American History

The Descendants of Slaves Have Much to Teach Us About Hope

Published on by Brynne VanHettinga

On the first Sunday of Advent, we light the first candle which symbolizes Hope. Hope in the Old Testament was the expectation of God’s promised Messiah and freedom from the bondage of Pharoah. Hope in the New Testament is the expectation of Jesus’ birth, and liberation from the domination of Rome. The candle represents the coming of light into a dark world, and each Advent candle provides additional light to dispel the increasing darkness with the approach of the year’s Longest Night. Winter is my least favorite season, but I have always loved Advent—the blues and purples in church, the Christmas carols, and (OK, admit it) all the baked goodies. But today, I feel more like Diogenes, wandering about aimlessly with a lantern in futile search of an honest man. Finding HOPE??? Forget about it!

Since the second election of Trump, I have felt like I have been trapped in a nightmare from which I cannot wake up. This has nothing to do with partisanship (I identify politically as an independent), but rather from witnessing the descent of the United States of America into the type of regime at which we formerly pointed the righteous finger of judgment. At the macro level, we are witnessing democracy, the rule of law and our Constitution (especially the First Amendment) being dismantled and shredded. At the mezzo, or intermediate level, people are being rounded up into gulag-style detention centers without due process. The Department of Justice has become a prosecutorial weapon against political enemies of the regime while real crimes against the public (committed by wealthy cronies) are pardoned. At the micro level, we are seeing our neighbors increasingly hungry, housing insecure, precariatized and fearful of the future.

On top of a near constant bombardment of lies, cruelty, hate, gaslighting, hypocrisy, greed, lawlessness and incompetence is the realization that a majority of American voters elected a malignant narcissist sociopath. Although one can argue that the first time Trump was elected by operation of the idiosyncrasies of an antiquated electoral system, he nonetheless commanded a substantial “movement” built upon a combination of legitimate populist economic grievance enmeshed in a form of tribal hatred (both real and manufactured). However, long before Trump descended the golden escalator in 2015, the combined forces of white supremacy, Christo-fascism (aka Christian Nationalism) and oligarchy were already strengthening their grip into a totalizing empire.

All the while my faith tradition preaches the gospel of hope. Unable to find hope anywhere, I despair of my own fecklessness and irrelevance—becoming convinced that I might even be deserving of the hell we are living in for failing to thwart it. At various points over the past 10 years, my wonderful sister has attempted to alleviate the hopelessness with arguments that things have been way worse in the past. We are admonished about the dangers of temporal egotism, or the worldview that one’s own time and place is existentially significant; e.g., the ever-recurring prophesies of “end times” that never seem to materialize within the lifetimes of the so-called “prophets.” But yet, even with the knowledge that prior times have been worse—material life was harder for everyone, a small wealthy class had a complete stranglehold on political, civic, and cultural life (much like today), women and slaves were deemed to be white man’s property, and African Americans were killed for the audacity to vote—it does little to bring comfort in the moment.

In the course of learning about America’s shameful history of slavery and white supremacy, I marvel at the ability of our African American brothers and sisters to maintain hope in dark times—not just over their own lifetimes, but across centuries and generations. Imagine that you are a slave in 1860. After 246 years of your people’s enslavement there is a war, and one day you are declared to be free. Slavery is abolished in 1865 (13th Amendment), you and anyone in your family that was born here are granted the full rights of citizenship in 1868 (14th Amendment), and now the full power of the federal government has been deployed against state authorities who would deprive you of your new right to vote in 1870 (15th Amendment).

With ownership of one’s own labor and the ability to participate in civic life, former slaves began to build better lives for themselves and their families. A sense of fulfilled hope was in the air among African American communities. But then along came Jim Crow at the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Former slaveholders found ways to prevent former slaves from voting through the use of poll taxes and other voter registration restrictions that were targeted at African Americans, but which also adversely affected poor white people. When the laws were not sufficient to prevent determined and successful African Americans from voting, vigilante justice stepped in with threats, burning of homes, lynchings and other forms of terror.

Yet, the African American community maintained hope in the promise of democracy and equality before the law. They kept this hope alive over another 87 years—nearly three generations—before the law again brought new, real hope. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ensured they regained the full rights of citizenship that had been stolen by the Jim Crow South.

From 1965 until the turn of the 20th century, African Americans again experienced a renewed  fulfillment of hope. Black Americans could now be (and were) elected to state legislatures and Congress. Some rose to be Justices on the Supreme Court as well as other positions of power and privilege. Three Black Americans have been elected as state Governors—Doug Wilder (VA, 1990-1994), Deval Patrick (MA, 2007-2015) and Wes Moore (MD, elected in 2022). Like a child in the back seat on a long car trip who periodically inquires, “Are we there yet?”, Black Americans in this time period had real evidence of movement in the right direction. This culminated in the election of Barack Obama to the US Presidency, which could have led a reasonable person to believe that we were indeed, finally “there” in a post-racial society.

