The outcry against this action has led the church to reconsider their decision and overturn the ban. Unfortunately, it appears that serious soul searching and recognition of deep seated bigotry was not part of the process. The pastor declared the ban to be null and void because the bylaws can’t run contrary to local, state, or national laws that would judge this as discriminatory.  Church in Kentucky Overturns Ban After Outcry

Apparently, the legal issue has forced the hand of this church rather than giving priority to a moral imperative for justice and equity.  Have these people read their Bible lately?

I sometimes wonder if our soul even knows where to find us, smothered as we are by greed, fear, and cynicism. Yet, I hear a cry from under the buried parts of ourselves yearning for a miracle renewal of wholeness and decency towards one another. It is a dialogue that needs both the 1% and the 99% if we are to survive.

Theologian Leonardo Boff reminds us that even when life as we know it seems about to be extinguished, life beyond us has another agenda:

The Spirit is that little flicker of fire burning at the bottom of the woodpile. More rubbish is piled on, rain puts out the flame, wind blows the smoke away. But underneath everything an ember still burns on, unquenchable. The Spirit sustains the feeble breath of life in the empire of death.

What does it mean for an empire of death to die? It does not go easily into its grave. Perhaps we will find our soul when we are ready to go into those places we most deeply fear and bury the lies we have told ourselves. It will hurt. We will grieve for a life we’ve known even if it has been strangling us because we know how to play the roles we have been taught matter the most.

Now we wrestle with questions like who decides what matters the most? For whose benefit are institutions making their decisions? What voices are left out of the conversation? How can we make it different?

I praise the searching, as messy and confused and difficult as it may be. For to give up the search, is to assume our soul has died and can’t be found. I choose to believe differently. Join me in the search; your voice matters.

Business students at a Montreal university recently welcomed first year students at an athletic week event by painting themselves in blackface to represent Jamaican sprinters, shouting “Smoke more weed,” with some wearing attire with monkey faces and a least one in the group holding up a stuffed monkey. Blackface stunt at Montreal University

 

One student witness, who is of Jamaican descent, was shocked to see the ridicule of his culture:

“They had reduced all of who I am and the history of Jamaica and culture of Jamaica to these negative connotations of weed smoking, black skin, rastas,” said McGill law student Anthony Morgan, who happened to be on the campus at the time and filmed the group.

Video of Montreal students in blackface

I find the response of the university officials particularly disturbing. Frank Sciortino, chair of the committee organizing the event said in a press release:

My wish was simply to…  assure you that in no way were they a racist act.

Dear Mr. Sciortino, intent does not get to determine whether an act demonstrates racism. Students need to hear it was indeed a racist act whether they intended it to be or not.  Educators send the wrong message when they rationalize the behavior of students to allow them to avoid responsibility for their actions.

Another university spokesperson, William Raillant-Clark, sought to put the attention of this incident on the student who complained:

“It is just a shame that at the time this was happening the person didn’t call security or somebody at the university so we could have addressed it there and then”

Dear Mr. Raillant-Clark, it is just a shame that the university prefers to focus responsibility on a witness rather than accepting responsibility itself for the racism that occurred and focusing on educating the students as to that fact.  It’s also a shame that you seem to think that there was no one else in the football stadium from the university community that could have/should have followed up.  Or, are you suggesting it was the sole responsibility of the  student of Jamaican descent who witnessed this offensive portrayal of his culture?

Anthony Morgan frames the situation well:

“As problematic as it was for the students to be doing this, I thought it spoke more about the university,” he said.

This is an opportunity for the university to learn something critical about itself and the campus climate that exists. Good intentions are not enough; action is required.

What naturally came to mind to say was the following:

You are worried you might get blackballed or

You think you will be blacklisted or

You don’t want a black mark against you.

All of these came close to coming out of my mouth but I stopped them as I looked at his dark skin and wondered, as a black man, how these words would sound to him.  Negative black words.  They live in our everyday language in abundance.

It would be easy to say these are just words with commonly accepted meanings; particularly easy for white people for whom these classifications have been normalized.

I imagine what it would be like to have a friend say to me, “Oh, you will be whitelisted” or “That may be a white mark against you.”  Since “white” has been given such positive connotations in our language, it would be a different impact.

