Christmas 2023 – Reflections, Activism, Art, and Celebrations

– Artwork: “Christ in the Rubble” by Kelly Latimore

Christmas Day has been and gone here in Minnesota . . . and although I missed spending this special time of year with my family and friends in Australia, I feel very fortunate to have many wonderful friends here in the U.S. with whom I was able to celebrate all that the Winter Solstice / Christmas season signifies.

Right: A scene from the Jacquie Lawson animated Christmas card that my mum sent me from Australia. It’s called “The Olive Tree.”

I must admit I’m finding it a challenge to feel joyful and to celebrate this year, especially with all that’s going on in Israel and Gaza. Accordingly, this Christmas saw me engage in some justice and peace activism so as to feel as though I’m staying engaged and making a difference. For me, such activity is the seedbed of joy.

Tonight I share some images of this activism, along with some commentary (with added links) about the ongoing crisis that prompted it. I also share a few images of some of the Christmas celebrations I’ve been part of here in Minnesota. In addition, I share some of my favorite reflections on the meaning and significance of Christmas. I hope you find these reflections as meaningful and inspiring as I do.

___________________

It is challenging to convey glad tidings of great joy this Christmas when terror, sorrow, and death fill the days of so many.

A genocide unfolds in the land of Christ’s birth.

Over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past two months, in the wake of terrorist attacks [in southern Israel] by Hamas on October 7. Two million Palestinians have been displaced, amounting to 85% of Gaza’s population.

Israeli families mourn the horrific slaughter, torture, and unknown fates of hundreds of hostages who remain in captivity.

Such brutality cannot justify the indiscriminate response Israel has taken since October 7th – shelling neighborhoods, bombing hospitals, schools, churches, blocking exit routes, and access to humanitarian aid, food, water, medical care, fuel, and electricity, subjecting innocent Palestinians to a relentless cycle of revenge-driven bombardment.

The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as, “a crime committed to with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part.”

Bethlehem, Christ’s traditional birthplace, located in the occupied West Bank, has canceled Christmas celebrations. Even today, the Jenin Refugee Camp was subject to air raids by Israeli Defense Forces.

Jesus Christ was a Jew, born amidst the obscurity of oppression, in a Judea occupied by the Roman Empire. Not much has changed in two thousand years. The horrors unfolding in Bethlehem and throughout occupied Palestine should prompt us to decry a genocidal war, engage in the ongoing struggle for Palestinian liberation, while simultaneously advocating for Jewish safety, condemning terror attacks on innocent communities, families, and civilians, and a return for all hostages.

Christmas calls us to advance the vision Jesus of Nazareth passionately spent his prophetic existence heralding, a world liberated from demoralizing systems of oppression, despotic regimes, and the insanity of war.

Doing so requires an immediate, lasting ceasefire in Gaza, and opposing U.S. funding (to the annual tune of $3.3 billion) for Israel’s military industrial complex that maintains an occupied Palestine. We must advocate for restorative and transformative geopolitical solutions to realize peace, justice, and reconciliation in the land of Christ’s birth.

. . . Solidarity for all those who mourn. May our tears be the seeds for a liberated Palestine and a Holy Land cherished by all people of goodwill.

– Phillip Clark
via Facebook
December 25, 2023

Above: A woman and child stand before a wall in Tel Aviv, Israel with pictures of hostages being held in Gaza after they were kidnapped from Israel by Hamas gunmen on October 7, 2023. The October 7 attack on Israel by the paramilitary wing of Hamas resulted in the killing of 1,139 people – 695 Israeli civilians, among them 36 children, as well as 373 members of security forces and 71 foreigners. Many of those killed were also tortured and/or sexually brutalized and mutilated. At least 44 nations denounced the attack as terrorism. (Photo: Reuters)

Above: Palestinian women and children evacuate following an Israeli airstrike on the al-Sousi Mosque in Gaza on October 9, 2023. The Israeli government’s military response to the October 7 attack by Hamas has been widely condemned for a number of reasons, though mostly for its terrorizingly indiscriminate bombing and staggering number of civilian deaths (20,000+) and injuries. (Photo: Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)

As Americans celebrate the holiday season and enjoy a merry Christmas with their families, and children in the U.S. and Europe are busy rehearsing nativity or Christmas plays at school, it will not be merry at all in Palestine, the birthplace of Christ. In the Holy Land, where Palestinian baby Jesus was born in a manger and where Christ’s message of love, compassion and caring for the oppressed was heard for the first time, Palestinians live their lives in daily fear under the gun of Israeli soldiers and armed settlers. According to UNRWA, the United Nations refugee authority, 271 Palestinians, including 69 minors, have been killed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank this year — a record since the Second Intifada.

In the West Bank town of Jenin, residents have emptied the streets and children hide indoors as Israeli tanks and snipers raid the city. The Jenin Refugee Camp has been targeted with drones and repeatedly invaded with armored bulldozers that tear up streets. Since October 7, 58 Palestinians have been killed in Jenin alone. Last week, Israeli soldiers stormed Jenin’s Freedom Theatre, a renowned cultural institution, ransacking the place, knocking down walls, destroying theater and office equipment, confiscating computers and assaulting theater staff. They later beat up, handcuffed, blindfolded and abducted Mustafa Sheta, the Freedom Theatre’s general manager, and Ahmed Tobasi, the theater’s artistic director, from their homes. Zoe Lafferty, the theatre’s associate director, described the attack to the Middle East Eye as a form of “cultural genocide.”

In any given year, around Christmastime, the Church of the Nativity receives hundreds of thousands of visitors and worshipers. This year, Bethlehem — home to more than a quarter of a million Palestinians — is besieged like other towns in the West Bank. It is shrouded in darkness, sadness, tears and agony. Since October 7, a large number of people were rounded up in Bethlehem and put in jail without being charged under Israel’s “administrative detention” policy.

The Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem declared the cancellation of Christmas celebrations in a solemn announcement on November 10. The Church of Nativity has canceled its Christmas festivities, put away its Christmas decorations, and instead of the church’s normal nativity scene, it placed baby Jesus on top of a pile of rubble inside the church.

– Michel Moushabeck
Excerpted from “If Jesus Was Born Today,
Would He Be Under Rubble?”
TruthOut
December 18, 2023

We are angry.

We are broken.

This should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful.

20,000 killed. Thousands under the rubble still. Close to 9,000 children killed in the most brutal ways. Day after day after day. 1.9 million displaced! Hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed. Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. A genocide.

. . . We are outraged by the complicity of the church. Let it be clear: Silence is complicity, and empty calls for peace without a ceasefire and end to occupation, and the shallow words of empathy without direct action — are all under the banner of complicity. So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell on earth before October 7th.

If you are not appalled by what is happening; if you are not shaken to your core – there is something wrong with your humanity.

