Ah, I have started referring to those who see themselves as the white saviors of the land by tweaking some words they often use. Even though a one one-time devotee to the white supremacy movement has strongly urged people to never use the alternative labels for white supremacy - alas I found a way to corrupt their labeling preference. He said that all the labels like alt-right and nativists - for example - are labels white supremacist have put out there to soften what they are. They want us to use their words to cover up who they are: white supremacists.
After he laid out his history in and then his movement away from white supremacy thought and life, I considered putting his suggestion into my working vocabulary. So I have been using white supremacist much more. But now, I found my way to confront the beast of white supremacy and their racist antics by pointing out the power that keeps it alive. Therefore, my substitutes for white supremacy will be the alt-f(right). A similar change will work well for the religious folk who have an interesting way of making their faith white, exclusive, judgmental, and accusatory: the christian r(fright). The power of fear is great - but it is not the final word (read the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures).
The more I listen to people in both f(right) groups (yet, often their devotees overlap one another), I hear the voice of fear and then the anger that fear generates and then the threats that anger ignites and then the threats that are meant to exclude and demean and objectify. The christian f(right) has become a master of taking the words of love and grace and endless forgiveness and using them in a conditional manner. In that way, fear rather than love, becomes their gift to the world - but it is a nasty and corrupt gift. It is wrapped well in words of love - but, please note, whenever love is forced to flow through filters like if you... or when you... or unless you... their use of love may be the love they use to control their own little world - but it is not the love that is to be the image of our lives to which the Scriptures give witness.
The alt-f(right) masterfully tells us how 'those other folks' are making it impossible for us - to be us. And yet, with all their alt-f(right) words and action they are indeed being just who they are - fright-full racists who have never learned to see the world through more lenses than the one that was given to them at birth. Therefore, a story line outside their polaroid snapshot of only those who were able to fit into their family picture, is a foreign story and therefore a story to be ignored. But, when those other story lines cannot be ignored because they are filled with the lives of neighbors and fellow citizens and those longing to a part of the melting pot of this country, the alt-f(right) freaks out. They gnash their teeth. They try to tell us and show us how strong they are but their fear-filled emperor has not clothes.
The alt-f(right) and the christian f(right) are unable to see the coming of that peaceable reign of life that is referred to as the Holy City coming down to earth in John's apocalypse. They are blind to the creativity of God who takes humanity - the whole spectrum of folks who often do not even look or act as though we are one people - and they attempt to demonize those who are created in the image of God's Peaceable Reign - but not their image. The f(right) must be nurtured into a life in which we need not fear - we need to touch and love and welcome and listen and share and offer up out lives so that the other may live in peace with us - as one of us. To resist fear we must be present with open arms. That is not easy - that has even proven to be dangerous - that can be life-changing for all sides.
It is not easy to resist a world built by those who can only hear and live by stories from the far f(right). The risk can be great. In addition, it may even mean confronting those who claim to be the opposite of the devotees of the world of f(right). Yet within their multicultural - open arms posture - and rants (like mine) they still find that f(right) finds a way into our living and talking and condemning.
To resist the f(right) that longs to rule all of us - takes work. It is work that demands our attention every day - listening again and again - saying yes and saying no - offering something new when we are living as people content with what has been. I do not want our country to be run by people who cannot see beyond their skin color or ethnic background or cultural patterns or the way they think it has always been (which is usually a non truth). That, takes work. I find it also means we live within the realm of promise not one of control. Damn, that's hard. Yet we are meant to put our whole humanity into it so that we will become (all of us) truly human. For many of us, it is almost impossible to do that - yet we must.
TRRR
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