Aug. 9
By S. Derrickson Moore
There is no Switzerland, no refuge from haters.
In a summer of horrible, senseless mass
shootings, it’s difficult to gain perspective. By now, most of us know a victim
of a mass shooting, or live near someplace where at least one such incident has
occurred, in a quiet university community, at a movie theater, at a military
gathering place far from any active combat zone, at a bowling alley, a shopping
mall, a family home...
Or even a place of worship. On Aug. 2, when
two Las Cruces
churches were rocked by explosives, mercifully without any physical injuries,
many of us wondered if there is any refuge or sanctuary, anywhere in this
heavily armed world, too often gone mad.
Beyond several of the news cycles we
lifelong journalists take as shake-it-off, survival strategy cues, I find
myself still grieving for nine extraordinary people I’ve never met who were killed in June at Emanuel
African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.: the Rev. Clementa
Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Tywanza Sanders,
Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, Depayne Middleton Doctor, the Rev. Daniel Simmons
and Myra Thompson.
I find myself going back to their pictures
and biographies. These were people of deep, extraordinary faith and
accomplishments, good people who might have changed the world in profound ways,
who, indeed, have already done so in death.
We know they were extraordinary by the
reactions of their loved ones, so clearly bereft, grieving, suffering, but walking
the Christian walk and calling for forgiveness in their pain and sorrow.
We know because their mourners included a
nation and its president, and a decisive call, finally, for something that
should have happened a long time ago. For the end of the state-sanctioned
display of a flag that symbolizes racism, slavery, hatred, Jim Crow laws.
subjugation and American apartheid. A disgraced and defeated flag that had its
resurgence in the shameful anti-segregationist violence of the 1950s and 60s.
And a flag that became. for some, a symbol of fun in popular car chase movies,
on mass merchandizing.
Imagine, a friend once said, if Jewish
survivors of the Holocaust, and their kids and great-grandchildren for
generations, were expected to be good sports about living in land where one’s
fellow citizens think it’s great fun to display Nazi swastikas on shoes,
T-shirts, their babies’ onesies, coolers, backpacks and flags flying on their
town squares and pickup trucks.
Why did it take us so long, and the death of
nine extraordinary people, to finally acknowledge such an obvious truth?
I look at the lives of those people, who
ranged in age from 26 to 87, and think what might have been. And the flags seem
way too little, way too late.
I’ve been thinking about long-ago conversations
with Tenny Hale, one of the most profound Christian ethicists of our time,
about the nature of forgiveness. To demonstrate true repentance, Hale said, you
must say you are sorry, ask for forgiveness, and pledge and dedicate yourself
to making amends, to righting the wrongs, to healing the wounds, to atoning for
our sins.
As far as I know, the Charleston shooter has done none of these
things.
I’d like to stress that I have admiration
for the strength, faith and compassion of those who expressed forgiveness to
the unrepentant, hate-obsessed soul who took the earthly presence, if not the
soulful inspiration, of their loved ones from them.
There is comfort, love and surprising power
in forgiveness.
But I wonder if we should forgive so easily,
not just the hate-filled persons who pull triggers, but the demons in society,
and ourselves, that enable such unspeakable, heinous, tragic actions and
attitudes.
I’m glad the flags are coming down from the
municipal plazas, from the merchandise on superstore shelves. I hope I’ll quit
seeing those hateful images on license plates and decals in the borderland.
In a recent interview with Jon Stewart,
Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of “Between the World and Me,” helped me understand
why so many of us are still trying to get a handle on this fiercely tenacious
grief that has extended beyond so many news cycles and the guilt-driven,
belated, removal of a symbol of hatred.
Maybe we shouldn’t try to speed the grieving
process.
“We should not feel comfortable with that,”
Coates said. ”We should sit with that.”
S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at dmoore@lcsun-news, @derricksonmoore on Twitter and Tout, or call
575-541-5450.
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