To sing not enough ...

Yesterday morning I joined with a group of people in a park in downtown Charlottesville.  The park has been getting a lot of attention lately, both locally and in the national media, because of an effort to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee which stands so prominently in its center.

A couple of weeks back a rally was held in front of the statue.  Richard Spencer, the man who is credited with coining the term "alt-right," led a torch-bearing crowd in chanting, "We will not be replaced," and the Nazi-era slogan, "blood and soil."  The next night, a larger crowd gathered, bearing candles, to say that Charlottesville should be a place where all people are welcome, and that the stories, the experiences, the lives of People of Color will no longer be dismissed and ignored.

Word went out that there would be a "pro-Confederacy" rally yesterday morning at 10:00, so a group came together at 9:00 so as to be there to greet them.  Signs and banners were gathered, prayers were spoken, songs were sung ... we even hummed "Amazing Grace" over and over again as people read from the Bible, made stirring speeches, and prayed some more.

And I was there, with others from the Unitarian Universalist congregation I serve, singing, and humming, and chanting with everyone else.  I even was moved to give voice to a prayer of my own. 

"Let us not be fooled into thinking that rallies are enough.  We can sing all we want to, but if lives aren't changed for the better, it will be in vain."

Earlier I had been walking around the periphery of the crowd -- trying to get a photo of the congregation's banner, truth be told -- when I was stopped by an African American man who wanted me to explain to him why I was there and why I was saying "Black Lives Matter" when, really, all lives should matter.  There was a small group around us -- some of whom I recognized from other pro-statue rallies -- but it was pretty much only the two of us talking.

A point he was trying to make was that from his perspective, People of Color in Charlottesville don't really care all that much about whether there's a statue of Lee in Lee Park.  They care about the gangs that have taken over the projects; they care about jobs, and housing, and unfair incarceration rates.  He said, essentially, "why don't all you white folks who're here singing get together in the projects and do something to actually make a difference in people's lives?  That's what will bring people together.  This stuff will just divide us further."

I have heard this same point made even closer to home.  The Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church has been a frequent guest in our pulpit, and he has said this same thing about our congregation's decades-long wrestling over whether or not to change our congregation's name -- "people in the Black community," he has said, "don't really care whether this church is named after Thomas Jefferson or not.  We care about jobs, and drugs, and real problems that affect real people."  [An interesting coincidence -- the man I was speaking to in the park is a member of Ebenezer.]

Now ... while I do hear this, I also hear the voices of other People of Color, here and around the country, who talk with equal clarity about how the names and the statues do matter.  The mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, gave a powerful speech a week or so ago about why it was so important that the city had taken the step of removing four Confederate monuments.  If you haven't heard it, you should.  [Here's a transcript of the speech, but his delivery was incredible, so I encourage you to actually watch and listen to it.]

Anybody who's ever read even a little of what I've written knows that I am very much a both/and guy, and I recognize that there are a lot of perspectives on this country's history with regards to race, how to understand its present, and where (and how) we should go from here.  The people on one side of the issue have a lot of different motivations for holding the views that they do, as is true for those on the other side, and there is another whole group who, for a whole lot of different reasons, fall somewhere in between.  So I do see that this isn't just, excuse me, black and white.

AND

At the same time that I recognize that there are a lot of different perspectives, I also recognize that some of those perspectives have been consciously, intentionally, and systematically denied or denigrated.  While I know that there are a number of different voices offering a number of different stories, each of which I believe has some core of validity, I also know that there are some voices which have been purposefully silenced.  This is one of the things I think Mayor Landrieu did so well in his speech -- he recognized the existence of a variety of perspectives, denying none of them, and he named the importance of now listening more attentively to those perspectives, to those people, who have been for two long pushed to the margins of U.S. society.

So I understand that names and statues don't matter for some, and I understand that for some they matter a lot, and I understand that for some they have been painful for a long, long time and that that pain has been ignored. I also know that for me, I will side with those whose voices have gone too long unheard; I will cast my lot who are asking that their too long unrecognized pain for finally seen and responded to; I will show up when I am asked to show up as a sign of solidarity with those who have been pushed to the periphery.

That's why I was there yesterday morning, singing, and humming, and holding a sign that says "Black Lives Matter," because there has never been a question in this country that white lives matter.  What has been said repeatedly, and in ways both subtle and overt, is that Black lives don't matter, and I will lend my voice, my time, my energy, my body to the growing number of people insisting that we, as a country, no longer pretend that there is a rot in the roots of the nation, and demanding that we do something about it.  Black lives do matter, all evidence to the contrary.  And until our reality reflects this rhetoric, I will keep showing up.

