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Archive for the ‘Revolution’ Category

Compilation (Current Mood: $#&^%*#@!!)

Posted in Revolution on July 7, 2016| Leave a Comment »

 

In a former church I loved, my favorite story ever told was the story of the muskox. When attacked, the herd will engage in a circle defense – they will wad up and face outward. You can’t just fight one muskox – you have to fight them all.

Let’s be muskoxen. Wad up against inexcusable injustice of black lives being thrown away by the people hired to protect them. Or by anyone.

Do not tell me you are pro-life if this doesn’t enrage you. Do not tell me you have the legal right to own/carry a firearm and then fail to be outraged when law enforcement kills someone for legally carrying a gun.

Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. Know their names. Watch the videos. When the subsequent nightmares mean you don’t get adequate sleep, consider that a small price to pay for the injustice we have allowed to continue. Recognize the privilege in having the nightmare go away when you wake up.

This is our mess.

Further reading:

“Picking up the trash of white supremacy is my job.” – Abby Norman via SheLoves

“If the illegal killing of Black people by the police bothers you, as it should, talk to your White friends about it. There are many nuances and ambiguities in institutional racism, but the police committing murder is not one of them.” – Justin C. Cohen’s Advice for White Folks in the Wake of the Police Murder of a Black Person.

And listen:

“Imagine your grip on the hope you’ve carried in your heart about their future since the moment they left your body loosening as they look less and less like innocent children to our society. Imagine doing everything right as their parent. Imagine raising them to realize their potential and know their worth and to be proud of their skin. But also imagine having to teach them the realities of living in it, how to persevere in spite of them, and yet still sit with that fear revolving around your heart because this society has yet to move past lynching and hunting bodies housed within Black skin.” – A’Driane Nieves – Brick by Brick, You Must Obliterate the System

“We have learned to justify these people’s murder, feeling validated in our assertions of their guilt by things discovered after the person is already dead and gone. We paint the victim as a villain, dehumanizing them to the point that we no longer see them as someone’s child, someone’s father, someone’s brother…but just another thug who got what they deserved.” – LaSondra Spears – What Do We Tell Our [Black] Sons?

“We cant breathe and yet we speak back. We band together and raise our whispered voices to a shout. We gather together in public spaces both physical and virtual and shout that our lives do matter. When it is we who have long been the victims of violence are told to ‘remain calm’ we will not. I am not calm.” – Austin Channing – Age of Understanding

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Friday Five – This Week

Posted in Friday Five, Revolution on July 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

That’s the best title I could think of. My creativity appears to have been packed away with half of my apartment.

Luckily, the Internet’s creativity is not. Here are my five favorite things from the Internet this week (ish…maybe last week…anyway…recently).

For laughs:

  1. From the Twitterverse – a tie between #BeckyWithTheBadGrades (particularly MannySpeaks101 – “when entire academic institutions were created to benefit you and you still don’t make the cut.” and LexiBoo192J – “When the Supreme Court tells you that you’re mediocre.”) and #IfTrumpWereEvangelical.
  2. Speaking of Trump, David Tennant reads Scottish tweets. Thank you, Samantha Bee. Thank you.

For serious:

  1. Allison Fallon gave the best answer I’ve ever heard to “Should I marry him?”
  2. Sarah Schuster (via The Mighty) on what it’s like to have high-functioning anxiety. YEP.
  3. And my favorite – Jesse Williams’s speech at the BET Awards. LOVE.

What are some of your favorite things (they don’t have to be from the Internet) this week?

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To My Christian Brother Who Longs to Straighten Out My Viewpoint

Posted in Hope, Lament, Revolution on May 13, 2016| 6 Comments »

Disclaimer: this post is the result of an actual recent conversation about transgender bathrooms. The other party has read the post and confirms that it summarizes our conversation and might be helpful to others. He also remarked that it’s less “shouty” than what I unleashed on him in person. No, I will not reveal his identity. He’s suffered enough. Bless his heart. But good news – it’s not about you. Unless you’re that one guy who already knows it’s about him. If you feel offended by this post, an interesting question to ask yourself might be “Why?”

