BREAKING BREAD WITH BANDITS

That didn't take long. Before the party barely got going. Before the good drinks got mixed and served. Before the music really got banging. Before the grub hit the table. Before any of that started to pop, we began to get bombarded with the message, with the warning, that now was the time to begin the healing; that now was the time to stop dancing with our differences and to seek our deliverance by reaching across the political divide. If the common good was to be rescued and restored, we were told, we needed to seek reconciliation with folks some of us considered rascals. We needed to begin the healing process by taking a deep breath and forgiving those who supported an authoritarian figure who consistently demonstrated an utter disdain for any semblance of a democracy. A figure who provided aid and comfort to those who attach zero value to Black lives. A figure whose hostility to science undoubtedly contributed to some unnecessary sickness and death from the current pandemic. A figure who desires to strip access to health care for our neediest neighbors. A figure who does his best to suppress the vote of poor and Black folk, A figure whose economic policies centers on giving tax breaks to the rich and freeing corporations from "costly" regulations. A figure who throws his own base under the bus. A figure who panders to plutocrats.

We are told that we now have a moral obligation to forgive the supporters of this figure; we are told that those of us who opposed this figure must now seek a rapprochement with those who functioned as his foot soldiers. In the name of unity, in the name of moving forward, in the name of designing something more desirous out of the debris that has been bequeath us, we must-- so we are told-- prepare to break bread with bandits.

But how do you break bread with people who want to break your back?

How can there be a rapprochement with racists?

What's the middle ground with misogynists look like?

Can you break bread with bandits?

REQUISITES OF RECONCILIATION

But check this out. With rare exceptions, the call for reconciliation is directed toward those who have consistently resisted Trump and his supporters. The onus is placed on the opposition to make amends with Trump and his supporters. It's the opposition that's typically tasked with the responsibility of baking and offering the bread of reconciliation. In all of these calls I have not seen one that begins by saying that, for instance, "genuine reconciliation begins with Trump's supporters raising up, denouncing his policies as morally evil, and apologizing for ever having been counted amongst his platoon of supporters." Why no calls for Trump's supporters to demonstrate their desire for reconciliation by now denouncing him and his policies wholesale?

His racism

His xenophobia

His misogyny

His ableism

His callous attitude toward the climate

His tax cuts that only put more money in the pockets of plutocrats

This is why most of the current calls for reconciliation are extraordinarily shallow. They continue to swallow and belch forth the fiction that the disagreement between supporters and opponents of Trump is akin to parties disagreeing over a football game. You know, once the game is over--whether your team wins or loses-- the parties continue to talk smack over laughter and a beer. But the disagreement between Trump's supporters and opponents carries a lot more gravitas than a game, say, between the Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles. This disagreement-- the one between Trump's opponents and supporters-- is a disaccord that involves life and death; it is a discordance between people fighting for rights and people who believe that those fighters have no rights that others are duty bound to respect. It's an incongruity between democracy and plutocracy.

And there can be no genuine reconciliation until the supporters of death unambiguously denounce and distance themselves from necropolitics.

This is why the columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., recently declared that he has zero interest in these calls for reconciliation. Not because he's opposed to reconciliation in principle; but, rather, because the current cacophony around reconciliation is nothing more than a charade, and will remain as such unless and until Trump's supporters demonstrate that they're ready to denounce and desert that death cult known as Trumpism. Pulling no punches and speaking of himself, Pitts pointedly writes:

"Now in 2020, this great-grandson of slaves is expected, in the name of a supposedly greater good, to seek reconciliation with followers of one of the most flagrantly racist--not to mention misogynistic, xenophobic and Islamophobic-- presidents in history? In a word: No. In another word: Enough."

And that, quite frankly, is where I am at the moment. Nope. Enough. Nope because at this very moment Trump's supporters are still going all out to intimidate vote counters and to subvert the results of the most recent election. Nope, because they're still pushing the craziest of conspiracy theories. Nope. Enough. Because, as of yet, they're still demonstrating an allegiance to some form of plutocratic populism. Nope, because they ain't demonstrating an iota of interest in reconciliation and forgiveness. Nope, because I'm way too busy and way too weary to be worried about forgiving someone who ain't asking for it.

If that's your ministry, then go for it.

If you think it's possible for you to reconcile with unrepentant racists, then go for it.

If you got the juice to break bread with someone who still wants to break your body, then go for it.

But me? Nah. I'm wary of people who seem more than ready to steal the rights, and even lives, of people who I love. I'm jittery around people who specialize in stealing civil and human rights. I don't break bread with bandits.

So, right now, I'm going to take a hard pass. Right now, I'm going to pump the music up, break out another red ale, and enjoy the moment. With genuine friends. With people who I trust and who trust me. Not with bandits.

Catch you on the flip side,

Doc Greene