As UUs we talk about Love a lot—What is real Love between real people, and what can it do?
Crystal Fleming, author of How to Be Less Stupid About Race, sociologist with degrees from
Wellesley College and Harvard University, and associate professor of sociology and Africana
studies at Stony Brook University, has this to say:
We must acknowledge that “love” has never magically eradicated oppression anywhere at any
time in the entire history of humanity. Instead of viewing … love as an antidote to racism (or
proof that one is not a racist), we should consider the possibility of love as a resource for facing
the difficult truth about the society we live in, and about the racial violence we all must live
with. Love can help us cultivate compassion for our own suffering—and the suffering of others.
Love can provide solace, strength, and even a sense of healing in the midst of oppression. Love
can sustain us as we do the difficult work of transforming our societies. But ignorant,
superficial love sho’ ain’t gonna end racism.
Loving across our racial differences involves learning about racism and taking a hard look at
how prejudice and systemic discrimination continue to reproduce racial inequalities—not “a
long time ago” but right now. Today. Racially ignorant “love” isn’t helpful. To the contrary,
such misguided, honey-glazed postracialism only serves to placate white folks who don’t want
to acknowledge the ongoing atrocities of white supremacy—and people of color who want to
turn away from painful truths. Challenging and dismantling oppression cannot be achieved by
pretending it is not happening or by cultivating a nice warm and fuzzy “feeling.” Real love, in
the service of social justice, means having the ovaries to tell the hard truths, to face the depths
of our individual and collective suffering, and to work together to reduce harm.
The love we need is the love of collective action. It is the kind of vigorous, informed love I see
in the work of Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese monk who founded Engaged Buddhism. M.
Scott Peck defines love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own
or another’s spiritual growth.” Clearly, racism and all forms of oppression are the very opposite
of love. To dominate another person—or an entire group of persons—is to deprive them of
their power, to deny their inherent value, and to subject them to forms of abuse and
exploitation. If love involves an active commitment to our mutual growth and fulfillment, then
…love cannot be about mere sentimentality; it has to involve both recognizing and radically
resisting the weaponry of terror that maintains white supremacy at the expense of racialized
“others.” What we need, quite desperately, is the willingness to cultivate revolutionary love,
grounded in knowledge, compassion, courage, and collective action.
What we don’t need is more kumbaya, postracial bullshit.