​Written on July 7, 2016

Dear Americans,

I am writing from a place of intense anguish and rage. I am naming this sentiment clearly, lest there be any confusion.

Today is the day the police killing of Philando Castile has made the headlines, which is the day after the police killing of Alton Sterling rose to national attention. Reeling from another round of blows against we who are darker than blue, I am convinced that there needs to be new language—new terms to describe the tumultuous emotional landscape that erupts for so many Black persons when another one of our slaughtered bodies bleeds out in our streets or in our cars or on our couches or in our beds or on our playgrounds or in the halls of our apartment buildings or hangs lifelessly from a garbage bag in a jail cell. There is no single word that I know of to describe the simultaneous unsurprised surprise, the "angrief," the hopeless defiance, the wounded wrath that floods one’s entire being when unmitigated, virulent, state-sanctioned, White supremacist power and violence shows itself in another public execution. The visceral response to these acts of systemic annihilation, to this structured hatred, defies categorization. The emotion is a mystery, like trying to speak to the totality of God or the character of love in a single utterance. Yet I feel it in my body as I write to the White Majority upon whom this nation’s Klan Culture relies and through whom the plague of Black death continues.​

It is the Ameriklans, the White Majority with its flaccid progressive politics on one hand and entrenched ignorance on the other, its allergic reactions to conflict and confrontation and risk, its unrelenting silence and ongoing complicity, its short term “solidarity” and armchair “allyship” and empty advice on appropriate resistance that make possible the extremist violence that Black communities face. It is the White Majority that is too self-conscious to speak and act, and too self-righteous in the face of Black speech and action, that navel gazes at its guilt and enjoys the luxury of its paralysis, that acts at a loss even when Black people have repeatedly made clear demands around our survival, who fertilizes the strange-fruit bearing trees. That you are neither hot nor cold in the face of unyielding brutality against Black cis-men and cis-women and transmen and transwomen and lesbian and gay lovers and children and mothers and old and poor and incarcerated and surveilled makes you suitable only for spitting out. Your stasis, your perpetual limbo, are the very veins through which this Klan Culture flows and it is long past due for you to stake a claim like all of our lives depend on it. 

If you are unwilling to be and uninvolved in struggling daily for reparation, restitution, and ripping out at the root the oppressive structures that have created your very life, that sustain your very being, that make your place in this society possible, then you are integral to the problem. 

If you are unwilling to be and uninvolved in educating yourself and coming to terms with your death-dealing history and the ways in which your Whiteness operates in the present as a means of imagining and deploying new possibilities, then you are a part of the machine. 

If you are unwilling to be and uninvolved in engaging, confronting, witnessing to, challenging and sabotaging the overtly White Supremacist Minority that make up your community, either out of shame for their existence or unwarranted pride at your own sophistication, then you are a part of the breeding ground for brutality.

If you are uninvolved in protest and provocation instigated by Black and other nonwhite communities and their woke comrades, and unwilling to put yourself in the same line of unfriendly White fire that threatens and targets we marginalized peoples—if you are unwilling to reallocate your time, your priorities, your money, your agendas, your plans, your worship, your power to tend to the Black blood crying out from the soil—then you too are responsible for holding together the Klan Culture that suffocates and destroys.
​
It is not enough to be “nice.” It is not enough to mean well. It is not enough to pray. It is not enough to be committed. It is not enough to like our culture or use our slang or appropriate our dress or admire our resilience. It is not enough to shut up and listen. It is not enough to speak out of turn and without sound analysis. You must have your very skin, your teeth and nails and minds, in the thick of the fight. The system was made for you. It continues to benefit you. And it is your job to do what you can to bring it down—if you actually want to see it fall.

As I spent the day and night haunted by this week’s round of losses, Jesus’s hard saying in Luke 14:26 came to me in a new way, illuminated as it was by this present darkness: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
​
Either you will hate the generations of Whiteness that has brought us to this place and the legacy on which your world is built, either you will hate White violence and power in all of its manifestations, either you will hate this antiBlack society and the order of things that makes peace between us impossible, or you will have no true freedom. Either you will hate the life that you live at the expense of others, relinquish your hold and be propelled toward a new direction, or you will miss the new creation that is to come: that is already on the way if we who strive for liberation have anything to say about it. And we do. 

There is no neutral. There are no clean hands. You are either a keeper of Klan Culture and facilitator in the destruction of Philando, Alton, Tamir, Rekia, Trayvon, Sandra, John, Aiyana, Michael and Insert Name Here, or part of the struggle that refuses to accept this arrangement in its bald and latent forms. The in-between that you occupy is not an in between at all: it is an extension of a politics designed to destroy Black existence and the existence of any other nonwhites who get caught in the fray. Choose to stand against this oppression or consider yourself enlisted to oppress. 

Those who have hearts to hear, let them.

