Last week, in an effort to amplify and center the voices of Black men and women in the conversation about race in America, a Black friend of mine did a takeover on my Instagram page @TheLuckyFewOffical and shared his lived out experience of what it means to be Black in America right now. I encouraged my followers to be listeners and learners in this space and time, but what he shared created knee jerk reactions in thousands and things got tense, to say the least. His posts brought on hundreds of hurtful, harmful, and racist comments, but it also brought up hard and necessary conversations and some genuine questions from people who are listening and learning right now. Included in those questions I found this in my Direct Messages:
Dear Heather,
My question is this: what would you say to someone who is sitting in the tension, listening to the voices, reading all the things, praying like crazy for humility and wisdom and after all of that comes to a different conclusion about the root of the problem facing our nation right now?
Thanks,
Cindy (her name as been changed)
Here is my response:
Dear Cindy,
The very first thing that comes to mind is, I don’t know. I just don’t know. I have lots of white friends who I am not seeing eye to eye with right now on the issues of race and Racial injustice in America and its root and our responsibility as white people. People who I love dearly have accused me of “baiting false race wars,” “sitting in my ivory tower on social media while stoking the nightmare.” They have accused me of hating their family members who are in law enforcement and believing the lies being fed to me by “liberal nazis.” At the same time, I’ve challenged these same loved ones to see that they have racism in their life that needs to be dismantled, and they are benefiting from white privilege and white supremacy. It seems we believe the exact opposite thing when it comes to these issues. I will send them articles and videos and conversations and scripture and sermons trying to better help them see things the way I do, which I’m convinced is the right way, which is why I am speaking up and fighting for it. Then they will send me links to videos and articles and conversations and scripture to try to help me better see things the way they do, etc. We both seem to accuse the other person of sitting in an echo chamber and not allowing opposing voices into the conversation while fully believing that we are in fact listening to a wide variety of voices right now. At the end of the day we both feel strongly that we are right and the other person is wrong. So now what?
Look, I am not an expert in any of this, but I do have some thoughts which are all based on my reality and lens and learning. But before I share those with you I think a little background could help: I believe in Racial Justice and I believe that Racial Justice is not something being implemented or practiced within the systems of America. Racial Justice has been something I have been working towards for over twenty years. As a white woman in America I have had the privilege aka white privilege to give the work of Racial Justice the attention it deserves in intervals throughout these past 20 years. In other words, because I do not have to endure the overt oppression and dangers caused by the lack of Racial Justice in our nation, I can participate in working towards Racial Justice...or not. It’s really up to me (see; definition of white privilege). Personally, this started out as a deep dive during college into understanding Racial Justice mostly through the lens of the Bible and the ministry and life of Jesus, which led to a major dismantling of racism in my own life, leaving me feeling pretty shook up and coming out on the other side as what some like to say “woke” in my early 20’s. Some time passed in which I would dip in and out of the work of Racial Justice, until the county of San Bernardino called me and asked if I’d like to adopt “a little hispanic girl,” to which I answered, “yes” and our middle daughter Truly joined our lives. Come to find out, she is Guatemalan and African American and presents to the world as Black. A few years into the life of being a white mother raising a daughter who is Black I took an even deeper dive into the understanding and work of Racial Justice when we moved to a more racially diverse community. This move created relationships with people of all different ethnicities, including Black and Brown people, who taught me by sharing their lived experiences, even more about what it means to be Black in America. By being intentional in making sure I had proximity to Black and Brown people I was able to develop real and meaningful relationships with them. These relationships helped create the lens from which I understand racism in America today.
“ ...if we lack meaningful relationships with those whose voices we say we are listening to and learning from, then we lack the heartbeat of the conversation. And where there is no heartbeat there is no life...no growth. ”
The truth is, we can sit in the tension and listen and read and pray all day long, but if we lack meaningful relationships with those whose voices we say we are listening to and learning from, then we lack the heartbeat of the conversation. And where there is no heartbeat there is no life…no growth.
Let me tell you a story: a few years ago when we were living in the Los Angeles area my husband worked for a church that was intentionally multi-ethnic. Because of this he worked with people of all different ethnicities including quite a few Black men. One of his co-workers, who happened to be a Black man, had a long commute to work so he would stay with us from time to time. He ended up having his own room in our home with his clothes in the drawers and toothbrush in the bathroom. Sometimes he’d be around during dinner time and join Josh and I and our three small children around our dining room table. He became our friend. One night he came to the house later than we had anticipated. I had already gone to bed but my husband Josh was still awake. Our friend told him he was late because he had been pulled over by a police officer. When he asked why he was pulled over the officer yelled at him to get out of his vehicle. And for the next thirty minutes he sat on the side of the road, cars passing by, humiliated and afraid. He drove off without a ticket, without a citation. His only crime? Being a Black man in America. He told my husband it happens to him often. Shortly after he shared this story with us a young man by the name of Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. The day after the story hit the news cycle my husband went to work and during the staff meeting he had the opportunity to listen to the voices, stories and lived out experiences of his Black co-workers, most of whom were pastors. He sat and listened as each person shared time after time of experiencing oppression and harm by the systems in place in our country. He heard the lived stories of people who he had real and meaningful relationships with and it changed everything.
As the mother of two children who have Down syndrome and one child who is Black, I have found that we live in a world built upon and centered on the voices of the most powerful and the majority of these voices have been and are white people without a disability. I began paying closer attention to this because of my relationship to my children. Over the past 12 years as their mother I have found myself up against systems that have been put into place by strong, powerful and mostly white people without disabilities which is why the systems do not work for my kids. So when it comes time to try to understand why there is unrest within a system, I believe with all my convictions that the voices to listen to in the conversation are always the voices of the marginalized or oppressed. Which is what I am committed to doing in the conversation about race. And the most powerful and life changing of those voices are the ones with whom I have real meaningful and intentional relationships with.
So Cindy, my question for you is, are you in relationships with Black people? Please know I ask this gently, with grace and humility. And I don’t mean the black co-worker or neighbor you are kind to and who you see nothing wrong with. Or the Black child who was adopted into a white family in a white neighborhood going to a white church. I mean are you putting your feet under the table and sharing a meal and life with Black men and women? Because if you say after sitting in the tension and listening and reading and learning and praying you have come to a different conclusion and disagree with a lot of what is being said about the root of the problem with racism in our country but you have not been in relationship with Black men and women who are living under the oppression of that racism daily and who trust you enough within that relationship to share it with you, then I’d say the key component needed for reaching a conclusion is missing. There is more work to be done.
And I guess the relationships I have with Black people is why, after listening to the point of view of my friends who sit on the opposite side of the conversation and watching the videos they send and praying through the scripture they share, I still believe what I believe about the Racial Injustice in America. Because if I hear and adopt the beliefs they are sharing with me, none of which come from Black people with whom they have a meaningful relationship with, then that means I have to look at my Black friends with whom I do have a meaningful and real relationship with and say to them, “you are wrong. Your lived experience in this world is not real.” And I think not only would that be harmful but it would be irresponsible and inhumane.
As I write this letter to you, I do so knowing that I may be getting it all wrong. The most any of us can know and understand about a situation we are not personally experiencing is what we are willing to try to know and understand. I am not free of the blinders and ignorance I see in thoses I disagree with. But gosh darn I am trying my best to truly see the whole picture here. I am just one person doing the best I can with what I know and have, committed to listening, learning, relationship and growth. And I trust you are too.
With grace, peace, love and justice,
Heather