Divide and Conquer – Divide et Impera
This phrase is attributed to Julius Caesar, although in Latin it meant divide and rule, which is probably just as accurate in this day and time. I have been a bit overwhelmed recently by Black Lives Matter and all its ramifications. I get it. The horrid murders committed in Minneapolis, Sacramento, Atlanta and elsewhere should raise the ire of every person of conscience. I also know there are those who are societally ignorant who dismiss all that is going on as inappropriate extremism and radicalism. There is no question the cause of Black Lives Matter is of long duration and righteous. I was there in the protests of the 60s, 70s and 80s. I recognize those efforts never finished the work needed.
What worries me, however, in these current struggles is a sense of divisiveness and separation. I can hear the gloat of Trumpians and their ilk relishing the idea such vocally separatist ideology will eventually consume its own. Today, along with Blacks, there are Browns suffering from systemic racism. And don’t Native Americans have even more right to complain about white privilege. Haven’t they suffered egregious misdeeds under the aegis of eurocentric white power for an even longer duration. While the president (and it is lower case on purpose) has been blaming everyone else for his great sulk into national purgatory, he has singled out China to blame for Covid and our economic plight, thus fomenting crimes against Asians of any ancestry. Daily, they are spit on, cursed at and physically harmed by the haters in our world and it continues occurring with every new presidential utterance.
More, what neighborhood, teacher, parent of a young child, or student hasn’t spent time in fear for their lives after all the killings in the last five years at the hands of white, right-wing adults and teens. Is there a Protestant or Catholic in Ireland who wasn’t impacted by the decades of slaughter and mayhem?
Is there a Rwandan Tutsi who hasn’t suffered under the genocide of the Hutus; Jews at the hands of the Nazis, Palestinians in Israel, women by misogynistic men? Strange fruit, as the song called out, comes in many varieties, shades and colors. Death has visited all those corridors.
It, at the core, isn’t about color. It is about the in-powered and the powerless. Ask the Tutsi if the tortures, slaughters, rapes and murders are a function of white privilege? It is the power-privileged preserving their power by diminishing those easily separated out and isolated. It is about pointing a finger of blame and declaring that all troubles are because of those people – who are a different race, a perverted religion, from a shithole country, are stealing your jobs, are bringing drugs in, are less than, want to rape you mothers and daughters, are trying to take over. They are the ones; it’s their fault; they deserve it and they has no color it is only that they have no power and can be easily targeted, trampled on, and destroyed.
My worry is we make room for more divisiveness when the powerless willingly divide ourselves into factions of need. Does one desperation deserve more attention than another. Shouldn’t all those disfigured, dismembered, and disenfranchised disentangle old biases and stand together.
There was an amazing moment at one of the rallies of recent weeks when the cry out shifted from Black Lives Matter to Walk with Us. The Chief of Police in that community did just that, he walked with his community. He actually served his community. Yesterday, the Supreme Court declared it was illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Even the conservative court declared we should be walking in unison.
The hew and cry, Walk with Us, should have been picked up at every rally. Walk with Us should be the call to arms of this generation’s efforts, walk together in lock step to say oppression in any form, of any people, of any person of any color who is powerless is unacceptable, is unconscionable and will fall before a public undivided.
Walk with Me and I Will Stand with You.