"EQUALITY AND INNOCENCE"

“EQUALITY AND INNOCENCE”

            Many of us are in the middle of a national reckoning on the history and current strength of the power of racism and the white supremacy that is the foundation for it.  Some of us continue to be in denial, and some of us amazed that we are even having the conversations, and some of us are glad that we finally seem to be taking much needed steps.  The power of race is both resistant and resilient, and it is boosted by two parts of the American experience. 

            First, we have the powerful idea of equality in our national DNA, the idea that all people are created with equal dignity.  We inherited part of this dynamic from our European ancestors, and we found that some of the peoples living on the land, like the Iroquois, also had this idea and had baked it into their social structures.  Our European ancestors took this idea of equality and developed it.  This idea of equality was originally meant only for propertied white men, but it is such a powerful idea that white men cannot control it.  Women heard it and believed it.  Those designated as “Black” heard it and believed it.  LatinX folk heard it and believed it.  LGBTQ folk heard it and believed it.  Indigenous people heard it and believed it.

            This idea of equality caused those of us classified as “white” in USA to refine the system of race and white supremacy.  Europeans brought the idea of “whiteness” with them to these shores, but it is a category that consistently changes as it needs to.  People of Irish descent were not seen as “white” when they came to USA – it would be the late 1800’s before Irish people were seen as “white.”  Because of white supremacy, we developed a hierarchy of humanity that would seem to be at odds with the idea of equality.   To paraphrase from George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” we came up with the idea that some humans were more equal than others, and the “others” were primarily Black and Indigenous peoples, now known as BIPOC.  One reason that white supremacy has such a strong hold on our hearts is that those of us classified as “white” felt the need to downgrade the humanity of the “other,” so that the idea of equality would not apply to them.  It is the system of race baked into our individual and national consciousness. 

There is no better example of this paradox than the life of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, who also was holding people as slaves even as he wrote, and even as he raped one of those held as a slave.  Jefferson did not grant freedom to those held as slaves at his death – he freed only those who were children of Sally Hemmings.  That freedom came at the price of her continuing to act like she was submitting to him. “Sally’s Choice” – a novel equivalent to “Sophie’s Choice” – no choice at all.

The second part of the American experience that makes the struggle with racism so deep and difficult is the idea of innocence in our history.   The Europeans who came to this land felt that they were leaving a class-bound, unequal society, and they saw themselves starting over in this new land.  The idea was to start a new society, a new Israel (as so many preachers and writers put it), where the natural goodness of humanity could prevail over old, tired Europe.  In our Anglo excitement, we even believed that the land belonged to us, that we had “discovered” it.  As Robert Frost put it in 1960 at John Kennedy’s inauguration from his poem “The Gift Outright”. “The land was ours before we were the land’s….”  It is known as American exceptionalism, and at its heart is the idea of a new society, a new construction of human life forever.  It is a powerful story, but it is not the truth.

            As we are being reminded yet once again, there were already people living here when the European ancestors arrived.  They were terrorized and killed and removed from the land.  We brought others here, most especially people from Africa, to work the land and the factories and build up our wealth.  If we have to confront and acknowledge this legacy, those of us classified as “white” will have to give up this story of innocence, of a new world.  We have heard this narrative of truth many times in our history, but we have always rejected it in the end.  Let us hope that this time is different.  Let us hope and work so that this time, we can actually celebrate and incorporate the idea of equality in our hearts, in our structures, in our institutions. 

            The variety of the human family is deep and powerful.  Let us embrace that idea rather than the idea of innocence built on a hierarchy of humanity.  Let those of us classified as “white” hear that we too can find life in a world built not on a hierarchy of humanity, but rather on the radical and powerful idea of equality.  It calls to us still.  Let us embrace it so that it can bring life to everyone.  As we think about or national heritage this week, let this be our guide.

"FATHER'S DAY"

FATHER’S DAY”

            I’m beginning to work on a book about my mother and me – her agency as a single, working mom, raising me as both mother and father.  In thinking about this, I’ve encountered many of the memories of abandonment by my father.  As many of you know, my father was absent from my life from the time I was an infant.  The absence was bad enough, but the fact that he had abandoned me hit me deeply in my soul as a boy.  My life into my mid-20’s was dominated by this abandonment.  Why did he leave?  Why did he never come back to contact me or see me? 

