Well, it was a lovely weekend in Carlisle, wasn’t it?

The weather was finally shifting, the downtown was bustling, and oh, look—literal white supremacist propaganda was scattered like garbage across neighborhoods and cars throughout our town.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Just what every community needs.

They were found all over town, including one on my own car.

Cowardly, disgusting flyers designed by people who are clearly very secure in their own identities, aimed at intimidating our neighbors.

I want to be emotionally intelligent about this.

I really do.

I want to center the pain these flyers caused.

Seeing messages of hate appear in the physical spaces we navigate daily is painful and unsettling.

For many of my dear friends here in town though, it’s not just unsettling; it’s a direct threat.

It is a reminder that the work of building what Dr. King called the “Beloved Community” is not some abstract, high-minded theological concept we debate over coffee hour.

It is real, visceral, ongoing, and apparently, it involves cleaning up racist trash.

Let’s be exceptionally clear, just in case any of the flyer-distributors are reading: white supremacy has no place in the Cumberland Valley, or any civilized society.

White supremacy is bullshit, and racists who perpetuate it are pieces of that bullshit.

Our faith tradition teaches us that every person carries inherent worthiness and dignity. To quote my own church’s recent witness against the flyers: “Not some people. Not most people. Every person.”

When that sacred truth is threatened by racism, hatred, or extremist ideology, people of faith are called not to a polite silence, but to witness.

And that means fighting back.

Which brings me to the messy part. The part where the polite veneer of “liberal religion” rubs up against the harsh reality of living in a world with Nazis and other white supremacists.

I’m going to be honest with you: I am done taking the high road.

The high road is a myth kept alive by people who have the privilege of not being targets. It’s a comfortable, paved highway that bypasses the actual struggle.

We can acknowledge that, while everyone has inherent worthiness and humanity, that does not mean we are required to put up with behavior that dehumanizes anyone else.

Love is not weak.

It is not passive, nor is it permissive.

Love is a force for transformation.

Love calls us to disrupt systems of hatred, to care for one another, and to build communities rooted in dignity, justice, and belonging.

Sometimes, acting in love for my BIPOC friends and neighbors means calling a racist Nazi a midget-dicked shit-pickle, because it’s just bananas enough of an insult to get their, and everyone else’s attention.

It’s a clear signal to the racist that they’re in the wrong, and to our BIPOC neighbors that I’m willing to stand up and get loud for them. I’m willing to become the target to take it off them, however briefly.

So here’s the way it’s gonna be.

I am never not going to call out Nazi scum when I see it.

Online, in person, or scattered on a windshield. I’m fighting back.

If somebody’s being a racist piece of shit, I’m gonna call them a racist piece of shit.

You call our deputy mayor the n-word and a monkey, I’m gonna call you a midget-dicked shit-pickle in my call out/takedown.

Or a smurf-hued dingleberry.

Or a slime-coated hamster turd.

Or any other potentially ridiculous string of words that might form in my brain and spill out of my mouth in defense of the person you decide to degrade.

I realize that language makes some people uncomfortable.

I realize some people think a “minister” or a “leader” should remain perfectly poised, tow the line, and use only the calmest, most clinical vocabulary to describe human rights atrocities.

Well, sorry.

That ship has sailed. Long ago.

I care more about the Black and Brown people in this world than I care about what anybody thinks about the words I might use to defend them.

As long as I have breath, I am going to fight like hell…because I’m a visibly white, straight-passing, female-passing person with a big mouth, broad shoulders, and just enough audacity to use my platform to make other white people uncomfortable when necessary.

Dismantling white supremacy culture is a thousand times more important to me than being a pretty, perfect little leader who doesn’t make waves.

I frankly don’t give a shit what any white person thinks about me any more.

It is time for more white folks to stop being spectators.

It is time for us to hop in the trenches, where our Black and Brown siblings have been holding the line for hundreds of years while we debated the semiotics and semantics of protest language and strategy.

People getting mad at me for calling racists ridiculous insults is bananas. But it reminds me that social psychology gets interesting—and damning — sometimes.

Get nerdy with me for a minute.

There is a concept in psychology regarding social cognitive theory that explains how communities often punish those who name harm more harshly than those who cause it.

( Bandura, 1999, on moral disengagement – seriously, read his stuff. It’s fascinating.).

We see it all the time.

When folks become more upset about how I call out and push back against literal Nazis than they are about the existence of the Nazis themselves, we have a major problem.

Behold. White Fragility.

I’m fucking over it.

This respectability politics, this policing of the words people use to stand up to racists rather than standing up against the racists, is dangerous. It veers directly into “all lives matter” territory.

Why?

Because it lends validation to their hatred by centering the “civility” of the debate over the safety of the oppressed.

When you tone-police the resistance, you are, intentionally or not, aligning with the oppressor.

Not very humanity affirming now, is it?

So, let this be my public reminder to any and all y’all.

I love the Black and Brown people of this world.

I love my LGBTQ+ siblings.

I love my Jewish and immigrant neighbors.

I love them far more than I care what anyone thinks of the methods or language I use to defend them.

I will never stop standing up for them.

Loudly.

Ridiculously when necessary.

Like the Rev. Aija said in her sermon a few weeks ago, “if there’s a list [of people in trouble for standing up for the marginalized], my ass is gonna be on it.”

Hate may show up in our neighborhoods, scattering paper like the cowards they are.

But it will never, ever have the final word. At least while I’m around.

We will keep choosing love—the kind of love that fights back.

I’ll see you in the trenches.