A Reflection from The Rev. David Hoster
Dear People of St. James’,
Nobody understands the need for basic human respect better than those who have been profoundly disrespected. Nobody understands democracy more than those who have been denied their democratic right to vote. Nobody understands justice better than those who have been denied justice.
All of these things have been true for a long time our country, and they are still true today. We live in a time when powerful voices in our country denigrate the call for respect across racial lines as mere “political correctness,” as though a simple appeal for basic human respect is a political plot to deny free speech to people who bask in insult culture. We live in a time when the right to vote is challenged or denied through a myriad of maneuvers, small and large, subtle or obvious. We live in a time when the demand for justice is met by camouflaged, unbadged and unidentified federal agents authorized to beat and gas people for exercising their right to assemble.
Respect, democracy and justice are values that must prevail in the conduct of those of us who face disrespect, cheating and, sometimes, even physical violence. Dr. King was absolutely unyielding in his conviction that the civil rights movement needed to redeem white people as well as victimized minorities. What was true in the ‘sixties is still true today. It is only by bearing witness to the value of these fundamental units of goodness—respect, democracy and justice—that we can possible hope to win over the souls of those who would deny them to others.
The task is daunting. Robin DiAngelo writes, “Given how seldom we [white people] experience racial discomfort in a society we dominate, we haven’t had to build our racial stamina.” What we see in the multifarious attacks on respect, democracy and justice are people exceptionally lacking in racial and moral stamina.
Masking failure of moral stamina behind intimidating symbols is a confession of inadequacy. The man my son witnessed in a drug store in Washington state without a mask, carrying an AR-15, bullying a beleaguered checkout clerk about his masking rights, shows not strength, but weakness. The need to cheat using voter rolls and registration is not strength but an admission of increasing political impotence. An economy that puts more and more wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people is a brittle, ungrounded economy.
People such as these are out of ideas. They are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. They are in their end times.
Respect, democracy and justice are ideas that have only grown in strength and stamina among people who have been denied them. They call us out of ourselves to a higher vision. They connect people to one another in an unbreakable chain. These are ideas that stand a chance of winning weakened people over to the side of moral strength. America’s founding fathers believed in them and stood together to accomplish a miraculous revolution. The people who have been denied respect, democracy and justice understand their value better than anybody, and are able to stand together and accomplish similarly great things.
Weak people, however, remain profoundly dangerous. They are willing to act without moral restraint. Much pain yet lies ahead. The fate of our country is not settled. We could be in a time when the emptiness of disrespect, authoritarianism and injustice simply out-muscle the people who care about values. Yet one thing is certain. If the people who understand the value of respect, democracy and justice fail to hold them fast, then we, too, have joined the company of the weak. Thus…
Keep us forever in the path, we pray,
lest our feet stray from the places,
our God, where we met thee,
lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world,
we forget thee.
Shadowed beneath thy hand,
may we forever stand,
true to our God,
true to our native land.”
So may we stand. Together. For respect, for democracy and for justice.
The Rev. David Hoster
