Pentecost - Speaking Truth to Power

The world is on fire, friends. We’re living in a global pandemic. Black men are being kneeled on to their deaths. Our cities are burning. Our economy is crashing. People are hungry. And scared. And angry. This is our reality. The question is not “why can’t we all just get along?” That is a white question. The question is, for us white folks, “what the hell are we gonna do about it?” This is not the time to ask our black brothers and sisters to do our emotional labor. This is a time to stand in between them and the police. This is a time to speak truth to power. If our police are not breaking rules while they stand on black necks, the rules have got to change. Period.

The Holy Spirit is a woman. I’m sure of it. Hell, she’s probably a black woman. Today is the day the Christian church celebrates and worships the Spirit who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. She put little embryo Jesus into young Mary’s womb. She created the world alongside her Trinity partners. She is no slouch. And she is what wells within us when we speak truth to power. She is the Spirit of disruption when systems are unjust. The Holy Spirit of God is not here to placate my white fragility. She is the voice that calls me to question my motives, my fear, my silence.

The events in our country this week, specifically the murder of George Floyd, should cause every white person in this country, especially white Christians who believe in the sanctity of life, to look in the mirror and ask, “What can I do?” “What do I need to learn?” “How am I complicit in his death?” And then GET. TO. WORK.

I decided not to post an image of George’s death. There was a time in my process of looking at my white privilege where I shared images of violence against people of color and forced myself to watch the videos of the deaths of Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and Philando Castile in order to wake myself up to the reality of the black experience. That is important. If you have not exposed yourself to the material that exists of these moments and find any hesitation within yourself to speak out, watch the videos. You need to. But I also know that black people have seen enough of this footage to hold the trauma in their DNA. Generations, hundreds of years of oppression lives in their very cells. So I will not post that here. It is available for you to see. Instead, I chose to put an image of George when he was alive and healthy. I got it from Shaun King’s Facebook page (he’s a great social media follow if you’re looking to learn).

If you believe in the Holy Spirit and celebrate her power and beauty this year on Pentecost, I ask that you beg her to tell you what to do today in response to George’s life and death.

There is no peace without justice. May we do the work to enjoy the peace we all desire.

If Only Facts Softened Hearts

Growing up in the churches of Christ while being raised by a cerebral, military man 46 years my senior gave me the impression that facts were important. Facts saved people's souls from hell if you can just embrace and believe in them. Facts and the large umbrella above it, education, gave us a safe path on which to build our lives. If people just had the correct facts, all problems would be solved. World peace. Heaven. Financial success. Health. Information is the key.

How great would that be?!?!

Fast forward a few decades and I find myself attending my first White Ally Workshop. I'm promised a toolkit to help draw people away from racist ideas and into the world of allyship (for us whities). Racism is a giant enemy that we want to think of as "other" so we can objectively, deliberately slay this dragon of inequality and unfairness. Unfortunately, the dragon has laid some eggs we're sitting on within ourselves. Racism isn't "other". Racism is "us." I don't meant that we're all racists in a deliberate, overt way. That involves choice and intent. I mean that we, as Americans, were born into a racist society and all of us who have benefitted from that (white people) are racist in some way. Our systems are racist. Our language is racist. Our dominant culture is white, rendering anything non-white as "other." It runs really, really deep. I haven't remotely hit the bottom of it.

We know this already, that we harbor racism within us that needs to come into light for us to see growth. The conclusion is, before we have societal, systemic change, we must have internal, personal change. And of course, all these things are actually happening simultaneously. It starts within. Oof that's hard. We have to stop sitting on the eggs of our racist society so they aren't hatched again and again and again within us and the subsequent generations. We have to starve the beast, break the eggs. We have to stop babying our fear, our ignorance, our need for power. And so we begin unpacking our privilege. And we read and we ask questions and we talk and we listen. Super important. At some point, we think we have enough learning under our belts to be able to sway others to begin their process. 

