Reflections from the Counterprotest to White Nationalists in Washington, DC
By Quardricos Bernard Driskell
For the second year in a row, people have had to protest a rally of white nationalists and white supremacists. This time, they came to rally at what they view as their home turf—the White House—marking the one-year anniversary of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Nevertheless, this time their tiny numbers were drowned and driven out by a huge, joyful anti-racist crowd; and, while August 12, 2018, was a good day for hope, love, and the beloved community, it was still a reminder that our work continues. The familiar incongruity of white supremacists gathering and marching through American cities in 2018 with a police protection unit supporting them along the way presents horrifying optics that magnify one’s sense of incomprehensibility. This is not a fringe movement but one that reaches to the pinnacle of US political power and sits in an oval office.
So this year, at the encouragement of friends, I gathered with other faith leaders—Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, Quakers, Muslims, and others—to form an organized group of people from 18 different races and religions following the lead of the Movement for Black Lives. We played the role of spiritual caretakers and prophetic witnesses. Attending the rally as concerned clergy was important. It helped prospectively-volatile persons know that there was both moral and spiritual essence in attending and participating in the rally. The imperative lies in Isaiah 58: God’s chosen fast loosens the bonds of oppression. Thus, by our prayerful presence, we made both God’s word and will be known.
We must be diligent not only when white nationalists come to town but on every other day to eradicate the specter of white supremacy from our institutions, relationships, churches, and hearts. I am grateful for nonviolence and this group of bold faith leaders. I am even more thankful that the crowds were largely white. Black people need allies in this struggle for freedom and it starts with the very people who spawn and promulgate the deep roots of historic racism in this country.
Lastly, I am grateful for the wise intervention by a powerful rainstorm. The news reports I saw said the rally “dissipated before it began!” There was no value in the rally as stated. There were a lot of good people on one side that day.
Therefore, for me, it was just as the ancestors sang, “I ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ‘round.” I wasn’t going to be turned around on August 12or any of the days to come in its wake. For I am reminded—ever so gently—that though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I should fear no evil, for the ancestor and most importantly, the Lord is with me.
The Rev. Quardricos Bernard Driskell, federal lobbyist, an adjunct professor of religion and politics at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, and pastor of the historic Beulah Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia. Follow him on Twitter @q_driskell4.
