The Galli Report: 02.19.21

Stories we tell about minorities, equality, progressives, and Christian nationalists. And a humbling Lenten prayer.

Incomplete Narratives
This edition will look at some of the competing stories we are being told in the media, and some stories we are telling ourselves.  This is not about fake news or “false” narratives. Most of these narratives are true to some extent; they are simply incomplete—unable or unwilling to tell the full story of what’s going on with racism or progressivism or whatever.  To be sure, there are false narratives—like the presidential election being stolen by the Democrats.  But today I want to consider some predominant narratives that need to be supplemented if we want a fuller picture of reality. (Each of the example articles is long, so be prepared to do some skimming.)

The Limits of the Lunchbox Moment: Not all children of immigrants grew up embarrassed about their food, but pop culture convinced them they should be.  This article focuses on a dominant narrative about minority food culture, but it also applies to many narratives about minorities in America.

The lunchbox moment is a story about norms, with the assumption that the person of color is the odd one out — which it’s easy to be. According to the United States Census Bureau, 76.3 percent of Americans identify as White (with 60.1 percent identifying as both White and not Hispanic or Latino). But that doesn’t account for non-white people who grew up around others of their background, or in diverse neighborhoods where no one race is in the majority. And while most people of color have some moment of feeling othered or different, it doesn’t always happen around food, nor does it happen with the same intensity. “I absolutely never [felt shame],” said Ren. “I felt bad for my white, American friends and the [boring] food they ate.”

Is All Inequality Unjust? Inequality is part of the human condition, but our experience with liberal democracy shows that improvement is possible for everyone.  This is about an aspirational narrative: in this case, the desire for universal equality, or to put it negatively, the idea that inequality = injustice.

Should every instance of inequality be labeled an injustice? That is a strange question to ask in an age that considers “one of our country’s greatest strengths” to be its “diversity”—a concept typically defined as recognizing and respecting our “individual differences.” Such differences are evidently the cause, or at least the expression, of inequality, but the ideal of diversity is to make us complementary rather than identical. To advance in the path of progress, every nation, community and company requires an enormous range of human attributes. Since none of us are big enough to do it all, the attributes must be distributed, unevenly, among the population.

The Return of the Cold Warrior: Reflections on Rod Dreher's Live Not by Lies. This article by Gregory Thompson concerns a narrative of the right, best exemplified by Dreher’s latest book.  As GR readers know, there is something to be said for a lot about Dreher’s social analysis that I find compelling. But Thompson—perhaps a little too angrily for my taste—shows how culture warriors such as Dreher overplay their hand.

In spite of Dreher’s breathless claims to the contrary, Live Not by Lies is reflective not of the theological imagination of the Christian church, nor of the democratic imagination of the Soviet dissidents, but of the self-protective imagination of the American cold warrior. Histrionic, misleading, and vindictive, this book is bound together not by a clear account of history, a generous view of enemies, a close reading of sources, or a compelling vision of the church, but merely by what has come to be Dreher’s central theme: fear.

Insurrectionist Prayer in Senate Chamber.  It appears I have been in denial about the extent of Christian participation and motivation in the January 6 riot at the Capitol. I thought it amounted to one or two banners proclaiming “Jesus Saves,” as well as some quiet prayers of ardent Christians during the demonstration. Somehow I had missed this video, which shows some of the more well-known Capitol invaders (like the guy with the horns and fur vest) bowing for prayer in the Senate Chamber.  This is an example of my narratives (“Christian nationalism is not a threat to peace and order”) had to be adjusted to accord with a fuller reality.  

A Lenten Prayer

I’ve posted one of my favorite, if humbling, prayers on my homepage.  Enjoy.  Well, not really.

Grace and peace,

Mark Galli
markgalli.com