. . . To our friends who are here with us: You have left your families and churches to be with us. You embody the term accompaniment – a costly solidarity. “We were in prison and you visited us.” What a stark difference from the silence and complicity of others. Your presence here is the meaning of solidarity. Your visit has already left an impression that will never be taken from us. Through you, God has spoken to us that “we are not forsaken.” As Father Rami of the Catholic Church said this morning, you have come to Bethlehem, and like the Magi, you brought gifts, but gifts that are more precious than gold, frankincense, and myrrh. You brought the gift of love and solidarity.

We needed this. For this season, maybe more than anything, we were troubled by the silence of God. In these last two months, the Psalms of lament have become a precious companion. We cried out: My God, My God, why have you forsaken Gaza? Why do you hide your face from Gaza?

In our pain, anguish, and lament, we have searched for God, and found him under the rubble in Gaza. Jesus became the victim of the very same violence of the Empire. He was tortured. Crucified. He bled out as others watched. He was killed and cried out in pain – My God, where are you?

In Gaza today, God is under the rubble.

And in this Christmas season, as we search for Jesus, he is to be found not on the side of Rome, but on our side of the wall. In a cave, with a simple family. Vulnerable. Barely, and miraculously surviving a massacre. Among a refugee family. This is where Jesus is found.

If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza. When we glorify pride and richness, Jesus is under the rubble.

When we rely on power, might, and weapons, Jesus is under the rubble.

When we justify, rationalize, and theologize the bombing of children, Jesus is under the rubble.

Jesus is under the rubble. This is his manger. He is at home with the marginalized, the suffering, the oppressed, and the displaced. This is his manger. . . [And] THIS is the incarnation. Messy. Bloody. Poverty.

This child is our hope and inspiration. We look and see him in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble. While the world continues to reject the children of Gaza, Jesus says: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” . . . “You did it to ME.” Jesus not only calls them his own, he is them!

We look at the holy family and see them in every family displaced and wandering, now homeless in despair. While the world discusses the fate of the people of Gaza as if they are unwanted boxes in a garage, God in the Christmas narrative shares in their fate; He walks with them and calls them his own.

This manger is about resilience – صمود. The resilience of Jesus is in his meekness; weakness, and vulnerability. The majesty of the incarnation lies in its solidarity with the marginalized. Resilience because this very same child, rose up from the midst of pain, destruction, darkness and death to challenge Empires; to speak truth to power and deliver an everlasting victory over death and darkness.

This is Christmas today in Palestine and this is the Christmas message. It is not about Santa, trees, gifts, lights, etc. My goodness how we twisted the meaning of Christmas. How we have commercialized Christmas. I was in the USA last month, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, and I was amazed by the amount of Christmas decorations and lights, all the commercial goods. I couldn’t help but think: They send us bombs, while celebrating Christmas in their land. They sing about the Prince of Peace in their land, while playing the drum of war in our land.

Christmas in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, is this manger. This is our message to the world today. It is a gospel message, a true and authentic Christmas message, about the God who did not stay silent, but said his word, and his Word is Jesus. Born among the occupied and marginalized. He is in solidarity with us in our pain and brokenness.

This manger is our message to the world today – and it is simply this: this genocide must stop NOW. Let us repeat to the world: STOP this genocide NOW.

This is our call. This is our plea. This is our prayer. Hear, O God. Amen.

– Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac
Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church – Bethlehem
Excerpted from “Christ in the Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament”
via RedLetterChristians.org
December 23, 2023

On Christmas Eve I attended a rally and march organized by a number of Minneapolis-based justice and peace organizations. I’m pretty sure the event was billed as a "pro-Palestinian" rally. And that’s okay.

Yet I, in attending this event, held in my heart both the Palestinian people and the Jewish people in that part of the world that many call “The Holy Land.”

As I explained later to a friend, I went so as to stand in solidarity with the humanity of both Jews and Palestinians.

Following are more images from this event.

It’s almost like all this devastation and suffering – this aspirational genocide – should be stamped “made in America.” What good does it do to tell Israel to try not to kill the civilians (at least 7700 children have been killed by U.S.-made bombs), when we keep resupplying their weapons no matter what?

THIS YEAR, I SWEAR TO GOD, the Christ child has been born not in Bethlehem, but in Gaza. And we are helping Herod to slaughter the innocents.

– David Weiss
via Facebook
December 20, 2023

The Christmas Eve rally and march in Minneapolis was one of a number of similar protests that have taken place across the U.S. since Israel launched in Gaza its military response to the October 7 Hamas attack.

Many of these protests have been organized by the group Jewish Voice for Peace. The image above, for instance, shows Jewish activists and allies holding a protest demanding a cease-fire in Gaza on December 14, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo: Jewish Voice for Peace)

In reporting on these protests, Jake Johnson wrote the following in a December 15 article for Common Dreams.

On the eighth night of Hanukkah, Jewish activists and allies took to the streets of eight U.S. cities on Thursday to demand an end to the bloodshed in Gaza, blocking traffic on bridges and highways in a show of opposition to the Biden administration’s continued support for the Israeli military’s atrocities.

“It is horrifying to watch the U.S. government fully fund the Israeli government’s relentless bombing campaign and the destruction of the people of Gaza,” said Sara Bollag of the Washington, D.C. chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which helped organize the protests in Seattle; Philadelphia; Los Angeles; Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Minneapolis; and Atlanta.

“I am here, as the great-granddaughter of a victim of the Holocaust, doing everything in my power to stop another genocide unfolding before our eyes,” Bollag added.

In the nation’s capital, demonstrators holding signs that read “Cease-Fire Now” and “Never Again for Anyone” and singing Hanukkah prayers shut down an overpass.

Jewish Voice for Peace’s December 14 Minneapolis protest took place on the Franklin Ave. Bridge, close to my home in the Seward neighborhood of south Minneapolis. (Photo: Judy Griesedieck for MPR News)

In reporting on this protest, Matt Sepic wrote the following in an article for MPR News.

A small group of demonstrators with the group Jewish Voice for Peace marked the eighth night of Hanukkah Thursday night with a protest calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Nine activists with the group stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the Franklin Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis, holding electric candles in the shape of a menorah and stopping traffic.

Organizer Leah Soule says the fighting needs to end immediately to ensure a lasting peace in the region.

“Hanukkah is all about the miracle of light persisting, and our strength will persist to fight for freedom and dignity for all and for the end of violence in Palestine by the Israeli government,” she said.

“I’m heartbroken for the people who’ve lost family and for those who lost their lives on October 7,” Soule said. “And for me today here, I’m focusing on what I can do to end further violence and that is to call for a ceasefire and to call for an end to aid to the Israeli military.”

In terms of understanding the deep need for – and the ways to actually build and maintain – peace in our world, the U.S. 2024 presidential candidate best equipped for the task is Democrat Marianne Williamson. That’s not an opinion; it’s a fact. Go visit her website to see for yourself. In particular, visit here. I’ve been supporting Marianne since she launched her 2024 campaign in March of this year (and I supported her 2020 run as well). She recently shared a reflection on her substack, Transform, about the situation in Israel and Gaza. Following is an excerpt.

