Culture wars: How shall we then live? | GARY COSBY JR.

I have just finished reading “Schindler’s List,” a novel of the Holocaust and the efforts of German industrialist Oskar Schindler to save the lives of Jews. Though a novel, it adheres closely to the facts, gleaning information from written records and first-person accounts of survivors.

At the end of the novel, in an afterword, the author forces the reader to confront a very basic question: Had you been raised in Germany during the Weimar Republic years and been taught that the Jews were the reason you were suffering hardship then found yourself in the SS, how would you have behaved toward the Jews?

It is a frightening thought, but one does not have to go all the way to Europe to be confronted by such a question. In the generation before I was born, white men in the South were lynching Blacks, murdering in the name of racial hatred. What would I have done were I a part of that culture? What would I have done had I lived in the age of slave ownership?

My heart yearns to say that I would have stood on the side of right and virtue, but I cannot with absolute conviction make that statement. In Germany, my life and the lives of those I love would have been on the line had I sided with Jews. In the old South, I would have at least been denigrated and possibly even subjected to beatings and death myself for siding with Blacks.

As I confronted these questions, I suddenly realized that the culture war being waged in America right now is based upon the same things that caused the Holocaust: slavery, discrimination, and lynching. The base factor in all those situations is hate.

We are being taught by media and by certain politicians that those who are struggling with gender identity, for example, are somehow not like us, that we can freely discriminate against them. We are being taught that these people should be marginalized and denied medical treatment that would help them deal with a problem most of us can’t even understand.

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We are being taught that people attempting to immigrate to the United States are somehow less worthy of being a part of this country than we are or than our ancestors were. In the previous administration, there were American citizens who were willing to go to the southern border, armed, to patrol and presumably shoot people trying to cross into America illegally.

We have a choice to make, a chance to prove our worth, to stand on the side of right. Conversely, we also have the opportunity to be the accuser, the judge, the denigrator of other people. We are being presented the opportunity to stand either for or against the base hatred that has led to horrible tragedy throughout human history.

What will you do? What will I do?

The way we treat people who are dealing with these personal issues of sexuality or who are trying, at the risk of their lives, to come to America to escape situations in their home countries not one of us would willingly endure, is our litmus test.

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The famous Christian author Francis Schaeffer posed the question “How Shall We Then Live?” in his book by that title. That question has never left my mind.

In many ways, it is a question that haunts me. I can never live apart from that question. It presses me to do what is just. It presses me to treat people, all people, as equals no matter their problems. It pushes me to fight for equality for all men. I am grateful for that question for it compels me to live toward my fellow man in a way that I I would want to be treated or that I would want my son or daughter to be treated.

I do not have a child who is suffering with questions of gender identity. I don’t know anyone who does, but I ask you this: Could you look such a child in the eye and then deny them whatever care they needed, including a sex-change operation, to give that child peace? I cannot. To me, the flesh is unimportant in the eternal scheme of things, but the flesh is the source of our torment and the test of our own humanity, perhaps even of our spirituality.

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If some mercy I can extend to a fellow human can ease their suffering, I am more than willing to do that because I ultimately believe that what lies inside the human is more important than what goes on in the fleshly shell that houses him, her or them.

For me, this culture war is a pointless exercise in hate or at least in an unwillingness to try to understand the plight of others. At least in this situation, I can say with conviction that I will not stand on the side of those who would deny or oppress the one who is already oppressed.

Gary Cosby Jr. is the photo editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Readers can email him at gary.cosby@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Culture wars: How shall we then live? | GARY COSBY JR.