I.
The songs, interviews, essays, letters, pictures and works of art and poetry in this volume overflow with rage, joy, and liberating truth-telling. There are voices from many lands represented here. However, the heavy focus on the interwoven struggles for decolonization and liberation in Korea and Indigenous North America reflects my own relationships with lands, people, and struggles. I am deeply grateful that so many loved ones responded to this call by offering these gifts to fan the flames of our resistance and solidarity. Also, I am by calling a musician, not an academic. The emphasis on music, art, and “real voice” types of textual presentations such as long interviews was intentional. What is decolonization, incarnation, and liberation if honest tongues are not loosed and heard, vibrant colors are not unleashed and basked in, and prophetic, pulsating music is not there to soak and reinvigorate dry and withered hearts? I am humbled and grateful beyond words to have been given the honor and responsibility of guest editing this volume. The voices and perspectives presented below are richly diverse, and at times one might even feel they contradict each other. Yet all are filled, I believe, with the spirit of liberation we need, and each has something to offer in the struggle to decolonize our minds and bodies and the lands and narratives that give us life. The trees clap their hands. The Earth groans. May Creator guide each reader to what their heart and hands most need.

-Seth Martin (Seth Mountain, 이산)

November 1st, 2020

All Hallow’s Day



II.
From the original Call for Submissions, released in June 2020 (written in a voice primarily to and from self-identifying Christians):

Long before I ever heard of Christ, or saw a white man, I had learned from an untutored woman the essence of morality. With the help of dear Nature herself, she taught me things simple but of mighty import. I knew God. I perceived what goodness is. I saw and loved what is really beautiful. Civilization has not taught me anything better! 
-Ohíye S'a (Charles Eastman), The Soul of the Indian (1911) 

We want to be sure to clarify that decolonization is not a metaphor. When metaphor invades decolonization, it kills the very possibility of decolonization; it recenters whiteness, it resettles theory, it extends innocence to the settler, it entertains a settler future. Decolonize (a verb) and decolonization (a noun) cannot easily be grafted onto pre-existing discourses/frameworks, even if they are critical, even if they are anti-racist, even if they are justice frameworks. The easy absorption, adoption, and transposing of decolonization is yet another form of settler appropriation. When we write about decolonization, we are not offering it as a metaphor; it is not an approximation of other experiences of oppression. Decolonization is not a swappable term for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools. Decolonization doesn’t have a synonym. -Eve Tuck and Y. Wayne Yang, "Decolonization is not a metaphor" (2012) 

Let us admit it, the settler knows perfectly well that no phraseology can be a substitute for reality. 
-Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1963)

To seriously advocate for decolonization in any way, shape or form, is to take a fiercely moral stance. It is to declare allegiance in a very real war at this moment. But allegiance to what? And to whom? It is to acknowledge and protest not only the continuance but the thriving of past forms of colonization through the nations, institutions, religions, power imbalances, behaviors and dominant narratives that now take on different names. These colonizing forces remain protected by silence as they continue to make war on all living peoples, lands, cultures and ways of thinking that conflict with their universalizing missions. 

Decolonization demands we take a side. It is to choose solidarity amidst chaos, with suffering people and land, against comfort and death. For any coming from the dominant culture, it is to choose to die in order to live. "Unless a grain of wheat should first fall to the ground and die..." Yes, but it is also to know and act upon the knowledge that no real "self" can be found while living and pursuing a dream that necessitates the perpetuation of false history and the silence or death of all who do not fit in the dominant narrative. It is a refusal to continue "imagining autonomy on stolen land" (Adam Lewis, 2016). 

Furthermore, for those of us identifying as radical persons of Christian faith, we also see and acknowledge that, when held up and viewed through a lens of decolonization, much of what we continue to embody and even fight for as Christians reeks of—and perpetuates—the evil of the colonizing mindsets, structures, and violent legacies we openly claim to abhor and resist. 

We lament the colonization of our minds and actions, and seek to decolonize. This is not only for our liberation but in solidarity with all who the Church's past actions and inactions have continued to oppress. We seek liberation and incarnation together, and understand that to do so by calling for decolonization demands at the very start something akin to repentance. It begins with acknowledging that colonization remains in and around us, and that uprooting and destroying it will certainly mean uprooting and destroying things in ourselves we have learned to cling to and protect as essential to our identities—as people of a colonizers' faith tradition and as willing and unwilling participants in the legacy of spiritual, mental and physical colonization. 

We firmly believe that decolonization of land, mind, and body are necessary for true liberation and justice to grow in and through all of us. But how do we get there? And how is the call for decolonization a distinct form of liberation from other forms of transformation? We come to this issue in a posture of shame, rage, sorrow, and repentance, to learn and follow, not to teach and lead. 

The Heart of Gureombi
​
never stopping for a million years
Yong Wang, Dragon King of the sea
breathed the tide twice daily
across the solid volcanic rim
hardened like glass

between the land and the sea
after the winter snow
spring rains become
rivulets running down the sides
of Halla-san
flowing beneath the fragrant tangerine trees
across and under the kilometer of gray Gureombi rock
here and there fresh-water springs appear
medicine from the ancestors
shapeless water rejoins shapeless sea

here is something that is true
completely without understanding
but with bitterness in their mouths
in their delusion
that they must be in control
that control requires a shattering
dark forces only think that they have crushed
the heart of Gureombi
with their rock smashing machines
moving in robotic rhythm
inhuman slow dance to the imperial tune