Blackballing came from the tradition of a secret ballet and signifies a rejection. People casting a white ball, while voting, signified support. A black ball signified opposition.

Words matter. It’s worth the effort to find language that does not have cultural biases hidden in it. It’s not just our tongue that gets tied with language; our whole way of seeing the world can get bound up and restricted.

The North Dakota legislature recently passed a law to force the University of North Dakota to keep its Fighting Sioux mascot.  The University, which was set to comply with N.C.A.A. requirements that prohibit such mascot use, now faces either N.C.A.A. penalties or consequences for breaking state law.

North Dakota senator JoNell Bakke points out that in this same legislative session, there were votes along party lines, against bills that would preserve American Indian languages, fund a director of Indian education, and provide coordination and consultation with tribal governments.

It appears to me that the Republicans feel that they should be able to use the Native American name but don’t think it is necessary to support legislation that would preserve the heritage of the Native American culture, improve the education of their children or improve the quality of life on the reservation. These bills would have cost less than $340,000 which the state can well afford, given the extra 40 million that was found in the budget surplus. Seems pretty hypocritical to me. Indians make good mascots, but we don’t care about their language, education, nor do we want to talk to them

Erich Longie, a Spirit Lake Sioux tribe member who has fought against the nickname and logo, expressed his disappointment in the bill:

I had hoped the Senate would put a stop to this racist practice, but instead they have decided to legalize this racism. No wonder some of my colleagues elsewhere are calling North Dakota ‘the Mississippi of the north.’ North Dakota passes Fighting Sioux nickname bill

The rationale given by legislators who supported forcing the mascot use is that old code phrase “we have a lot of support from people for this,” also known as we have a lot of white people in power who think they know best.

As an educator, I hope the University breaks the law and the law gets tested in the courts to challenge the perceptions of those who want to think racism is no longer a problem in our country. There are students watching and I’m greatly disturbed at what the legislature wants to teach them.

As I neared the couple, it appeared to me that they had Cerebral Palsy. I asked if I could help and got a nod. I went to the stuck wheelchair and was able to maneuver it out of the rut and they went on their way with an expression of thanks in their eyes along with some words I couldn’t quite understand.

I got back in my car marveling at their willingness to travel in their wheelchairs on a city street without the benefit of having their arms, legs, and speech able to respond in the ways most of us take for granted on a daily basis. I knew I was seeing what courage looks like.

It led me to think about courage, privilege, and racism.

It takes courage to venture down roads that resist racism rather than fostering a false sense of separateness and security by avoiding those roads entirely.   I recognize that even with my white-skinned privilege, I’m hesitant to travel that way because I know I won’t be in control and totally comfortable. I wonder what will happen if I fall into a rut and can’t find my way out. I forget to trust in the assistance of others.

Now I have a new image to hold when I feel called to take a risk. I am grateful to those two people in the wheelchairs who reminded me that risking getting stuck and trusting in others are foundations for courage.

The Daily Race blog author, Starlette McNeill, tells of observing a conversation between a local European American man and some tourists in a Washington DC restaurant. The local man who led the conversation talked about the District’s turbulent racial history and the benefit of gentrification, with comments about the Obama presidency. Several local residents present were dismayed and angry at the gross generalizations being made by the man; some left the restaurant.  As McNeil got up to leave, a young woman she didn’t know came up to her and said, “I voted for Obama.”  I imagine McNeill, who acknowledges she is tired of existing within the confines of stereotypical blackness, must have had to take a deep breath at that moment:

What was I supposed to say? Thank you? She didn’t elect me. And what did she mean? That she loved and supported all socially defined black people, that she believed that all were capable of governing the country, that she was not a racist because she had voted for him? And the more important question for me is why she felt the need to express this at all. Read more.

Why the need to express this at all?  This is a critical question for those of us who are white seeking to understand how whiteness plays out in everyday life. I’m familiar with the desire to be seen as a “good white person” by people of color. Too often I have been focused on that rather than acknowledging and living in the tension that confronting racism requires. And although I hate to admit it, I know that deep within me resides a superiority complex, fueled by years of living in white skin, that can lead me to think I am the best one to intercede in such a situation and I know the best way to respond.