I spent last Christmas Eve at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, closed this year due to the tragedy of current events in Israel and Palestine. That of itself is a metaphor for the darkness of the world. But we needn’t be in an outer structure anywhere to experience the meaning of this day. Sitting in my apartment in Washington DC, I was thinking about Christmas trees. The most grounded piece of nature is embellished with lights and ornamentation; what a symbol for the intersection of nature and the divine. I was thinking about what it would mean for me, in my own life, to forgive everyone and everything and have faith beyond what reason can bestow. Questions raged within me like storms that only the hand of God could calm. As I sat there quietly, I felt the presence of an indwelling One. And as I looked at a tree outside my window, something began to happen.

Given that it’s December the trees outside my apartment have lost most of their leaves, the ones now left sort of golden brown. At that moment, as I was looking outside, suddenly sunlight hit the leaves in such a way that they began to sparkle brilliantly. The tree was transformed into a tree all lit up for Christmas, complete with a star shaped leaf on top. The sun turned the entire tree into a burst of light. I did not have to be in Bethlehem to see it. The spiritual Bethlehem is in the heart and it partners with the brain. The mystery clearly uses both.

Had I not considered just moments before that I have to forgive everyone and everything, I don’t think I would have seen the light-filled vision of the tree. Yes, the physical phenomenon would have occurred – but I wouldn’t have necessarily noticed it. It lasted perhaps a minute and I might have been walking into the kitchen right then. Had I not just reflected on the power of faith and what it means for me, the physical phenomenon would have occurred but I wouldn’t have received its message. The spiritual isn’t something different than the world; it is a difference in how we see the world. It opens our eyes to things we wouldn’t otherwise perceive.

May Christmas be real for you and yours today. May every dried up leaf turn into new life for you. May an opening within your mind and heart flood you with love and peace. May forgiveness wash you clean and set you free of inner turmoil. Today’s world is indeed a darkened sky, but the star of Bethlehem signals new hope. I know it’s there, because I felt it in my heart today and I saw it outside my window.

– Marianne Williamson
Excerpted from “The Spiritual Bethlehem:
What Is Born Inside Our Hearts”
Transform
December 25, 2023

Above: My colorful and glittery Christmas tree – Minneapolis, December 21, 2023.

I appreciate Marianne Williamson’s take on Christmas trees, articulated in the previous excerpt.

The most grounded piece of nature is embellished with lights and ornamentation; what a symbol for the intersection of nature and the divine.

Above: No snow for Christmas in Minnesota this year. Instead, we had what MPR News meteorologist Bill Endersen called a “soggy, green Christmas.” (Last year was more typical.)

Above: A Christmas Eve game of Ludo with Adnan, my saaxiib qurux badan – St. Paul, December 24, 2023.

Above: At my friends Joan and Matt’s annual Christmas Eve gathering. From left: Zach, me, Handrick, Joan, John, and George – Mendota Heights, MN, December 24, 2023.



Left: Matt, Ben, and Joan.

Above: Christmas Eve 2023. Seated from left: Ben, Kelly, Dave, Stacy, Handrick, George, Ian, and Nathan. Standing from left: Joan (busy at work in the kitchen), John, Zach, Chelsea, and Angela.

Above: Christmas Day dinner at my friends Noelle and John’s home in St. Paul. From left: Kevin, Scott, Alicia, Silvie, Paul, Liana, John, Noelle, and Amelia.



Right: Amelia with her Uncle Scott – December 15, 2023. Amelia's about to place the Christmas Angel atop her grandparents’ Christmas tree!

Above: This year’s Yule Log dessert and its creators! From left: Alicia, Noelle, Amelia, Liana, and Paul – December 25, 2023.

Speaking of desserts. . . . Growing up in Australia in the 1970s, I can well remember my paternal grandmother, Belle Smith, making plum pudding for Christmas. She would have at least one wrapped in a special type of cloth (cheese cloth?) and suspended from a little makeshift frame in the back bedroom for weeks before Christmas. This was how all the fruit and alcohol in it would be marinated to perfection! Nanna also made one or more fruitcakes for Christmas. They were also rich and delicious.

I’ve long tried to find a good fruitcake here in the U.S. but to no avail. This year I bought four imported Irish fruitcakes (made with Irish whiskey!) from St. Patrick’s Guild in St. Paul (above). I took one of them to work on Friday, December 22 to share with my colleagues. It was a great hit with them!

Above: The Christmas Hare!

Above: A charming image of my friend Deandre and his cat companion Tyga – December 20, 2023.

Deandre may be experiencing homelessness very soon (though not, for now, Tyga). So if you can take some time to say a prayer for him, please do so! Also, if you live in Minneapolis and think you can help him out with a place to stay, even for a few days or weeks, please contact me via the comments section. Thanks!

As a Quaker who believes that “there is that of God in everyone,” I know I’m called to share in the risk of incarnation. Amid the world’s dangers, I’m asked to embody my values and beliefs, my identity and integrity, to allow good words to take flesh in me. Constrained by fear, I often fall short – yet I still aspire to incarnate words of life, however imperfectly.

Christmas is a reminder that I’m invited to be born again and again in the shape of my God-given self, born in all the vulnerability of the Christmas story. It’s a story that’s hard to retrieve in a culture that commercializes this holy day nearly to death, and in churches more drawn to triumphalism and ecclesiastical bling than to the riskiness of the real thing. But the story’s simple meaning is clear to “beginner’s mind,” a mind I long to reclaim at age seventy-five.

An infant in a manger is as vulnerable as we get. What an infant needs is not theological debate but nurturing. The same is true of all the good words seeded in our souls that cry out to become embodied in this broken world. If these vulnerable but powerful parts of ourselves are to find the courage to take on flesh – to suffer yet survive and thrive, transforming our lives along with the life of the world – they need the shelter of unconditional love.

For those of us who celebrate Christmas, the best gift we can others – whatever their faith or philosophy may be – is a simple question asked with heartfelt intent: What good words wait to be born in us, and how can we love one another in ways that midwife their incarnation?

– Parker Palmer
Excerpted from "The Risk of Incarnation"
On Being
December 24, 2014

Christ’s birth reminds us of the eternally new beginnings God offers to humanity. The grand irony is that we do not have to travel far to discover the Light that animated the Magi’s quest. We have only to embrace our highest Selves, and realize humanity and divinity have never been separated. This is the cosmic truth heralded by Jesus of Nazareth’s physical manifestation – we are all divine expressions of humanity; capable of being vessels full of grace, truth, love, joy, and peace.

May we allow the Incarnation to illumine our minds, and awaken to the reality of the marvelous presence of God in all things.

