Guest commentary by Carlton D. Johnson
As we approach the first of the summer holidays, the air of anticipated days of relaxation and backyard barbeque bliss is so thick you can cut it with a steak knife. Nothing is more inviting than the opportunity to look at your place of departure in the review mirror of a convertible or beneath you as you fly away to blue waters and sandy beaches, even if only for a weekend. Some will host parties. Some will ignite private firework shows in their driveways; others will choose larger public shows.
And perhaps, amidst the celebration, many will choose to put the heaviness of recent events behind them. The domestic terrorist attack on the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where nine African-American parishioners were killed would be wonderful to forget, at least for a while. It would be a relief to have a weekend to abandon thoughts of the hundreds of African-Americans killed by law enforcement officials in the most recent decade. Wouldn’t it?
But, I must ask, why? Specifically, what is behind this need for expedient mourning? The forgiveness of the individual that attacked the congregation at Emmanuel AME was widely celebrated. What drives such exuberant appreciation of fast forgiveness?
I must say that, though I know many who will take the route of “leaving it all behind” this weekend, I will not be among them.
A time to mourn
I agree with Koheleth, the indicated author of the Book of Ecclesiastes, that since all lives – no matter how world-renowned or anonymous – end in death, one should take time to eat, drink, and be merry (Ecclesiastes 8:15). However, during this July 4th weekend, I will take time for what Koheleth recognized in a preceding verse as “a time to mourn.”
In prior years, I have taken the July 4th weekend as a one of quiet reflection, contemplation and planning. This year, I will also make space for mourning.
I was driven to my particular observation of the July 4th weekend much like Fredrick Douglass when invited to address a gathering at New York’s Rochester’s Corinthian Hall on July 5, 1852. There, Douglass asked:
What, to the slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.
Annually, since 1776, July 4th has been set aside to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America from rule by Great Britain. At the 1852 occasion, as reflected in his speech, Douglass pondered, why would he or any other African-American celebrate this event with other Americans? The fight for freedom had not rendered him free at all.
I am certain that a tear dropped from Douglass’ eye when he remembered slave ship captains who, as acknowledged Christians, before bringing his ancestors to this country, would rape and sodomize them in the slave castles of Elmina and Cote d’Ivoire on the Gold Coast of Africa immediately following worship services in adjacent chapels. I am positive that Douglass’ muscles tensed painfully as he mourned the many brothers and sisters he had lost beneath America’s problem with race. I am sure that Douglass’ stomach wrenched as he considered his hosts’ patriotism, which they viewed as something of religion in which allegiance to a flag mattered more than the bodies of enslaved Africans.
In the eloquent eulogy of slain South Carolina senator, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, President Barack Obama, expressed a very similar and touching concern:
For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, now acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride. For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation.
By the time this article is read, the funerals will be behind us and many states will be removing the decades old symbol of hatred and oppression, the Confederate flag, from their grounds. Yet, it will still be time to mourn.
Infinite forgiveness?
With the execution of twice as many women as men in the massacre at Mother Emmanuel, Dylann Storm Roof’s expressed concern about the rape of white women by African-Americans was rendered invalid. Some have even speculated that Pinckney was his sole target because of his well-known and dynamic voice of civil rights – and that the others were casualties. The fact that the crime occurred over 100 miles from Roof’s home and on the anniversary of church co-founder Denmark Vesey’s execution suggests strongly that the ninth grade drop out did not act alone and that it was not isolated. The burning of seven African-American churches in less than a week following the shootings is evidence of some larger activity worthy of investigation. The one thing that is certain is that nine innocent people were killed while in the very acts of hospitality, love, study and worship that Christianity prescribes. And, though the perpetrator was later captured, the killer is still on the loose.
In the ensuing days, social media photos, interviews with friends and family members and a self-composed manifesto informed us all of his radical hate and premeditated intentions. Though Roof admitted to the murders, he has yet to make a request for pardon or forgiveness. Again, the perpetrator was captured, but the killer is still on the loose.
Within hours of the terrorist’s attack, members of Emmanuel AME and the local community gathered for prayer. On the day of Roof’s first court appearance, members of the church and of the families of the slain victims were there to verbalize immediate forgiveness for the crimes and the hurt Roof caused.
The forgiving acts of the families of the slain members of Emmanuel AME are not to be misunderstood. Their forgiveness was not entirely for Roof; it was for themselves.
As the immortal Martin Luther King Jr. declared, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” In the book of Matthew, Jesus taught that the number of times that forgiveness should be given is infinite and, in the Lord’s Prayer, he stated that forgiveness of others should precede our own request for forgiveness by God.
Notwithstanding this observation, I still have great concern around the celebrated rush to “forgive and move on.” To make some sense of it, I gathered several artifacts. The first is this narrative that came loaded aboard transatlantic slave ships that suggested that African people were without the capacity to feel. They were certainly not capable of feeling as deeply as their white captors. The introduction of Christianity to these people, who were (erroneously) believed to be without a God, included an understanding of their being as what Riggins J. Earl Jr. calls “soulless bodies and bodiless souls” (From “Dark Symbols, Obscure Signs”). The accepted missionary maxim and evangelical epitome was the saving of their souls because their black bodies were worthless and unfit for entry into heaven. Further, native and innate to these “docile beings”, both male and female, was a disproportionate ability to nurture, to love, and to forgive those who abused them (according to Curtis J. Evans in “The Burden of Black Religion”).
