Josh
Whedon’s film "Much Ado About Nothing”
shown in theaters this summer offered Shakespeare’s sparkling language in the transparent
light of black and white camera work,
portraying the characters in both modern
dress and masquerades that conceal reality from them, offering the
compensation of also concealing their personal desires and motives.
There’s
a lot of that these days. Abandoning
prophetic warnings about injustice, faith communities are offering “Christianity Lite,” a personal fulfillment theology of
praise music, personal anecdote and success story. One senses an unease about this. Singing praise hymns delivers a fanciful sense of a
holiday illusion distracting people until the bills come in. The masquerades may not be working because people sense deeply ominous changes are afoot.
After eleven years
of war without meaningful victory, what Americans see today are drone air strikes killing dozens of children, American-sponsored torture,
suicide bombers emulated by the Boston marathon perpetrators. A long list includes Trayvon Martin and the stand-your-own-ground
laws, the anniversary of the March on Washington observed amid growing evidence of race-based
inequalities--and now more war imminent in Syria.
Americans stand on a knife’s edge sharpened by a faltering domestic economy (unemployment increased last month) and deluged
by a hostile Russian, Arab and Iranian world. The
question is whether despair will become surrender or give birth to resistance,
to an American Spring. Can that Spring
be pursued with a non-violence that surrenders nothing to determination? Will faith communities feed that moral resolve
or sing soft hymns?
In
the U. S. South, The Tea Party movement continues to resonate among evangelicals
and political opportunists as another “white hope” based on masquerades of so-called democracy and devotion to the Constitution. But the inequality gaps loom everywhere. According
to the Manpower Development Corporation:
- Median household income decreased in several Southern states: Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. However, only Florida and Louisiana had larger decreases in income than from 2009 to 2010.
- The poverty rate increased in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, South Carolina and Texas, with no significant change in the other Southern states. Only Louisiana had a worse increase than 2009 to 2010.
A personal walk on New York City's High Line last week (an urban
park built on an abandoned overhead rail line) found virtually no people of
color strolling among the plantings. At a Coney Island baseball game only a few
people of color were present. At a Broadway
theater the same week, just a few more. In
a city of 2 million African Americans, racial separation and economic
inequality is on the up-tick, ironically counterpointed with digital hand-helds everywhere.
The Trayvon Martin case is a relative of this
digital world. Yes, the case is about
race in America and its role in national electoral politics. Yes, it’s about the bias toward potential
injustice imposed by Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” laws. Less obvious, is the camouflage it provides
for the reality of today’s permanently isolated and jobless underclass.
Cormac
McCarthy’s 2007 novel, The Road, is
set in the aftermath of a vast nuclear disaster. He foretells a starving and cannibalizing world where roaming
gangs hunt down others to feed off their bodies. Note, please, that Mark Zimmerman’s role on a February evening last
winter was to hunt for the Trayvon Martins.
In the
next issue of Public Liturgies the
discussion will be about policies necessary to build a non-violent American Spring.
[A personal note: after a moderate illness and some Summer reflection Public Liturgies is back for the foreseeable future]
