The beginning of the HBO Watchmen series starts with a reenactment of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.
The Tulsa race massacre was a two-day-long white supremacist terrorist massacre that took place between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as deputies and armed by city government officials, attacked black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history. The attackers burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood—at the time, one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States, colloquially known as “Black Wall Street.”
I can’t overstate how much rage things like this fill me with.
I find it hard to re-read that paragraph without feeling my blood pressure spike and evil thoughts of retribution filling my heart and mind.
I’m a pretty classic Enneagram 8
Enneagram type 8s, also known as The Challenger or The Protector, are known for their strong sense of justice and desire to protect others:
Justice-oriented
Type 8s are focused on fairness, equality, and justice, and they often advocate for the underdog. They believe in taking justice into their own hands to combat oppression.
Protective
Type 8s have a strong desire to protect others and defend them from injustice. They are unafraid of conflict and are willing to find solutions.
Assertive
Type 8s are confident in expressing themselves and their opinions. They are natural leaders who are able to make quick decisions.
Bold and independent
Type 8s are self-reliant and value their autonomy. They are unafraid to tackle challenges head-on.
I am not afraid. I’m just so angry.
I’m like a bull in a china shop. I am the Incredible Hulk. All I want to do is smash in the name of justice.
Injustice is a capital offense in my mind. And I see it everywhere.
I see innocent children being neglected by their teachers. I see Black men tormented by a deadly fentanyl addiction being neglected by their nurses. I see murders of former gang members go uninvestigated. And, of course, I see the richest, most Christian society in the history of humanity watch veterans, pregnant women, and senior citizens freeze to death on our streets while they sue me for trying to take care of them.
John Brown is my all-time hero. While his raid on Harper’s Ferry was a strategic failure, it was wildly believed to be the spark that lit the fire of the Civil War, which ended chattel slavery in America.
Make no mistake, John Brown was a terrorist by every definition of the word. He murdered families. He was a murderer.
And I drool at the delicious stories of his righteous terror.
The first problem is that almost no one has had the profound effect of violence that John Brown had.
Take, for example, the assassin of William McKinley. (I wouldn’t fault you if you had to ask yourself if he was actually president. And even I can’t tell you who was president before and after him.)
Did you even know McKinley was assassinated? That was the first question that came up for me. Well, he was. And his assassin was an anarchist by the name of Leon Czolgosz. His last words were: “I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people—the working people. I am not sorry for my crime.”
What a colossal waste of time. I don’t know what McKinley did. I certainly don’t know Leon. Leon would have had as much effect on the world doing absolutely nothing with his life.
Leon did nothing that I can reference to help the working people.
It’s like this with the vast majority of these idealists. The Unabomber, Timothy McVeigh, etc.
And then how about all those poor souls that self-immolate? Can you even remember the name of the guy who set himself on fire in support of the Palestinians earlier this year? I was extremely moved by him at the time. But I can’t remember his name, and he clearly did no good to help wrap that war up.
Yet another waste of effort and the life of a good person.
I simply don’t believe in the effectiveness of violent activism. Maybe if you can start a war, that’s one thing. That’s what Hamas did in Palestine, and I’d say they are having some pretty powerful effect because they could count on the bloodthirsty redemption of the Israeli government. But what the outcome will be for Palestine is anyone’s guess. It probably will go back to being pretty much just like it’s always been. Yet more pointless death.
As an Enneagram 8, I LOVE watching stuff burn in the name of fighting oppression. But as a mildly aware amateur philosopher I cognitively know it’s a waste of time and also just ends your cause right then and there.
And also, it makes me feel gross. I may be drawn to death and destruction. But it doesn’t make me feel good. It leaves me with a sick hangover of regret and shame. Even just the thoughts of it make me feel bad.
I share this with you because I want you to know that I’m on this journey with all of you. I am not a saint. I am not from outside of humanity. In fact, any goodness I have comes from feeling the shame and embarrassment of being too human.
I want to be on the record that, in no uncertain terms, I am bloodthirsty. I crave justice through violence. I love a bloody revolution. I don’t want to be whitewashed.
Society makes people into saints so that they can be sidelined. “He was a saint. He was better than the rest of us. He’s special. He’s the son of God [that’s a Jesus reference, for the record, not me].”
I am nothing like a saint. I am dirty, dark, cruel, and vindictive.
But that’s the dark side of me. That’s my Darth Vader side. I will not succumb to it.
My path right now is practicing forgiveness.
I’m finding this book to be comforting:
The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World
by Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu
My wife commented that I’m learning the guitar to stop myself from wanting to throat-punch the entire world. She knows me well.
I’m learning that forgiveness is a gift to ourselves. It’s a great personal relief to let go of that heavy weight. I’m also learning that none of us are innocent. We all are sometimes the victim and sometimes the villain. And often, we are both simultaneously. Just look at all the blood dripping off my words in this post. I could be the villain so easily. I already am in my mind. In the name of justice, of course. Aren’t all evil villains rationalizing their cruelty in the name of some sort of wrong they see in the world?
I believe we are all connected—the entire earth and its inhabitants. I’m taking that idea to the extreme (as I do with most things) and practicing the idea that there is only one being. Quite literally, there is one human in this practice I’m doing. The person you see driving down the street in a car you will never see again is you from another point in spacetime. We are just seeing billions of layers of spacetime of ourselves.
Hitler is you. Jesus is you. Everyone and every living thing is you.
Do you really think you’d behave any differently if you were the leader of Hamas or Isreal? In my world, that IS you. Of course you’d act like them because they are you.
Forgiving others is just practicing forgiving ourselves, which is the hardest of all things to do. In another universe, there is a variation of Israel where Israel forgives Hamas and does not send one single bomb in retaliation to the Hamas attack. It is an enlightened Israel that learned the whole lesson of the Holocaust. That murdering innocent humans in the name of safety and justice is not what God is telling us to do.
This is not to say that we must stop fighting for justice. We are called to do that by the universe. But what I am saying is that we don’t need to do it with bloodthirsty aggression. We don’t need to do it with hate. We do it with the understanding that we are often the oppressors. Oppression is usually just a knee-jerk instinct for self-preservation. It actually comes from a place of protecting those we love. The oppressed very often becomes the oppressor. You only have to look at Israel to see that reality.
We don’t have to hate Israel (or Hamas). We have to work to get them to stop this horrendous war. We can do that without hate and more bloodshed.
We don’t have to hate anyone because everyone is us. We first have to understand that truth. Then we have to understand their perspective given their point in space and time. And then we have to help them achieve their goals while insisting that they don’t do it on the backs of other people, animals and resources.
This is what they call compassion, love and understanding. My hope here is that I made that as real as possible in this story.
Just take the person you hate and stop hating them. It can really be that simple. Then start understanding them. Also, realize that sometimes that person is you. Sometimes, the person you hate the most is you. Sometimes it’s a Trump supporter. Sometimes it’s a Black person. Sometimes it’s a Christian. Sometimes it’s a Muslim. It doesn’t matter who it is. (They are either you in another point in spacetime or they are you in this particular place in spacetime.) The answer is always the same. Try to understand them. Try to understand that you are them, given their place and time in the world. Then, try to help them. Or, at the very least, try not to wish them ill or hurt them. Because at that point, you are just becoming the thing you said you wanted to eradicate from the world. Your hate becomes the very thing you hate. You become the oppressor. It’s a circle. Do you see?
Stop the circle of hate. That’s the work we must all do. That’s the work I’m trying to do.