Yet there's one more both/and here, and that's that while I will keep showing up because I think it is important to gather to sing, I also recognize that singing is not enough.  If all we do is show up in the park on a Wednesday morning and sing, and hum, and speak strong words, but the gangs remain a presence in the projects, and African Americans are more likely than whites to have negative interactions with the police, and our legal system remains so obscenely imbalanced, and ... if these things don't change, none of the songs of solidarity will matter much at all.

What would happen if all of the people who identify as white who show up at rallies like this were to put as much energy and enthusiasm into making a real difference in the real lives of real people as we do in putting on a show?  (Note that I said, "we" there, because I should certainly be asking myself that question, no less than any other large-hearted, well-meaning, liberal white person.)

A post from a Charlottesville man named Chris Newman (owner of the local Sylvanaqua Farms), responding to the candle-light follow-up to the torch-lit rally, recently went viral.  He begins:

A message to Charlottesville about Lee Park from your local Black farmer:

I know some folks are really feeling themselves about this whole Love Trumps Hate counter-rally to Richard Spencer's punch-worthy shenanigans in Lee Park.  I'd like to appreciate it, but frankly I just don't.

He goes on to describe Charlottesville as "the most aggressively segregated place" he has ever lived, and he describes some of the realities he faces as someone "farming while black."  He concludes.  

Truth is, as a Black dude, I'm far less bothered by the flag wavers [...] than this town's progressives assuming its race problem has nothing to do with them.  The former is a visual inconvenience.  The later could leave my daughters without a father.  

So please, put down the candles and instead ask yourself:  why is my city like this?  Why is life like this for Black people in my wonderful city?  The answer is a lot closer to home than Richard Spencer or Lee Park.

Singing is not enough.  It's never been enough -- important, even essential as it is, it's not enough.  We do need to ask those questions Mr. Newman encourages us all to ask, and then we really have to go out there and do something about it.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

fair isn't always fair

In response to the protests following the election of, now, President-elect Trump I have heard two assertions over and over again.  The first is that Donald Trump was elected "fair and square" and is the legal President.  The second is that the election of other Presidents has caused a portion of the citizenry to be afraid of what the new administration would bring (and that those fears turned out to be largely unfounded).

Let's begin with the last one.  First of all, whether or not those fears were unfounded is a matter of perspective.  The average white American may not have seen the worst of those fears realized, but communities of color, and other marginalized groups, would certainly tell a different story.

But let's even, for the sake of argument, say that those fears were unfounded in previous  transfers of power from one President to another.  Would that mean that fears about a Trump administration are also likely overblown?  I think not.  Candidate Obama never said that he was going to come and take everybody's guns.  He never said that he was going to establish sharia law.  He never advocated any of the extreme positions that those who were feeling fear named as the cause of that fear.  Candidate Trump has said that he intends to deport 11 million people who live in the United States, no matter how long they have been here as a part of our society, no matter whether it breaks up families to do so.  He said this; it is not conjecture nor projection.  He called for a ban on Muslims entering the country, and the registration of Muslims who currently live here.  This is not a fear based on what we assume he might do; these are things he has declared he will do.  And he has -- subtly and not-so-subtly advocated for violence and intimidation among his supporters, going so far as to say that he would pay the legal bills of supporters who beat up people who opposed his candidacy.

There are not groundless fears.  They are direct responses to things he has actually said he will do.  This is different than in previous elections, in which people feared what might happen.

The fears people are expressing today are born not only from things he has said, but also from things he has actually done.  Over and over throughout the campaign -- throughout his public life -- he has demonstrated a remarkably thin skin and vindictive attitude.  He has not only promised to punish people who have opposed him, he has a history of trying to do so.  His behavior betrays a man whose primary concern has been himself, and who is willing to lie and cheat to improve his "brand."  And he's not just been accused of sexual assault by several women, he has bragged about getting away with it.  And these are just a few examples of actual behavior which, elevated to the office of the Presidency, are incredibly frightening.

These are not groundless fears being expressed.  This is different.

As to the point that he is our fairly and legally elected President ...  I would simply note that Jim Crow laws were fairly and legally established; that our current practice of racially disproportionate incarceration is based on laws that were passed "fair and square;" and that it was at one time perfectly legal, and by many considered a good thing, to enslave Africans, to prevent the so-called "mixing of the races," and to deny the right to vote to women and people of color.  All of these were legal and, in their own day, considered not only fair but right and just.

The #notmypresident movement is not just a case of "sore losers" who aren't able to accept an election outcome with which they disagree.  It's a declaration of respect for the ideals of our country, and a commitment to the strides that have been made to make true our founding credo that "all ... are created equal," and a dedication to the work that still needs to be done.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Eruptions

This morning I submitted the following letter to my local paper The Daily Progress.  In July I wrote a post which expanded on this theme

Protests “erupted” in Charlotte, North Carolina, CNN reported.  The protest was in response to the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, but that’s not what caused the violence.  “Eruption” seems an apt description.  Volcanoes and geysers erupt because the pressure beneath them has built to a level which can no longer be contained.  So, too, when violence “erupts.”

