[Vision2020] "The Nation" article

[keely emerinemix]

Visionaires,

If some of you got something similar to this yesterday, my apologies -- 
somehow, "send" and "cancel" collided . . .

I urge all of you to get ahold of this week's issue of "The Nation," which 
features an article called "Racism Rebooted."  It discusses the 
socio-political climate of the South 40 years ago when Edgar Killen 
organized the mob who murdered Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman.  Given that 
religion permeates every cultural institution in today's South, just as it 
always has, it seems fair to say that the socio-political climate was 
largely due to religious influences, at least until the mid-20th century.

In this case, however, the religion appears to have been a pseudo-Christian 
exercise in hierarchy, violence, patriarchy, and bigotry that some would 
nonetheless enshrine as an example of a Biblical "city on a hill," a model 
of koinoneia or Christian community that would symbolize the eternal virtue 
of Christ's kingdom.  Contented, Christianized slaves; fulfilled, submissive 
Christian ladies; cheerful, obedient children; benevolent "men of chest" who 
made sure everyone conformed to their place in the social and familial 
hierarchy -- and the faces of the poor ground into the dust, their bodies 
hanging from trees as those who would extend themselves to free them are 
hunted like dogs.

This privileged, white Christian woman is ashamed for those who would extol 
the South of the mid-1800s or of the mid-1900s as a picture or foretaste of 
the reign of Jesus Christ.  The simple pleasures, mutual affection and 
harmonious relationships of Christian fellowship are true.  The idea that 
such exists between the oppressed and their oppressors is a lie originating 
from a place way, way further south and a whole lot hotter than 
Philadelphia, Mississippi.

If anyone wants a copy but can't afford to buy this issue, contact me 
off-list and I'll buy it.  It's that important.

keely emerine mix

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