The people who confronted white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia last Saturday drew on a truth that is more powerful than hate and a faith that the end of the story is not violence but love and life and their persistent victory.
This is a dark time in our country. But this is also exactly the moment our scriptures, our world of symbols and rituals and practices of life-dealing, our moral compasses—imbued deep into our heart and gut—were given to us to address. We have been prepared all our lives for it and we have everything we need to respond. I saw proof in the caretakers: medics; "care bears" dispensing water and food; street performers who inspired and even, miraculously, made us laugh; people who looked out for one another with gentleness; and cafés that stayed open as safe spaces and offered free food and beverage to those who needed it.
I saw it in the people who protected others with their bodies: a man who pushed his fiancée out of the way and was subsequently hit by the car that killed a woman and injured many others; police officers who stayed calm and helped de-escalate tensions; anti-fascists who went to the frontlines and were beaten protecting clergy and others. I saw it in the black and brown people who—with a courage I cannot even begin to fathom—showed up in peace, defiant in love and committed to nonviolence, unarmed and unarmored, in the face of abuse. And I saw it in my Jewish and Muslim clergy and lay colleagues who wore kippah and abaya—visible symbols of their faith that hardly gave them the kind of protection afforded by the collar I wear as a Christian minister.
In my day job with the U.S. Institute of Peace, I work overseas in places like Iraq and Myanmar where extremist groups create entire worlds out of symbols, rituals, and ideas; worlds of meaning that fuel anger and narratives of victimhood, dehumanization of the other, and existential threat that are the breeding ground for violence against others; worlds of meaning that empower them with a zeal of false righteousness. I saw those same things on display when I was in Charlottesville last Saturday: flags and shields covered in symbols of hate that draw on and further build up false temples of death-dealing. They came to terrorize a community for daring to threaten one of their symbols, a statue.
I feel a righteous anger today. I don't believe our president created this resurgence of white supremacy. It was resurging long before his ascension to power. But I do believe he fanned the flames of a fire he cannot control, and he did it flippantly. He advocated violence. He courted supremacists. He directly quoted some of those mantras of hate these groups have peddled, not fully understanding, or caring, that words have the power to create and destroy our world, as the Book of Genesis teaches us.
But remember: intertwined with the white supremacy that was written into the Constitution and commemorated with symbols, statues, slogans are the ideals of equality, justice, and a recognition of the dignity and goodness of all people. Don't forget that those ideals were on display in Charlottesville as well in the caretakers, the prophets, the peacemakers, the voices and bodies of love, defending one another, defending our country, serving our country at risk of death. This is also the story of America.
There was evil present in Charlottesville last Saturday, but human beauty and goodness as well. That's where this whole story will end: with goodness triumphant. Have faith in that good news, and then do the work to make it so.
Rev. Susan Hayward, MDiv ’07, is director of religion and peacebuilding at the United States Institute of Peace and a minister in the United Church of Christ.