In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote::

"Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race."

In the one hundred and forty-one years since, those “ten thousand recollections” have not dimmed, nor have those “new provocations” ceased.

I do not condone violence.  Rather, I abhor it.  Yet I can understand it.  It is not a surprise to me when it erupts.  How can it not?  All of that heat and pressure has to find an outlet.

Two quotations have been echoing in my mind these last few days.  Both are from Malcolm X;  both are, I believe, quite relevant.

“I don’t favor violence. If we could bring about recognition and respect of our people by peaceful means, well and good. Everybody would like to reach his objectives peacefully. But I’m also a realist. The only people in this country who are asked to be nonviolent are black people.” “We are peaceful people, we are loving people. We love everybody who loves us. But we don’t love anybody who doesn’t love us. We’re nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us. But we are not nonviolent with anyone who is violent with us.”

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Riots or Uprisings ...

In 1784 Thomas Jefferson published his Notes on the Sate of Virginia.  In his chapter on slavery he proposes that slaves should be emancipated and then put on boats and sent back to Africa.  He rhetorically asks himself "Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expense of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave?"  He then answers himself with these words:

"Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race."

Take a moment to read that again.  Isn't this what we're seeing in Baltimore, and Seattle, and Chicago, and Ferguson?  "Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites" coming up against "the thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained," along with "new provocations"?

Malcolm X said:

"If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, that's not progress.  If you pull it all the way, that's not progress.  The progress comes from healing the wound that the blow made.  They haven't begun to pull the knife out, much less heal the wound. They won't even admit the knife is there."

Some are beginning to say that we should really think of these "riots" as "uprisings."  Angry people, with "the thousand recollections of the injuries they have sustained [along with] new provocation," are responding not just to any particular specific instance of injustice, but to all they have endured and continue to endure.  Some are responding with control and strategy; others with unbridled rage run rampant.

I've also seen on the Internet this summation of the situation:  Black people are literally saying "Stop killing us!"  And there are people saying "But ..."  I can't imagine -- as a white person I really can't imagine -- how that feels.  But I can't imagine that it doesn't count as a "new provocation."

So what are we to do?  I guess that depends on who we mean by "we."  On April 29th, Salon.com published Julia Blount's article (originally posted on her FaceBook page) "Dear white FaceBook friends:  I need you to respect what Black America is feeling right now."  We -- and by this I mean white Americans -- could begin by reading things like this.  The Unitarian Universalist blogger Kenny Wiley has written some wonderful things on his blog "A Full Day."  (His perspective, by the way, is that of an African American Unitarian Universalist millennial male.)  For a brutally honest big picture view of the background to what's happening pick up Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow:  mass incarceration in the age of color blindness.

Better than -- or, perhaps, in addition to -- reading is talking with people.  Again, to the primarily white folk who read this blog, talk with people of color you know.  And maybe better than "talk to" would be "listen to."  Listen to what they are thinking and feeling about all of this.  (And by "this" I don't mean just Baltimore, nor even just issues of police violence and the inequities of our justice system.  I mean anything having to do with the ways people of color and whites are treated differently from one another -- that thing called "systemic racism.")

If you don't know any people of color, you could talk with other white people.  But don't allow the conversation to fall into easy assumptions.  Question and, then, question again.  Challenge -- both the person with whom you're talking and yourself -- to see things from outside of your experiences of "normal."  Try to imagine the issues from as many different perspectives as you can.  Push yourselves to try to make sense of the things you can't understand and defend things you disagree with.  Broaden your perspective.

If you don't have people of color in your life with whom you can talk about these things ... ask yourself, "Why?"  See if there are things in the way you're living your life that are keeping you from making connections with African Americans, Latino & Latina Americans, Asian Americans (which, of course, encompasses a widely dispirit group of folks!).  Look for ways to begin putting yourself into situations where you can meet folks who don't look like, think like, you.  Tread lightly here, naturally.  You certainly don't want to create a single, token, "Black Friend."  Nor do you want to too soon assume the intimacy and trust that talking about race-related issues with someone of a different race requires.

For a moment I'm going to directly address Unitarian Universalists;  If you're a FaceBook user you might want to check out UUs Resisting New Jim Crow & Mass Incarceration, and Allies for Racial Equity.  (Consider joining that later one!)  For all of us: are you yet a member of the NAACP or the National Urban League?  Things to think about ...

Is what we're seeing in Baltimore and elsewhere a case of "riots" or is it an "uprising"?  I think the answer to that will rest mostly on our -- white -- shoulders.  Our brothers and sisters of color are giving voice to their outrage, their grief, their anger, and their exhaustion.  If it is to be more than that -- if it is to be a full-bodied, long-lasting assault on "the way things are," then it's going to take the involvement of those who most benefit from "the way things are."  As this blog puts it so well:  racism is a white problem.  But maybe, just maybe, we can come together not just to calm this violence but to eradicate its root cause and, so, avoid Jefferson's predicted, "convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race."

