In the aftermath of becoming the Post-Roe generation, liberal-leaning reproductive justice folks are currently engaging in a postmortem “where did we go wrong” dialogue in an attempt to soothe our wounds. The usual cycle of political outrage is working at finely tuned efficiency — round the clock news coverage, protests and marches, and sociopolitical hot takes and opinion pieces not unlike this one. Because the cycle is predictable, the foreseeable end is a loss of steam to power the engine of resistance beyond the next few weeks. Which brings me to my next point: they know you’ll grow weary and faint which will allow them to continue their agenda as planned. The Oppressor usually has amassed enough power and material resources (read: wealth) to wait you out — unless you demonstrate the ability to continuously disrupt “normalcy” without an end in sight.
Settle in, friends. I’m about to make you uncomfortable but I ask that you try not to let your cognitive dissonance rob your critical thinking here.
We’ve been systematically stripped of our autonomy, strength, and endurance through unregulated capitalism and Christofascism. Looking to “praise” conservatives for their pseudo-mastery in gradual policy shifts for the last 50 years ignores that it was not persistence that gave them “victory.” This is the clear result of hoarding power through concentrated wealth in fewer hands, labor exploitation both domestic and abroad, the emphasis of state power to determine outcomes over federal regulation, and by perpetuating the illusion that we’re all a breath of self-determination away from wealth over a paycheck away from being unhoused and ass out.
In other words: they made us too tired to fight, weakened our resolve by decimating our financial resources, and destroyed our sociopolitical buying power while making our survival dependent upon the whims of employers and charitable giving by the wealthy instead of requiring radical wealth redistribution. We can’t afford — individually and maybe even collectively — to sustain resistance work for the time it would take to make our power-rich oppressors uncomfortable enough to cede power back to the people. They know this and the gag is, they’ve kept us this exhausted for generations.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 380 days, December 5, 1955 – December 20, 1956. You likely know it was influenced by institutionalized racism through legal segregation — requiring Black folks to sit in restricted sections and conceding their comfort (seats) for whites if needed. What you may not know is that it was modeled after the Baton Rouge Bus Boycott of 1953 which only lasted SIX (6) days.
In Baton Rouge, the boycott was preceded by the striking down of a city ordinance that allowed Black riders to sit anywhere on the bus, but required that they voluntarily refrained from sitting next to whites. In protest of the ordinance, the ALL WHITE employ of bus drivers went on strike for 4 days. Rev. T.J. Jamison and the United Defense League organized the bus boycott after the ordinance was overturned. It required raising $6,000, organizing free taxis and private carpools, and acquiring full communal force — voluntarily and by force of paramilitary groups.
Black folks were 80% of the public transit consumer base so racism aside, there was still motive to end this boycott as soon as possible. A second ordinance was quickly passed but did little to change the material conditions of the people — it still required them to sit in the back away from the whites. The change was, essentially, ineffective to the goals of full public transit integration. Every decision of legal protection was made at the local ordinance level.
By contrast, the Montgomery Bus Boycott (and subsequently, the Tallahassee Bus Boycott) used Baton Rouge as a template — raising capital, organizing private taxis, enforcing adherence to the boycott — but went on until the FEDERAL ruling of Browder v. Gayle took effect. Because it was States Rights (def: the rights and powers held by individual US states rather than by the federal government) and local ordinances that threatened to fine Black taxi drivers — who supported the boycott by charging bus rates, 10¢, for charging less than 45¢ fares. Despite the boycott causing local economic distress, it was the City Commission that asked for allowance to stop servicing buses to Black routes. It was the local District Attorney’s office that indicted King and 88 others by charging them for conspiring to interfere with a business (read: disrupting economic power) under a local 1921 ordinance.
The Supreme Court of the United States of America is now and has always been aware of the adverse impact of turning human rights decisions over to individual state legislatures and definition. It is why we needed Browder v. Gayle, Brown vs. Kansas BOE, Lawrence v. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, Loving v. Virginia, Griswold v. Connecticut, and Roe v. Wade to be decided by the highest court for federal change. The overturning of the federal right to access abortion care to be decided at the state level is an intentional choice to both support and sustain hegemonic power. The hard to swallow pill here is that this failure is not exclusive to political choice. We’re not here because of leftist political apathy and ballot protest. We’re not even here because of conservative allegiance to the employ of political interference. We are here because of multiple systemic failures to interrogate power, protect individual autonomy, and to reconcile where power and autonomy eats away at communal wellness. This failure has given way to the deepening of Christofascism among us that crosses racial, gender, and ideological lines.
