The Right Reacts to The Raid, Race and Russia, Afghanistan After America
KTF Weekly Newsletter
Hi everyone,
Look out for an article from Jonathan early next week. It’s a review of a recent book on Christianity and politics from a famous evangelical pastor. Jonathan … has some notes. But for now, here are this week’s highlights.
Suzie’s Recommendations:
On July 28, 1915 the United States invaded Haiti. The nearly two-decade occupation that followed was ostensibly to protect the Haitian people from foreign exploitation. But historical excavation reveals that both racism and Wall Street’s profits were a primary motivator. This NYT exposé offers a succinct, well-researched overview of how racial capitalism pulled the levers of American imperialism. This fact is not surprising, but it is important in reframing false narratives about the reasons for Haiti’s poverty and political instability. This article is also significant because it is an example of the patterns of oppression that persist to this day, both in Haiti and in US interventions across the globe.
“Communist” is a favored slur hurled at Christians who fall outside the mold of conservative, evangelical politics. But many Christians think accusations of leftist politics are not an insult at all. This compelling article by Sojourners associate opinion editor Josiah Daniels reflects on the ways that his education at a conservative Christian university shaped his leftist beliefs based on his understanding of the true teachings of Christ. While the political views Daniels developed were often at odds with what his university was pushing, his deep-rooted convictions on economic justice fueled his activism as a student alongside a small cadre of like-minded faculty and students.
Jonathan’s Recommendations:
When the United States left Afghanistan, the stories, videos, and photos of the withdrawal were harrowing. And then the footage of someone falling to their death from a transport plane receded to the background of America’s consciousness. So, what has happened after a year under Taliban rule? How are we still involved and pulling strings? And of course, what of the most vulnerable people we left there? The wide-ranging, well-done special edition of Fareed Zakaria’s podcast explores these questions with a journalist and ex-Marine who spent time in Afghanistan as well as the country’s former president. The show sheds a powerful light on a murky, multi-layered situation. For followers of Jesus leaving colonized faith, we must always engage with empire and its impact, especially when our tax dollars fund the empire.
Russia has played on the racial politics in the United States for decades – especially our anti-Black racism. WNBA Star Brittney Griner is the latest pawn in this game, but that context goes rarely discussed in the media coverage of the Russian detention of the two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and high profile, Black LGBTQ+ activist. A recent episode of NPR’s It’s Been a Minute podcast has an informative, facts-based conversation that reaches back to post-WWII America and the beginning of the Cold War to draw clear historical lines to today. It is helpful to have our reflections on this story grounded in history, not sound bites. This podcast helps us do just that.
Sy’s recommendations:
On Tuesday, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, which, despite its somewhat confusing title, includes probably the most significant climate change legislation America has ever passed. This YouTube video from the people who bring us Crash Course and other really excellent, educational video series, explains what’s in the bill and why its passage may be cause for some real optimism. The video’s breakdown of the key provisions also balances out the media’s overemphasis on the pro-fossil fuel provisions that Senator Joe Manchin forced into the legislation. There is plenty to criticize about the law, but I think this video does a good job of helping us see the really good things that came out of a lot of people’s very hard work.
The Atlantic has had some really thought-provoking pieces on the right-wing reaction to the FBI raid on former President Trump’s home. The authors agree that Trump’s supporters see the raid as an escalation of conflict by their perceived enemies that justifies some degree of violence in response. But they disagree somewhat on how much violence we can expect from America’s political right in the near future. Peter Wehner gives many examples of the horrific language coming from Republicans, and discusses the imminent danger of such language. Former Obama official and Harvard professor Juliette Kayyem has a cautiously rosier view that many threats of violence are just threats due to a lack of organizational motivation among far-right true believers. And Tom Nichols argues that it is our continued responsibility to remain diligent in truth-telling about our election process and authoritarianism, even though he believes, as I do, that some amount of violence each election cycle is now inevitable.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
The KTF team