
          Changing the Politics of Bitterness
          By Jordan, VernonVernon Jordan
          Vol. 3, No. 1, 1980, p. 3
          
          The year 1980 was when we saw the
growth of politicized religion—a heady mixture of
fundamentalist gospel with extreme right wing political ideology. It
converts political issues into moral absolutes; honest disagreement
over the issues becomes a sin, and tolerance for minorities an evil. I
grew up in the church, read my Bible, and pray to my God, and I know
God is not a right-winger. The true message of Christianity is
brotherly love and compassion, not the hate and hardheartedness of our
home-grown ayatollahs.
          Extremism doesn't exist in a vacuum; it
needs a climate that sustains it. Just as fish need water, extremism
needs a social climate that fosters a new politics of
bitterness.
          And that's what we have today. A once-dominant
America has had to face the fact that it lost a war against a small
Asian country; that it is dependent on other small countries for raw
materials; that it no longer rules the world's markets; that the
once-mighty dollar is weak, and that social changes mean Blacks, women
and other minorities claim rights and privileges once reserved for
White males.
          An expanding economy and a reasonable rate of
growth would enable most people to accept these inevitable
changes. Growing interdependence at home and abroad would make sense
to people who could count on tomorrow being better than
today.
          But instead, America seems locked into a pattern of
self-destructive recessions that weaken our productive capacity and
throw millions out of work. We've had six major recessions in the past
twenty-five years; three in the past ten years. No sooner do we climb
out of one recession than another slams us down again.
          Along
with this kind of insecurity recessions breed is the insecurity that
comes with high inflation. More income buys less goods. Dreams of
owning a home dry up. Savings vanish.
          Recession-bred insecurity results in a society that is anxious,
unwilling to accept social changes, and nostalgic for older times and
values. It is a society fearful of the future, and fearful of its
neighbors.
          But, America can change, and Black_people need to
help America to change. We may be the last people left who truly
believe in the American Dream, in the principles of freedom and
equality that made this nation so great. We've got to help other
Americans regain their lost dream; we've got to help America overcome
the selfishness and fear that grips it, and come back to the
principles of justice and righteousness.
          In this year of doubt
and confusion, we must remind a forgetting nation that this land is
ours too, that we have lived here since before the Pilgrims landed,
and we are here to stay. This nation too often forgets that this land
is sprinkled with our sweat, watered with our tears, and fertilized
with our blood. It too often forgets that we helped build America's
power and glory, that we dug taters, toted cotton, lifted bales, sank
the canals and laid the railroad tracks that linked ocean to ocean;
that we've died in America's every war.
          We've seen American change. We've made American change. And to that
end let us neither stumble nor falter, rather let us mount up with
wings as eagles, let us run and not be weary, and walk together
children, and not faint.
          
            Vernon Jordan is president of the National Urban League,
a native Southerner, and a former staff member of the Southern
Regional Council.
          
        
