“The chickens have come home to roost.” When Malcome X said these words to describe President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, he was suggesting the hatred and violence the U.S. cultivated worldwide had returned to plague us.
Sixty-three years later, the chickens are still coming home to roost.
We are living in a nation distinct for its political violence, demonstrated recently during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Once again, the President’s life and those of others attending the event, fell victim to our culture of violence, where political arguments are resolved through bullets rather than ballots.
We live in a country where our worship of firearms makes us among the most unsafe countries in the world.
Among industrialized nations, the U.S. has 4,382 gun deaths per 100,000 people. Compare this to Canada, the country next on the list, at .672. Every day, 130 United Statians are shot and killed, twice as many are shot and wounded. We have created a culture of death where fidelity to the Second Amendment trumps the right to life.
I Am A Target
I am no statesman or politician. I’m just a professor teaching a Gospel message that by its very nature has political ramifications and often offends. After all, any proclamation of the Gospel which is not an affront to those accustomed to their unearned power, privilege, and profits is a disempowered gospel.
Even before being placed on Charles Kirk’s Turning Point USA professor watchlist, my life had already been threatened. On one occasion, the host at the church where I was preaching was forced to hire a security team due to viable online chatter. I live in fear because what occurred at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has been normalized, if not legitimized, in our current public arena.
No doubt, as news concerning the shooter becomes public, he will be dismissed as troubled, mentally ill or insane. But that is not the real problem. It is the United States that is troubled, mentally ill and insane.
For such a time as this, we need a president who uses the bully pulpit to unequivocally repudiate all forms of violence, to denounce hate-based speech, to call for unity, and to lead by example. I guess that is too much to ask of our current president.
True, immediately after the tragedy, Trump spoke to reporters in consolatory terms. That lasted less than 24 hours. He then returned to doing what Trump does best—deflect.
“I do think,” he said during a 60 Minutes interview, “that the hate speech of the Democrats is very dangerous. I really think it’s very dangerous for the country.”
His words were followed by his Press Secretary Leavitt: “This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of [Trump] and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat Party and even some in the media. . . This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump, day after day after day, for eleven years has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.”
It is ironic that those who have set fire to the house are bitching about the heat.
No “Other Side” Equivalent
I recognize that there have also been liberals and Democrats who have engaged in violent rhetoric. But these seem to be exceptions to the rule, not the normalized, systematic propaganda campaign of this administration to portray political opponents as subhuman.
Where is the liberal counterpart to the Proud Boys? The Oath Keepers? The Patriot Front? The Active Clubs?
And of course, we cannot forget the good old-fashioned Klan or Neo-Nazis. What do you do when sympathizers of these racist tendencies hold major posts in this administration?
Maybe you are wondering why we haven’t heard much from these groups lately. As Proud Boy leadership noted, Trump’s second term is the “calm before the storm.” With Trump’s reelection and his immediate pardon of January 6 terrorists, members of those groups claim to have achieved their key goals.
But I’ll tell you what truly scares me. If in a post-Trump world, if some future president attempts to crack down on these hate groups, will we have the civil war for which they have been salivating?
What happens when those anti-Latine ICE agents are dismissed from their posts? What would it mean if militarily trained former agents were unemployed, blaming wokeness for their dismissals?
Prove me wrong. Prove to me that Trump is right to blame the left. Please name one liberal hate group.
And please don’t insult me with the made-up Antifa, which is neither a national group nor an organization, with no membership. Antifa is a philosophy loosely attracting those, like me, who are nonviolent and anti-fascist. And yet the White House designated this nongroup as a terrorist organization while ignoring the documented violence committed by actually existing right-wing hate groups.
If someone who is a leftist, a liberal, or a Democrat commits an act of violence, then they must be fully prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The same holds for those who are alt-right, neoconservative, or Republican. But as this administration has repeatedly shown, the latter is excused and/or pardoned.
A Dangerous Future
My being placed on Turning Point’s professor watchlist provides my profile to all sorts of delusional nonconformists. Please let me know what the leftist counterpart to that is. I know of no online list of conservative professors who are being targeted.
The President has referred to Latinos like me as vermin, as rapists, criminals and drug-pushers who are very troubled, and as creating rats’ nests. He even used the Hitlerian phrase “poisoning the blood.”
He has referred to political leftists like me as domestic terrorists, as vicious, violent, and Radical Left thugs. He even advocated military usage to deal with those who are, like me, “the enemy within.”
Please hear me. When the President of the United States, from his bully pulpit, labels me with such descriptives, when we live in a culture saturated with unrestricted guns, and when a right-wing hate group places my profile on their watchlist, it makes me afraid for my safety. Wouldn’t you be?
My crime? I wield a pen, not a sword, to express my disagreement and fear that this democracy is sliding toward authoritarianism.
I also fear this noble experiment called the United States will fail if we continue to use hate and violence as political tools to get demagogues elected. Yes, indeed, the chickens have come home to roost.
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.