...and Gandhi heard it the same way.
Hello, I'm still resting my brain, but I wanted to clarify what I was trying to say with this post about Battered Shame and learned helplessness.
Someday, I imagine, future historians will look back at the American reflex of responding to violence with fear-fueled annhilation the way we now laugh at Redcoats fighting the Continental Army in neat, red rows.
And I had a whoooooole lot to say about our culture of pathological worship of 'winners' and demonizing of life's percieved 'losers'. But that's for another time.
Losers are only losers if they accept the hand they're dealt.
Jesus backs me.
""Turn the other cheek" suggests the passive, Christian doormat quality that has made so many Christians cowardly and complicit in the face of injustice...Rather than fostering structural change, such attitudes encourage collaboration with the oppressor.
Jesus never behaved in such ways. Whatever the source of the misunderstanding, it is neither Jesus nor his teaching, which, when given a fair hearing in its original social context, is arguably one of the most revolutionary political statements ever uttered.
"...Why then does Jesus counsel these already humiliated people to turn the other cheek? Because this action robs the oppressor of power to humiliate them. The person who turns the other cheek is saying, in effect, "Try again. Your first blow failed to achieve its intended effect. I deny you the power to humiliate me. I am a human being just like you. Your status (gender, race, age, wealth) does not alter that. You cannot demean me." Such a response would create enormous difficulties for the striker. Purely logistically, how can he now hit the other cheek? He cannot backhand it with his right hand. If he hits with a fist, he makes himself an equal, acknowledging the other as a peer. But the whole point of the back of the hand is to reinforce the caste system and its institutionalized inequality.Sound familiar?
"Get your coat, and don't say goodnight to anybody on our way out".
Keeps you humble, self-absorbed - and playing the same game as your batterer.
I was assaulted by someone once had stuffed dirt in the mouths and vaginas of his dead victims. He told the judge he wanted to kill me because I was looking him in the eye while he kicked and punched me. If I had run, I may not have got away, and the fact that I messed with his game was worth the broken ribs, and made the next ten years a lot easier.
"Even if nonviolent action does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor, it does affect those committed to it. As Martin Luther King, Jr. attested, it gives them new self-respect and calls on strength and courage they did not know they had".
In the spirit of the season, I recommend taking a look at the whole article.
Jesus' Third Way
* Seize the moral initiative.
* Find a creative alternative to violence.
* Assert your own humanity and dignity as a person.
* Meet force with ridicule or humor.
* Break the cycle of humiliation.
* Refuse to submit or to accept the inferior position.
* Expose the injustice of the system.
* Take control of the power dynamic.
* Shame the oppressor into repentance.
* Stand your ground.
* Force the Powers into decisions for which they are not prepared.
* Recognize your own power.
* Be willing to suffer rather than retaliate.
Now, flame away, my kickass sistahs. ; )