– Phillip Clark
via Facebook
December 25, 2016

Christmas can help us readjust, help us see the Divine more transparently in life, in places where we would least expect. A barn, for example, a baby. The Incarnation we celebrate at Christmas is a call, our belief in it a commitment, to seek awareness of the Divine free of the impediments of culture, class or even catechism. That process calls for a degree of openness most of us rarely embrace or even know as possible. Yet I have a feeling the Divine is so imminent, so within the essence of things, that it is only a matter of learned blindness that keeps us from seeing. It is not something natural to us to be so dense. We can do better. We can break through.

– Angie O’Gorman
Excerpted from "The Divine is Greater Than Our Dogmas"
National Catholic Reporter
December 23, 2011

I will light candles this Christmas.
Candles of joy, despite all the sadness.
Candles of hope where despair keeps watch.
Candles of courage where fear is ever present.
Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days.
Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens.
Candles of love to inspire all of my living.
Candles that will burn all the year long.

– Howard Thurman

NEXT:
Quote of the Day – Sabrina Salvati
– January 2, 2024


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

CHRISTMAS
• Light and Dark: “Both Holy, Both Life-Giving”
• In This Time of Liminal Space (2022)
• The Christmas Miracle
• Honoring the Darkness While Remembering the Light
• Christmas for Mystics
• Christmas 2020: A Time of Loss and Grief, Gratitude and Hope
• Christmas 2018 – Reflections and Celebrations
• Christmas in America, 2018
• Christmas 2017 – Reflections and Celebrations
• Christmas 2016 – Reflections and Celebrations
• Christmas 2015 – Reflections and Celebrations
• Christmas 2014 – Reflections and Celebrations
• Celebrating the Coming of the Sun and the Son
• Christmastide Approaches
• No Room for Them
• The Christmas Tree as Icon, Inviting Us to Contemplate the "One Holy Circle" of Both Dark and Light
• Quote of the Day – December 1, 2014
• Something to Cherish (2012)
• A Christmas Message of Hope . . . from Uganda (2011)
• Quote of the Day – December 26, 2010
• Christmas in Australia (2010)
• John Dear on Celebrating the Birth of the Nonviolent Jesus
• A Bush Christmas (2009)
• A Story of Searching and Discovery
• The Christmas Truce of 1914
• Clarity and Hope: A Christmas Reflection (2007)
• An Australian Christmas (2006)
• A Christmas Reflection by James Carroll


THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CRISIS
• “Nothing About Today is ‘Unprovoked’”
• In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
• Phyllis Bennis: “If We Are Serious About Ending This Spiraling Violence, We Need to Look at Root Causes”
• Eric Levitz: Quote of the Day – October 11, 2023
• Something to Think About – October 12, 2023
• Prayer of the Week – October 16, 2023
• Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
• Ta-Nehisi Coates: Quote of the Day – November 2, 2023
• Jehad Abusalim: Quote of the Day – December 8, 2023


PHILLIP CLARK
• The Magi as Archetypes of “Witchy Faith”
• Mary Magdalene: “A Courageous Woman . . . Infamously Maligned”
• Acknowledging Where We Are
• Quote of the Day – April 15, 2020
• Phillip Clark on the “Karmic Wake Up Call” of a Year Ago
• In the Wake of Trump’s “Catastrophic” Election, Phillip Clark on the Spiritual Truths That Will Carry Us Forward
• Heartening


MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
• Christmas for Mystics
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Marianne Williamson
• Marianne Williamson Launches 2024 Presidential Campaign
• Progressive Perspectives on Marianne Williamson’s Presidential Run
• More Progressive Perspectives on Marianne Williamson’s Presidential Run
• Marianne Williamson: “Repairing Our Hearts Is Essential to Repairing Our Country”
• Marianne Williamson’s “Radical Idea” of Putting People First
• Marianne Williamson: “We Need to Disrupt the Corrupt”
• “Let the People Decide”: Marianne Williamson on the DNC’s Efforts to Deny and Suppress the Democratic Process


DAVID WEISS
• When Charity Becomes the Weapon
• “New and Very Dangerous”: The Extreme Right-Wing Infiltration of the George Floyd Protests
• Making Love, Giving Life
• Can You Hear Me, Yet, My Friend?


Minnesota celebration and activism images: Michael J. Bayly.

Thoughts on Cornel West’s Presidential Run

Cornel West – author, scholar, and Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary – announced in June that he was seeking the Green Party’s nomination for President of the United States in their primaries. (Earlier in June West had said he was running for president as a People’s Party candidate.)

As a third-party candidate, West is being accused by some on the left as being a “spoiler” candidate, one who will take votes away from Joe Biden and thus help secure a win for Donald Trump in November 2024. It’s a long-standing accusation leveled at third-party candidates, and one Meagan Day addressed back in 2017 when Democrats were accusing Green Party candidate Jill Stein of “stealing” votes from Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, thereby helping elect Trump. Day’s response to this charge remains as important tody as it did in 2017.

The fixation on the third-party vote is a decoy. Worse, it’s a fundamental miscalculation, especially for Democrats, who have a slightly better chance than Republicans of activating [the] dormant electorate [i.e., the roughly 40 percent of eligible American adults who declined to vote at all in the 2016 presidential election]. Or at least they could if they were willing to make material concessions to poor people of color at the expense of the donor class.

“Trump’s victory margin smaller than total Stein votes in key swing states,” carped a headline at The Hill in 2016, one of dozens or hundreds like it. But where are the headlines that read, “Trump’s margin of victory dwarfed by the number of poor non-voters in key swing states”? That’s the conversation we need to be having. Not which weight tipped the scale, but why the scale only holds half the weights to begin with.

More recently, Lucas Guzman addressed voting third-party in a counterpoint he wrote last October for The Daily Texan. Guzman writes in part:

Many people claim voting for third-party candidates is just as worthless as not voting at all, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. In state-level races such as California or Alabama, two states known for their partisan views, the leading party isn’t likely to change anytime soon. However, your dissenting vote will allow you to support a candidate that fairly represents your views, and can even serve as an opposing voice holding the leading party accountable. Voting for third party candidates could also force competitive races to have an even greater focus on policy in general, leading to more open conversations.

West, of course, wants to do more than facilitate “more open conversation,” as important as this is.

“I am running for truth and justice and as a candidate for president of the United States in the Green Party,” West says on his campaign’s official website. “I want to reintroduce America to the best of itself – the dignity, courage, and creativity of precious everyday people. Join our movement for priceless poor and working people of all colors here and abroad.”



“The Democratic party is beyond redemption”

About a week ago, Cornel West appeared on The Hill’s Rising podcast and talked with hosts Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave about his third party presidential run.

I should say that I don’t care for how Rising often promotes it’s various segments, with tabloid-looking and -sounding headlines. That being said, these segments’ actual content is generally always insightful and worthwhile. Case in point: the following interview with Cornel West. . . . Now, even though at this stage I remain 100% supportive of Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, whose platform very much overlaps with West’s, I found Rising’s interview well worth watching as it elicits some very powerful and inspiring observations from Dr. West on the dismal state of the Democratic party and the political, economic and moral state of the U.S.