But white supremacy, racism and the colonialist impulse of empire and domination had never really gone away. Some research suggests that conspiracy theories about voter fraud started after the 2000 election, along with new mandates for electronic voting equipment (which have since been updated to also require a paper trail) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. As voting rights expanded and the process of voting was made easier (to accommodate working and disabled people), new conspiracy theories were being propounded about “voter fraud.” Or rather, the “wrong” people were voting. Following the election of Obama in 2008, the ghost of Jim Crow came back to haunt us in new forms of voter suppression targeted at black and brown voters and low-income communities. In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.

Black Americans cherish the right to vote perhaps more than the rest of us do who take it for granted. Blacks dress up to vote—sometimes wearing their Sunday best when they go to the polls because voting is a sacred occasion and not just a civic duty. Because Blacks vote in person in greater proportion than whites do, new stringent voter identification laws disproportionately (by design) impact these communities. While requiring someone to prove who they are and where they live before they can register to vote is perfectly logical, the documents required to do so are targeted to “favorable” populations: drivers licenses (folks who own motor vehicles), military ID, and passports (the jet set). Yet, in spite of centuries of nefarious efforts to thwart them, Blacks still show up to vote like they believe in the promise of equal rights and democracy.

So, what is wrong with me—with my white privilege and never having had real problems with voting, even with moving dozens of times across eleven states—that I have such a cynical (and hopeless) view of the system? Perhaps because I came of age during the Civil Rights era, when things were improving, I believed in the inevitability of forward progress. I grew up in the middle class—when America actually had a robust middle class. I heard Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King (in real time) declare that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. While I was too young to protest the Vietnam War, I marched for Equal Rights in the late 1970s. I remember Sandra Day O’Connor being appointed as the first woman Justice to the US Supreme Court. I watched joyfully as LGBTQ friends felt safe enough to come out of the closet and openly live together as couples. I was in law school when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990.

Yet, with all the outward signs of forward progress, there were dark clouds on the horizon. I sensed that most of us were working harder for less at least a decade before former President Clinton said so in a campaign speech. I wrote my first paper on underemployment in 1988, with the then-unheard-of-argument that workers had more skills than jobs were demanding. Today,  mainstream economists are beginning to recognize a long-term pattern of declining job quality. But there was more going on than jobs getting worse. Before law school, the advice to employee advocates was to bring the case in federal court (if you could jurisdictionally), because the statutorily defined elements, standards of proof and remedies favored employees. However, this began to change when I got out of law school. Although the laws on the books had not changed, the federal judiciary had taken an unfavorable turn against cases brought by Plaintiffs against corporations generally, but especially cases brought by employees against employers.  If your client was an employee with a claim against a corporate employer, you had a better chance of success in state court, notwithstanding narrower definitions and fewer remedies.

In my naiveté, I believed that the decline of decent jobs and a systemic war on workers’ rights would be something that people could rally around—regardless of their race, gender, religion, or any of the other characteristics that tend to divide us. There was practically no discussion about stagnating wages and the decline of job quality anywhere except in a few obscure academic journals.  The media was content to ballyhoo the lives of the rich and famous, celebrity worship, and all the great new gee whiz tech gizmos. Most Americans didn’t truly “wake up” to the underlying deterioration in our everyday work and civic life until the COVID-19 pandemic.

While most of us were working harder for less—in jobs that had had no future of real advancement—people of color were gaining in the job market. Because the “good news” for women and minorities was being covered in the media while the decline of decent middle- class jobs was ignored, this created the perception (especially among working class white men), that the “system” was advantaging “others,” but leaving them behind.

One line of thought was that although African-Americans (as a statistical group) had not caught up to whites in terms of income, wealth and power, they had seen real gains over the past century, and this allowed them to be more hopeful about the future. That is, the relevant question isn’t about where you are NOW, but the direction things are going. Indeed, some research supports this theory. Poor Blacks have optimism levels 1.4 points higher (on an 11-point scale) than poor whites—and even slightly higher than wealthy Blacks. (The optimism gap between rich and poor people generally is 0.6 points.) This higher level of optimism has resulted in lower levels of stress and longer lifespans. The so-called Deaths of Despair tend to be higher among middle-aged white men employed (or formerly employed) in blue-collar occupations.

So, seeing or experiencing progress (either for yourself or people like you) can increase optimism, which increases other quality-of-life- factors, which makes finding hope easier. If this is the answer, it means that we should look for signs of improvement anywhere to provide hope for improvement somewhere else. Even assuming that this is true, it still doesn’t answer how African-Americans maintained hope through the long period of slavery and Jim Crow—when visible signs or evidence of progress were hard to find or nonexistent. Explanations for this include tight-knit and extended families, supportive communities, and a strong cohesive culture, including a strong faith culture.

The hopefulness of our Black brothers and sisters is even more admirable when viewed in the context of historical trauma. Research has found that trauma is not only stored in an individual’s body (somatic memory), it is passed down through generations. The great-grandchildren of children growing up in war zones today will be adversely affected regardless of their current circumstances, just as today’s descendants of slavery and Jim Crow are adversely affected.  Attempts by the current regime to erase this history cannot ever erase the subcellular experience of the past, but is likely to aggravate it.