I am sad to say that the psychic energy of my young life was dominated not by the presence of my loving mother, who stayed with me, but rather by my absent father who abandoned me and never bothered to contact me.  I’ve corrected that over the years through therapy and good friends, and I also want to correct it with this book – I don’t know if it will ever be published, but at least my kids and grandkids will have it.  I’ve developed an outline for the book, and I’ll be glad to get your comments and suggestions on it – contact me if you’d like to see the primitive outline.

So, it should come as no surprise that I have ambivalent feelings about Father’s Day.  I am so proud of our kids, David and Susan, and that makes this day a day worth celebrating.  I’m always feeling the loss of the man who left me on this day, however.  I am thankful to my mother, who gave such time and energy to me in an effort to be both mother and father to me.  More about that later – in the book!

For today, I want to give thanks for those men who stepped into the breach to bring me fatherly love.  There were many of them – in my church, in my school, in sports.  Space only permits one of those for today.  Baseball was one of my outlets for establishing my masculinity.  As a boy, I was a good fielder, decent pitcher, so-so batter, but I remember praying every day in the summer that the rain would stay away so that I could play baseball – I loved it!  We played pick-up games, but what really counted was Little League.  I don’t remember how old I was – eight or nine, I guess.  It was the last inning of a game where we (the Coca- Cola Bottlers) were leading the other team by one run.  The other team was in its last bat and had two outs, but the bases were loaded.  If we could get one more out, we would win!  I was playing second base, and the batter hit a routine ground ball to me – all I had to do was catch it, flip it to first base, and the game would be over.  The ball went right through my legs into the outfield!  As the other team celebrated their victory, I ran off the field and hid under the stands, crying uncontrollably.  My mother came to console me, but I told her to go away.   

I don’t know if she sent him or not, but in a little bit, a man in our church named Joe Brady came over to talk with me.  He had two sons near my age (one of whom would die later in a tragic tractor accident).  I don’t know remember what Mr. Brady said to me, but whatever it was, it worked.  I came out from my hiding place, not fully restored but at least understanding a bit that baseball is a game of learning to deal with failure – the best hitters in the game fail 70% of the time.  At that tender age, I needed a man, and Mr. Brady stepped into the breach.  Later on, after my first year in college, he would arrange for me to get my first full-time summer job – working at Delta Fertilizer Company as a laborer.  It was the job that convinced me to go to Brooklyn for the next summer, an experience that would change my life forever!

And, I want to note the passing of my “adopted” father, Dr. Gayraud Wilmore, in April of this year.  He volunteered to be my adopted father 3 years ago after he had read one of my “dreams of my father” blogs in 2017.  He was 98 and tired and was ready to go, but I will miss him!

So, I’m grateful for men like Joe Brady and Gay Wilmore who stepped up;  I’m grateful for my mother who did as much as she could for me; I’m grateful for Caroline, David and Susan who have helped me to learn what it means to be a man and a father.  Not all of us are biological fathers, but we all have the opportunity to step into the breach.  Let us find our places. 

"ORDER MY STEPS"

“ORDER MY STEPS”

            A couple of weeks ago, my entry “No Excuses, No Exceptions,” was about metaphors for talking about our captivity to white supremacy.  Though disease and demonic possession are potent metaphors for our captivity, I prefer the metaphor  of “addiction” as the most apt approach in our post-modern world, though I am very drawn to the biblical model of demonic possession. In a later blog,  I will address this biblical model using the passage from Luke 8:26-39.  If you want to try it out before I do that,  check out the passage, seeing the man possessed with demons as a modern person classified as “white.”  It is a difficult and costly healing, as you will see.

I prefer addiction as the model for white supremacy because it acknowledges the difficulty of diminishing the power of white supremacy in our lives.  Using that model, in the chapter “Order My Steps,” from “Passionate for Justice,” I list seven steps that white people must work in order to begin to find some liberation from our captivity to racism and the white supremacy that undergirds it.  Because our addiction is so strong, these seven steps are not linear or hierarchical – rather they are like a spiral that must be continuously worked.  And, in using the addiction model, I am indicating that those of us classified as “white” will always be in recovery – there won’t be a time when we are free of our addiction.  These steps can be used for seeking liberation from other forms of captivity, like sexism and homophobia, but I am intending them for those captured by white supremacy. 

