Who Wants Unity?

Our distorted calls for post-election unity reflect our need for unity.

When a call for unity is framed as a chastisement, scolding, or shaming...it is about (paraphrasing MLK) love without power, which is anemic and sentimental or power without love which is abusive and damaging.

It might be too early, maybe some time has to pass first, but it we are serious about coming together we need to be serious on all sides and we need to do so in tough-minded and warm-hearted ways, uniting power and love.

John Pavlovitz helps us think through how power alone, without the tempering force of love, is animating white calls for unity designed to be the ‘fool proof conversation stopper.’ But we need a unity built on real conversations, not a phony call for unity designed to be a wall to silence conversations.

“Unity is only possible when two parties recognize the inherent value of the other and do not view them as less than. 

Unity cannot grow until equality is firmly planted. 

White Americans, we need to make equality our priority right now. 

That involves listening. It involves learning. It involves resisting the temptation to control the narrative or to shut down discussion or to blame victims of injustice for not responding as we believe they should, we who have never known such injustice. 

Treat people with the respect that you desire for yourself, and then unity is an attainable goal. 

See people’s inherent worth and maybe they will be able to walk alongside you, to gather at the table with you, to stand with you. 

Yes America, we need unity—but we need something else to get us there.”

I like what Pavlovitz is doing here and applaud his focus on the importance of learning and action by the white and powerful.

At the same time, ‘unity is only possible when two parties recognize the inherent value of the other,’ which is an enormous challenge facing all parties today, not just white Americans, not just the powerful, all of us.

It is too easy to demand that the other side must call out the immoderates in their ranks when we are certain that their immoderates are wrong or evil or criminal or we suspect that the other side refuses to call them out because they want to benefit from the immoderation without being culpable for the incivility or disruption or delusional rhetoric denying reality.

When they want to see our president fail they are obstructionists. As we prepare to do the same, we are defending all the is light and good. Of course, this overstates similarities. At the same time, it points to a deeper level in the conflicts we face that we need to attend to.