Black Lives Matter

Moses said to the people: "You are a people sacred to the LORD, your God; he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own. It was not because you are the largest of all nations that the LORD set his heart on you and chose you, for you are really the smallest of all nations. It was because the LORD loved you and because of his fidelity to the oath he had sworn your fathers, that he brought you out with his strong hand from the place of slavery, and ransomed you from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. 

Understand, then, that the LORD, your God, is God indeed, the faithful God who keeps his merciful covenant down to the thousandth generation toward those who love him and keep his commandments, but who repays with destruction a person who hates him; he does not dally with such a one, but makes them personally pay for it. You shall therefore carefully observe the commandments, the statutes and the decrees that I enjoin on you today." (Deuteronomy 7:6-11)

Today’s first reading reminds me of racism and slavery in particular.   It reminds me of the current controversy about flying the Confederate flag such as at NASCAR where that flag has just been banned (watch for bandanas, hats, and tee shirts; where there is a will, there is a way). 

I never thought Ole Dixie or the Rebel Flag was a racist flag, until now. Having some appreciation for the origins of the Civil War, I understand southern states decided to secede from the Union for many reasons such as its conclusion the North desired to suppress the South economically and to force its will upon the South.

The North was powerful having mills and factories.  It became a region of large-scale industry, big cities, and long-distance commerce.  The South, on the other hand favored large-scale, intensive farming with single cash crops such as tobacco or rice, sugar cane and, of course, cotton.  Consequently, slaves were needed.  According to one source, “There were enlightened southern planters who agreed that slavery – they referred to it as ‘our peculiar domestic institution’ – was distasteful.”

Interestingly, at one time, the U.S. Constitution recognized slaves as a form of property.  Plantation owners were provided workers by the slave trade with Africa and the West Indies in the 17th century.  Slaves were chattel.  Black slavery spread in the South during the 18th century.   The U.S. history of slavery is long and horrible – horrifying with a legacy that continues to this day.

I’ve read that supporters of the Confederate flag's continued use claim it is “a symbol of Southern ancestry and heritage as well as representing a distinct and independent cultural tradition of the Southern United States from the rest of the country.” Some feel the flag represents only “a past era of Southern sovereignty.”  Regardless, African-Americans know what the flag means to them: many decades of slavery, cruelty, oppression, and racism.

Regardless of someone’s motive for flying the flag, the important point is what it means to the millions of men and women whose ancestors were brought to this country on slave ships and forced to become property.  Slavery wasn’t a “peculiar domestic institution.”  It was an affront to God, as is racism in all its many forms now being intensively highlighted as “Black Lives Matter.”

Deacon David Pierce