The next matter, intimately intertwined with the first, is the notion that African descendent people should quickly forget all acts of violence enacted upon them. From the earliest days of my own education, history teachers informed us of the need to remember the Alamo, remember Pearl Harbor, remember the Jewish Holocaust and, in recent years, remember 9/11. The United States government has spent millions to ensure recall of those tragic events for decades and centuries to come. Yet, when the topic of the 400 years of the enslavement of Africans and their descendants is the topic of the hour, when the subject of the horrific deaths of millions on the middle passage to the Americas is broached, when the atrocities of the antebellum South and Jim and Jane Crow are engaged, the immediate request is that “we’re beyond that now, let’s get over it, and move on.”
The final, most profound matter, and specific to the Mother Emmanuel case, is the expectation of forgiveness in the absence of Roof’s request for it. Not even God does that!!! According to 2 Chronicles 7:14, God’s prerequisite for forgiveness includes, among other things, a humbling and turning from one’s wicked ways. The text says, “Then will God forgive.” Jesus likewise required forgiveness of the sinner only after repentance (Luke 17:3). Again, the idea of fast forgiveness by African descendent people follows the idea that these extraordinary people have somehow been endowed with the capacity to withstand unprecedented torture and forgive without reparations.
Perhaps the expectation that African-Americans forgive quickly is found in our history of doing so. Yet, it is not true that we were given a greater measure of the ability to forgive than any other people. The truth of oppressed people is that we always look into the eyes and hearts of others and see ourselves. There, we see the oppressor’s humanity. There we see the opportunity for mercy with a hope that if we were guilty of such evil that we would be treated as a human.
Just as fast forgiveness fails the test of biblical instruction, so also does the notion of “expedient mourning.” Though it lines up perfectly with the idea of the soulless body, there are numerous biblical premises for “time to weep and time to mourn” (Ecclesiastes 3:4).
Much of the first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah (Proto-Isaiah) is dedicated to the expression of the deep sorrow of the Babylonian captives. Jeremiah and Lamentations include more than a fair share of mourning and grief. Last, but not least, is the corpus of communal laments found in the book of Psalms. Collectively, these references suggest that God provides and honors space for lament.
Where does the idea of expedient mourning come from?
Is it possible that, in those cases when a dominant culture has by intent or neglect caused great calamity to others, the needs of their conscious are met when the impacted group ceases in mourning? Are they relieved when they no longer hear the deep and wrenching cries of those who cannot be comforted in their loss?
If so, in a lecture at First African Presbyterian Church in Lithonia, Georgia Itihari Toure proposed, “mourning is a tool of resistance and grieving is a form of active protest.” Like Rachel in the book of Jeremiah, African-Americans have suffered a great loss with the tragedy at Emmanuel AME, many on a very personal level. Moreover, and according to one source, since 2012, at least every 28 hours someone employed or protected by the United States government killed a black man, woman or child. Amidst such ongoing death and tragedy, like Rachel, and as an act of protest, we are free to refuse to be comforted.
Space to lament
So, if in fact, you want to show compassion African-Americans impacted by the events of the past two weeks, of the past ten years, of the past four centuries, relieve us of the pressure to forgive quickly and give us space to lament.
And know that in our mourning, our focus goes beyond Dylann Roof, George Zimmerman, Darren Wilson and the long list of other perpetrators that have been captured and tried (however unsuccessfully). Our focus is on the real killer that is still on the loose, racism.
The force of racism
Racism is a kingpin that will continue to slip through our fingers as long as we continue to allow smaller criminals like the so-called war on drugs and concerns for gun control to deflect us from focusing our attention. Racism is a force that will continue to gain strength as long as weapons of mass distraction – like the identity of Rachel Dolezal – are allowed to shift our attention even temporarily.
Racism is an issue that America refuses to confront. In 1903, in his seminal work The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois identified the problem of the 20th century as the color line. One hundred and twelve years later, it is still the problem. Yet, America has still not devoted adequate resource to its eradication. And the church, which proclaims the radical revolutionary love of Christ and a devotion to God’s justice, has, at best, only numbered racism among it’s determined list of issues “to be addressed.” When will the church make racism a priority? I pray that it is soon.
The problem of expedient mourning
Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary, one of the 10 theological institutions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and the only historically African-American one, has taken notice of the problem of expedient mourning. In response, the school has embarked upon a construct for creative space for lament. We are excited about the opportunity to share this development in the near future.
In the meantime, I will say no to July 4th barbeques. No to pool parties and no to family vacations. I cannot celebrate your July 4th. During the July 4th weekend, I will lament, I will grieve, and I will mourn for those who have died, for those who must live in under these tragic racist conditions and for those yet unborn.
CARLTON DAVID JOHNSON serves as an associate minister at the First African Presbyterian Church in Lithonia, Georgia. A native of Atlanta, throughout his life, he has maintained an intimate concern for the disenfranchised among the people of God, especially young African-American males. He has not only worked diligently in the outreach ministries of the church, but has also given himself to mentorship with the United States National Guard Youth Challenge Academy and the national programs of his beloved Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
