By Bill Mefford
Never afraid to seek ever lower depths to human depravity, this past week donald trump once again attacked climate change activist Greta Thunberg for being selected as Time’s Person of the Year. Pathetic, small, and petty do not even begin to describe the person in the Oval Office. But even worse was the response of Melania Trump, who had attacked a law professor a week previously for merely mentioning her son’s name, merely defended her marriage (all married couples communicate differently) and her son once again while insinuating that Greta deserves to be attacked by the office of the president because she has chosen to speak out against climate change.
Yes, her response was pathetic and her “Be Best” campaign against internet bullying is a complete farce, but it also shows all of us that our society values those who are moderate and compliant far above the value it places on the activist, the organizer, the prophet. Society likes those who just get along while those who question and provoke “deserve” to be attacked.
This is nothing new of course. Throughout human history societies have castigated and ostracized those who call their communities to live up to what they claim to be. Just as Jesus cries over Jerusalem for killing her prophets, so too does Jesus cry over how societies have ostracized activists and marginalized the organizers for justice.
Let’s look at a few brief examples of this:
Radical suffragist, Alice Paul was most definitely not a favorite of President Wilson as she regularly orchestrated provocative demonstrations aimed at the White House. But she also became unwelcome even among her fellow suffragists, being forced out of the dominant suffragist group, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, because she chose to continue to pressure President Wilson to support women’s suffrage even during America’s entrance into World War I. When the time for the celebration came once women were given the right to vote, she was not invited.
While the memory of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King has largely been reduced to his famous “I Have a Dream,” what is often forgotten is King’s increasing critique of capitalism and emphasis on poverty towards the end of his life, which included an unforgiving condemnation of the Vietnam War. His condemnation of the war and his passion to talk about poverty and income disparity cost him access to not only President Johnson, but even to formerly supportive “liberal” clergy.
Lastly, we see marginalization of progressive and especially liberatonist Christians by supposedly progressive foundations which give money to causes like climate change and immigration. Instead of funding liberationist activism and organizing work, these supposedly progressive foundations have continually and mistakenly granted money to organizations that focus on mobilizing small and ineffective evangelical Christians. I have seen this up close in areas like immigration and mass incarceration.
Alice Paul, Martin Luther King, liberationist activists of today, Greta Thunberg, and so many others all share both their passion to forsake societal acceptance and achieve real and needed social change. Their approval comes not from the rest of society and sometimes does not even come from their peers in social justice. Their delight in achieving concrete social change.
Justice is not always popular. In fact, when it is, it usually ceases to be justice that is being sought. But we should be grateful for those who make us uncomfortable, who question the status quo in our society and in our houses of worship, and we should defend their right to speak.