Yet, over centuries of dehumanization, the descendants of African slaves have built an extraordinary resiliency. American Blacks have created an admirable culture of resilience born by long-term resistance and kept alive with practices of joy. These practices are often deeply connected with faith rituals. Upon learning that my husband and I liked chorale music, a Black friend invited us to her church to hear their choir. As the only white faces in the church that day, we were greeted with friendly welcome. Not only was the music fantastic (we had paid for concerts that weren’t nearly as good), we were amazed at the noisy joyful energy of the rest of the congregation. By contrast, our own faith practice—familiar and comforting as it is—seemed aloof and detached. Perhaps it is this energy that gives Blacks hope. Or does inherent hope give them energy?

Dr. Tanisha Hill-Jarrett, a professor of neurology at the University of California in San Francisco, has applied the science of neuropsychology to help discover the source of Black “radical hope.” This includes the ability to imagine what is possible without getting mired down in the reality of the now. The “Black radical imagination” includes not just critique of current power structures, but the ideals of Afrofuturism and motivations behind the Black Lives Matter movement. Centuries of practice in acknowledging the reality of the present while at the same time imagining a better future develops what neurologists term neuroplasticity, or the ability to actually change (i.e., “rewire”) one’s neural structures and connections. Radical hope must be kept alive, because “a vision for the future without belief that the outcome is attainable leaves little worth acting upon.”

Black communities have historically been tight-knit, forging strong social support networks of mutual aid and shared cultural identity. Which leads to a theory that a culture based on collective rather than individual narratives is more conducive to hopefulness. When the focus is on the welfare of the community as a whole rather than individual accumulation and achievement, it is easier to envision a future that “works” for everyone.

So, can all of us imagine a world where everyone has enough but no one has too much? Where humanity lives in harmony with the Earth and all its inhabitants? Where everyone can access the education, health care and community support they need to flourish?  Where  extraction, expropriation and exploitation are NOT the means and measure of success? Where all labor, but particularly care labor, is valued and appropriately rewarded? Where we are no longer dependent on a globalized corporatocracy for subsistence, but interdependent with our neighbors? Where anyone—of any race, color, nationality, religion, gender orientation or economic status—can visit another community of any race, color, nationality, religion, gender orientation or economic status, and be greeted with the same hospitality as my husband and I received in that Black Southern church decades ago?

Maybe we can imagine such a thing. But do we believe that it’s possible?

Where can I sign up for some lessons?

The Perils and Promise of an Article V Convention

Published on by Brynne VanHettinga

Today—when our Constitution, the rule of law, the common welfare, and even truth itself is under constant attack—our instinct is to protect and preserve this nearly 250-year experiment in democracy, particularly our Constitution. Our Constitution was the first of its kind—a blueprint for rule by the “people” and not a king. The founders also anticipated the corrupting influence of power, building in a system of checks and balances. And while there is much we should want to preserve, we must also be mindful of where we have fallen short of the ideals contained in our founding documents.

“Baked into” a document that declared its commitment to freedom, equality and “power of the people” was the glaring inconsistency that not all people were recognized as equal. Moreover, there was a concerted effort to protect the rights of property—rights which hypocritically included the ownership of other human beings. This original flaw has haunted our nation until this time, resulting in a system that—for all its rhetoric about equality and democracy—serves the wealthy and privileged at the expense of the welfare of the People. This same tension—between the demands of the privileged and powerful versus those of the People—continues to affect Constitutional jurisprudence today.

The urge to preserve comes from both the right and the left: Conservatives claim to revere the Constitution as “originalists,” while progressive groups like Common Cause have thwarted almost 150 calls for an Article V Convention from the states to amend it. Notwithstanding some conservative arguments that the original framers intended for the Constitution to be immutable for all time, the founders actually built in a procedure to change it. This is the amendment process, which is found in Article V. This process is designed to make change difficult–avoiding wild swings with every shift in direction of political winds—but not insurmountable. Indeed, our Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times, with the 21st Amendment actually repealing the 18th Amendment prohibiting the possession, importation or transportation of “intoxicating liquors.” Repeal of a prior Amendment has to pass the same stringent tests as adding it.

The Provisions of Article V

Article V provides two paths to Constitutional amendment. The first goes through Congress (the Congressional path), and it requires a two-thirds majority vote of both Houses. If the proposed amendment passes this threshold, it must then be ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the states. The second path goes through the states: Because our nation was cobbled together from a loose federation of previously independent states, the founders provided another way to amend the Constitution, allowing the states to bypass a potentially recalcitrant Congress. In this method, two-thirds of state legislatures (currently 34 states) could also call a “Convention for proposing Amendments.” Any Amendments thus proposed also had to be ratified by three fourths (38) of the states, or “by Conventions in three-fourths thereof.”