The German liberation theologian Dorothee Sölle coined the term Christofascism in 1970 as she observed populist ultranationalism, racial grievance, violent paramilitary action, patriotic reverence for capitalism, and the media crusades of the Moral Majority become adapted theological positions of the Christian church (hence Christianity + Fascism = Christofascism). Sölle warned that it was possible to slide toward fascism without the obvious totalitarianism that was a trademark of German fascism.
Sölle saw three uniting themes in U.S. Christofascism at the end of the Cold War: 1) U.S. superiority; 2) the veneration of work and, in the inverse, cruelty toward those who depend on welfare or solidarity; and 3) the lionization of the patriarchal nuclear family and, in the inverse, the demonization of sexual and gender minorities. Sound familiar? READ MORE: A field guide to Christofascism by Paul Bowers (Brutal Earth)
“We wrestle not against flesh & blood but POWERS & PRINCIPALITIES.”
Ephesians 6:12
US political campaigns have been built on the cult of personality — and waging resistance against a personality. We’ve been worn out by fighting against giving power to flesh and blood like Donald J. Trump instead of fighting the corrupted power of wealth concentration and the supremacist principality that enabled his political rise. In our argument that poor whites are vested in voting against their own interests by aligning with those who exploit both their labor and poverty, we ignore the Christofascist indoctrination that: 1. Personal wealth is an indication of holiness and God’s favor, 2. You must work to exhaustion physically and spiritually to obtain that favor and 3. If impoverishment is an indication of sin, then it is because this nation has been making legal precedents that separate us from God. It is the third point that serves well our collective cognitive dissonance against both introspection for personal responsibility and holding accountable those who perpetuate institutional marginalization. Christofascist ideology convinces who it should terrify in reality because it projects the blame onto someone and something else outside of the adherent.
Christofascism has shaped an imagining of God by persistent laboring to please a nonplussed deity bent on crime (sin) and punishment, but preaches to its adherents a hope that you can acquire the fruit of God’s favor — if you just work hard enough. In other words, it is easy to be convinced that gender/ethnic/sexual minority group has committed the egregious sin of demanding unearned equity — and to resent them for angering the temperamental God who then in turn withholds His favor from us all.
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:14
As a doctrine, Christofascism takes this verse quite literally as the explanation for every social ill among us. It sees progressive advancements like access to abortive care, same gender marriage, and affirmative action as a devotion to wicked ways against God. It is the fault of non-white, non-straight, and non-male who refuse to concede all power to the dogma of white evangelical supremacy that our nation is broken. They believe that through the reversal of these cardinal sins that we will finally be blessed.
For Christofascists, it is not unregulated gun access that has increased violent crime but the shedding of innocent blood through abortion care. It is not our failure to regulate industries or enact full protections against labor exploitation, but our burden is caused by the support and legalization of same gender marriages. Christofascists have actively — with concerted effort — worked to erode personal, political, and social boundaries to impose upon all its belief of a final and victorious Christ. All while reducing Christ to merely an avatar of their own hegemonic agenda.
For the rest of us, though, we have to understand that the Christofascists seated on SCOTUS bench, the Hill, and in the ballot box are in it for the long haul not only as a political position, but as one empowered by the moral arc of long suffering and redemption in the tradition of the Christ story. In other words, long suffering is just another kind of labor that they look to God to reward them for — and they’ve got all the practical tools to help them sustain the wait. Which is only possible because those tools and resources were stolen from the rest of us through generations and centuries of poor public policy.
Could we sustain 380 days of boycotting when gas is averaging $4.87 a gallon? Where private cars have become public taxis through Uber and Lyft as a means of survival? Where the cost to own a car is prohibitively expensive to organize private carpooling at no or low cost? Where our work commutes are an hour or more one way from our homes? Where public infrastructure is crumbling and in disrepair? In a society where we’re more concerned with individualism than ever, making a sustained collective effort nearly impossible?
The answer is that it seems unlikely — and that’s been the real path to victory for those who seek up uphold the bloodstained banner of tyranny in Jesus’ name. Certainly we are able to make effective change by causing socioeconomic distress, but are we able AND willing to make the sacrifice it requires?
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