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First, welcome to this conversation. Grab a cup of coffee. And good luck (or God be with you, if you prefer).

I admit up front that you are at a disadvantage, because you have higher expectations for said conversation than I do. While you expect the outcome of this exchange to be the complete change of my mind on the subject, I merely expect you to understand my mind on the subject. I have no delusions that I’m going to change your worldview. I understand that you believe that male-female is either-or, constant, and unwavering, and you believe that God doesn’t make mistakes (although neither do I, but I also believe that sometimes people are born with birth defects and childhood leukemia and various other difficulties and that these conditions do not diminish the value of the human who happens to have been born with them and are certainly not causes for mockery or disdain but rather compassion and an attempt at understanding through the magic of listening. To preview, this is similar* to the way I view gender dysphoria.).

*in the sense that experiencing gender dysphoria is no more an issue of morality/measure of faith (which is, at best, what is implied by that particular cliche) than suffering from one of the physical afflictions given would be.

(Also, I’d like to state for the record that my view of gender dysphoria is inherently limited to listening to those with the experience, as I have not had the experience myself. So if you really want to understand, listen to them instead. Individual experiences vary broadly and deeply. Therefore, to truly increase understanding one must read/listen broadly and deeply.)

(Also, stop using bumper sticker slogans like “God doesn’t make mistakes” or the more colloquial “God don’t make no junk” as arguments. As your friend, I’d like to believe that’s beneath you. It makes you look the opposite of clever. Stop trying to derail the conversation with a sound bite.)

Second, I would propose that, before you say another word on the subject of transgender people and their experience/restroom usage, please know the vocabulary. For example, know the difference between gender expression and gender identity, and the difference between transgender and transsexual. Know the definitions of the terms cisgender, gender non-conforming, and genderqueer. If I use these terms and you are confused, that tells me that you don’t really know enough about the subject to have an informed opinion, so continuing the conversation is not going to be very useful. It’s really not so much to ask that you have knowledge of a point of view before you say you disagree with it. To fail to do this before even forming – much less voicing – an opinion on the subject is to be the reason we still have an electoral college. With the whole of the Internet literally at the tips of your fingers, it is inexcusable for the populace to be uninformed. You don’t get a pass because we pray together.

And no, I will not simply tell you the answers. You have to care enough to find them. I didn’t do your homework for you in junior high, and I’m not going to do it for you now.

Fine. I’ll just leave this here. Go read it. I’ll wait.

Third, we base our opposing viewpoints on a shared value. We both want kids in schools to be safe. I believe this about you. I believe that this is your heartfelt concern. I honor that concern.

In this situation, though, cisgender students are not the ones in danger. I mean, yes, the world is a dangerous, scary place to send your kids in general. But sexual assaults against minors are more typically at the hands of an adult they know and trust than at the hands of the freaked out transgender girl who, in addition to undergoing all the other hells of teenage life, also has to deal with not feeling at home in her own body.

A friend (who has bravely given permission for me to tell this story) once described for me what it was like for her to be that freaked out girl in high school. If she entered the girls’ room, she was taunted and teased and on more than one occasion, pummeled with trash from the women’s hygiene receptacles in the stalls. But she endured that, because the last time she used the boys’ room (the “correct” one, according to her birth certificate), she was pinned against the wall, groped, and told, “The next time I catch you in here, I’m going to treat you like a girl, since you want to be one.” Now, clearly these were nasty children who probably didn’t limit their bullying and crimes to their transgender peers (and are now adults who are lucky I don’t know their names), and the idea that treating someone like a girl means sexually assaulting her is certainly a disturbing mindset on its own, but that doesn’t change the reason my friend was singled out. When she reported it, nothing was done. When I asked her if she would have preferred the risk of going into a family bathroom or a gender neutral one, she emphatically said that she would. The bullies still would have bullied her, but at least then she could have peed in safety behind a locked door.