those who say resistance is futile
have no understanding of the heart

look down from Halla-san
see the Island of the Gods
the Island of Peace

the heart of the sea resides in the people
the heart of Gureombi resides in the people
the heart of Gureombi resides in Oh Cheol Geun's three steps
the heart of Gureombi resides in the fasts of Yang Yoon Mo -- Prisoner #301
the heart of Gureombi resides in Kim Young-Jue --Prisoner #435
the heart of Gureombi resides in Lee Jong-Hwa -- Prisoner #125
the heart of Gureombi resides in the eucharistic resistance of Fr. Mun Jeong-Hyeon
the heart of Gureombi resides in the women who dive daily into water as dense as blindness
the heart of Gureombi lies in remembering the laughter of  Fr. Bill Bichsel
the heart of Gureombi lives in all those who feel the wind  that is blowing
the heart of Gureombi lives in those who know that many things are unthinkable until they happen

those who say resistance is futile
have no understanding of the heart

look down from Halla-san
see the Island of the Gods
the Island of Peace
the heart of the sea resides in the people
the heart of Gureombi resides in the people
the heart of Gureombi resides in Oh Cheol Geun's three steps

one hundred songs
one hundred expectations
one hundred bows bring the light each morning
one hundred bows contain the heart of Gureombi

who can tell what this political cancer of our time will become in the future
we know that Samsung and Hyundai are just gray stones--falling fragments in history

waters will continue to rise and fall

in three billion years the last sunset will occur

what might love have done
if we had figured out in time
what love's got to do with it
​

Preface:
When South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump began engaging with North Korea, many of us were hopeful: perhaps the South Korean and US presidents were aligned towards peace for the first time. Sure, both might be driven by very different motivations, the South Korean President Moon Jae-in had been elected into office after the previous president was toppled by a peaceful if not earth-shattering people’s uprising. He’d received a mandate for change, which included frozen inter-Korean relations under President Park. As regards President Donald Trump, few of us had any illusions about the type of person he was, but perhaps he sought a self-aggrandizing historic achievement for his administration by achieving what Obama had so miserably failed at. Even if Trump’s motives were completely personal, for the first time, both the US President and the South Korean one were engaging with North Korea. What might such alignment achieve?! Unfortunately, the reality proved that Trump’s diplomacy with North Korea was moved not by a vision of a peace victory but by the winds of short-term political opportunism. However, more frustrating was hearing leftists and progressives criticizing Trump when he was doing right by engaging with North Korea. This was more than just partisan myopia. It was amnesia. People didn’t understand that North Korea had actually been pursuing peace for over two decades. People didn’t understand that the United States had not fought for democracy in the Korean War but against it. I wrote and published this article in 2017, but I am happy to accept Seth’s invitation to have it republished here–because, after 70 years of war, Korea finally deserves peace and because the Korean War and Peace are also a part of US history.
-Dae-Han Song, October 2020


The Korean war would not have occurred and continued for nearly 70 years were it not for U.S. intervention. As was the fate of many Third World countries, the Korean War was less a civil war like in the U.S. and more a proxy one like in Vietnam. The U.S. northern Union and southern Confederate states fought driven by distinct identities and politico-economic interests developed over a hundred years. A Korea that had been one nation over 2000 years was North and South less than five years old, and formally less than two before going to war.1 North and South were born out of an artificial and arbitrary division inflicted by the U.S. to promote its geopolitical interests. Much like the Vietnam War, the U.S. propped up a weak-unsustainable regime against the democratic yearnings of the great majority of people. Yet, while hundreds of thousands protested the Vietnam War, the Korean War was and remains the “Forgotten War.” The war and its causes forgotten, much of the world and the U.S. views the Korean war in the “eternal present.” Forgotten is the U.S. role and responsibility. Now, with the newly-elected South Korean Moon government pursuing engagement with North Korea, inter-Korean relations have great potential for advancement. Standing in the way is the United States. Anti-war and peace movements need to stave off the hands of the U.S. in the Korean Peninsula and allow space for Koreans to finally achieve peace and self-determination.

The seeds of the Korean War were planted in 1945 by the U.S. division of the peninsula into North and South. It was nourished into life by U.S. support of a South Korean government made up of a reviled minority of Japanese collaborators while grassroots democracy was suppressed. While the Japanese collaborators and the independence fighters were formed during the Japanese colonial era,2 the contest for power to establish a post-colonial order would not have been at the scale, duration, or conclusion of the Korean War were it not for U.S. intervention.3 Furthermore, beyond the massive human loss,4 the war resolved nothing. “Only the status quo was restored.”5 Thus, U.S. intervention, nourishment and leadership not only created the war but also the cease-fire peace we see in the Korean Peninsula today. 

