Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

suspended in her jar

Home
Catholic
We Owe The Covington Catholic Students An Apology

We Owe The Covington Catholic Students An Apology

Last updated on: January 24, 2019 at 12:17 am by Rebecca Bratten Weiss

We Owe The Covington Catholic Students An Apology 2019-01-24T00:17:54-04:00 Rebecca Bratten Weiss

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

“Can’t we just drop it?” people ask.

Well, we could. The problem is, the story has reverberated beyond the initial encounter, so that it is now not so much about what happened in a particular complex cultural situation, and more about broad perceptions and the shaping of narratives.

And because of this, we owe the young white men in the video an apology.

No, I never doxxed, threatened, or called for violence against these young men. And I denounce the actions of those who did so, even if they were motivated by zeal for racial justice. Having just celebrated Martin Luther King Day, we have been reminded that hate can not drive out hate; only love can do that.

But, if we’ve been paying attention, we’ve also been reminded that the roots of racial injustice are deep, and its repercussions widespread. We’ve probably been reminded that as white people we too are complicit in structures of injustice even if we never intended to be – and that we have a moral responsibility to change that. Opposing hatred with love is not about free hugs, or avoiding conflict, or even always about dialogue – because there can be no dialogue where trust has been eroded by years of abuse, or where there is not good faith.

The immediate and visceral response which led to the demonization of this group of young men has been called “scapegoating” by many of their defenders. And their defenders are correct, in a way they perhaps to not intend: we have been scapegoating the young white men as sacrificial victims to atone for our own structural sins of racism, white supremacy, and colonialism, which we continue to perpetuate and which contribute to the actions and presuppositions of our young people.

Consider the way we think about our “right” to the land, to the extent that we justify violence against immigrants. We do this forgetting that if we live in this nation and are white, our ancestors were immigrants themselves, many of them coming over and appropriating native lands. If we think that this is not problematic, it’s because we’ve bought into white supremacist doctrines according to which we had a right to seize land from the “inferior” or “savage” Other. People who are angry because protesters told the white men “go back to Europe” need to ask themselves how they can object to this while at the same time thinking refugees have no right to come here onto “our” land.

Consider the way our history and literature are taught. How many people, reading the Little House on the Prairie books, noticed that the Ingalls family was essentially trespassing on native land, and that the objections of the indigenous peoples were portrayed as terrifying incursions on innocent white families? And this is just one of many instances. From Columbus to the present, we have sanitized stories of violent exploitation to justify the white Europeans. Christians don’t help when they justify colonization as missionary work, and brush aside atrocities with “well, at least we brought them Christianity.”

Our pop culture and entertainment don’t help. From old westerns to kids’ cartoons, the “Indian” is portrayed as anything from a menace to a figure of fun. Indian dances and chants have been presented, not as sacred ritual, but as goofy tribal behavior which white folks can participate in for our own entertainment, if we so desire.

Even stories seemingly sympathetic to indigenous peoples are white-centric. The white man goes among the natives and gets a native name, native glory, native weapons. Oh, and a native woman: because non-white and indigenous women are repeatedly hyper-sexualized and viewed as prizes for the white conqueror.

The fashion world has trespassed on native aesthetics and even sacred dress, simply in order to make money for white-owned corporations, and glamorize white women. The sports world has appropriated native imagery and caricatured indigenous persons, for amusement and for money.

We privilege our religious freedom in a culture in which we have stolen sacred lands from native peoples, and are scandalized at the idea that an Indian man might have attempted to get into one of our opulent churches, while we mock his own prayer rituals. We privilege white voices, so that it is always the white person who will be believed over the native person, or person of color. We don’t even bother to find out why Nathan Phillips and other native persons were present in D.C. that day.

What I found myself focusing on the most, in the past few days, was the way too many of my fellow-Catholics tend to speak about indigenous persons. I followed a few threads on different social media pages, and saw people revile Phillips’ prayers as “satanic.” I saw people call him a dirty old Indian. And even when the racism was not overt, I encountered widespread suspicion of the fact that he was a native activist – as though only white people are allowed to do marches and attend protests. And underlying so many statements, the assumption that an elderly native man must automatically be a threatening figure – even to a young man surrounded by fifty of his peers, with white adults on the sidelines.

This is the world we have grown up in, the air we breathe. We easily go through our lives accepting certain prejudices because we’ve never stepped outside our own circle and looked at things through the eyes of the Other. We appreciate native artifacts, relics, and art as though they are there for our tourist enjoyment. Which, it seems, is pretty much what the Covington Catholic boys were doing.

A minor incident in our nation’s capital has blown up into a major national debate, but for the most part our focus has been wrong, our fixation on a few poorly behaved young men brought up in a culture of white privilege and never given an opportunity to have their preconceptions challenged. Just like most of us, if we are white and middle-class.

Making this about the Covington Catholic students, instead of about a broader structural issue, allows us to avoid the responsibility we bear for re-shaping our deformed culture, in our schools, our churches, our businesses, and our media – as educators, as writers, as artists, as activists. As human beings.

Our nation committed genocide against native peoples, stole from them, abused them, enslaved them. In this context, we have a lot of work to do, and much of it is the work of atonement.

image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cherokee_Heritage_Center_-_Trail_of_Tears_plaque-rear_(2015-05-27_08.58.33_by_Wesley_Fryer).jpg

Previous Post

January 21, 2019

On Covington Catholic: Broader Context, More Factors, Still Problematic

Next Post

January 27, 2019 If We Were To Keep Silent: Holocaust Remembrance Day

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion anti-semitism art Atwood Betrothed church clergy abuse coronavirus culture economics education environmentalism ethics faith family feminism gardening gun violence immigration Judaism literature MaddAddam New Pro Life Movement news pandemic personalism poem politics politics blue Pope Francis racism religion salvation sexuality social justice spirituality Station eleven Stephen King The Stand Trump Uncategorized war World Health Organization

Select a Month March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How did Saul first offend God as king?

Select your answer to see how you score.

He defeated the Philistines He offered sacrifices himself He built an idol He took the Ark

Support this
Column