What she would have liked more is an authority figure who actually protected her.

Of course I care about student safety. In fact, that’s pretty much my whole point.

And last, if you respond to the previous story with a flippant, “Well, that’s just what happens when you’re different,” instead of being appalled that my friend had no place to go – no advocate – not even the school officials – at her high school, don’t waste your time trying to discuss anything on the grounds of morality with me, because it’s going to be a long, hard road just trying to convince me that you have any morality on which to base your opinions.

And yes – I will get shouty about it.

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Supermouth

Posted in Hope, Revolution, Work on June 23, 2015| Leave a Comment »

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A friend once said that one of my strengths was “unlocking a conversation and cutting right to the heart of a matter.” Years later, these words still stick out in my mind, because I needed to hear that back then. I always worried that, in my concern with details, I talked around everything too much, causing people to lose interest before I ever got to the point. It was nice to hear that at least one person was able to stick it out until the end.

Then I became a public speaking instructor, and it became my job to get to the point. I became good at it, and I became good at teaching other people to do it. The fear subsided.

Now I work with college students all the time. I still teach part-time, but even in the full-time job when I’m not officially an educator, I am surrounded by people whose focus (for the most part) is processing information and figuring out how they fit into the world. As the token adult in the room (although technically, the term “adult” applies to everyone), I am often a sounding board to help them gauge how well they’re doing it (and whether they are crossing lines). There are also whispers and low voices in corners that they think I can’t hear, but they are not good at being sneaky yet, so that often becomes a learning opportunity, too.

They are used to me having something to say when issues of oppression arise. They expect me to be Supermouth. This expectation is both welcome and terrifying. I’m glad to do it, but it’s a big responsibility, and I’m not always great at it. Sometimes, we stumble through together. Mostly, though, they just listen. This is another thing that is both good and problematic.

I have a new fear.

When something happens on campus or in the world that demands notice – a rape, a suicide, irresponsible political statements about immigration, a collapsed mine or sweatshop factory that killed underpaid workers, a black girl thrown to the ground by someone she should have been able to trust to respond better, nine black people gunned down in their place of worship – they are learning to have conversations. But when someone in the room talks about something controversial or says something off-color, they all pause and look at me. I am happy to speak, but I am concerned that they are relying on me to do the speaking. I am afraid they are letting things slide – you know, the way my friends and I at that age would often let things slide – when I’m not around.

Because that’s a big part of the problem. We – both historically and currently – let things slide when there’s not a Supermouth present to confront these events and call them what they are –

Racism.

Sexism.

Heterosexism (and, um, WordPress, I’m gonna need you to recognize that as a word. It’s not new.).

A small part of me wants to remind myself that I did the same thing when I was their age. A larger part of me wants to add “…but that doesn’t make it okay.” A larger part of me is both guilty of allowing important words to go unsaid and sorry that I can’t take it back, and I don’t want that to be their story twenty years from now when they’re the Supermouth in the room. I want them to succeed where we have failed. I want to believe that it’s not too late for us to change.

I will still speak up, but I am also learning to ask the question, “What do you have to say about that?”

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Breaking for Baltimore

Posted in Invitation, Revolution on April 28, 2015| 2 Comments »

I can’t talk about what it means to be invited to the table today. Today, the fact that so many are shoved, beaten, shot, and barred from it weighs too heavily.

I can leave you with a few things I’m reading. That the images that get the most coverage are the ones aimed to condemn the violence of people destroying property but not the violence of people destroying lives is infuriating. That the peaceful protests of the majority are downplayed because it upsets the us-vs.-them narrative is unacceptable.

Karen Walrond – To my white friends who struggle with what to say

Lasana Hotep, via BKNation – “When people speak to the racial dynamics in these situations, they find themselves accused of ‘playing the race card’—a tactic that puts the victims of police violence on the defensive. We need to ask the question: How did the race card get in the deck?”

Orioles’ COO John Angelos defends protesters.

Andi Cumbo-Floyd on the importance of checking our privilege in these conversations.