The Democratic party has no fundamental intention of speaking to the needs of poor people or working people. They are dominated by their corporate wing; they’re dominated by the militarists when it comes to foreign policy; and [progressives like] Bernie and AOC and others are, in a certain sense, window dressing at worst, and, at best, people to appeal to every four years. But the Democratic party is beyond redemption at this point when it comes to seriously speaking to the needs of poor and working people.

I think we’ve reached such a low point that . . . we [need to] go for broke and try in fact to reshape our political system. [Yet things like] rank choice voting and proportional representation [which] would be possible things . . . the Democratic party has no interest in whatsoever. It’s clear that Biden and company have no serious interest in trying to scale back on the militarism abroad; they have no serious interest in trying to make poor and working people a priority. . . . And part of the paradox here is that the neo-fascism that’s escalating in predicated on the rottenness of the system in which the Democratic party facilitates that frustration and desperation because it can’t present an alternative [to the current status quo of the GOP’s neo-fascism and it own neoliberalism]. And if the system – if America – is unable to present an alternative to the Democratic party’s [neoliberalism] then we’re going fascist. We just need to acknowledge that. We’re going to go sooner or later. . . . So we’ve got to have some kind of break [from the status quo] or at least raise our voice and [speak to] the truth about our condition.

– Cornel West
August 29, 2023

A “legitimate and sensible alternative” . . . but not the only one

Thanks to my friend William D. Lindsay, I recently became aware of an insightful article about Cornel West and his candidacy by Wendell Griffen, Pastor at New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. Following is an excerpt from Griffen’s August 29 piece, "We Should Not Disregard or Disrespect Cornel West’s Candidacy for President of the United States."

Why shouldn’t [we] treat Cornel West as a legitimate and sensible alternative to any of the other people who are announced candidates for the highest elective office in the United States? Whether you agree with West or not, why should you refuse to consider his candidacy as a prophetic and politically sensible alternative to any of the other candidates?

Why not weigh his values, vision, and commitment to democracy, inclusion, justice, peace, and global well-being alongside what the other candidates believe? Isn’t that essential for sound decision-making?

I’ve heard people – including those I deeply respect – say that West’s candidacy benefits Donald Trump. They admit that West has taught, written, lectured, advocated, and agitated for decades about matters and issues they care about.

They have a more favorable view of West than Joe Biden. However, these serious-minded people say that West’s Green Party candidacy will benefit Donald Trump by siphoning likely Democratic voters from Biden in the November 2024 presidential election.

I find that viewpoint unsound.

Biden’s approval rating among Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous, women, the LGBTQ+ community, elderly, and working-class voters has been lukewarm, at best, for most of his presidency. Cornel West is not responsible for Biden’s low approval rating among likely Democratic voters.

It is fanciful to think that those voters will vote for Biden in large numbers if West is not on their ballot as the Green Party presidential candidate in 2024. A convenient fanciful notion is – wait for it – fanciful, no matter how much we might enjoy it. The fact that it is convenient, or even desirable, does not make the notion credible, let alone persuasive.

Voters who hold lukewarm views about Biden’s presidency have several options. Some will vote for him anyway. Others might vote for a third-party candidate (such as Cornel West) with whom they more strongly agree. Some voters might decide to “stay home.”

People concerned about Cornel West’s Green Party campaign for the U.S. presidency do not think that disgruntled and lukewarm Democratic voters are likely to vote for Donald Trump, or for any of the other politicians currently campaigning to be chosen as the Republican Party nominee in 2024. They fear that Trump’s right-wing base of white religious nationalists, neofascist imperialists, military adventurists, and free market capitalists will vote Trump back into power unless disgruntled and lukewarm Democratic voters re-elect Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

But if Joe Biden cannot persuade voters that he deserves their votes, no one should blame Cornel West. Instead, we should admit that those voters are free to vote for a presidential candidate whose record squares with their views and values.

They owe Biden no political fealty and are not required to serve the interests of the neoliberal capitalists who run the Democratic Party, whether West runs for president or not. Their voting preferences should be based on their realities, their histories, and their hopes.

– Wendell Griffen
Excerpted from "We Should Not Disregard or Disrespect
Cornel West’s Candidacy for President of the United States
GoodFaithMedia.org
August 31, 2020

A major critique I have of Wendell Griffen’s article on Cornel West is that towards the end of it he incorrectly writes that, “West should not be blamed because the Democratic and Republican Parties have offered no comparable candidates.”

Actually, there is a comparable Democratic candidate: Marianne Williamson.

I wonder: is it because Williamson’s a woman that she’s ignored?

Is it because she openly integrates spiritual and moral themes into her politics?

Or is it because the type of spirituality she emphasizes and embodies is often (and erroneously) labeled and dismissed as “New Age” that she’s routinely invisibilized?

I don’t have the answers, but the fact that these questions are present in the midst of Williamson’s genuinely progressive and refreshingly hope-filled presidential campaign is both disappointing and frustrating.

My friend David Weiss had the same critique, and I’ll close this post by sharing what he recently wrote on my Facebook page.

I had the *same* reaction in reading Wendell Griffen’s piece. Very appreciative of his amplifying Cornel West’s core and compelling vision, but caught off guard by the quick pivot to suggest he was the *only* candidate with such a transformative vision. Although West’s and Williamson’s visions (and temperaments) are not identical, they BOTH present a searing critique of a Democratic party establishment that seems satisfied to be “not-Republican,” rather than socially transformative. That party satisfaction with a merely mediocre vision of social well-being is perhaps the single biggest threat to our democracy, because it will invite the disenchanted and disempowered to simply stay home (or vote Green) because neither major party makes a credible claim to their vote.

Related Off-site Links:
Cornel West Also Is Running for President – Maina Mwaura (Baptist News Global, August 24, 2023).
Bad Biden Polls Stoke Third-party Angst for Democrats – Hanna Trudo (The Hill, September 9, 2023).
Nearly Half of Voters Would Consider a Third-Party Presidential Candidate in 2024 – Quinnipiac University National Poll (July 19, 2023).
Why American Voters Decide to Vote for Third Parties in Presidential Elections – Harmen Rockler (Syracuse University, Spring 2013).
Democrats Are Still Obsessed With Jill Stein. They Should Start Obsessing Over Non-voters Instead – Meagan Day (The Week, June 19, 2017).
No, Ralph Nader Did Not Hand the 2000 Presidential Election to George W. Bush – Anthony Fisher (Reason, August 3, 2016).
How Florida Democrats Torpedoed Gore – Jim Hightower (Salon, November 28, 2000).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Cornel West on Responding to the “Spiritual Decay That Cuts Across the Board”
• Cornel West on the Legacy of James Baldwin
• “Of Course America Is Racist”
• “Two of the Most Dedicated and Enlightened Heroes of Present Day America”
• Cornel West: Quote of the Day – December 3, 2020
• Eight Leading Progressive Voices on Why They’re Voting for Biden
• Ralph Nader: Quote of the Day – January 20, 2022
• Progressives and Obama
• Progressive Perspectives on the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
• Progressive Perspectives on the Election of Donald Trump
• Rocking the Cradle of Power
• Now Here’s a Voice I’d Like to Hear Regularly on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows
• Marianne Williamson on the Current Condition of the U.S.
• Hope Over Fear

Opening image: Philosopher Dr. Cornel West speaks onstage during the “Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise” panel discussion at the PBS portion of the 2016 Television Critics Association Summer Tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on July 29, 2016, in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

“New and Very Dangerous”: The Extreme Right-Wing Infiltration of the George Floyd Protests

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My friend Phil recently shared on Facebook an informative, albeit disturbing, analysis of certain aspects of the ongoing property-destroying violence here in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The genesis of the unrest undergirding these acts of violence was the May 25 murder of George Floyd, an African American man, by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, who has since been fired and charged with third degree murder.