Historically, the only Constitutional Convention that has ever been held was when the original Constitution was drafted and presented to the original 13 states. After uniting to defeat the King of England, the former colonies (now states) were more interested in local affairs, being loosely committed to each other by the Articles of Confederation. However, the newly independent states discovered that there were logistical gaps in how to regulate interstate commerce and transportation, international trade, and multiple different currencies, as well as how to raise funds to pay off war debts.

Some historians believe that the driving impetus for the first Constitutional Convention was Shay’s Rebellion in Massachusetts—a group of indebted farmers who took possession of courthouses when banks attempted to foreclose on their farms. Because the Massachusetts state militia was unable to quell the rebellion, “men of property” (bankers and large landowners) wanted to create a militarized force large enough to keep a disgruntled rabble in its place. The way to do this was to create a stronger organized entity committed to preserving the rights of property.

Congress authorized the Convention on the premise that its purpose was to make suggestions for changes to the Articles of Confederation. Twelve of the thirteen states sent Delegates to the Convention (which was held in Philadelphia from May to September in 1787), with the exception of Rhode Island. Rhode Island was the last state to ratify the new Constitution. NO Constitutional Convention has ever been called since, as all twenty-seven Amendments have been proposed by Congress. Currently, 38 states are required to ratify any new Amendment, regardless of which method it is proposed.

As we know from history, the Delegates to the 1787 Convention completely disregarded the recommendations from Congress that their purpose was solely to amend the Articles of Confederation. Indeed, the Convention itself was conducted largely in secret, where the Delegates even sealed the doors and windows of Independence Hall to ensure that “no outside public pressure” would interfere with the debates.

What Powers Does Congress Have if the States Call a Convention?

What are Congress’ powers with respect to setting the rules for a Convention called by the states? Under the express terms of Article V, Congress “shall” call a convention when it has received the required number of applications (34) from the states. While Congress has the power to call the convention, once the convention is convened, the Delegates are free to make whatever rules they want. There is debate about whether Congress has any further authority once a Convention has been called. There is also disagreement about whether states have the power to limit the scope of an Article V Convention (e.g., to a particular subject matter). Additionally, there remains  a legitimate concern about whether a Convention could become “runaway” and exceed its original scope—as the first one did.

The 27th Amendment was proposed in 1789, but not ratified until 1992. The 27th Amendment prohibits Congress from raising its own salaries until after the next election, to ensure that pay raises have been subject to some form of voter approval. This precedent suggests that there are no time limits for ratification, although the admission of additional states into the Union in the interim would now require a higher threshold of ratifying votes. For example, the number of states needed for ratification could increase to 39 if both Puerto Rico and Washington DC became states.

The Equal Rights Amendment—a guarantee of equal legal rights regardless of sex—was proposed in 1923 but did not pass in Congress until 1972. In 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA. However, the ERA would not become law due to the fact that Congress had imposed a ratification deadline of 1982, and so the National Archives declined to publish it.  Whether Congress’ imposition of a ratification deadline is itself “Constitutional” is an as-yet-unanswered legal question.

What Types of Amendments Have Been Proposed by the States?

Since the first Convention that created our Constitution, no Article V Convention has ever been called, as all 27 Amendments were added via the Congressional path. However, many attempts have been made to propose various amendments via the route of a Convention. One estimate is that there have been over 700 applications, with every state except Hawaii submitting an application at one time or another.

Although we have never reached the two-thirds threshold to call an Article V Convention, there are a few issues which have seen significant activity.

In 1949, following the end of World War II, six states (CA, CT, FL, ME, NJ, NC) proposed an Amendment to “enable the participation of the United States in a world federal government.” A concern for maintaining peaceful international relations had already led to the creation of the United Nations in 1945. Conversely, this also fueled previously circulating conspiracy theories among right-wing populists about a “New World Order” or “one-world government” run by global elites.

Between 1975 and 1979, thirty states petitioned for a balanced budget amendment in response to increasing federal deficits. By 1983, the number of applications had reached 32, which came close, but did not rise to the requisite two-thirds to call a Convention. But this movement has never really died, and continues to see periodic activity.

More recently, at least 19 states and more than 700 cities and municipalities have been active in proposing an amendment to overturn the disastrous Citizens United decision in 2011. One resolution reads, “Corporations are not people. They have none of the Constitutional rights of human beings. Corporations are not allowed to give money to any politician, directly or indirectly. No politician can raise over $100 from any person or entity. All elections must be publicly financed.”

The Perils

The main problem with an Article V Convention is that there are very few rules about how this should happen, as well as practically zero precedent. At the time Article V was drafted, there were a number of Delegates who desired that the previously independent states be allowed an end run around Congress if such became necessary. One unanswered question is whether a Convention would (or could) be limited to a single issue, or could Delegates propose anything and everything without prior notice. Another unanswered question is how Delegates would be selected. There is no requirement that the state Delegates be elected (as legislators are), which means they could be totally unaccountable to the People.