Here's the problem: we want to sway with information. But studies show that information doesn't change people's hearts. STORIES DO. So I'm sitting in this training doing roleplaying practice and failing miserably. All I can think of is other people's stories. Police shootings and stories I read and facts I know. Nothing about personal experience. Nothing about touching hearts in real life. Only words to engage the mind. I can share facts imploringly and do, often. However, I was told in this workshop that what we need is to engage people in conversation with story and compassion and kindness rather than brow-beating facts, politicization of our social strife and judgement. 

Uh oh.

I've got none of that.

Not when someone is griping about the tragedy that is taking down confederate monuments and how people of color need to "just behave themselves" and how the Black Lives Matter movement is local terrorism. 

How can I listen and find the humanity in that? That stuff is bullshit. Okay, here's the distinction they were teaching. You can't find the humanity in racism. But can you find the humanity in someone who says racist things? 

Ouch.

I can if I really try. I know a lot of "good" people who don't understand why this makes me so angry. But I don't really want to be generous towards them. I just want to focus my rage on their Fox News regurgitation. I don't want to think of them as children. I don't want to listen for their pain. I want the facts to rain down like men and obliterate their entire worldview. I want to burn it all to the ground. I want to force them to read all the stuff and listen to all the speeches and go to therapy for their stuff that gets in the way of them seeings themselves in another person. 

Oh wait. 

Isn't that what I'm struggling to do? 

GAH!!!!

I'm particularly enraged at racism within white Christians. I just don't understand why they don't care. I regularly remind myself that many of us do. Many of us are angry, sad and on the ground. But I encounter the status quo often as well. The throwing up of red herrings to preserve what is. WHY DON'T THEY CARE? You guys, I cry, scream, rage. WHY DON'T THEY CARE THAT PEOPLE ARE DEAD WHEN THEY DID NOTHING TO DESERVE IT? (I could also ask why they don't care about deaths that are considered warranted but that's another post.) How are any black bodies gunned down in the street, backyards and cars okay with anyone who claims to love Jesus? 

JESUS WAS FUCKING BROWN.

Jesus loved God and loved others. That is the whole religion. At what point does that look like finding a tolerable amount of unwarranted racist deaths just so you one doesn't have to change, read, grow or learn? 

I'm so sick of the apathy, the politicizing of real people and debates but I'm too angry to harness my rage right now and be productive with it. 

Maybe this post is what I can do right now. Perhaps this is productive.

I still have a ways to go, friends.

We all do.

* If you'd like to attend a White Ally Workshop or download the toolkit, their site is here.

Sometimes Division is Good

Okay, walk with me here. I was raised both as a woman and a member of an incredibly non-confrontational religious sect that division was always bad. Division was the beginning of the end. Division was such a problem that women were told to be silent, people were not allowed to openly state their feelings or beliefs and many, many people were in unprocessed pain because of it, to the point that people lost touch with themselves in a very real way. Now I believe, honestly, without division, true relationship cannot exist.

I'm not pro-division. It feels terrible when division looks like everyone shouting over each other. But guess what, even shouting is communicating. And we, as Americans, are shouting about things that actually matter right now. THIS IS HEALTHY!!!! Don't poo poo the arguing going on.

Don't bow out of conflict about something as important as black lives.

Black lives matter. They are worth fighting for. 

Black lives, and their inherent, equal value to white lives, is one of the most important things we'll ever talk about in this country. We cannot agree to disagree about this. Just like Charlottesville, this is a time to take a stand. Frankly, I don't care if you like Colin Kapernick or not. I don't care if his form of protest protects your white fragility or makes you feel defensive. Whatever in you is pushing back on this is something that you need to examine for yourself.

No country is more important than the people in it. ALL THE PEOPLE IN IT. That includes black Americans. 

I know that this protest has highlighted a sacred cow in this country and that cow is "patriotism." We worship this country to the point that we criticize peaceful, kind, humble black men for kneeling in hopes that all black people can one day be safe in this country. And he chose to do it during a time in a game when we all bow down to this idol, which was clearly the wrong time. There's nothing wrong with loving your country and white people, except for the really poor ones, are pretty darn lucky to be here. But telling black people in America, it could be worse, is not exactly the point. You guys, IT HAS BEEN WORSE. AND IT SHOULD BE BETTER. And what if it really could be better? What would that look like? 