Additionally, white people have been taught to group people who look different than us into one category of sameness which we would never do with people who are white. It is this kind of thinking that leads a classroom professor to call on a African American student in a predominantly white class to ask what African Americans think about an issue. Or it’s what leads politicians to talk about the “Latino vote” as if all Latinos will vote exactly the same. Or to think that because we voted for a man identified by others as black that we understand and are aligned with all black people.

I can understand the intention of the young woman and hope she will someday soon understand how the impact of her actions matters beyond her intentions. Good intentions are not enough. It’s one of the more difficult lessons I’ve had to learn.  Daily I have to confront and challenge the socialization I’ve received that is invested in me walking through life in ignorant ways that keeps oppression in place.  I have to stop and ask myself, who is being served by the inclination I have to make a comment or take an action. Is it serving myself or is it on behalf of justice?  It’s often hard to know for sure and yet I vote for asking tough questions in hopes of learning some better answers.

The waiting room in the doctor’s office was large and mostly empty.  A white man set in one corner reading a book. My friend, a black man, sat on a chair reading a book. A white woman came into the room, sat down close to my friend and laid her purse next to him along with a clipboard.

“This is what I wanted to say to her,” said my friend,

“Thank you for not being afraid to sit next to me.”

For much of his 50 years he has seen many white women cross the street to avoid him and clutch their purses when he walks by.  He understands how they are influenced by the constant media portrayal of black men as something threatening to be feared. It still hurts every time it happens.

I’m left with some questions: Who am I afraid to sit next to and why?  What falsehoods have I been told that lead me to act out of fear in ways that strip others of their humanity? How has having white skin hidden from me the daily burden carried by others who are negatively impacted simply because of the color of their skin?

I want to sit next to these questions even if I am afraid of some of the answers.

I’m thinking tonight of the Lakota students at Sinte Gleska University in South Dakota and their stories of resistance and resilience within our country’s horrific history of death and destruction of indigenous people. I’m pondering how they can speak of maintaining a spirit of generosity through it all.

My colleague Lauren Carriere interviewed these students as her dissertation work on what it means to be a warrior. The students spoke about the value of Wacantognaka (Generosity); one of the four virtues pictured in the Sinte Gleska University Shield above.

We share everything; we give of ourselves as much as we can. What we have, we share, even if it’s a little bit. Generosity is something that, regardless of everything that we have been through and all the ordeals of how we got to where we are today, generosity is one thing that we maintained . . . We never lost that. (Student in study from dissertation of L. Carriere).

Stephen Levine once wrote: “How do you keep your heart open in hell?” when speaking of suffering. I am amazed that this generosity of heart has survived such historical trauma and tragedy. There is much to learn from this Lakota wisdom.

I can attest to being a fairly generous person when things are going right in the privileged world within which I live. However, when life gets tough, it is easy to start operating out of a mode of scarcity – of time, energy, money, and relationships – that can reduce my ability to live out of a spirit of generosity.

Next time that starts to happen, I will challenge myself as to how I define “tough” and remember the Lakota students with gratitude.

(Within the Lakota Medicine Wheel, pictured above, are the four Lakota values: Woksape: Wisdom; Woohitika: Bravery;  Wowacintanka: Fortitude; and Wacantognaka: Generosity).

At the Seattle airport recently, I was asked at a Borders bookstore to contribute to a children’s book drive for the Shriners hospitals.  I agreed and asked the clerk how much was the donation. She pointed to a group of Golden Books and said, “just pick one.”

What a good idea, I thought, enjoying the idea of picking a particular book that would travel to be in a child’s hands.

I looked through them. The books included the Three Little Pigs, a Dick and Jane type book, one on princesses, etc. Without planning to do so, I found myself saying to her, “Wow, these are so white; I’d like to see some people of color in them.”  The white clerk looked at me curiously.

I thought of the children of color in the hospital and imagined them receiving the books.  ”I’ve changed my mind,” I told the clerk who was white.

It’s on my list to write Borders and Shriners Hospital to ask questions about how they are helping children of color to read stories that feature people who look like them.

This encounter was a small one.  My hope is that it may have raised a question in the mind of the clerk or anyone in nearby hearing who may never have stopped to think about the privilege of always having someone that looks like you represented in books.