In 1971 and 1973, former Senator Sam Erwin (D-NC) sponsored legislation to enact a statute regulating how an Article V convention would be conducted. Although Erwin’s bill passed the Senate unanimously both times, it died in the House Judiciary Committee. During the late 1980s through 1991, similar legislation was proposed by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), but it, too, went nowhere.

The most activity (and most threatening to democracy) has come from an organization called the Convention of States (COS). Mark Meckler, the founder of COS is a former founder of the Tea Party Patriots. Other organizations that have been heavily involved with the Convention of States/Citizens for Self-Governance are the Heritage Foundation (of Project 2025 infamy) and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). These groups are known to promote the interests of the wealthy and corporations as opposed to the interests of working people. They have proposed an “aggregated strategy” where a Convention could hear multiple unrelated applications. Subjects being proposed by this group are (1) requiring a balanced budget; (2) requiring the states to approve increases in the national debt; (3) repealing the 16th Amendment and requiring a supermajority to impose taxes; (4) restricting the scope of the Commerce Clause; (5) imposing Congressional term limits; and (6) giving the states power to abrogate any federal law, regulation or executive order. Thankfully, the re-legalization of slavery was not on the list.

The problem with our system as it exists now (which is not limited to the Constitution itself) is that it is totally dominated by the will of the wealthy and privileged, while the voices of ordinary working people (the “99%”) are unheard, if not deliberately excluded. If the operation of an Article V Convention is controlled by interests such as ALEC and the Heritage Foundation, it will further entrench the rule of the plutocracy over the people, and the rights of property over human rights and basic needs. A likely practical result is that most of the rest of us will be working even harder for less, and witness further degradation of our civic and community life.

The Promise

Like most everything else, an Article V Convention represents a yin and yang gateway to either an aggravation of the current domination of plutocracy, or the promise of real reforms that have the potential to make a positive difference for the rest of us. Below is a list of Amendments that would bolster democracy and go a long way toward operationalizing our unrealized original ideals:

  1. An express provision declaring that corporations are creatures of statute, NOT people, and therefore are not entitled to rights conferred in this Constitution that apply to natural persons. Although the purpose of the 13th and 14th Amendments was to insure equal rights of newly freed slaves, corporations have made far more use of these protections in advancing their own interests at the expense of the People.
  2. Campaign finance reform. Please refer to the prior discussion about overturning Citizens United. This Amendment should include an express acknowledgement that money (i.e., “property”) is not entitled to the same protection as free speech and other civil rights.
  3. Abolish the Senate and expand the House to ensure equal representation. The Senate is a holdover from an agreement with the slaveholding states that ensured equal representation of each state in the upper chamber, regardless of population. Today, a Senator from Wyoming represents 290,000 people while a Senator from California represents 19.8 million people, giving the citizens of Wyoming a voice 68 times greater than the citizens of California.
  4. Require non-partisan redistricting commissions in the states for federal elections.
  5. Reform the Electoral College. Although it is rare historically, we have seen a President elected by an Electoral College majority who nonetheless lost based on the popular vote twice within 20 years. Moreover, as most of us witnessed on January 6, 2021, the current logistics for the counting of Electoral votes leaves too much leeway for mischief and corruption. Enshrine the concept of One Person One Vote and all votes are equal.
  6. Make the right to vote explicit and sacrosanct. People may be surprised to learn that there is no express guarantee of the right to vote in the Constitution. Rather, there are prohibitions against infringing the right to vote based on race, color or previous condition of servitude (Am. XV) or based on sex (Am. XIX). Having the right to vote be unambiguous and apply to everyone equally will make it harder for Judges to write decisions that turn out to be bad law (e.g. Shelby County v. Holder).
  7. Congressional term limits. Ironically, this is one thing that progressives and the oligarchs/corporatocracy seem to agree on. Also ironically, it could potentially make it more expensive for the plutocrats to own a Congressperson, as they would have to “buy in” each time a representative was term-limited out.
  8. Acknowledging (and permitting) a higher need for regulation of entities based on size, wealth, privilege, power, and control over public resources. That is, laws could be “constitutional” if applied to behemoths like Amazon or Facebook, but may not be permissible if applied to mom-and-pop businesses on Main Street (an Equal Protection exception).
  9. Abolish blanket Presidential immunity. NO ONE is above the law.
  10. Limiting the Presidential pardon power. This should include a requirement to weigh and balance harmfulness to the rule of law.

So, an Article V Convention has the potential to either be a disaster for We the People or to remedy many of the undemocratic features that have been with us since America’s founding. Obviously, if we want such a Convention to “work” for We the People, it cannot happen with the current Congress and maladministration in charge. And even with a change of the folks in power, Congress needs to adopt unambiguous rules about how such a Convention should be conducted in advance of such a Convention.

First, how would Delegates be selected? Who is going to be at the table where important decisions are made? It is imperative that there be procedures to include the voices of the marginalized and those who historically have not been heard in the corridors of power.

