something I read on here once, and I've long since forgotten who said it so my apologies (please link if anyone knows what I'm talking about), was an amazing thread by a theologian talking about how everything you ever learned about "turn the other cheek" is actually wrong https://twitter.com/BreeNewsome/status/1298689042440126464

what I learned growing up - maybe you did too - which never quite sat right with me, was that Jesus intended us to be SO nonviolent that if someone hits you on one cheek, you should let them also hit you on the other cheek

just stand there quietly and take it. never fight back.

but there's another interpretation that I like much better, and which feels more relevant to this moment - as we will inevitably continue to hear (mostly white) people demanding that victims of violence continue to passively endure that violence, without fighting back against it.

back in Ye Olde Biblical Times, for a man to strike someone backhanded was a casual, insulting dismissal; it was reserved for slaves, or children, or women. when a man struck another man he viewed as an equal, he used his dominant hand - so they were face to face.

so in this interpretation, "turn the other cheek" means "you are not less than he is. if he strikes you backhanded, like you're nobody, TURN AND FACE HIM, so at least if he's going to attack you again he'll have to look you in the eye like a man when he does it."

protesting is not violence.

holding signs is not violence.

shouting chants is not violence.

refusing to submit to violence is not violence.

demanding to be heard is not violence.

vandalism is not violence.

it's just saying, "look us in the fucking face."

just something to keep in mind for next time you inevitably hear a white Christian use the term "turn the other cheek" as code for "Black people should just keep quietly allowing this to happen to them because that's what Jesus would do."