To understand this view of history, it is important to recognize that unlike the North Korean government, the South Korean one was weak and contested. North Korea’s government was formed with independence guerrilla fighters and led by a well known one Kim Il Sung. South Korea’s was formed with Japanese collaborators, ex-colonial police and led by Korean-exile and independence advocate Synghman Rhee, little known locally and estranged among the independence community abroad. While the North Korean government built upon the people’s committees and confiscated and redistributed land and property of the Japanese and their collaborators, the South Korean one under the aegis of the U.S. did not acknowledge the people’s committees. Furthermore, the US military government nullified the confiscation of land and factories by the people’s committees and declared these U.S. property to pay for the costs of war. Such harsh policies following liberation were met with mass strikes, uprisings and mutinies which were violently suppressed.6 The US was an occupying army7 that snuffed out the then sprouting possibility of a unified democratic Korea in exchange for its imperialist interests. Nonetheless, the yearning for peace, reconciliation, reunification still remains. Today with the candlelight protest elected Moon government taking an approach of engagement and dialogue with North Korea, both Koreas are brought back to the path to peace. 

North Korea has pursued peace as a strategy since 1994. The more romantic may say that its pursuit of peace carries the weight of the dying wish of their leader Kim Il Sung. The more cynical may conclude that with the fall of its strongest ally - the Soviet Union - North Korea found itself alone in a hostile environment and saw peace as their only means of survival. Regardless of the reason, North Korea has been pursuing a peace treaty. The provocations, missile and nuclear, have served as a nuclear shield8 from attack and leverage in their negotiation for peace.9 On the South Korean side, the new Moon government has made clear that it would pursue dialogue and engagement with North Korea.10 Standing on the way of progress is the United States and the heavy weight and influence its alliance bears on the South Korean government. Now is the time to stave off the hands of the U.S. and allow Koreans to achieve our own peace. 

Nonetheless, some balk at peace with North Korea for its human rights conditions. As regards North Korea’s human rights conditions, it is important to confront that: 1) much of the documented human rights violations are devoid of historical, political and socio-economic context; 2) peace and not war is the prerequisite to improving human rights conditions; 3) no country’s human rights conditions have improved via war much less U.S. intervention. 

Much of what we hear about North Korea is devoid of cultural, social and historical context. When talking about the economic hardship of North Koreans, most media fails to mention North Korea’s geographic limitations growing food, the impact of the fall of the Soviet Union, nor the epic floods and droughts that collapsed its food distribution system and wreaked havoc on its food supply. When rights are spoken of, there is no acknowledgement of North Korea’s distinct cultural and politico-economic context arising from its history and struggles. Furthermore, few fail to make the connection between peace and human rights. Do human rights conditions improve during siege or during peace? North Korea’s siege mentality is never seriously explored by the media. It is simply dismissed as the logical result of an irrational and hysterical North Korean leadership. Few media explore the history of being carpet-bombed by U.S. jets during the Korean War, the economic sanctions, or the large scale annual joint war exercises by the U.S. and South Korea simulating the invasion of North Korea complete with nuclear submarines and B-52 bombers. President Kim Dae-jung’s solution was the sunshine policy:11 open up North Korea to South Korea and the world not through violence or pressure but through engagement and peace. Finally, as countless interventions in Latin America, Africa, Middle East, everywhere show, there is no country in which democracy and human rights blossomed after U.S. intervention. That’s because U.S. geopolitical interests require exploitation and control not democracy and free-will. 

Now is the time. South Korea’s current president has one of the strongest mandates for change. He was elected riding high atop the millions that protested and demanded change in South Korea. The Moon government has committed to dialoguing with North Korea. North Korea continues to pursue a peace treaty. It’s time that peace and antiwar movements in Korea, the U.S. and the world demand peace in Korea. After over a hundred years of occupation and division, Koreans deserve peace, reunification and self-determination.


Notes:

1.  South Korea held separate elections for simply the south, then it founded the Republic of Korea in Aug. 15 of 1948. North Korea followed and established the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea the following month on Sep. 9.
2. The South Korean government was composed of mostly Japanese collaborators. The North Korean government was composed of guerilla fighters that had fought for independence from the mountains of Manchuria.
3.  Japanese collaborators were having their land and property confiscated and redistributed. Yet, it was U.S. intervention on their behalf that fortified them into a formidable force.
4.  2.5 million people lost their lives. https://www.britannica.com/event/Korean-War
5. From Bruce Cumings. The Korean War: A History
6. The most violent suppression took place in Jeju Island with up to ten percent of the population killed on a scorched earth policy.
   
7. This was contrary to the Soviet Union that allowed the people’s committees to emerge and viewed the North as a liberated country rather than a re-occupied one.
   
8. Nuclear shield is the concept that having a nuclear weapon prevents attack from other nations with stronger conventional military forces lest nuclear retaliation.
   
9. For example, military provocations have been used by North Korea as a means of countering the policy of “strategic patience” that seeks to starve out North Korea through isolation. The display of advances in nuclear and missile technology as time passes makes the strategy of stalling for collapse more costly.
   
10. The Moon Administration stated a policy that would place cooperation with international sanctions on one track and dialogue with North Korea on a separate track.
    
11. ​The sunshine policy takes its name after a fable in which the sun and the wind both compete for who is the stronger: whoever can get the man to take off his coat wins. The wind blows against the man trying to force the coat off, only to have the man clasp on tighter. The sun simply radiates more and more heat and the man, now hot, takes off the coat on his own.
    

WHO IS THE COWBOY NOW?
​
I saw the tears of the oppressed.
They had none to comfort them.
So I said better than this misery 
is to have never entered this history.
Unless you trespass onto 
the life they've stolen from you.

