1) If the murders had been committed in a shopping center parking lot, instead of in a church, would this be happening?
2) If the nine black people had been of low status rather than some of the pillars of the community, would this be happening?
3) If there were no pictures of the murderer posing with the Confederate Battle Flag, would the flag be coming down from state houses and off license plates?
4) If the some of the members of the families of the victim had not expressed forgiveness of their loved-one's murderer, would these leaders on the right been moved to acknowledge how injurious has been the official endorsement of the symbols of racial oppression?
(This impact of this remarkable act of forgiveness was emphasized yesterday by Lindsey Graham, who spoke most movingly -- and appeared deeply human -- in advocating the removal of the Confederate Battle flag from South Carolina's statehouse.)
5) Was there anything else happening beneath the surface of our politics before this terrible crime that readied the system for something like this to be catalyzed? (Even in retrospect, I can't see anything like that.)
I wish I knew.
This isn't a Hollywood movie, I recognize. Happy endings are fun to watch, but the story will not end here. Surely many very fundamental things have not changed, and the changes that are happening may prove temporary.
We can hope that this astonishing development -- in a Republican political culture that has never been able to admit being wrong about anything, while being wrong about almost everything in recent years -- may be the harbinger of other positive changes to come.
I don't expect that. But then, as these recent days have shown, the complexity and subtlety of many of the forces at work in the human world does not allow one to know for sure just what might happen.
2) If the nine black people had been of low status rather than some of the pillars of the community, would this be happening?
3) If there were no pictures of the murderer posing with the Confederate Battle Flag, would the flag be coming down from state houses and off license plates?
4) If the some of the members of the families of the victim had not expressed forgiveness of their loved-one's murderer, would these leaders on the right been moved to acknowledge how injurious has been the official endorsement of the symbols of racial oppression?
5) Was there anything else happening beneath the surface of our politics before this terrible crime that readied the system for something like this to be catalyzed? (Even in retrospect, I can't see anything like that.)
I wish I knew.
This isn't a Hollywood movie, I recognize. Happy endings are fun to watch, but the story will not end here. Surely many very fundamental things have not changed, and the changes that are happening may prove temporary.
We can hope that this astonishing development -- in a Republican political culture that has never been able to admit being wrong about anything, while being wrong about almost everything in recent years -- may be the harbinger of other positive changes to come.
I don't expect that. But then, as these recent days have shown, the complexity and subtlety of many of the forces at work in the human world does not allow one to know for sure just what might happen.
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