It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 61: Liza Johnson (Cont'd)

Doubt: The Foe of Faith!

Doubt: The Predator of Revolutionaries!

It comes in the hearts of all peoples. From the Son in Gethsemane, to Liza Johnson recently graduated into the reality of the world; but at its most insidious, doubt plays on hubris, doubt is never taken seriously. For in the same breath as the Son begged, he resigned Himself to the Will, and therefore, as Scripture teaches, rose above all uncertainty and fear to trump over life and death. And so, if He was the example that Liza Johnson set herself to follow, then why should it have been anymore difficult for her to conquer her own insecurities.

Having grown up in a predominantly sheltered, but not ignorant, family, Liza Johnson's relationship with doubt was purely middle-class. Like all irenic revolutionaries believing they would, in some way or another, effect change in the wide world, the obstacles to progress, her own and the universal, appeared to Liza at first blush to be obvious, and they did come in the most obvious and expected ways. The ways in which, on her own for the first time in her life, she was treated. The disgust and mistrust of her race was overt, but associated mainly with white faces. What she did not expect was that her race would cause her the least amount of problems in the circles she orbited. It was rather her age and, paramountly, her gender, that would prove the greatest hindrance.

Upon graduating from university, Liza Johnson found herself working in a rudimentary position answering phones and taking messages within the Boston chapter of the NAACP. It was more than the logical choice for her grand aspirations. This was the preeminent American organization of change of the time. A place of excellence that embodied both the ambition of reform, and the dogged and soldiered work of a front line fight; and in Boston, there was no greater fight of the time than that of equality in education, and Liza Johnson hungered to be in the thick of it. 

In later life, she would try to remember those first professional years with pride in her own, ceaseless efforts, pride in what those years eventually led to, but she could not totally rid herself of the memory of the agitation that bit at her as she stood that fateful night in Evelyn's with her band of friends.

The job had been everything she thought it would be, more so....and yet...there was a peculiar amount of dismay that, the longer she worked, came with her association with the institution, and with the individuals who made up her local hierarchy.

The bosses.

The men in charge. 

All men.

Each was a rebel in their own way, but each, at some level, subscribed to a very archaic view point of the world. A patriarchal one. The equality of all by race was the objective, but the place of gender, it became clear to Liza, did not, in those men's opinions, need to be restructured all that much. They liked Liza. They told her as much. She was a hard worker. She made a good cup of coffee, but they equally were dismissive of the things that Liza believed, doubt aside, herself capable. Moreover, they held blatant contempt for the sudden wave of youthful insurgency that came with her generation. For all the good that had come in the recent decades, change, ultimate change, had not yet materialized, and Liza's generation had grown impatient. They wanted more, wanted it faster, wanted it now! New factions were sprouting up all over the place. There was dissent for the old ways of doing things. What had worked 30, 20, even 10 years prior, was now considered to be futile. The scorn that older generations, those bosses, held for the restlessness of youth—not taking into account that they themselves had been restless when they marched for Voting Rights and the abolishment of the 'separate but 'equal'' society—only further bolstered the credibility of these new insurgents amongst Liza's peers, and as such, the ways of nonviolent revolution was further looked upon as yet another foible to the Black Man's quest for liberation. Another roadblock erected by the sneering and supercilious Authority.

'We will not take you seriously if you protest any other way,' said the White Man, and the Black Man, the apparent consensus, of his time believed him, and he wrapped himself in the Word of God and strove for better like Christ had. With open arms and the merit of his argument as the only shield against the sticks and stones and bullets that came his way.

But that only got us so far, said the youth! For what did the White Man do then? He dragged his feet and wrung his hands, and he incited fear in his base. He set his dogs and lower-classes on us. He pouted his lip as the body count rose and said, 'what a shame! Better luck next time!' knowing full well that there would always be a 'next time', never a 'now'. And it was no different in Boston, Center of Enlightenment, than Birmingham or some other fiendishly Southern enclave, but only knowing Boston, Liza, in the short time since graduating, had begun to believe that it was somehow worse.

In the South, battles lines were dawn on skin pigmentation, but in Boston, skin was just one of many factors that led to murderous intent. Tribal anger was the root of all evils there. To get your way, you had to stoop into clan-like warfare. As the South was dragged, kicking and screaming into some bastardized form of modernity, Boston remained as it ever was: sectarian! There was no obvious will to change. The old ways had failed, so why continue on with them? If White Boston settled their scores with the fist, if they only understood, glorified, respected physical confrontation, why should Black Boston be held to different standards? Why is the Black Man in America always held to different standards? What good does it do the Black Man to continue to turn the other cheek? Why is it more of a crime for the Black Man to act in the way of the White? How dare progress of equality hinge upon the respectability of one, while the other may stomp and spew to their hearts' content? Why, for any progress to be had, does the Black Man constantly have to aspire for a betterment never afforded them? Why should God-given rights hinge on the goodwill of people, who, either want to eradicate you, or cavalierly stand around their cocktail parties only to talk, never to act? Who could blame the youth seeking new alternatives to the common narrative?

The lure of more direct action chewed at Liza, and her position within the legacy organization only exacerbated the issue at hand. It was clear from the start. There would be no progress for her there in that organization, but where could she go to further her ambitions? What could she do? 

And doubt, in the face of these crossroads, reared its dominance. She had entered adulthood with expectations in a certain way of doing things, but that way no longer seemed rational. No matter how she recalled her beliefs and teachings, when presented with examples of success of both pursuits, she could not fully repudiate the truth that violence was a more effective method that peace—righteous violence!

Look throughout history, and you can see her struggle. After all, did John and Samuel Adams merely demand through words alone the right to independence? No, they took up arms, but do we judge their efforts to be immoral? Does history assess Lexington and Concord to be failures of humanity? What about Bunker Hill? Princeton, or Yorktown? No. And what of the countless other revolutions that span human existence? The taking of arms is never the problem. It is the success or failure of effort once the arms are taken that is judged. 

And what of peace? 

Humanity claims horror at the body count of insurrection, but there is an equal count to peace. History is littered with the corpses of jailed bodies and protesters who never hurt a person, but only a societal concept. And invariably, their deaths do not lead to composed resolutions. They lead to violence. Even Christ Himself, after rising from the dead, proving the truth of peace, could not stem the tide of barbarity that followed his departure. How long did it take for Christians to assume power, and then put the world to the sword? Peace is always the answer to violence, but violence is always the response to peace. It is an unholy, but natural, cycle of life, and perhaps, came the tempting thought in Liza's ear, those who do not see the necessity for both are nuisances to the causes they profess adherence to? Perhaps only through violence could peace and true change have its day?

And doubt no longer came for Liza's ability. It came for the tenements of her beliefs. Any truth she had ever been taught now came under the microscope of doubt.

Why couldn't the Black Man have his day of anger—

Better yet, why couldn't the Black Woman Why couldn't Liza?!