"You come on my property 
I'm bound to get my gun, 
you thought this was a free country, 
but I'ma teach you boy 
these colors don't run!" x 2

"Who's the cowboy now? 
You ain't never been on the range, 
but I saw you down there with your smart phone
Taking pictures of crazy horse.
Who's the cowboy now? 
I'm the one on stolen land (in Jackson, Michigan). 
My only fear is when this all goes down 
the wild things will come and take it back!"

Did you kill the man you who killed you? x 4
I ain't dead yet! x 4

"Every night and every morn 
some to misery are born
Every morn and every night 
some are born to sweet delight
Some are born to sweet delight 
Some are more to endless night" - William Blake

But not this one because I trespass! I trespass!
Alive, alive, alive!


-from the 2008 album, ​experiment #3: remember your creator in the days of your youth
​

MOTHERBEAR

O Lord Motherbear roar again that we may hear
O Lord Motherbear roar again that we may hear
Wild Love, ancient ones say that you defend your cubs
o Lord Motherbear roar again that we may hear the way back to the tree of life
hellhounds on our trail tonight; o Lord Motherbear roar again, let hell be scared

you dwell in the dark though it seems of late deep caves you hibernate
dark night of the sense filled only with solastalgia
faintly hope for synesthesia, growing so hungry
solstice this time has gone too long we ain't strong like stone
if you can't change our woes leave us alone

o for the fortitude of bare trees in February
how long till You heal things? will You still frighten this wind-blown leaf?
how long till spring when we eat nettle greens?
they don't sting half as bad as the wind-chill of Your distant gaze

How long?
You unstrung my bow so a harp i made and i tuned it to these blues of loud mourning

O Lord Motherbear roar again that we may hear
O Lord Motherbear roar again that we may hear
many now are through with You i guess they found out You ain't true
they must have better things to do than pray to nothing
in this world of war it's hard for anyone to find the wild joy we all desire
i know sometimes you have to go your own way
but i've got nowhere else to go and I cannot get over You and i've got nothing better to do

i am not over You...

why were we ever born with this great wound at our core
up against such unfair odds and no time to practice?
out in my praying ground i still call on Your name in moonlight
the midnight dew paints me wet and i sense You are up to something new
i don't believe You are dead yet

How long?
You unstrung my bow so a harp i made and i tuned it to these blues of loud mourning


O Lord Motherbear roar again that we may hear
O Lord Motherbear roar again that we may hear
o Lord Motherbear Thy cubs are under attack! 
Mother, are You there?
Mother, are You there? 
Mother, are You there to defend us and fight back?
the builders of hell march on, we lose our direction
O, Savage Mother God, sing Your song, we'll sing along

i don't forget what i first saw when the woods were old and tall
Your fresh tracks in the mud, Your scratch on the cedar
i've prayed the power of Your paws, my rock, my shelter, Your sharp claws
nevertheless i'll defend my chest until you rip it open
You have the Song of Life, i only have one tree left to climb
(Because they killed all the rest!)
i sit in the upper branches everyday and cry:
"why have you forsaken us?!" i feel that i may fall off soon,
be rushed to town in an ambulance and forget all about You
the branches are so cold and stiff, but a memory makes me tighten my grip
and though i say no to Your silence it's still You i speak with
for now...


-From the 2013 album,  Experiment #4: The Great Wound and The Wild Joy - Part A: Roar Again

TREE OF JOB
​
“Dark was the night
Cold was the ground”
Far off to the forest
We followed the sound.
Found the fen felled then renounced
Only one tree now around
The marooned old man who moans, beholding
Knowing what is going down
Larch on loam here once grown
Now the bones are ground to compose
A house to house the owls
And all whose lamentations loud 
arouse the growls of wildlife
brave by “midnight special” bright
Hear the howls of wolves I think I might--
Guards pump and strum electric light
A-buzzin’ hum, invades the night
Our vision blurred but still we strain
To find the word remaining in the vine
Whose sap is wine
 
Don’t cover my blood
Don’t cover my blood, oh earth
May there be no rest for the cry of my hurt
Turn not away from my face
Turn not away from my face
Of open wounds
 Some have come but would not look
Under the light of moon
They spoke with holy words
Each one was a tooth of a saw submerged
Tearing at my trunk “take it out!” I say
But the blood stays on the blade
The blood stays on the blade
The blood stays on the blade
 
Underneath his branches the warm prophets slept
sound with ease like mounds of leaves
Or pyres of lies and death
The truth and pain icicles hang from Job’s hands
He stays awake, death of the world to demonstrate
In haunted heartwood heavily stays
Honest about the miseries of our age
None can now assume we’ll see a new day
None can now assume we’ll see a new day
 
We acquiesce to this rhythmic agony
Accept the tension with much wrestling in melody
The assimilated optimists how they all agree
Sayin “ain’t they a hopeless lot”
“Nothing our movements would want” “no surely not”
“It’s absurd to spree with morbidity, we’ll flee, and hug our happy thoughts”
 
Then out of the shadows of the forest
The afflicted and the stricken join the chorus
of awe and anger light the spark lain latent
In the assembly of the suffering servant
Assembly of the suffering servant
Assembly of the suffering servant
Begin to dance though hobblin’ and swervin’
 
(Audio: Documentary on Potawatami who were relocated to the great plains from the great lakes.)
 
so now face our flame
you froze frown of pain
This gift lifts snow to mist
sends the spring rain
Mm mm mm mm mm mmm
Come ship of storm our fury forms to
Affirm faith bold, play the horns
We hold these sorrows evident
For the joy before us sent
Mmmmmmmmm
 
Now welcome round our ring to sing
and scream
Warm your strings
your lyre is ripe to raise red fire
Is it sadness?
No! its raging desire and love!
 