If icons are part of your prayer life, consider some of Devin Allen’s images when you talk to Jesus about this.  And support Allen’s art.

Ugh. White people. Where are the people calling them animals?

Ta-Nehisi Coates – “When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.” (thanks to A’driane Nieves for the link)

Jesse Williams – “Police and policies have been rioting on our bodies; destroying people & property every single day of your lives. But here you come….When the beaten, marinated in centuries of trauma, pain & distress, manage to muster a response, here you come squealing; revealing.”

Read. Share these stories of brutality being bought off and shoved under the rug. Question what’s going on in your town.

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Black. Lives. Matter.

Posted in Rants, Revolution on November 25, 2014| 6 Comments »

As the grand jury’s decision in Ferguson was announced, I did something unusual for me. I have ignored my Facebook feed and have clung to the hashtags #Ferguson and #blacklivesmatter. I am not quite myself today. This is the fourth or fifth version of this post, and this is the nicest way I can say it. I know I’m usually Ms. Every-Voice-Matters, but the truth is that some of them don’t to me.  Not today.  Maybe not ever again.

I am ignoring my feed because I don’t want to see any of my friends’ faces next to a defense of this decision. I am nervous about going home for Thanksgiving and hearing it there. I am combing through the documents of evidence presented to the grand jury, but if anyone wants to have a conversation about it that is not tempered by grief and loss, they’ll have to have that conversation with someone else.

I am unwilling to believe that a system in which a young man can be denied due process and killed by a one-man judge, jury, and executioner without the case inevitably going to trial is a system that works.  At all.

I don’t understand how anyone, knowing anything about our country and its history, can hear an officer describe how he looked into the black face of his alleged (because remember – never forget – Mike Brown never got his trial) attacker and saw a demon – something subhuman – and not be triggered by how much that REEKS of Jim Crow.

Sitting here and reading this little bit of history repeating, I cannot view anything other than further investigation as justice.

People can hide behind The System and How It Works and shut their eyes against anyone for whom it doesn’t, but they don’t get to do it with me. I know it looks complicated, but it’s really not. Black lives matter.  You either agree with that, or you don’t. And if you don’t, I don’t see myself putting my precious effort into taking anything you say seriously.

I used to talk about laying down privilege, but there was always something inside that bucked against that notion. I assumed it was my own privilege talking – the fear of being without its protection. And that’s probably part of it. But when I look at the benefits afforded to me by my white, well-educated, employed, straight(ish), cisgendered, healthy(ish), beloved daughter of two still-alive and still-married parents existence, I see another reason for my hesitation. I see my ability to walk – or even run – up to a police officer of any race and not get shot. I see my ability to walk into an establishment with my currently imaginary significant other and not be denied the same service enjoyed by others. I live, move, and work in a world where my mental, emotional, and physical states are not treated as arguments against my humanity.

I hesitate to lay down privilege because I am angry that these benefits are considered privileges. They are basic human rights and should be the shared experience of everyone who is human, not doled out selectively, based on arbitrary demographics.

Nor will I wear my privilege like a cape as I swoop in to save the day. I am not anyone’s savior. In fact, I’m sure there are areas in which I am so blinded by my privilege that I don’t even realize I’m part of the problem.

But I am listening. And I will not stop speaking up. When I see injustice, I will say so. If you find that annoying, maybe you should examine why. Look for a little chunk of privilege wedged in your own eye, because that’s probably where that’s coming from. You might want to get that checked.

I had planned to extend an invitation during my Easter Feast course to other people to guest post about what it means to them to be invited to the table. I’m not sure it can wait until then. More information coming soon.

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Five Minute Friday – Change

Posted in Five Minute Friday, Hope, Revolution on August 22, 2014| 4 Comments »

“Until White America tells fear to fuck off, we’ll keep dying at the hands of ‘justice’ in a country they broke our backs and our souls to build for them.” – A’Driane Nieves, in “White Supremacy and Fear: The Cracks in America’s Foundation No One Will Fix”

Words have sat heavy on me this week. They land hard on my lily white skin and seep into me.

