It's the End of the World As We Know It

by

No amount of Antiracism training and diversity book club discussions will fix what is core to the display of unfettered white supremacy that has been building for years and that reached an inflection point today.

The world is changing -institutions are crumbling, economies imploding and power systems shifting. There is no going back, my friends. COVID-19, a global racial uprising, and now the clear instability of this failed experiment called democracy are testaments to that. And none of these destabilizing events has reached its peak or its natural conclusion. There is more for us to learn.

We are witnessing the trauma and anxiety of a nation coming to grips with the fact that the principles of whiteness, cis-hetero patriarchy and settler/colonial capitalism that fuels it are unsustainable and dying. And because we are uncomfortable as a culture with the idea and process of death and dying, we cling, clutch, and plead for alternative narratives that we believe will “save” us.

One of the most powerful ideas I’ve heard today surprisingly came from Mitt Romney. The only way to honor ourselves is to embrace the truth. Our political system is broken and does not serve the common good. It has been an effective mechanism for inducing or lessening the pain of various people groups as the pendulum of power swings between ideological poles. But systems based on winners and losers, the haves and the have nots, the power- full and the power- less are never truly in service to humanity or the earth we inhabit. Our religious institutions are in the throes of the death process. The malignancies of division, irrelevance and fear are so pervasive that recovery is not likely nor should it be desired. Spiritual Community (of all faiths and belief systems) however, where love, service and communion with the Divine prevail will continue. People are isolated, vulnerable and looking for change. The anger, rage, sadness and despair that is being felt by everyone is understandable (even when I don’t understand it) and wholly related to the epochal transition we are undergoing.

After the 2016 presidential election Valerie Kaur uttered these powerful words:

  • But my faith dares me to ask-
  • What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?
  • What if our America is not dead but a country still waiting to be born? What if the story of America is one long labor?

I believe that it isn’t either/or, it’s a both/and. This moment in our nation is both of tomb and womb, of letting go and letting come. It’s time to face the truth that what has existed in the past doesn’t work now and there is no going back. So perhaps it’s time to press the pause button on your diversity training and close what is probably the umpeenth book you’ve read on racism and go within. Do some deep inner excavation work on the parts within you or your community that reflect the things in our society that you most abhor. Create spaces for dialogue and accountability about that. Only then will we find the courage to let go and the faith to let come.

And after you’ve stopped clinging to what’s normal and comfortable and entirely unessential and have grieved the loss (whatever that may be for you) then and only then will we have marshaled the spiritual and emotional maturity needed to birth a new America. Until then... buckle up buttercup! It’s going to be a bumpy ride. The future in our hands. No pundit, politician or pastor can do this work for us.

Erin M. Hawkins is the immediate past executive of the United Methodist General Commission on Religion & Race. This post is republished with permission from her Facebook page.