Now learn the tale the trees have known
Don’t fear the abyss you’ve been shown
Your groaning will echo the earth’s own
And our urgency will grow
Mmmmm
Soak this thread up in your bones
Juxtaposed with the word
That you heard when we stood and said this is good
it’s the place that we come from
God’s poem to God’s works
And its where we shall return to
For the heart of this earth is good
mmmmm
it is good
mmmmm
it is good
Ooooo
It is good
Ooooo
It is good
 
I believe in the future
we shall suffer more
 
Frawny face reflected in the water in the way
Fall through I’m free to feel new and fey
To a soul sung song, oh washtenong sepee
Baptized in this dirge down deep and dirty
Born new now formed you, thou town glum and gritty
You’re born into blues when you’re born in this city.
 
How goes the world? Not well!
But the kingdom comes! The kingdom comes!
 
And if you cannot hear it hope shouts “No!” unto God’s silence
 
          (the scales of justice were rising and falling)
 
the bells of the apocalypse toll for thee
 
My eyes were closing due to freezing, prison city will not be thawing
         
           (guilty of everything, nearing the ending)
 
the bells of the apocalypse toll for thee
 
The lame shall take the plunder and the wild will reclaim
          
          (O Liberator, Liberate!)
 
the bells of the apocalypse toll for thee
 
Come Thou Spirit sabotage our hearts so technified
 
          (a multitude follows four horses who ride
          to the gates of heaven where a rider cries, “It is Time!”)
 
the bells of the apocalypse toll for Thee
 
 
It is time! It is time! It is time! It is time!
 
It is time!
It is time!
It is time!
It is time!


-From the 2018 album,  experiment #4 The Great Wound and the Wild Joy Part B: Another Log for the Fire

EDITOR’S NOTE: These passages from Pastor Jin S. Kim were originally posted on social media, some as personal posts and others as public letters or calls-to-response for the Church of All Nations (CAN) where he pastors. Through his pastoral duties at CAN as well as the courses he leads and facilitates in Underground Seminary, Pastor Kim strives to assist North American Christians in following and embodying a model of Christian community that emphasizes decolonization and anti-racism study and action as not only orthodox but essential Christian praxis. Kim immigrated to the US from Korea when he was seven years old. Kim contributed these passionate and informally written notes from various social media mediums to provide a personal example of how a pastor in the US can respond to the current examples of police brutality, racism and colonization in North America, in such a way as to call Christians to increased awareness, engagement, and repentance.
-SM    


May 26, 2020
(A)
This is horrific. Yesterday,  May 25, 2020 a white Minneapolis cop murdered a Black man by pinning him down with a knee and choking him to death over 8 excruciating minutes. He was already handcuffed the entire time and only begged to breathe. At about 4 min. mark, the man no longer talks or moves, but the white cop continues to choke for 4 MORE minutes, at times grinding his knee deeper into the man's neck in a sadistic manner. He only relents from choking when the EMT finally arrives.
Mayor Jacob Frey needs to call the Minneapolis Police Department to account in the most forceful and decisive way possible. The MPD's spokesman gave a pathetic, terse, highly defensive public statement that did not even acknowledge the choking. This is the same police force that killed Jamar Clark in 2015.
This is such an outrage and sacrilege - one can hardly find the words. May God be with the victim & his loved ones.
May God's wrath be upon this racist perpetrator, cast out into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth!
 
(B)
On the same day that George Floyd was murdered by a white cop in Minneapolis, a Wall Street executive in NYC could easily have gotten an innocent birdwatching Black man killed if the police believed her.
Turns out this Amy Cooper donated to the campaigns of Barack Obama, John Kerry and Pete Buttigieg, suggesting that she identifies as a liberal. She claimed earlier today, "I am not a racist." Watch the video. Just sit with her statement and think about the gaslighting that people of color have to endure everyday in this white supremacist country.
Here's a question. What difference does it make if the typical white woman is conservative or liberal? There is a type: the passive-aggressive damsel-in-distress white-liberal woman who will not hurt a fly but will outsource her racist violence to police and other structures of white society.
I've been the victim myself numerous times of this very type. Liberal mainline denominations are crawling with them. Toxic white masculinity, assault rifle-toting neofascists, powerful liberal predator men who get away with it, collapsed white men who do nothing as racial horror unfolds before them, liberal white women who will weaponize race in a heartbeat, evangelical women who vote for Trump. Is there no escape from the scourge of white supremacy? Is there no relief from the ugliness, horror and danger of whiteness?