Writes Phil:

It’s time to stop using the word “protesters” when assigning blame to the arson and attacks on black businesses and post offices and homes being committed overnight. It is now being widely reported by demonstrators, reporters, as well as state authorities that white supremacists, white Second Amendment extremists, white anti-government extremists and other outside groups are infiltrating the demonstrations. They are white men wearing masks. They’re arriving in pickups with out of state plates, some with white power symbols. They are wearing tactical vests and boots. They are starting fires efficiently and ranging widely. When asked “why” they give ambiguous answers, like, “to take a stand,” without indicating what stand they’re taking, for what, or for whom. They use code phrases developed online, such as “86ing” a place when they mean to burn it down. They target black businesses, homes in predominantly black residential neighborhoods, and other targets with symbolic meaning to their extremist causes, like post offices. Activity on their online channels indicates these are premeditated, organized, coordinated attacks.

They’ve been arriving for days. We’ve all seen the first attack on property back on Tuesday was a white masked man in black with a black umbrella who systematically smashed Autozone windows. When confronted by black protesters, he gave vague answers before leaving the scene. [7/28/20 Update: Police confirm that “Umbrella Man” was a white supremacist intent on inciting a riot.]

All of this fits [when one recognizes that the] only collection of groups [that have] been openly advocating, arming, training, and agitating for violent conflict both with government and non-white Americans [is] rightwing extremists. Those who are fighting police brutality and anti-black violence and oppression have different behaviors and targets [than these rightwing extremists]. They fall into three rough groups: 1) the law-abiding nonviolent, 2) the nonviolent willing to break minor laws and commit incidental minor property damage in order to take control over their own streets and disrupt 'business as usual,', and 3) those willing to commit significant targeted property damage against institutions that are responsible for their political and economic oppression: police stations, redlining banks, etc. All three 'groups' (because much of this is spontaneous self-organization of people based on their personal approach, gravitating to other like-minded people, rather than conventional formal organizations) show pronounced conscientious toward – and take affirmative steps to protect – small businesses, local businesses, black- and POC- and woman-owned businesses, folks’ homes, etc. In this mix are criminal opportunists of various kinds, races, genders, 'philosophies.' They don’t set fires. They grab and go.

So we must NOT ascribe all the overnight violence and damage to the “protesters.” The conflict has reached a totally new and very dangerous stage. It is complex, fluid.

The operating assumption – for our safety, for the pursuit of justice for those living in fear and suffering the destruction of their livelihoods – is that attacks on black and small businesses, on residential neighborhoods, on government buildings not part of the criminal justice system, on sources of food, medicine, and water for black and poor residents and civilians, and even on law enforcement themselves in order to provoke reaction, are being carried out, not by protesters, but by the white groups who have been openly advocating, organizing and training for civil war.

________________________

Others have also been sharing via social media their thoughts and observations on the issues and events discussed above by Phil.

Following are some examples.

Last night, right-wing extremists escalated their campaign to create chaos in Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

They used arson as a primary tactic. It was an escalation from their work to encourage looting on Wednesday night.

They are using the widespread (and justifiable) demonstrations of grief about George Floyd as a vehicle to advance their political objectives.

They have launched an organized effort to manipulate public perception, deconstruct public infrastructure, and create mistrust and fear.

They will likely return tonight.

What’s going on?

Certain right-wing extremists have a revolutionary orientation. They want to advance their objectives by sparking civil conflict. Their theory is that, if properly polarized (often by race), others will rise up to join them. They see themselves as leading a vanguard effort.

There’s a strain of this kind of thinking that runs through touchstone reactionary documents, like The Turner Diaries, and touchstone terrorist efforts, like the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

The latest update is an internet-irony-infused version (of course) that identifies as the Boogaloo movement. You can read more about them here and here.

You can read about their work to manipulate demonstrations about George Floyd here.

Suffice to say, there is growing evidence that some kind of organized effort is afoot in Minneapolis/St. Paul. It appears to have at least three operational forms.

First, they blend into protests, encourage lawlessness, relocate, and repeat. Again and again, those transgressing certain social taboos, like smashing windows, have been white men, masked and sometimes conspicuously geared up. It’s a tactic designed to manipulate public perception. By encouraging lawlessness, they can shift the public narrative about the demonstration and produce polarizing (and memorable visuals) like looting.

Second, they attack public infrastructure, both physical and social. Friday night saw the burning of a post office, a first. Previous nights included attacks on banks, pharmacies, grocery stores, etc. It can be easy to miss this if you just see it all as looting. The story isn’t ‘people want stuff.’ The story is: someone is trying to deconstruct the systems that support communities in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. This attack on infrastructure plays out in a second way, and vividly so on Friday night. They were using geographically widespread acts of arson to force the Minneapolis Fire Department to play Whack-A-Mole. Friday night’s arsons, particularly those on the Northside, were taking place miles away from demonstrations on the Southside, sometimes focused on beloved institutions. This tactic is designed to create chaos, weaken the community bonds, and discredit political leaders.

Third, there are active disinformation efforts happening online. If you dig through your recent followers or the replies in journalist’s tweets you can pretty easily find bogus accounts (i.e. those with 1000s of tweets but fewer than 100 followers, accounts created in May 2020 with no personally identifiable information). These accounts are posting polarizing content, sometimes right-leaning, sometimes left-leaning, often fear-inducing. This tactic is designed to create mistrust and fear.

Look, this stuff is alarming. I guess I am sounding an alarm here; but let me put this in some context. There may not be many of these folks. . . . They are not an insurmountable number. Why are they not insurmountable? Because they only win if we overreact. They win by making us afraid and by getting us to do their dirty work.

– ISAIAH
Excerpted from “This Is What We're Dealing With”
May 30, 2020

I have to say this. I am convinced Minneapolis has been infiltrated.

For people outside of Minneapolis looking in and wondering what in the world is happening at night and why people are burning down their own communities... wondering why anyone would do that. . . . It's because it's not, for the most part, the people of Minneapolis. It's not the peaceful protesters.

