What to do with hate

By jeff Long

A former colleague of mine brought a Ku Klux Klan robe to a meeting years ago. It wasn't his but had belonged to an ancestor. The speaker was attempting to illustrate the roots of racism and due to the choices made by extended family, unwittingly those choices touch our lives. The reaction to seeing the white-hooded robe with the Klan's "Blood Drop" cross brought swift reaction. African-Americans who attended the meeting were understandably outraged. The speaker, a kind and good white man, had intended no offense and was truly mortified. He should have known better -- but his fault was an error in judgment. Sometimes we just need to think things through first.

Refreshing, isn't it, that there are still some things that can outrage us? Profanity no longer shocks. Disrespect no longer fazes. But produce a certain symbol -- one that calls forth images of hate, murder and discrimination of the worst kind? This still can get blood to boil.

I told a congregation recently that I've heard more in the past month about the Confederate flag, Confederate monuments and white nationalism than I've heard in my whole life. And I'm not young.

The reaction we have to symbols is telling. I wrote my doctoral project about symbols -- specifically, the juxtaposition of the U.S. flag and the cross in Christian worship. Symbols, in and of themselves, have no power. It is the actions those symbols tend to evoke that can either be beneficial or hurtful, uplifting or damning.

The late Robert C. Byrd was the longest-serving U.S. senator in American history. It is impossible, in any fair biography, not to mention his name in connection with the KKK. As a younger man, Byrd was not only a Klan member, but a leader -- attaining the position of "Exalted Cyclops." Before entering public life, he had actually created a Klan chapter. Today, West Virginia, like Missouri, has two active Klan chapters. The Anti-Defamation League reports there are 42 active KKK-affiliated groups in America, concentrated in 22 states. The League says the Klan is slowly growing thanks to more recent political winds, but poses no real threat today.

How much should a person be held responsible for his past? I have no answer or counsel to give here. There are certainly things I regret that cannot be changed now. Byrd worked diligently to separate himself from the hate rhetoric he spewed in the 1940s. One example: "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth in West Virginia." He said much uglier things than this -- but I will not sully this column with those words.

Although not born in West Virginia, Byrd is indelibly identified with the state he represented in Congress' upper chamber for 51 years. At his death in 2010, he was revered as a great historian of the Senate, an honored preserver of its rituals. He brought a great deal of money, what the unkind might call "pork-barrel projects," home to the Mountain State. Dozens of institutions in West Virginia are named for him. Since my family -- and that of my wife -- have their roots there, we are familiar with Byrd's stature.

We can't change the past, but we can be fully aware in the present. To wit: When we hear hate speech, we must call it out. When we see hateful symbols, we must show our opposition. The prophet Micah is clear. What God requires of us, in addition to mercy and humility -- is the doing of justice.