May 27, 2020
White supremacy and white fragility are two sides of the same white coin. Whiteness is deadly in both conservative and liberal guise. It's truly amazing that every election cycle PoC have to choose between two types of our own oppression, basically, the lesser of two EVILs.

May 28, 2020 
[Addressed to CAN members]
Beloved,
My heart is heavy. We are all feeling it as South Minneapolis burns. Yes, businesses are being vandalized, but we must not conflate the true and originating violence - state sponsored terrorism against black and brown bodies - with the collective protest and understandable reaction to that violence. There was a solidarity protest in Los Angeles yesterday. This is already going national.

The murder of Mr. George Floyd by four MPD officers, yes, all four, is criminal enough. But even more frightening and disturbing is the utter calm of the white cop who was choking a helpless man to death over eight minutes, looking at bystanders, almost posing for the camera, knowing that murdering a black person in cold blood and in plain sight is something he can do with impunity. His eyes were that of dissociated evil. His is the face of American racism. For some of us, that is the face of our father, our grandfather, our brother, our uncle, our cousin, our son.

The young officer protecting not a dying Black citizen but white cops he works with is both infuriating and heartbreaking. In his face I see my relatives, my people, all the waves of Asian immigrants who "pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps" on the backs of Black neighborhoods and Black customers, then moved on to more "successful" white neighborhoods and schools. That's how we immigrants get whitewashed and baptized into white supremacy.

On the same Memorial Day, an aggressive white woman, a Wall St. executive and politically liberal, tried to get an innocent Black man killed by lying on her 911 call and feigning the classic white damsel-in-distress act that has gotten countless black men beaten, imprisoned or killed for centuries. That he is alive is pure luck. What does it say about our country that we consider Mr. Cooper "lucky"?

People of Color, and Black people in particular, are under grave threat by the dual forces of white supremacy and white fragility. Just recently we learned that Ahmaud Arbery was gunned down and murdered by a white father & son team for jogging in his own neighborhood in Georgia, my home state.

In January of 2004 we launched Church of All Nations as a response to the original sin of racism in America. We dreamed of a diverse community that through our loving, courageous, prophetic and countercultural solidarity would be an authentic witness to God's love for the world in Jesus Christ. We are here for such a time as this. We say things that very few churches would say, and do things that very few dare to do. You are part of such a church.

And make no mistake that Trump and the right wing financial, business, religious and cultural interests that support him are making this a more dangerous country to live in for the marginalized than in recent memory. Trump is not the only evil in this country, but he is a shorthand for assessing where people are. About 43% of Americans are hardcore Trump supporters no matter what he does. Most of that 43% is white people.

At some point, for those of us with Trump supporting family and friends, we must say enough is enough. If Trump is reelected this November, that is literally a mortal threat to people of color. We must have the courage to choose our kinship. What does light have to do with darkness? I will not judge your process. We may not fully differentiate from toxic racist family by the next election cycle. That's okay. But know that that is not without cost to our sisters and brothers of color, and to our own integrity. Happiness is being proud of ourselves. I urge us to move in this direction so that we can cultivate true kinship, grow our dignity, and be truly happy.

Over the last 16 years, as we have never flinched from moving deeper into truth, compassion and justice, we have lost dear members who left for a variety of reasons. I'm aware we may lose some members in this season too as we intensify our prophetic witness. But we have always chosen to do the right thing, the hard thing, even if that made us a smaller or more financially struggling church. I hope we will all hang together through this, and as always, demonstrate grace for those who want to journey on a different path.

Tonight I will host a Zoom call open to the entire congregation from 8-9pm. I will share my thoughts in more detail, and our members will have a chance to offer brief prayers. We will create other opportunities to process all this in various formats.

I love you all with all my heart. Our hearts break together. O Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Your pastor,

Jin


June 1, 2020
(A)
The ideology of white supremacy embedded in the physical bodies of white people makes all white people a potential threat to PoC. In that sense, it makes very little difference if a white person is male or female, conservative or liberal. The most important work for a white person is to repent somatically and to ask God to exorcise the demon of whiteness from their body. (This work is too big and cannot be done alone; find a church or community that helps do this work, rare as they may be.)[See EDITOR’S FOOTNOTE for more on this]*

Converting a white conservative into a white liberal only gets us #AmyCooper. You tell me, does that sound like progress to you?

(B)
Some of us have been warning for years, even before Charlottesville in 2017 but even more afterward, that our nation is sliding into fascism. Donald Trump has been stoking fascism because he is a fascist. He is the only world leader I know that publicly uses the term dictator in a positive way.
Trump quoted infamously racist Miami police chief in the 1960s Walter Headley by tweeting a few days ago in reference to the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”.

On Sat. May 30 he tweeted that he was ready to unleash "the most vicious dogs, and the most ominous weapons, I have ever seen" if protestors approached the White House's security fence. He also made it clear that he would "stop mob violence."

In another tweet Sat. he tried to get his supporters to come out to counter protest by posting, "Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???"

I am warning my fellow Americans as clearly as possible: We are under real threat of descending into a fascist state. Just look at the stark difference between how law enforcement treats white right wing protestors with assault weapons and peaceful Black protestors with cardboard signs.