Second, regardless of the number of subjects that will be allowed to be brought up at any Convention, there needs to be rules about notice and limits on changes past a certain number of days in advance of the Convention.

Third, the powers of the States and Congress (to set rules) and the Courts (to hear appeals—or not) must be explicit and unambiguous.

An Argument for A National Day of Remembrance on January 6th

Published on by Brynne VanHettinga

January 6th.

A day of infamy.

Insurrection Day.

The day the “United” States of America died.

Hyperbole? Maybe. But we need to have a reckoning if we ever expect to heal.

WARNING. Parts of this article may be triggering. If you are struggling with anxiety and depression, you can find information and connection to help through the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Does anyone remember how or what January 6th used to be? For some folks, it is the first day back to work or school following the end-of-the-year holidays. For others, it marks the day they abandon one or more New Year’s resolutions—diet, exercise, no cussing, etc. For most folks, it used to be a calendar day during a cold dark month, otherwise no different from others.

For Christians, it marks Epiphany, or the day the Magi (three “wise men,” or “three kings”) visited the lowly baby Jesus bearing gifts suited for royalty. It is the last day of the traditional twelve days of Christmas, a season which runs from December 25th to January 6th.  It is an imagery of the light of God’s love illuminating the shadows of human brokenness, at the same time physical daylight is visibly lengthening. For most Americans, the lights, revelry, and celebrations of Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa and New Year have been put away and life has returned to the normal beat of drudgery.

January 6th has been compared to September 11th. On December 18, 2001, September 11th was designated as “Patriot Day,” a National Day of Service and Remembrance. Both involved attacks on the United States. On September 11th, the attack came from foreigners. The targets were symbols of U.S. global dominance—the glittering world of neoliberal finance, which left a lot of the rest of the world behind (including many here in the United States) and military power. On January 6th, the insurrectionists were Americans, and the target was the seat of American political power. The Empire was attacking itself.

I have only seen my dear (and now gone) husband —a U.S. Marine, Purple Heart recipient, Army and Air Force officer (long story)—weep twice. The first time, it was a few years after our marriage, and it seemed to have come out of the blue. My husband had been a “grunt on the ground” in Vietnam, and something had triggered a war memory. He did not speak much about his experiences there and I did not push it. But this day, through his sobs, he confessed, “I have killed people.” Which didn’t really shock me. This kind of thing happens in a war, and if you returned from a war zone alive, chances are you had to kill someone else to do so. I did not ask for details, and he offered none.

The second time was on September 11th. Both of us watched the first plane crash into the North Tower. However, we had to leave immediately thereafter to meet someone at the airport (we were in North Carolina at the time—nowhere near either New York or the Pentagon). On the way, we wondered whether there had been a technical malfunction, pilot error, or pilot under the influence. (We had seen a story where a pilot in Miami had to be escorted out of the airport because be “smelled of alcohol” a couple of weeks earlier). When we got to the airport, they were in the process of shutting everything down. A flurry of phone calls ascertained that the person we were supposed to meet was OK—had never got off the ground on his end—so we went back to the office to find out that a second plane had hit the South Tower.

Spent the rest of the day attempting to get some work done while glued to the news. Like most everyone else, we were in horrified shock, but neither one of us cried. Only when we got home after work and my husband heard about the plane hitting the Pentagon—where they found an open Bible at an empty desk—did he break down in tears. Some decades earlier, he had been in that very room and knew the folks who regularly worked there.  

More than once I have been grateful that my husband was no longer here to witness January 6th. As someone who literally took bullets for the United States of America, it would have broken his heart.

January 6th as Collective Trauma

The concept of collective trauma was first proposed in Everything in Its Path (1977). Author Kai Erikson was documenting the aftermath of the 1972 Buffalo Creek flood in West Virginia, which killed 125 people and destroyed 550 homes in a small mining community. As Erickson poured through boxes filled with thousands of pages of transcripts, he was struck by how “bleakly alike” all the stories were. Erickson concluded that the damage done was more than a sum total of individual losses. In a formerly tight-knit community, the survivors continued to exist as isolated shocked shells of their former selves, “no longer existing as a connected pair or as linked cells in a larger communal body.” The defining (and paradoxical) characteristic of Erickson’s collective trauma is that while everyone is experiencing the same (or very similar) feelings, they feel alone and disconnected. 

Most of us understand trauma as something that is experienced by those who are directly in harms way. The folks who lived anywhere near “ground zero” on September 11th, the folks who had loved ones on any one of the doomed flights, the folks trapped in collapsing buildings, the first responders—how many of them are still suffering from trauma sequelae today. On January 6th, our trauma sympathies extend to the Capitol police officers who stood on the front lines: engaging in hand-to-hand combat, being beaten and tased, overwhelmed by a crazed mob, “slipping on [co-workers’] blood” (as testified to by Officer Caroline Edwards). We might also sympathize with our members of Congress, some who ducked for cover under seats and put on gas masks, or were hurriedly ushered through tunnels out of the building by security. Even those of us who were never fans of Mike Pence can sympathize with the trauma he must have experienced that day.

