I noticed that during the game show “Family Feud,” host Steve Harvey shakes hands with the losing family and, if they are African American, he tends to say to them in an under-voice, “You did good; you represented well.” Shortly after I came to this realization, I saw a Satanist in the news and realized that we should all be thinking about representing well.
Showing one’s good side can be an individual, group, gender or larger societal thing, so Mr. Harvey could tell any family they represented well; they represented something well to get on the show, after all. Lately, however, overall we seem to have lost our sense of decorum. Children have less respect for adults, driving can be a tail-them-and-flip-the-bird nightmare if somebody misbehaves in the fast lane, we clobber each other for the latest bit of expensive junk and create whole hierarchies over that same junk (Apple wars, anybody?) So I watched a “bad guy” do something I’ve never witnessed before, and when it was over I was left scratching my head.
David Suhor appeared in a Pensacola city council meeting on July 14 to give the morning invocation, as have religious groups of various types in the past. In this case, he appeared representing the Satanic Temple in the West Florida area. There was a short meeting on July 7 about discussing prayer at the council meetings, allowing Suhor to give that week’s invocation, and possibly stopping the practice of prayer in general, which you can read about here from the local CW TV network news feed online:
http://wkrg.com/2016/07/07/the-satanic-temple-of-west-florida-will-deliver-invocation/
And here is some feedback on how the ultimate event came about in the Washington Post:
Without a quorum, no action either way was taken on July 7, so on July 14 a man dressed in what I will call the type of basic Satanic uniform–a hooded robe–one might expect to see, prepared to speak and was immediately drowned out by a large Christian presence invoking the Lord’s Prayer. The major concern at both meetings was that this man speaking at all would cause evil havoc to manifest itself. The council chair had the most disruptive people taken out of the courtroom.
The religious front was standing for the Almighty, and I’m certainly on that side of the fence, but as I watched the clip I wondered who was really the most polite of the two factions. The Christian supporters shouted and showed very little bonhomie, even given the opportunity to show the way to the good side by example. Suhor calmly told the council that he could wait until things quieted down. After an agreement was reached to have the room be quiet while he got the matter over with, Suhor sang. Having just seen the touchingly poignant and fun film Florence Foster Jenkins about the famous off-key singing sensation of the early 20th Century, I’m glad the fellow had decent pipes. His song mentioned the fruit of forbidden knowledge and anarchic principles and ended as expected with “Hail, Satan!” Then it was over.
The world has spun a few times since then, and Pensacola is as it was.
I don’t know how I feel about the dark side representing well when the good side seemed a bit frustrated, but I know that we are still on polar opposition when it comes to the presence of evil among us. It will probably continue into ages well past our own. That doesn’t mean we can’t all work a bit harder to be polite and represent humanity itself well.
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