Be Not Discouraged

Charlottesville represents Steve Bannon's dream.  All along, he's hoped to spark a kind of race war, maybe a culture war, and tonight he's seen it all come true.  Bring this fight to TV screens everywhere--and stir racist rage in towns and churches all over the land.  Stoke the fears of struggling folks--fighting for their lives in an economy rigged for the real estate barons of NYC and the golf club clientele of Florida--and turn their hearts against any color, every color, people of color.  Make it a race war.  Make it a class war.  White guys driving cars into crowds.  Iconic statues at risk.  Put it on TV. 

The point of all this--for Bannon and his President--is distraction and deflection.  The real threat to struggling folks, middle class folks is Trump himself, and the economic interests he champions.  The very, very rich.  The privileged investor class.  The oligarchs who buy and sell, and buy and sell.  They don't want us talking about this.  Trump and Bannon, McConnell and Ryan: they don't want us talking about the real threat.

So.  Play to racism.  Play to bigotry.  Play to fear and xenophobia.  That's Steve Bannon's big vision.  Turn the struggling middle class, the vulnerable working class against people of color.  Convince them that immigrants are the problem.  Convince them that Barack Obama's the problem.  Every woman wearing hijab is the problem.  And watch them go to war. 

His President's comments, earlier this afternoon, reflect Bannon's allegiance and Trump's ambition.  They're quite happy denouncing violence "on all sides"--as if racism and slavery balance out something sinister among civil rights activists and human rights advocates and immigration defenders.  They're satisfied so long as CNN and MSNBC and FOX make this into a race war--and ignore the economic war the privileged wage every day on the working people of this country. 

But we are not fooled.  We will not be fooled.  Thank God for the prophets who remind us who we are, who we can be, who we must be.  Thank God for Otis Moss III.

Whiteness is their "God"
Privilege is their icon
Rage is their prayer life
Supremacy is their heaven

Be not discouraged
Love is the manifestation of God
Justice is Love's spouse
And Liberation is their child

We will not be discouraged.  We will not be discouraged tonight.  We will not be discouraged tomorrow.  We will rise up to love.  We will rise up to resist.  We will rise up to pursue justice.

Only justice--economic justice, racial justice, democracy for all--will heal America.  The work goes on.