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration suggests that incidents of mass violence can create negative mental health issues for persons who were not necessarily present at the scene, along with tips on how to cope. So-called secondary trauma is created by bearing witness to tragedy. Studies have shown that obsessive consumption of media about traumatic events can lead to PTSD-like symptoms. If we are honest, how many of us watched as the planes crashed into the World Trade Towers over and over and over again, only to be interrupted while we watched the towers fall. One old veteran told us a story about having a heart attack as he watched this. On January 6th, CNN, MSNBC and Fox set records for daytime viewership, where over 28 million people watched our nation’s Capitol being breached and overrun during a crucial (yet normally routine and pro forma) ceremony.

Whether on September 11th or January 6th, a fairly typical reaction to a traumatic event is to obsess over if and when it might happen again. This is one of the “rational” reasons why we tend to overconsume media—attempting to understand the event and whether there might have been any warning signs. Our understandable coping and self-protection behaviors only add to the toxicity. We become hypervigilant and distrustful. Some of us remember the five-level color coded terrorist threat warnings after September 11, along with a corresponding DEFCON level posted daily at the entrance gate to MacDill AFB. Events like the January 6th Committee hearings and the Trump indictments—as necessary as they are to determine the truth and hold guilty parties accountable—also serve as trauma aggravating triggers. We feel the need to constantly analyze and remind ourselves of danger so that we won’t be caught by surprise again. I am not a mental health professional, but it is not hard to imagine what this does to the human psyche.

The trauma of January 6th was compounded by multiple lesser collective traumas throughout the prior year. Not the least was having a malignant narcissist sociopath occupying the most powerful position in the world. Then there was Covid—and Trump’s (either incompetent or deliberately malicious) mishandling of it, which resulted in (IMO avoidable) additional loss of lives. Some seventy-nine percent of Americans witnessed (on their screens at home, in the isolation of Covid quarantines) the murder of George Floyd in cold blood. On top of this is the looming threat of climate change, where the planet—our “Mother Earth” who typically sustains and feeds us—is punishing us possibly into extinction.

While January 6th may have been the most violent manifestation of a traumatic event, more subtle traumas continue to flow from it. We find out that there is a huge network of big, dark money that was behind January 6th. While the legal system plods along to address definable crimes that were committed, lawyers and lawmakers push through a flurry of legislation—some of it intended to “legally” prevent (or make it very difficult for) people (especially people on the margins) from voting, some of it intended to develop legal theories so the next attempted coup is successful, some of it to deny medical care and/or even simple human recognition and dignity to women and LGBTQ individuals, some of it to make the lives of immigrants even more miserable.

The media downplays the consequences of January 6th. Yes, it was a newsworthy event (great for ratings!), yes it was also “bad,” and perpetrators need to answer to the long arm of the law. But the temptation is to move on to the next outrage or distraction. Then there are the minimizers, who claim there is no reason for trauma at all—no more so than for any other “riot” or “protest.” Worse yet are the sympathizers calling for exoneration.

There are hierarchies of injury. The poor, BIPOC, disabled, LGBTQ, women, the very young and the very old—disproportionately bear the pain of social failures and collective trauma. Those in positions of power and privilege who would deny and denigrate (while others cream their pants with ecstasy at the very thought of) our angst and suffering only aggravate the trauma. The possibility that these people could destroy our votes, our voices, and our lives with impunity is so traumatizing we wonder if we can ever heal.

When our sensory input is overwhelmed with humans doing inhumane things to other human beings, how does that affect our view of humanity? Of ourselves?

January 6th as Epiphany

Yet, there is another possibility for the meaning of January 6th.

The root word of epiphany has been translated to mean “appearance” or “manifestation.” In English usage, epiphany means “a sudden intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something.” You could describe this as a wake-up call or enlightenment. Something that shocks us out of complacency so we make the necessary changes.

Epiphanies do not happen for everyone at the same time or place. In our story about the birth of Jesus, Epiphany happened during the time we call Christmas for his parents, Mary and Joseph, the shepherds who were urged to attend by angels (Luke 2: 8-20), and the three Magi from the East who followed the star (Matt. 2:1-6). The rest of the New Testament is the story of how the good news was spread—it took time and persistence. Likewise, it will take some people longer to recognize and acknowledge what really happened on January 6th, regardless of how much “evidence” is available in the here and now. And (as mental health professionals advise) the rest of us need to be prepared for the ensuing shock and grief. We can expect any such process to be stormy, chaotic, and non-linear.

Mental health services in the United States have been understaffed and under-resourced for decades. Following the events of January 6th, research identified a “modest but significant increase in mental health symptoms.” Has anyone attempted to schedule even a single session with a counselor lately? Unless you are suicidal, the wait time is likely to be six months to a year—even when you have health insurance. In a recent comment, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich (whose usual topics are economics, inequality, unions, and labor rights) suggests that anxiety disorders are a normal—and even expected—response to our dysfunctional society. While Reich agrees that the United States should increase support for mental health services, he also argues that we would be better served by “treating” the social conditions that are making us anxious.