I think it looks like division. What if division was the beginning of the end of black lives being treated as disposable? That's worth growing hoarse with shouts. That's worth protesting. That's worth the conflict. Get to work.

Don't agree to disagree over black lives.

They are worth a lot more than that. 

Don't let concerns over respect and veterans and lives lost in battle distract you. The issue isn't veterans. The issue is black lives. Don't take the red herring. We could argue all day about the flag, flag burning, veterans, war and showing respect to the flag. And we have a lot of baggage around that we could certainly discuss. Let's face it - not all veterans are offended by Colin's actions just like not all black people applaud them. Let's stop defending a diverse group of people like they all think the same way. They don't. Even so, don't let those issues distract you from the reason Colin kneeled (and the reason he's no longer employed). The reason that happened and continues to play out is because we love football more than black lives.

We love a fabric flag more than what it represents. Freedom for all. If black lives are not safe, are they really free? No, they're not. How could we possibly disrespect the flag more than by supporting a system that targets Americans for the color of their skin with the full power of its government? When unarmed black men are gunned down in our streets, we better start talking and we better do more than talk, which is exactly what Colin did. When we target black lives, we are turning against ourselves. We turn against America when we turn against Americans. It's really that simple. Freedom for all. That's what the flag should represent. The fact that we're arguing about that proves we still have along way to go for that to be upheld.  

Check your Posture

Listen, I consider it to be one of the least appealing parts of my personality, my dislike for being wrong. Even more than being wrong, I hate being called out for in in public. I don't know if it comes from being the youngest of 7 (and therefore the last to learn everything) but I embarrass easily (which is usually a surprise to people because I manifest a lot of public confidence) when put on the spot and corrected. I hate being corrected. I feel a sense of shame. And when my shame voice turns on, the first thing I want to do is point a finger. The defensiveness just is. I don't call it into a situation. It's just there. 

So please take my admonition with this in mind. That I see white fragility through the lens of my own distaste for correction. That shame fills me when I am the recipient of a pointed finger. (As a laughable aside, I find it to be truly one of life's greatest jokes that I share such personal things online with this "stick up my butt" piece of my personality. It's just karmic hilarity at its finest). In order for a white person to identify their own fragility, own it, claim it, learn it and hopefully, in time, keep it in check, one must be willing to make a pretty big ass of oneself. I find white fragility to be both humiliating, repulsive and absolutely innate to my life experience. It was not a choice to be fragile, but rather my reality from birth. 

HOWEVER, as I become more aware of my preciousness, I do get to choose. Do I out myself or do I defend myself? These are the two choices. Be corrected or be an ass. I'm sorry. Both choices suck, am I right? I alluded to this issue in my post almost exactly one year ago (weird) about being a "clumsy advocate" for racial justice. I say stupid things. I'm learning. And when you learn, you look like an idiot at first. Have you ever watched a child learn to walk? Yes, we ooh and ahh, but when an adult does it, we hand them a breathalyzer. It's not as cute. This is the same. When (not if, but when) someone points out your white fragility to you, you might stumble in shame. You might be tempted to defend your position and so many white people have shown you the way. It is so fucking easy. And people will cheer you on because "snowflakes" and "political correctness" are jokes. 

Here's the challenge: can you lean in instead of out? When you perceive a slap, what would it look like for you to lean into it? (I could reference Jesus here but I won't). Is there a lesson in correction? Is it possible that you're not done learning about privilege, fragility and racial injustice, white American? Is it possible? I guarantee I'm not done learning. But I am leaning in to the feedback. And I've stumbled a few less times since I wrote that post a year ago. I'm not a great example. I've got A LONG ROAD ahead of me. But I might be a year or two ahead of you on this life-long road (I'm also light years behind a lot of people) and I highly recommend taking the slap. 

Please check your posture. If you can't listen to negative feedback, even when correct, you will never grow. Your children are watching. Your country needs you. People of color need you to wake up. Not in a white savior kind of way but in a please stop beating innocent people in police department parking lots kind of way. For the love of God, LEAN IN.