Left Stripped and Ashamed
There is a need for a major paradigm shift in the way Americans, and especially the church, views the situation in Flint, the reality of the current presidential candidates, and the manner in which we make sense of life, or, the so-called value of every life. As I volunteer in Flint, it seems that people who are cognizant of the water and economic realities of that city are less than cognizant about the realities social relationships that reflect a cycle of abuse. How many different ways can we read Hosea? How many ways can we read Habakkuk or the Revelation to John?
I’ll unpack this – because it is a rather nuanced claim that I will make, even though I do not think the biblical record is as nuanced in its message. The first piece of dirty laundry to come from the top of the baggage we all bring is that Flint is not experiencing a “water crisis.” As one woman stated at a conference I was present at,” Flint has been in crisis. We know how to respond to crisis and have been for forty years. What we need is to lift ourselves out of constant crisis and begin to heal and rebuild.”
The next piece of dirty laundry is that many people who are not fully aware of Flint’s long history, as well as its more recent history as related to issues of race and class specifically. As such, while they may believe the citizens of Flint were “lied to” about water, the fact remain that Flint, and hundreds of cities like it, have been lied to by governments and corporations, and even unions, about billions of dollars-worth of economic fixes and job creation schemes ranging from Amway and Autoworld to “workfare” programs and charter schools. The promises of a new day in Flint come as often and sincerely as it does in the front offices of the Detroit Lions football team, with even more unbearable outcomes. The Lions have been accused of providing an entertaining afternoon of going down in Flames, where as in Flint, it is empty buildings and vacant homes that are burning. The promises made about the water in Flint are just another in a long line of persons standing in line to practice delivering bullshit to the hopeful before actually delivering goods to those deemed a better risk. Unlike the monorail fiasco of the Simpson’s fictional city of Springfield, Flint has not been sold a bill of goods, it has been stuck with the bill for string of stupid investments that enriched the system. Nero is a Michigander in the depths of his fiddlin’ soul.
The third item of dirty laundry is that when it comes to places like Flint, Detroit, Saginaw, and Muskegon, is that the privileged refuse to wash any laundry while on their permanent working vacation, simply using funds to buy new and brighter clothing so as never to have to actually deal with the stains of racism, classism, and inequality. This is what Gordy Howe meant when he said the NHL gave its player the mushroom treatment during contract talks. Howe said the teams would throw the players in a dark corner and cover them in manure until it was time to negotiate a contract. At that point, the player was happy to get anything resembling a pay raise because they had been made to feel like a fungus.
The proper way to put Flint and Detroit into perspective is to recognize that there has been a history of crises in these cities and others like them. At this point, especially in terms of the institutionalized racism and race baiting that occurs while folks struggle for resources and jobs, we can no longer say that cities are in crisis. We must now begin to view whole populations as traumatized, and find a means of providing resources which allow for development and liberation from what has turned out to be an extremely abusive system. In terms of democracy and realpolitik, Flint has been beaten, only to get up again with promises that government and democracy still love it, and promise to deliver a better future. It is like a reversal of Hosea, where Flint is forced to marry a market economy pimp, whored out to special friends, and then stripped naked and left in the wind ashamed and open to johns who will provide the means of providing for the “illegitimate children of whoredom” left behind as a threat to the scion.
The people of Flint have been traumatized, yet have no means of escaping their abusive spouse. In fact, a number of overseers were appointed to manage Flint through its multiple crises, telling them like the abuser that it was all for her own good. My challenge for you to consider: how is your church, your Christendom, your gods and idols, how are you related to the offspring of this relationship. What is our biblical obligation to a people who have been told they are a people, but are excluded by the “family” of Abraham according to race, class, and need. Indeed, we must recognize the nature of the abuse and offer respite – an alternative to the promises of the abuser.
Jesus came to just such a situation. Not only was a foreign army occupying the Promised Land, but the ruling elites were excluding folks left and right as impure, unclean, not right, and a threat to the status of the real people of God. Yet all of our prophets, not one of them liars, insist that it is the mistreatment and prostituting of justice at the expense of these people that were the undoing of Israel, the Temple, and all of those who claimed that lineage in the line of Abraham was enough to bring salvation. Folks, it is not just the people of Flint that need salvation, we do. Oh damn do we ever need salvation, and I tell you the truth, it has nothing to do with heaven or post-mortem bliss. It has to do with radically loving our neighbors and working with them to heal with dignity. If government will not provide for dignity, then Jesus must, and will.
Two key concepts at work here – dignity, and sacrifice, are not only biblical, but are found among Christian and feminist sociologists such as Cornell West and bell hooks. These two scholars have insisted for a long time that treating others with dignity, and modeling to those in power how to give up their power and need to control in order to equalize relationships, is a step toward salvation. I don ‘t know if either of these scholars believe in heaven or not, West most likely does, but I do know that they are committed to thinking about human relationships and the divine in a way that makes the incarnation not only indispensable to our understanding of God, but indispensable to our ability to understand and embody the gospel in a manner that is faithful to God.
It is the church that can do this. We have the narrative of emptying ourselves of privilege. We have the narrative that blessed those who are impoverished, marginalized, and cast out by those at the center of life. With Jesus, we call the people in the center out into a circle that holds hands in unity, but tells the truth with authority. Flint is not is water crisis, it is an abused spouse, bound to its abuser economically as much as by the chains of emotional and mental distress. How can the church change Flint – we must first recognize that it is in Flint that Jesus ministers to us, and thus, we experience our day of salvation. Heaven can wait.