Why would people burn down their own libraries? Affordable housing? Shelters? Nonprofits? Locally owned businesses, many of them owned by people of color? Because the majority of people who are doing this, do not live there.

I have been hearing my friends and protesters in Minneapolis and organizers and leaders of color saying this is not them. Now we are getting reports, seeing videos, more and more evidence that white supremacists and even the freaking [Mexican] cartel are sending people here.

I don’t know what else to say at this moment except the people of Minneapolis are good and loving.

Hurt and in pain and demanding justice and change? Absolutely. But amazing, caring and compassionate people who are proud of their neighborhoods and what they have built. Go in the day light and you see thousands of people coming out of their homes, helping to clean up, and getting supplies to their neighbors.

– Jenna Carter
Minneapolis City Councilmember

I hope my friends outside the city know that the arson and targeted infrastructure destruction was a coordinated attack from outsiders - violent anarchists, anti-government cults, white supremacists, using the protests for their own terrorist activities. We saw the targeting on Thursday, throughout the city, of pharmacies and food stores. And, oddly, auto parts stores. From my own porch I’ve seen two days of souped up cars and trucks speeding noisily around, out of state plates when I can discern them.

There is at this point no place to purchase food or pharmaceuticals for many miles in all directions, at a time when there is no public transit. Most streetfront businesses in my immediate neighborhood are burned to the ground or otherwise destroyed, it being a targeted minority neighborhood.

So please stop lumping the outside agitators with “the protesters.”

– Steven J Levine
Minneapolis resident

I've been writing about what I am seeing in Saint Paul and Minneapolis. I'm responding largely to a frustration I have as someone who spent years marching in the streets, encouraging a “diversity of tactics,” and otherwise trying to figure out how to create a more just society.

What I have been seeing, especially in Saint Paul, is not that decades-long debate. I've seen loosely organized gangs leading attacks on businesses. I don't know what happened in Minneapolis last night, but I think there is a much higher degree of outside provocation and people blending into the crowd than we have seen in these actions before.

There is a lot happening here and much of it will not be unwrapped. I think people assume it is the rage of the oppressed that is tearing down the metro – and I think that it is correctly attributed to all of the marches but only some of the destruction.

I think much more is the work of outside agitators (sometimes working at cross purposes with different motivations). No one controls where massive civil unrest goes, anyone that thinks they can is a fool.

It is one thing for people to rage that their communities and government have utterly failed them. It is another thing for outsiders to come in, loot and burn a city to the ground, and go back to their homes to brag about it on the Internet.

– Christopher Mitchell
Saint Paul resident

This may be nothing less than right-wingers attacking one of the most progressive cities in the country. And [when I say progressive] I'm talking about the people who live in the city, not their police force who killed George. Forget about the police, this city has been built by working-class people, and the people that live here are very progressive. There are all kinds of bad politicians and police and other people who give us a bad name and ruin things for us, but this city is one of the most progressive in the country, and I would not doubt for a second that right-wingers have targeted it intentionally to destroy it. We have to stop that, but we have to do it peacefully. If enough people oppose some violent right-wing white guy from the suburbs or wherever we can stop them, and we can do it without violence

– Christopher Loch
Minneapolis resident

There are outsiders who are coming and causing much of the non-rubber bullet/tear gas harm, starting fires in volatile and vulnerable places, riling up already hurt and sad people to do the same. The energy is palpable when they are around. They are on a mission. They seem to be moving in small, guerrilla groups and there is some level of strategy behind this, a trying to break this place, this positive struggle we are in. Many of the random, out of the central corridor vandalism/violence seems to be happening right off highway exits. To me, there seem to be some people who are circling the cities, dipping in and out of communities to scare people who normally don’t feel like this is their issue.

Here’s the punchline: We are still here. We are all under slept and distressed. However, the community is taking care of each other. There are food drives, clean up crews, peaceful protest makers, and suppliers working to fulfill the needs. Healers and artists and activists are working to shift the energy, answer and hold the ageless sorrow, and help us refill our souls. We are getting people out of harms way, witnessing, opening our homes to the displaced, buying food out of pocket, doing safety checks all day and all night. Our bonds are tight, if imperfect, and we will spell each other and strategize and we will come through this. We belong to each other.

– Miré
Minneapolis resident

I have been reading – and now our elected officials are acknowledging – that there are a frightening assortment – growing (perhaps exponentially) by the day – of others “lurking” as “allies” among the grieving and raging masses, whose actions are NOT rooted in the dignity denied to or the life taken from George Floyd or the black community as a whole. Rather, they are rooted in the desire to seize this moment and twist it to purposes that are unholy. Among the protesters and looters (and both of these have a “right” to be there – and that is a hard truth for us to hear!), there are now also anarchists, white supremacists, anti-government actors, guns-rights fanatics, and accelerationists – none of whom give a damn about the black community, not its pain, its dignity, or its dreams. They are only interested in riding this holy wave of rage (for which we white people bear fundamental responsibility) into an unholy direction.

Anarchists see it an opportunity to disrupt society, but they have no common cause with the black community beyond that momentary coalescing of interests. White supremacists see it as an opportunity to insert themselves into a confrontation where they might be able to escalate things even worse into an all-out race war. They will feign being allies just long enough to set up conditions to for catastrophic reactions. Similarly, anti-government actors and guns rights fanatics (groups that overlap with but are not identical to white supremacists), are actually willing to stand with black people in opposing police/state-sponsored violence, because their goal is not race war but a war with the state itself. Yet they have zero interest in racial justice or any Beloved Community. They will betray black people the moment they’re no longer useful to their sense of war with the government. And accelerationists (who overlap with these other groups – sorry, but these are blurry, messy categories) are persons determined to wreak whatever havoc they can (and this is a moment pregnant with opportunity to do just that) in order to “accelerate” the fraying of society toward a future state that will NOT be friendly to black people.

Listen, there is real evidence that representatives of all of these groups are embedding themselves opportunistically within the masses gathered in response to George Floyd’s murder! They are coming from across the country to seize this moment of holy rage and spin it out of control. I suspect that is why the MN Department of Public Safety (who acknowledged their awareness of such groups within the protests) initially stationed the National Guard at the Fed and the capitol and power stations – because these things may well be the targets of some of these other groups when they’re ready to act. And it’s why they acknowledged (at the 1:30 a.m. briefing) that they have heard of persons coming to these protests with the goal of killing a national guardsman.

This is some genuinely unholy rage just waiting for the chance to creep out. And the Hennepin County Attorney’s game of slow deliberate investigation (even when carried out at “breakneck speed” as we wants us to believe) completely underestimates the peril of this moment. His inaction fuels the holy rage – and widens the window for unholy rage to build explosively.