Here are the seven steps for seeking liberation from our captivity to white supremacy:  recognition, repentance, resistance, resilience, reparations, reconciliation, and recovery.  I’ll list some of them briefly today and expand on them later.  The first and perhaps most vital step is recognition – recognition that we are captive to the power of racism and white supremacy.  This is often the most difficult step because most of us who are classified as “white” do all that we can to deny that we are captives to the idea of race.  As my longtime friend, David Billings, put it in the title of his powerful book on white supremacy, we are in “deep denial.”  For many of us “whites” who are moderate or liberal or progressive, it is often more important to us to be seen as non-racist than it is to acknowledge the power of that race has in us.

This is the difficult fact of American history – all of us classified as “white” are under the power of white supremacy and racism – there are no exceptions.   Because of the modern use of media that records police brutality, because of the courageous organizers and protestors, because of voting power -we are seeing individuals and some institutions begin to come to recognition of this terrible captivity:  white supremacy is woven through us as individuals, institutions, and structures.  This is terrible and difficult news: we are captured by the power of white supremacy.  There is no way around this truth of American history and current American society.

“Recognition” is the beginning of the process where we move to healing.  It is an acknowledgment, to ourselves as “white” individuals and institutions, that we are captive to the power of race.  We do this, not to make ourselves feel guilty (though there is plenty of that to go around), but rather to acknowledge what is obvious to those who are classified as “other” in this twisted system of race.  In this sense, the metaphor of addiction is right on target:  to ourselves, and in community, we must acknowledge:  “I am a racist.”  Harsh language, to be sure, but we must start here, or we will never get anywhere meaningful.  We’ll always be playing the game of “They are racist, but I am not,”  or “I am a bit racist, but I’m not as bad as others are.” 

            We who are classified as “white” must begin where we are, and that is a recognition of our captivity to the system of race, a system designed not to classify the wide and diverse family of humanity.  Rather it is a system designed to indicate that humanity is a hierarchy, with those classified as “white” designated to be at the top of the ladder of humanity. 

"VOTING AND JUNETEENTH"

“VOTING AND JUNETEENTH”

            Tomorrow is Primary Voting Day in Georgia, already pushed back twice because of Covid-19.  It is one of the quintessential parts of being an American, and because of that, it has always been in contention in American history.  The right to pick one’s leaders via voting in America was originally meant only for white men of property.  The idea of equality which is the foundation of voting, however, could not be contained by comfortable white men.  It is an idea whose power has called out to so many groups who were originally denied the vote and even denied their own humanity. 

            Voting is necessary for a society built on the idea of equality – without access to the vote, there can be no equality.  Yet, voting is not sufficient to build that equality.  That work must be done in the streets and in the community venues and in the intersections of power and race and gender and economic status.  We are now engaged in such a struggle in the aftermath of the murders of George Floyd,  Breeona Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and many others.  It is not clear what the future holds on this, but all of us of goodwill are hoping that it will bring a fundamental shift so that African-Americans and other people of color will be seen not as “other” but as “sibling,” by both individuals and by institutions.  This struggle is both long and continuing.

            On June 19, many folk will celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation on “Juneteenth,” the name given to the event in Texas, where news of the Proclamation  and the Union defeat of the Confederacy did not reach African-Americans held in slavery in Texas until June 19, 1865.  At that time, U.S. General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with 2,000 federal troops and made this General Order #3:

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

            Juneteenth has become the most recognized national celebration of the end of legal slavery in the country.  Many other dates could qualify, and some are celebrated:  watch night services in African-American churches on December 31 of each year, similar  to the ones in 1862, right before the Proclamation took effect;  January 31, when the 13^th Amendment abolishing slavery passed Congress;  December 6, when the states ratified the 13^th Amendment. Yet, Juneteenth has held on for many reasons.  Here’s a link to a good article on Juneteenth by my friend and Oakhurster Zeena Regis https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/pt-0520-juneteenth/

            Perhaps the biggest reason that Juneteenth has held on is that it expresses both celebration and ambivalence.  Celebration that there was finally some recognition of the humanity and equality of people of African descent.  Ambivalence because there was so much reluctance to get this news to the people of Texas.  The racism that would eviscerate the Union victory over the next 40 years, after the Civil War,  could be seen in the last sentence of Order #3 – though African-Americans had built the wealth of much of America, they were still seen as being “in idleness.”  The order arrived over 2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and two months after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.  As WEB Dubois put it:  “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.”