RevWik

a movement, not a moment

I've never been particularly good at estimating -- age, weight, number of people in a group -- but I'd say that the crowd that gathered at the First Baptist Church on West Main Street would easily have filled the sanctuary I am privileged to preach in each Sunday.  That means it topped 200, maybe 250, people.  (And if my extremely rough calculations are anywhere near correct, somewhere around 5% or more of that crowd were other Unitarian Universalists.  Shout out to my peeps.)

We walked in a line from First Baptist over to the Federal Courthouse, where we heard some inspiring words.  Words to inspire us.  Inspire us to not let this one night's march be the end of things.  Inspire us to feel the anger, and the grief, and to come together to make a difference.  A real difference in a system that so desperately needs to be different than it is.

From there we marched to Charlottesville's famed Free Speech Wall.  More speeches.  One speaker said -- look out at you all.  Black, white, hispanic, aisan, gay, straight, young, old -- this is what unity looks like!  We were reminded, encouraged, called on not to let our disagreements over little things get in the way of our desire to move in the same direction.  One person said that this should be a movement, not a moment.

As we marched we chanted -- "No peace -- no justice!"  "Hands up -- don't shoot!"  "I can't breathe."

As we marched we were protected by Charlottesville police officers who wanted to keep us safe and free to voice our outrage and our sorrow.  I was not the only one to step out of the line and walk over to one of their motorcycles to thank them.  I said to one, "I'd imagine that this is kind of a weird thing for you."  "Yeah, but I get it," he said.

I get it.

I'm often tempted to think I "get it" too.  I don't.  At least, not fully.  I understand the concepts.  As much as I'd like to be able to ignore or refute the facts, I see them.  But I don't know what it feels like to live with them every day.  I don't know what it is like.

I can walk down the street with my hands in my pockets or my hoodie up without any concern that I might get stopped by the police and interrogated because someone had called them having seen me and being afraid.  I don't know what it's like to get violently thrown to the ground -- or shot -- because I have the audacity to question an unnecessary and inappropriate request to "prove" myself innocent.  I don't have to have in the back of my head the idea that even when I'm doing nothing at all in a place I belong I can be "in the wrong place at the wrong time."  I don't have to live with the assumptions -- other's assumptions of me and mine of them.  I don't have to live and breathe every day the reality that I am nearly always cast as "the Other."

I can understand all this, but I can't fully "get it."  I don't have to live it.

I have two transracially adopted sons.  One looks like his Irish birth mother rather than his African American birth father.  (He used to say "my brown skin's on the inside.)  The other is a beautiful cross between his East Indian birth mother and his African American and Cherokee birth father.  I know that the world will treat them differently.  I know that someday, and someday soon, my older son will transform from a "cute little brown-skinned boy" into a "threatening black-skinned man."  He's going to "get it."  I have to stop it.

"You are not my enemy," one of the speakers said last night.  "I am not your enemy."  Looking out at the crowd he said, "I don't want to be afraid of you; you don't need to be afraid of me."  "We have to work together to change things."  This is what unity looks like.

This has to be a movement, not a moment.  I can't become complacent, shift my attention to the next thing to come along, return to "life as normal."  Because "life as normal" for me is protected, shielded, from "life as normal" for the vast majority of people of color.  And when I return to my safe "life as normal," I abandon others to a "life as normal" that is unlike any "normal" I'd ever want to experience.  And not just me -- I don't want anyone to have to experience it.  And since my "normal" is, in a very real sense, paid for by this other "normal," then I have to be actively involved in changing things.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

P.S. -- yes, it's true, "all live matter."  But there are two reasons I think it's important that we keep the focus on black lives.  First, it's taken for granted in our culture that white lives matter.  That's assumed; that's expected.  When something challenges that it's thought to be an aberration.  Not so for people of color.  It needs to be asserted -- again and again and again -- that not only white lives but black lives too, matter.

Secondly, one of the ways that white liberals have learned to avoid seeing the real devastation in body, mind, and spirit that racism causes is to affirm that -- we're all in this together.  Yes, we say, black lives matter, but really -- don't all lives matter?  Of course.  But this impulse toward "we're all one" is a way denying the really differences that exist between white and black experiences.  It's a way of saying, "see?  you're just like me," but that'd be asserting that people of color have all the same privileges that I do as a white man.  And that's really a way of blinding myself to the reality that we're not all the same.  Or, rather, perhaps more accurately, that we're not all treated the same.  We need -- I need -- to keep reminding myself and being reminded of those differences so that I can keep being motivated to dismantle them.