In The Reckoning: Our Nation’s Trauma and Finding A Way to Heal, Mary Trump (yes, that Mary Trump, who is better known for Too Much and Never Enough) argues that our nation’s failure to deal with the racism that led to (and survived the end of) slavery has resulted in the dysfunctional race relations we still have today. It is not just racism and white supremacy that survives: the very notion that those with wealth, power, and privilege should be allowed to expropriate the labor of others for maximum profit at minimum cost manifests today in the form of stagnating wages and decimated labor unions. Whites and Blacks thus view each other as competitors for increasingly meager scraps instead of natural allies against “The Man.” Many White people were “awakened” to the reality of police brutality against Blacks as they sat at home during Covid quarantine and watched the murder of George Floyd—notwithstanding that BLM social media had been ablaze for months over the deaths of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

A standard therapy technique for dealing with trauma is to “change the stories you tell yourself.” This does not mean that you deny the trauma, but that you experience it from a different perspective—not as a victim, but as a survivor. As a nation, this would mean changing the national narrative of American exceptionalism and jingoistic hubris by being honest about where we have failed. We have created a system that works very well indeed for a small minority, but not so great for all the rest of us. We need to confront the issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia in the context of a history of exploitation, extraction and expropriation of the land and labor of others. Some will shriek that this is “unpatriotic.” Yet, one of the most honorable things anyone (or any nation) can do is come clean and atone for the sins of the past.

What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience.

                                                              Hannah Arendt

 

Repentence and Reconciliation

Following the defeat of Hitler in World War II, the Psychological Warfare Branch of the United States Army attempted to shame and blame the German population. The objective was that, by instilling a sense of collective personal responsibility, the Germans themselves would prevent the recurrence of Nazism. Posters were plastered everywhere with photos taken inside concentration camps, along with headlines that shouted, “These shameful deeds are your fault” (Diese Schandtaten: Eure Schuld!). A 1946 article in The American Journal of Sociology (Vol 52, No. 2) suggests that a great majority of Germans admitted that they knew at a minimum that the camps existed, although there may have been denial about the more gruesome details. Even today there is dispute among Germans about the comparative degree of genuine ignorance, deliberate denial (willful blindness), support of the regime, and voluntary participation in the atrocities. On May 12, 2012, the German Medical Association finally apologized for its role in the inhumane experiments performed by the infamous Dr. Joseph Mengele.

Reconciliation takes time. Repentance might not ever be forthcoming from the actual perpetrators, but emerge decades later from the perpetrators’ inheritors, who have (hopefully)either learned the lessons of history or evolved. However, nearly eighty years after Hitler was defeated, we are again seeing a resurgence of Nazism globally. Indeed, Nazi and pro-Hitler iconography was on display quite openly on January 6th. Perhaps such evil is so embedded in human nature that we can never expect to be rid of it. Yet, as a nation we need to be resolved and unambiguous in promoting the message that we (collectively) will not tolerate this. Even if this message has to be periodically renewed and re-broadcasted. This is something that could be incorporated into recurring post-January 6th memorial ceremonies. Never Forget.

One could argue that September 11th and January 6th are false equivalencies. January 6th did not have near the number of deaths, injuries, and level of property destruction. Nor did it present with Hollywood-style disasters like plane crashes, explosions, and buildings collapsing. Yet, on some level it is more terrifyingly insidious—like in a horror movie when the cops discover that the phone call is coming from inside the house. The poison of January 6th infiltrated even our small town on the Western edge of Minnesota. On March 19, 2021, the Minneapolis FBI arrested a home-town boy (one of the few folks at the Capitol that day who were from MN) on charges of violent entry and disorderly conduct. The. Terrorists. Live. Here. Now.

During the Trump years, a local mosque was defaced with hate messages. A local synagogue received bomb threats and had to involve the FBI. All of us have heard about more than one African-American church that has been the target of a hate crime. As a progressive Christian church which is part of a local Interfaith Alliance, a number of us showed up in support and solidarity when these events happened. But nothing hits home like when your own house of worship becomes a potential target. Which prompts the question of why should any of us be exempted from the terror and trauma that affects others in our community—or in the world—day in and day out. No one is entitled to the privilege of living in peace and comfort until everyone else is allowed the same.

In People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983), Dr. M. Scott Peck argues that lying, “covering up,” and denial of a bad deed is a worse “sin” than the actual deed itself. In this case, the example is events connected to the Vietnam war, but today it could apply to the war in Iraq, or Trump’s Big Lie about the election—which continues to have traction even after January 6th, Committee hearings and court rulings. If we don’t have a national formal reckoning over January 6th—along with the associated problems of white supremacy, Christian nationalism, obscene economic inequality, big money in politics, and the glorification of hate and ignorance—we will never heal. Our country will probably not survive.

Our democracy needs it.

Our collective sanity and human decency require it.