            So, on June 19,  find a way to celebrate the great American vision of the fundamental equality of all people.  Find a way to acknowledge how deeply white supremacy still has a hold on our hearts and vision.  Find a way to work against that captivity, as did Frederick Douglass and Abby Kelley and William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Tubman and Ida Wells and Anne Braden and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker and many others have done.  And, don’t forget to vote! 

"NO EXCUSES, NO EXCEPTIONS"

“NO EXCUSES – NO EXCEPTIONS”

            I am a “recovering racist.”  I remember using those words to describe myself in the first book that I ever had published in 1995, “While We Run This Race.”  It was co-authored by Inez Giles, and in it we examined the origins and the continuing power of racism.  I said “recovering” because I am aware of some of the depths of my captivity to the system of race.  I said “racist” because this system is so deeply ingrained in my consciousness that I can never imagine that I will completely eradicate it in my quest for liberation.  I use “recovery” language because I like the metaphor of “addiction” for our “white” captivity to race.

            Some people like other metaphors for our captivity to race.   Catherine Meeks recently wrote an article for Hospitality Newsletter comparing racism to her rheumatoid arthritis.  It must be engaged on a daily basis, or it will overwhelm you.  I have a chronic digestive disease, so I know what she is talking about – I must always be attentive to my condition, or it will overwhelm me.  It is the same with the racism and white supremacy that are so evident and so rampant in American history and in current American life.  Like a chronic disease, we who are classified as “white” can be in denial of our captivity, as so many of us white liberals are, with Amy Cooper being a recent example.  Our denial does not decrease the power of the disease of racism – rather it strengthens it exponentially, as we see in the executions of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breanna Taylor, and many others.

            My friend Ed Loring and others prefer “white supremacy” over “racism” as the description for our captivity,  In this sense, I could say that I am a “weapon of white supremacy.”  This description helps to move us from just worrying about whether I as an individual am captive to race, to examining the systemic nature of the power of race.  The system of race was designed by “white” Europeans (and revised by “white” Americans) to classify the human family. The abiding principle of this categorization of the human family was one and one only:  to assert the supremacy of those classified as “white.”  Carolus Linnaeus and others who developed the system of race were not interested in celebrating the diversity of the human family.  They were interested in establishing the supremacy of those classified as “white.”  All Western institutions erected since the 1600’s have been built on this foundation – there are no exceptions.    

            In this time of the coronavirus, some people are calling racism and white supremacy a “virus,” and for those of us who want to maintain a modicum of innocence on the idea of racism, this can be an attractive alternative.  It implies that we are passive recipients of this curse.  We can do some work to prevent our contracting c-v, so the same holds here in this metaphor for racism and white supremacy.  We can do some work in our lives to mitigate the power of the virus of racism, but its power still remains.  This third metaphor is the weakest one for me, because there is no “innocence” for white people on this issue,  We were taught this captivity by our forebears whom we love (and who loved us), but it is now our responsibility.  No excuses, no exceptions.

            A fourth metaphor that I like is “demonic possession,” a powerful Biblical image of each of us and all of us being taken over by powers outside ourselves, changing the way we look at the world, at ourselves, and at others.  There are many stories of demonic possession in the Bible, but this one stands out for me:  Luke 8:26-39.  In it Jesus encounters a possessed man who has lost his identity to the demon.  Jesus heals him, but it is a difficult and costly healing.  And, in the end Jesus is run out of town for healing this man – the town and its structures prefer their demonic possession to the cost of healing.  I like this metaphor for racism – it indicates that healing will need to take place on many levels – individual, communal, spiritual, and institutional.  In our time of rapidly being secularized, this idea of demonic possession may not resonate with everyone, but it certainly does with me.

            There are other metaphors for our “white” captivity to race, but these are the main ones that strike me.  If you are classified as “white,” I don’t really care which metaphor you prefer in this list.  But, please, for all our sakes, please choose one and use it as the methodological tool for you to work on finding liberation from your captivity to race and white supremacy.  If you’re debating whether you are to captive to race,  STOP! STOP!! STOP!!!  YOU ARE!!!!

There are no innocents in this area.  All of us who are classified as “white” are in captivity to the power of racism.   Like an addict, like someone with a chronic disease, like a virus spreading all through us, like the demon taking us over – whatever metaphor your prefer, pick one and start working your way to health.  There are no exemptions to this, absolutely none.  I say this not to beat myself or you up, but rather to ask all of us classified as “white” to come out of “deep denial,” (to use the title of my friend David Billings’ fine book on race).   This is the only way to health – no excuses, no exceptions.