Sunday, August 13, 2017

Charlottesville Reflections

My social media feeds are filled with public outcry denouncing white supremacy and the haunting images of torch wielding marches in Virginia.



It should be.

But let's be honest, our social media solidarity does little to nothing. Me protesting the protesting of something like this doesn't end racism. It doesn't solve anything.

Now, changing the way we live? That changes the story. Protest with your life. The way you live.

The reality of this is its costly and most of us white folks are naive, oblivious, or worse, indifferent to what so many people in our country have endured and are currently enduring.

Here's 10 things we could do do if we want our life to reflect our posts and tweets (by no means exhaustive).

1. Have a coworker or neighbor or friend or classmate of color over to your house for dinner and ask them to tell you their story and how all that is happening in Virginia and with police shootings is impacting them. How do they feel? What are their fears?

2. Eat and shop at black owned locations. A friend of mine recently sent this list of 21 black owned restaurants in Columbus. Shaina and I have made it a bucket list item to visit all of them. Some are in parts of town we go to all the time. Others are in places we have made conscious or unconscious notes to not go to because they are in "the bad part of town". Regardless, we are going to each.

3. Be discipled by African-Americans. I read a lot but found that most of the authors I was reading were white men. I just recently felt the conviction that I am not being taught, empowered, educated or discipled by African-Americans or women. So I've changed that. Jo Saxton and John Perkins and Howard Thurman are three voices I've just begun to let influence me. There are many more places you could start. The important thing is that you start somewhere.

4. Engage the Foster Care System. African-Americans make up roughly 13 percent of the population and yet somehow make up 25% of the children in the foster care system. Disproportionality is a thing. And there are a ton of kids in need of safe and stable homes either for a brief time or for a long period of time. The county I live in has issued an announcement that they need 200 homes immediately for placements because of the influx in kids in the system. Kids who cycle through the foster system end up with increased likelihood of teen pregnancy, high school drop out and incarceration. The system is unstable because the people who have stability and safety in their homes are locking these kids out. It's one of the clearest things in scripture and simultaneously one of the largest areas of neglect in the church. A primary goal of providing stability and support to these foster kids is that hopefully, reunification can happen with increased stability and safety being provided by the parents. This doesn't happen all the time, but it doesn't mean it isn't worth fighting for. The main thing is show up. Show up in the lives of kids, regardless of race and say that regardless of baggage, regardless of race, regardless of everything, every kid deserves a shot at being loved and valued and finding safety and stability in their life.

5. Move. If you are like me and you have had any inkling of an awakening to the effect that economic segregation has on systemic racism, then you can't really use or leverage your voice until you relocate. Some friends of mine who are heroes in this went to a neighborhood where they were clearly the minority and went in dreaming of a 20 year plan of incarnating the good news and seek revitalization and the prosperity of that neighborhood alongside their neighbors. It's messy and you can't do it with stars in your eyes, but it feels right.

6. Repent. There is a Wendys about two miles away from our house and a Wendys about 1.5 miles away from our house. We go to the one that is further away because it is on the right side of the tracks. We do this without giving it a second thought. The church that Shaina and I started nearly 5 years go is largely homogenous. We are white. We don't represent the city we live in. We don't represent the school we gather in. My staff is white. The people who most often grace the stage of the church...the worship teams...the communicators...white. I have to at least consider that the decisions I make or don't make are not pure. One of the more powerful things I've experienced in recent months was when our church combined with 4 other churches in town for a Good Friday gathering. It was the most diverse expression of worship I have experienced and during that time a white pastor and an African-American pastor, both of whom I love and respect a ton took turns confessing their sins to each other with the church as a witness. It was holy ground and if I'm honest, I need the courage to own that racism and white privilege that fester in me both knowingly and unknowingly. We need to name the cyclical hell that we have put people of color through in this country. And we need to grieve it. I have no idea what it is like to have distrust in the police force because of things that have happened for centuries in regards to those who exist to protect. I don't know what its like to feel the need to be protected from the ones enlisted to protect. I don't know what its like to be deemed 3/5ths of a person. I can say I protest much of what has happened. But the only way this issue changes is if I protest with my life and my actions.

7. Hire the Unhirables. I love the spirit of Hot Chicken Takeover in my city. They make great chicken and hire people who are often deemed unhirable. Their website says: "It’s about our people. Beyond an amazing community of customers, HCT provides supportive jobs to men and women who need a fair chance at work. Be it homelessness, previous incarceration, or another barrier to employment, HCT employees are wildly ambitious and have set their sights on what’s next. Once hired, we support their financial stability, personal growth, and professional development with an array of benefits." Having this approach in our businesses can drastically interrupt or break the cycles of poverty, crime and incarceration. Give a man a fish and they eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and they fish for a lifetime. Fish alongside a man and you may just change the world. The latter is about relationship and partnership and mutual benefit. It tells a different narrative than the heroic haves reaching out to bestow their blessings on the have nots.

8. Acknowledge that abortion is part of the systemic racism and classism we need to address. Yes, we're stepping on all the toes today. African-American women make up about 6% of the US population and yet account for between 30 to 40% of the annual abortions. If we're going to say that Black Lives Matter, then we have to be willing to say that the disproportionality of abortion clinics in poor, often largely black communities is exploitative and unjust. I don't care where you land on the the abortion issue. You can't escape that there is something wrong with this picture.

9. Identify, support and vote capable, competent African-Americans into political offices. There have been 10 black senators out of nearly 2000 senators in our history as a country. Ten. And a few of those weren't even elected. They were appointed. It's hard to say that racism isn't a thing when the white people with all the money get elected to all the positions of power and influence and continue to make the rules that govern the land. Hard to hear the voice of a group of people if the elite white guy has control of the mic.

10. Laugh together. I know a lot of these are heavy, complicated, costly journeys to go down. Most things worth doing are costly. Most things that are right are costly. But if nothing else, find common ground where you can be silly together. It's really hard to carry a torch against someone you laugh with and genuinely enjoy.

Probably not realistic to do all of these, but what if we all picked one and let our life be a protest to the bigotry and intolerance that we've seen on shocking display?!

Live your life as a protest. If we can't lean into these things, then we'd probably be best served to shut up. The African-American community deserves better than lip service and us continuing to control the mic.

Hope this is a platform to jump off from. Which one are you feeling called to try this week?

1 comment:

Manlambda said...

Isn't lying a sin. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/02/16/dear-conservatives-abortion-clinics-dont-target-the-black-community/?utm_term=.1354c4294033