June 24th is set aside to celebrate the birth of John the Baptist (not my focus here) and those Christians martyred by Nero (the springboard for this blog).

Nero was the first Roman Emperor to take enough notice of Christians to persecute, torture, and kill them. Butler concludes his discussions of the edicts ordered by Nero and the horrific executions thus:

No sooner had the imperial laws commanded that there should be no more Christians, but the senate, the magistrates, the people of Rome, all the orders of the empire, and every city rose up against them [the Christians, not the imperial laws] . . . . Yet the people of God increased the more in number and strength the more they were oppressed, as the Jews in Egypt had done under Pharaoh.

So move history forward. What happened after these Christians indeed “increased the more in number and strength the more they were oppressed” to the point that the Roman Emperors themselves not only stopped the oppression but, as a matter of policy, made Christianity the official religion of their empire? At that point, there arose a new crop of people being killed with the blessing of the Roman Empire–those who refused to take up Christianity as their religion. So now formerly oppressed Christians became the instruments of torture and murder.

So move history forward. Have white Americans somehow internalized this historical message? Do we know (or believe) in our bones, somehow–and perhaps without realizing how that internal knowledge motivates us–that formerly oppressed people, if they ever increase in numbers sufficiently and gain power, can and even likely will turn around and become oppressors of those who formerly mistreated them? Are white people in America scared that the so-called “Browning of America” will end up in some version of the genocide of Americans of European descent, similar to what, historically, had been perpetrated on people of color over this history of this country?

This conversation can and should happen, with full recognition that involving white Americans means talking to people who, by and large, were never personally slave holders, nor those who drove Native Americans from their homes and onto reservations, nor those who took over land that native/Mexican people were living on and destroyed their cultures, languages, and rights of self-government. AND it also means that these same white Americans must take stock of how much they have historically and even today and every day of their lives benefit from the past and present oppression of people of color.

We have models for how these conversations can transpire–for example, South Africa’s “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”: please visit their current website. It’s a starting point. Let’s start.