This sounds awful.  It’s not.  This is how change works. It strikes, and then it sinks in.

I suppose the easy thing to do would be to get defensive.  The danger in taking the easy route is that the events that incite heavy words are usually broken systems that aren’t worth defending. The easy route allows the stunted soul to stay the same and hide from anything that doesn’t fit into what it already understands.

I don’t want the easy route. I want the words and the stories of the angry and the oppressed and the dismissed to melt into me and change me.

I am trusting firsthand accounts. I am trusting their lived experience that says this is only the latest installment of a system of oppression. The learned inclination to trust a badge just because it’s supposed to be trustworthy is quickly unraveling. My trust in authority is no longer immediate (and let’s face it – has not been immediate for quite some time).

I am praying with some of the bloggers I follow as they go to Ferguson to hear the stories of the people who have been there. I am praying that words will land heavy on them. I am also praying that they will be safe.

I am praying that the people – all the people – of Ferguson will be safe. I am sitting uncomfortably with the knowledge that feeling safe would be a first for many of the people of Ferguson, for many of the people in this country.

But I will sit with that discomfort.  I will not run away from it to take the easy route. I will change.

I am linking up with Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday. The prompt is “change.” Join us.

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I Choose Them

Posted in Hope, Rants, Revolution on February 17, 2014| 4 Comments »

Disclaimer: Yes, this was inspired by a real-life conversation.  If you were there, you know it, because I wasn’t subtle.  Nothing here will identify you, nor will it offend you, because it’s so much nicer than what I said to your face.  All others, if this post offends you because you feel that, in some theoretical way, it could be directed at you, maybe take it up with Jesus. Maybe talk to him (or a licensed professional, if you prefer) about why it could have been directed at you.

If you say something racist within earshot of me, I consider it my business.  I will confront you.  Even if you weren’t talking to me at the time. Even if I don’t know you. I will do my best not to embarrass you, because shame is a lousy motivator, but I will address it.

I will confront you, just like I expect you to confront me when necessary, because I am not perfect and need to be confronted sometimes.

It’s not that I think I’m better than you.  This is not image management; I’m not trying to look smart or culturally sensitive.  I’m not even really trying to teach you something, although in the best case scenario, we would both come away from the experience having learned from it.

It’s just that it is my business.

Racist speech inevitably draws a line, dividing the whole of humanity in two. It breaks the natural design of the universe. Our differences are meant to empower us and to give us voice. Racist speech corrupts this design and turns difference into a silencer. Your racist remarks draw a line and force me and everyone else around you to choose which side of the line we’re going to stand on. And lest the word “force” sounds like it’s some great burden, the truth is that my having a choice in this situation in the first place is a privilege afforded to me by my lily white skin.  The easy choice is to stay quiet and pretend that it doesn’t concern me, or to say that there’s nothing I can do, or to hide under the cloak of “no one needs me to speak on his or her behalf.”

But as a friend recently reminded me, I don’t have to make the easy choice.  So I choose to use my privilege in a different way.

When you draw that line in the sand between us and them, I choose them.

If you are a complete stranger, I choose them.

If you are my very own flesh and blood, I choose them.

If you are randomly wandering through my building at work, I choose them.

If you occupy any rung of the ladder at my workplace(s), even rungs that are far above me, I choose them.

If we are friends despite our having nothing in common, I choose them.

If we are friends because we have so much in common, I choose them.

If you are trying to get my attention because you want to date me, please note that this is the exact wrong kind of attention to get from me.  I choose them.

If I have shown interest in dating you, don’t expect my crush to silence my response, because I choose them.

Even if telling you that you’re wrong will cost me our relationship, I will still choose them.  If that’s going to break the deal, I’m going to go ahead and let it break (for a little while at least). My hope is that eventually you will cross over the line with me. My hope is that one day the line will be destroyed and diversity will be a place of celebration, not competition.

But if you draw that line in the sand, I will choose them.

 

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