And it seems clear after Friday night that both the mayor and the governor grievously underestimated the holy rage. Willing to offer words of authentic empathy, they nonetheless imagined themselves caught in the limits of what is realistically possible in the short term regarding politics or policy (to dismantle the racism endemic to the Minneapolis Police Department and elsewhere). And – as a result of that – they unintentionally exposed our community to a far greater risk of destruction. Can we get back from this edge? I don’t know. But the alternative is civic catastrophe.

And the protesters – at time (legitimately!) triumphant at the power they have touched in this moment – seem also oblivious to the threat posed to all of us (themselves included!) by persons/groups hiding within their numbers . . . who might be working to “guide” legitimate rage into actions that are intended for ends quite different than the protesters have in their heart and mind.

This IS a moment pregnant – painful, bloody, and labored – with possibility. And we dare not erase the holiness of the rage within the black community. It has sparked a HOLY riot tilting (HOPEFULLY!) toward social revolution and transformation, which would be good for all of us.

– David Weiss
Excerpted from “Sometimes a Riot is an Act of God – and Sometimes Not.
These Riots Are Both – Which Makes Them Extraordinarily Dangerous”
Full Frontal Theology
May 30, 2020

Most of the arrested rioters are not from here. They are looting and starting fires all over the Twin Cities. There are plans to release information on the ties of these rioters later today.

I live in a part of the city where there haven't been any protests. However, the epicenter of our community - our businesses, grocery stores, and community centers – have been destroyed. And it wasn't done as part of the protest. It wasn't done by our community. This was done to us.

Currently, our community is cleaning up after the rioters and looters who are trying to destroy our community. Our community is standing in front of stores, keeping looters at bay. Our community is filming and reporting those who are starting fires. Our community is organizing to bring essential supplies (food, masks, toiletries) into these areas. Our community is checking-in on people who don't have the means and luxury of driving to get what they need from areas that aren't being destroyed. Our community is working together. Our community is protesting the actions behind the horrific murder of George Floyd. Our community is banding together to support his grieving family.

– Anonymous

There is a phenomenon of white people, often racists, hijacking protests devoted to uplifting and seeking justice for Black lives. We must highlight and root out this betrayal of protest.

However, there are often incidents where property has been destroyed that did not involve white individuals from out of town. I witnessed this in Baltimore during the Uprising here. This was done out of rage, frustration, and suppressed terror that has been ignored for centuries.

Looting by white people attempting to hijack protests must definitely be addressed. But we can't allow this to distract us from WHY others have chosen to destroy property. Doing so only shifts the legitimacy of a protest, at least in the eyes of the media, and changes the narrative of assembling for justice to condemning protesters for engaging in violence, or giving white supremacists airtime. The media never gets deep enough to address WHY many have no qualms with destroying property.

We need to embrace the nuance here. Yes, white looters hijacking protesters and engaging in property destruction to detract from the message of collective action should be called out. But we also need to elevate, listen to, and acknowledge the perspectives of those who are not white who feel compelled to express their rage by destroying property and conglomerates of capital that are more highly valued than human life.

– Phillip Clark
via Facebook
May 30, 2020

NEXT: Mayor Melvin Carter:
“The Anger Is Real, and I Share It With You”

Related Off-site Links:
Outsiders and Extremists Are Among Those Fomenting Violence in Twin Cities – Jon Collins and Elizabeth Shockman (MPR News, May 30, 2020).
Far-Right Infiltrators and Agitators in George Floyd Protests: Indicators of White Supremacists – Mia Bloom (Just Security, May 30, 2020).
Minnesota Officials Link Arrested Looters to White Supremacist Groups – Jon Parton (Courthouse News Service, May 30, 2020).
Far-right “Boogaloo” Militants Have Embedded Themselves in the George Floyd Protests in Minneapolis: “They Want Their Civil War” – Tess Owen (VICE, May 29, 2020).
Minnesota Attorney General Suggests Auto Zone Riot Starter Was “Provocateur” – Roman White (The Source, May 29, 2020).
Mayor Frey: The People Doing the Burning Are Not Minneapolis Residents – Declan Desmond (Bring Me the News, May 30, 2020).
Black Protesters Who Want to Demonstrate Peacefully Are Calling Out White People Who Instigate Violence – Clarissa-Jan Lim (BuzzFeed, May 30, 2020).
Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide – Matthew Dessem (Slate, May 31, 2020).
White Extremists Terrorize and Loot: 10 Videos of Destruction Black People Will Be Blamed For – BET (May 31, 2020).

UPDATES: “We Came to Riot”: Illinois Man Livestreamed Lighting Fires and Handing Out Explosives to Throw at Police Officers in Minneapolis, Charges Say – Andy Mannix (Star Tribune, June 1, 2020).
White Nationalist Group Posing as Antifa Called for Violence on Twitter – Ben Collins, Brandy Zadrozny and Emmanuelle Saliba (NBC News, June 1, 2020).
Report: Homeland Security Warned of ‘Anarchist and Militia Extremists’ Plan to Storm Minnesota Capitol and Burn It – Dave Orrick (Pioneer Press, June 1, 2020).
Donald Trump’s “Antifa” Hysteria Is Absurd. But It’s Also Very Dangerous – Chip Gibbons (Jacobin, June 2, 2020).
FBI “Has No Intelligence” Indicating Antifa Was Linked to Weekend Violence in the George Floyd Protests, Despite Trump and Republicans' Claims – Sonam Sheth (Business Insider, June 2, 2020).
White House Forced to Retract Claim Viral Videos Prove Antifa Is Plotting Violence – Robert Mackey (The Intercept, June 3, 2020).
Three Self-Proclaimed Members of the Far-Right “Boogaloo” Movement Were Arrested on Domestic Terrorism Charges for Trying to Spark Violence During Protests – Rosie Perper and Sonam Sheth (Business Insider, June 3, 2020).
Minneapolis Police Say “Umbrella Man” Was a White Supremacist Trying to Incite George Floyd Rioting – Libor Jany (Star Tribune, July 28, 2020).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “I Can't Breathe”: The Murder of George Floyd
• Something to Think About – May 28, 2020
• Honoring George Floyd
• Trevor Noah on the “Dominoes of Racial Injustice”
• Rallying in Solidarity with Eric Garner and Other Victims of Police Brutality
• In Minneapolis, Rallying in Solidarity with Black Lives in Baltimore
• “Say Her Name” Solidarity Action
• “We Are All One” – #Justice4Jamar and the 4th Precinct Occupation
• Quote of the Day – March 31, 2016
• “This Doesn't Happen to White People”
• Remembering Philando Castile and Demanding Abolition of the System That Targets and Kills People of Color
• Sweet Darkness
• Photo of the Day, 5/3/2015: “Black Is Sacred”
• “And Still We Rise!” – Mayday 2015
• “And Still We Rise!” – Mayday 2015 (Part II)
• Something to Think About – March 25, 2016

Image 1: Michael J. Bayly.
Image 2: Rachel McLean.
Image 3: Photographer unknown.
Image 4: Photographer unknown.
Images 5-10: Michael J. Bayly.