The Language of the Unheard

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want the rain without the thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand.

(Frederick Douglass, former slave and abolition leader)

Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

(Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

During these extraordinary days when racism is being exposed and challenged by demonstrations reflecting the truth that “Black Lives Matter,” Trump, his rabid followers, and (let’s be honest) many Whites have focused on the rioting that has accompanied some of the demonstrations. However, the truth about this rioting must be acknowledged. 

1. Most of the demonstrations have been peaceful and are an expression of the right of Americans to peaceable assembly which is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution. 
2. Much of the violence has been at the hands of the police and has been ordered by government officials. (for example, the violence directed against peaceful demonstrators by the police so that Trump could appear before a church holding a Bible)
3. Some of the violence has been perpetrated by right-wing racists who have infiltrated these demonstrations with the goal of creating the impression that those protesting police brutality are violent anarchists. Even today we hear about armed guerrilla groups “overseeing” peaceful, Black Lives Matter demonstrations. 
4. Some of the violence has been the result of greed and opportunism. 
5. But in light of the quotes above from Frederick Douglas and Dr. King, we must ask how much of the rioting is “the language and voice of the unheard.” How much of the violence is the result of our leadership and privileged Americans (almost all of whom are White) refusing to listen to the voice of the oppressed? 
6. If American history were reversed and Whites had suffered injustices and prejudice for four hundred years (slavery, Jim Crow, “Separate but Equal,” wages that are intentionally kept low, generational poverty rooted in the systematic and intentional denial of rights and opportunities, substandard education and housing, little access to adequate medical care, voter suppression, harassment and beatings by racist police, and lynchings), I would suggest that Whites would be out in the streets by the tens of millions expressing their outrage with every means possible, including violence.

I have always been amused and sometimes troubled at how many Americans have never read “The Declaration of Independence.” Parts of the document constitute some of the most radical and revolutionary ideas in the history of humankind. The second paragraph of that great document reads as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed  by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness. 

How many of us have ever contemplated these words and their implications? When the government does not secure the unalienable rights that all humans are created equal, the people have the right to overthrow that government. Our Forefathers went to war in a rebellion against a government they felt was oppressing them. The Boston Tea Party, one of the first riots in our nation’s history, is a celebrated event in our culture. All revolutions are illegal—unless and until they are successful, and then they become events worthy of fireworks, speeches, and military bands. 

Unfortunately, the framers of the Constitution of the United States compromised and, in some cases, abandoned the radical sentiments and propositions of their earlier Declaration of Independence.

Unfortunately, the framers of the Constitution of the United States compromised and, in some cases, abandoned the radical sentiments and propositions of their earlier Declaration of Independence. Five groups were disenfranchised by the new nation’s Constitution: slaves, Blacks who were not slaves, First Nations people, women, and the poor. Evidently, some (if not most) of those framers applied the idea of unalienable rights primarily to the wealthy White landowners and prominent business leaders. The “more perfect union” they started had, and still has, a long way to go to allow for the securing of unalienable rights for all people. 

Historically, those who have suffered the most from this denial of basic rights have been people of color—Native Americans, Blacks, Latinx, and Asians. Racism has been called “the original sin of America.” According to the Scriptures, we are called to repentance in the face of our sin. But sadly, the United States has never genuinely, sincerely, and practically repented from this single horrific fact regarding its founding: this country was built on the genocide of one race and the enslavement of another race. That’s one of the main reasons we have not been able to move beyond the sin of racism which has infected and marred this experiment in democracy since its conception in 1776. Racism has always served the hidden (but very real and cruel) intention of creating a society where one group can monopolize economic and political power. And as Douglas reminds us, such power will never concede anything until it is forced to do so. 

Perhaps it’s too late for reform.
What we probably need is transformation.

Consequently, we continue to live in a society which does not allow for equal rights and opportunities for all its citizens. There have been some improvements, but every step forward in fulfilling the promise of the Declaration of Independence for all Americans has occurred through great sacrifice and suffering. And even with those steps, as important as they are, the powers that be always find loopholes, legislate clever ways of disenfranchising, and spread insidious propaganda which panders to the fears and prejudices of White majorities. The reform of our broken system can never take place until we realize that from the very beginning, our experiment in democracy (for economic and political reasons) has required groups of people to be disenfranchised and to be denied the freedoms and opportunities Whites have always assumed. Perhaps it’s too late for reform. What we probably need is transformation. And transformation is always a form of revolution. Whether that revolution will be peaceful or catastrophic is our choice.