At the least, stop being afraid of calling what we are seeing a descent into fascism, and recognize that Trump is actively dog-whistling white fascists to come out of the woodwork to create race riots and race wars out of peaceful protests. That is exactly what happened to Minneapolis last week. We've got to keep calling out fascism again and again so that we do not find ourselves asleep at the wheel when Nazi Germany happens to us.

June 3, 2020
I am antifascist.
I am antifa.

June 7, 2020
People of good conscience can be on a spectrum on controversial issues like American policing, like from defund the police to abolish the police.

June 8, 2020
If you don't get by now that law enforcement in America is a tool of state sponsored terrorism against black bodies, going on 401 years, you gotta ask yourself how WILLFUL and SELF-SERVING your ignorance is.

And that goes for whitewashed PoC too.
#BLM 

June 9, 2020
Church of All Nations held a prayer vigil last night behind our building to honor George Floyd and #blacklivesmatter. We recited the names of all African Americans killed by police in Minnesota since 2000. Inspired by the words of the Rev. Dr. King, we confessed together in unison:

Almighty God, we confess that we have become all too well adjusted to racial violence, discrimination, economic exploitation, police brutality, mass incarceration, encroaching militarization, and the destruction of our mother earth. We confess that we have lacked the kind of imagination that makes for a better world. We confess that our self-serving ignorance only perpetuates an unjust status quo. We confess that we give in to fear, paralysis and hopelessness because of our lack of faith. Yet, in our sin you sent us your beloved child Jesus to save us from empire. Give us assurance, strengthen our faith, and fashion us that we may be maladjusted to the evils of this world. Help us to follow in the way of Jesus, the humane one, who leads us to true life. Amen.

June 11, 2020
Do most of us sensible people have any idea what's really going on at Trump rallies and why they're packed every time? It's true he's a moron, but he's a charismatic moron who makes it clear that he disdains (inferior) people of color and is very much in love with (superior) white people. He tells the arena packed with white people, "You're the elite, you're the elite!" Trumpers don't just support him, they are in love with him, and back at ya. This is the kind of spell that Hitler could cast. The effect on the crowds is very similar if one compares film footage. If you're a typical collapsed white person, Trump invites you inside his arrogance and, if you're white, makes you feel POWERFUL with him. Like that feeling when your school or home team wins the championship, except multiply that feeling by a lot at these rallies.

Trump gives his base a type of emotional catharsis about liberal sin, the redemption of whiteness, and the glory and supremacy of America that has a more powerful effect than even old time evangelical revivals. After all, the true religion of America has always been America (white nationalism).

As their churches are full of old white people and many congregations literally dying of old age, they get to go to a Trump rally which is nothing but a tent revival where liberals and PoC go to hell and white conservatives go to heaven, which is America. These people are born again alright, as American Nazis inside a cult of personality.

Conservative/Republican boomers are hopeless. My advice is to shake the dust off your feet and build a society around these people who are trapped inside the cult of white supremacy that Trump so obviously represents and stokes.  

June 13, 2020
My family stopped by the intersection of Chicago Ave & 38th yesterday where George Floyd drew his last breath. It has become a living memorial, an open sanctuary, an ongoing protest against white supremacy, a neighborhood block party, a street festival, a carnival for children, a site of pilgrimage, a place of resurrection of the spirit.

May you rest in heaven now, brother George Floyd, and may your spirit keep inspiring us here on earth.


[FROM 7 YEARS AGO]
May 28, 2013
A post-Memorial Day reflection: Jesus prophetically challenged the established religion and empire of his day, not because they were more oppressive or distorted than in other eras, but because the massive temple complex and Roman totalism seemed like a permanent inevitability, to which Jesus' response was, No it ain't, the kingdom of God is at hand!

No religious institution or nation-state is inevitable; they are a teeter-tottering provisionality in the face of God.





*EDITOR’S FOOTNOTE: 
After reading and discussing this passage amongst R!P!S! editors, I asked Pastor Jin if he could clarify what he meant when he talked of exorcising “the demon of whiteness.” 

His response:  
"The most important work for a white person is to repent somatically and to ask God to exorcise the demon of whiteness from their body.

Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” Mark 5:9
The demon possessed man was a resident of the Decapolis, a group of 10 cities under direct Roman rule, and all founded by the preceding Greek Empire. Colonial settlers ruled this region and often clashed with their Semitic neighbors. Pigs were foreign to this area, and considered an "unclean" presence, like these Greco-Roman colonizers. The disturbed man knew he was demon-possessed by Legion, meaning the primary unit of the Roman imperial military that oppressed the people of the land. In that sense, I see the name of our collective national demon possession as colonial settler whiteness.

"I knew when I posted that on fb that it would be controversial. Imagine how difficult that is to hear, even for my own committed church members who are white. But it is one of the most important and urgent things to say in our time. Most white people are not racist in their mind, but almost all (def above 99%) are racist in their body. This is why somatic therapy is something we take very seriously at CAN; cognitive therapy has run its course.

"Also, I'm happy to add "white and whitewashed person" in the original post. That's the true meaning I was going for anyway, about the ideology of whiteness, which infects PoC as well, not white people per se."

-SM