Gratitude Monday: Solidarity

I confess that I’m at a bit of a loss for Gratitude Monday today. The world spent the weekend watching American cities roil with rage against systemic racism, seeing cops arresting and shooting (rubber bullets) at credentialed journalists and firing tear grenades at peaceful protesters, witnessing white right-wing extremist agents provocateurs breaking commercial windows and urging protesters to loot, and listening to Cadet Bonespurs bluster at NASA about what he will or will not tolerate.

More than Motor City’s burning, folks; shit’s real for sure.

It’s like I’m reliving 1968, only via the internet instead of B&W TV. We’re 52 years on from Martin and Bobby, and 28 from Rodney King and we haven’t moved discernibly forward. We've got police riots all over the country.

Well, there was a moment, in Minneapolis, where Mennonites showed up in solidarity with the protestors, and I was reminded of the Catholic priests at the forefront of civil rights marches, and of the Quakers who held silent vigil outside the main Post Office in Pasadena every Wednesday for years to protest the Vietnam War.

I was also reminded of a quote by the late-Nineteenth Century Irish professor G.F. Fitzgerald—it was about Britain’s Irish “problem”, but swap out White America for England, and Black America for the Irish, and it seems pretty damned appropriate for these days.

“England, as we all know, never understands Ireland; the English are a dull people compared to the Irish, and require a tremendous row before than can be moved to do anything. Then, after we have blown up Clerkenwell Prison, or something of that sort, England rubs her hands and says, ‘the Irish want something,’ and flings us a new pair of shoes. The shoes, as a rule, don’t happen to fit us, and when we still grumble she gets angry and sais, ‘They are a good pair of shoes, and it is your own fault if they don’t fit; you are a most ungrateful, provoking creature, never satisfied,’ and turns back to her own business till we make another row.”

Well, chew on that, if you like. Today I’m grateful for the Mennonites showing up in peace and support. We need tens off thousands more of White America to show up and march with our brothers and sisters of color, or this is never going to change.